A Song of Salvation by Alechia Dow

Author:Alechia Dow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Inkyard Press
Published: 2023-05-12T15:41:46+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Zaira

The song slips from my lips before I even have a chance to consider if this is the right move to make. But I’m too angry, too disappointed to stop. Every time I think I have a grasp on these worlds and their inhabitants, I’m wrong. Anger lights in my chest like a blazing fire.

My grandmother’s voice trickles into the back of my head like a whisper. Zaira, don’t. It’s quickly replaced by my pounding heart. I am not Indigo. The rage that’s been lingering just beneath the surface is slipping out, and I don’t know if I can stop.

Does that feel better? Ciaran asks me somehow in my hallucinatory daze.

Yes, I say. It does.

Andarra was supposed to be the best of them. Like Mal Ares. And look at it. While nightweavers clung to shadowy corners in a crumbling world stolen from them, these people already have everything and still crave more.

Why should I want to save them?

Why should it be up to me to stop the Ilori? Yes, they killed my people. Destroyed my world. But what has Andarra done about this? What has Monchuri done? All of my worlds, even the ones Indigo didn’t create, like Earth...they did nothing. They let this happen. They saw the Ilori’s horrors and looked away.

Until they were forced to choose a side. Even now, I wonder if they actually believe in what is right and wrong.

I will show them.

The crowd inhales in terror around me as my song pierces the room. Darkness spirals around each and every person who would throw their rocks at me. Everything I felt when I was alone with Rubin and Wesley is gone. The gold is gone. The knowledge. The energy. All that is left are flashes of my home, my people... The only thing that remains is fury.

Fury that demands violence.

The crowd can’t see me, can’t see anything. They don’t know that I am Mal Aresian, using my powers for justice. For defense. For revenge and pain. They can’t feel the black smoke as it weaves around us. But I can feel their fear. It makes my blood rise to the surface.

And as the song ends, they—those who would hurt me for melios—fall. They crumble to the floor, clutching their ears. They wonder what’s happening to them. They cry, not because I hurt them. I didn’t. I just took their senses away from them.

I’ll leave them in a darkness as they left Mal Ares. I’ll leave them afraid like they left my homeworld.

Even if it’s just temporary. Until I believe it is enough, they will learn what it’s like to be alone in darkness.

I step toward Wesley and Rubin, the only ones spared. My hands reach toward them, and they both take one, pulling me off the stage onto the floor. Some part of me expects judgment, expects them to abandon me. Surely, now they see me as a monster. They know the anger residing in my heart, ready to strike out at anyone who has made me their enemy.

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