Side A – Yasgrid
Kayelle had an ulterior motive for walking Yasgrid back to the room which Kyra had spirited her away from. Yasgrid spent the first half of the trip second guessing herself on that and the rest pondering what Kayelle might planning.
“You may want to make some tea,” Kayelle said. “It’s not warm yet but staying hydrated is still important.”
“The same is true for you,” Yasgrid said, intrigued that Kayelle wished to have another scrying free conversation with her. “Can I offer you some?”
“Thank you but no,” Kayelle said. “I’m going to walk another patrol before turning in.”
“Where?” Yasgrid asked. Kayelle wanting to work more didn’t surprise her. Kayelle walking her directly back to her room and then suggesting Yasgrid spend some time under a cloak of privacy was odd however.
“I want to walk a wide loop out from the western gate up through the northern orchards and Green Mirror lake,” Kayelle said.
Yasgrid hadn’t ventured much into the woods to the northwest of Blue Falls, but in the discussions around repelling the army of Troubles she’d gained a tactical understanding of the town’s neighboring lands.
“I won’t call for Endings while you’re gone,” Yasgrid said, uneasy about Kayelle exposing herself to attack alone and unsupported in the woods.
“I wouldn’t imagine there would be much reason to while you’re in your room,” Kayelle said. “Should the need arise though, do not hesitate.”
Because an unarmed Bearer wouldn’t be a living Bearer for very long if the right sort of Trouble found them.
Yasgrid wanted to offer that she could go with Kayelle, but she’d grown more accustomed to hearing what was being said in the omissions and silences and so Kayelle’s message came through loud and clear.
“Thank you,” Yasgrid said. Because Kayelle was patrolling for more than Troubles.
The Fate Dancer camp was outside the northern edge of Blue Falls.
Kayelle wasn’t hunting them, or even looking for a confrontation.
She was simply making herself available as a lightning rod for the charge of twisting, rage-soaked and shame-born emotions that had consumed the Fate Dancers since Yasgrid’s last visit to them.
Kayelle wasn’t Yasgrid though. She could whether their assaults. She could stand distant from the problem Yasgrid had presented the Fate Dancer and perhaps persuade the more reasonable among them to reconsider the animosity they were carrying.
“Rest,” Kayelle said. “We’ll have a whole new day’s worth of problems to deal with tomorrow.”
Which was technically true despite the fact that they’d be ignoring those issues in favor of venturing to Elshira’s tomb.
Yasgrid considered whether it was worth inventing a believable reason for decamping from Blue Falls and making for the tomb but discarded it. Elshira hadn’t struck her as sufficiently oblivious that she would fail to understand the intent of party heading towards the supposed. resting place of her final remains.
Which meant it was going to be a fun trip.
As she ascended the steps to her room, the familiar scent of Naosha’s tea greeted her, which drew her mind away from plans for the future.
There was someone in her room.
Kayelle hadn’t just been making sure Yasgrid got home okay.
She’d been delivering Yasgrid up to whoever had invaded her room.
Side B – Nia
With the fractured beats of her poor drumming still echoing from the mountainsides, Nia felt an inexplicable peace settle over her heart.
She’d tried. It hadn’t been her best, but it had been what she was able to manage under the circumstances. Given time and practice, she knew she could do better. If Pelegar would let them play the song Margrada had led her through one more time Nia knew her performance would be worlds better.
The unexpected dropped beats had thrown her off and the struggle to recapture her place in the rhythm had cost her. If Pelegar would let her try again, she knew she could handle the twists the song had thrown at her better and that everything else would improve as a result.
But that hadn’t been the deal.
Nia had shown what she could do and as hard as it was, she pulled her hands back and folded them on her lap. The Shatter Drum sat before her silent but still beckoning with hidden life.
“Pretty damn obvious,” Pelegar said and Nia felt the words land on her like deadfalls.
“I thought so,” Margrada said. “But it’s even easier to hear when you’re listening for it, isn’t it?”
A betrayal from Margrada should have been even more crushing than Pelegar turning her out, but Nia’s lifetime in the Darkwoods let her hear something in Margrada’s voice that dispelled the clouds of gloom that had been hinting around the horizons of her future.
“What…what did you hear?” Nia asked. “The mistakes?”
“Yes. Of course,” Pelegar said. “Just incredible.”
“I think you need to give her more than that,” Margrada said, prompting Pelegar with a sharp expression but turning a gentler one on Nia to add, “It’s good. You’re okay.”
Pelegar huffed.
“She’s a damn novice is what she is,” Pelegar said.
“A novice Shatter Drummer?” Nia asked, keeping a death-iron grip on the hope in her heart.
“Yes! Clearly!” Pelegar said. “I have heard a thousand drummers make exactly those mistakes. You play like you just started a year ago. All clumsy and…and that’s not even fair.” She’d been staring up into the sky as though it might hold answers before turning her attention back on Nia. “You messed up. Obviously. We all heard that. That’s not what surprises me. I mean apart from the bit where it confirms you’re really a drummer, but you’d have to be. No one can play like that by faking it. Or if they can, then they’re still Shatter Drummers, just something more too.”
“Oh,” Nia said, momentarily stunned and then, “OH! I’m real? It’s for real I mean, I mean…”
She may have started babbling there, but that subsided after Margrada’s arms were around her for a bit and the wave of giddiness passed.
“Sorry,” she said. “I just…I’m going to get to play again!”
“Aye and more than you like,” Pelegar said. “I though we were just reteaching the basic for a bit till your memories came back. Now we’re going to teach you proper. You’ll want to forget about doing anything else with your hands till I’m done with you too. We’re going to go till you can’t feel them anymore and then start up again as soon as the pins and needles go away.”
That sounded simultaneously terrifying and a challenge that Nia was more than willing to rise too.