The Songs That Beckon (The Travelers Book 1) by M. A. Brown

Author:M. A. Brown [Brown, M. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Midnight Tide Publishing
Published: 2024-01-30T00:00:00+00:00

Part Two

The Darkness could see shadows of movement on the other side. It could hear the floundering of hearts as they released their magic. Each fading beat reverberated in the hollow around it, music to its ears.

Chapter 50

The door was carved of windswept sandstone, inlaid with what should have been a mosaic mural had so many pieces not been chipped and missing.

Bianca suppressed a shiver as the ever-present glow of the Void trembled around them, plunging them into split heartbeats of darkness at a time. The air also now held a hint of decay, like the smell of a coming autumn but much less pleasant. “What’s wrong with the Void?” Her voice quavered. “It’s different than it was the last time we were here.”

Alder shook his head, his brow buckled and his hands braced on either wall as though he suspected the stairs were about to drop out from under him at any given moment. “I don’t know, but I don’t like it. This was a terrible idea.”

Felix grinned lopsidedly. “Come on, what’s not to like? Behind this door is a desert Fragment, and the song has been sung behind it. We both get to help others and investigate a desert for hidden signs of Fury or an Instrument of Darkness.”

Alder hissed through his teeth. “And if we find either, we are woefully underprepared.”

“You look like you have enough knives on you to outfit a whole army. How is that unprepared?” Felix quirked his brow. “I will concede, though, that the Void is feeling a bit, what’s the word?”

“Creepy beyond belief?” Bianca supplied.

He tapped his nose twice and winked. “Not the words I would have used, but yes, that description is quite adequate. Shall we then?” He stepped aside to make room for Bianca.

She trailed a finger along the keyhole, and the sound of the keys tittered against her wrist like gossiping sprites. She dashed away the tears in her eyes, wrung out of her from the piercing notes of the song as it swelled around them. As she lay her itching palm on the crumbling stone, the song swooped lower, a symphonic whisper of secret pain that Bianca felt as an echo of her own.

A key at her wrist grew, its bow the shape of wings in flight spanning the width of her hand. Her fingers began to glow around the stem of the key, her magic warming to life beneath her skin. As she pressed the head of the key into the keyhole, stars erupted along the back of her hand, shooting across her skin to drift among the chaos of other runes that swirled there. A tendril of air whooshed from the keyhole, caressing Bianca’s cheek as the tumblers clicked. It whispered indecipherable nothings against the shell of her ear that sounded like sonnets of death.

She stumbled back, barely righting herself before her foot caught the lip of the landing. Alder’s hand jumped out to steady her. Her eyes flung wide and wild. Felix reached for the door, his fingers curled around the latch.

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