Page 21 of The Tenth Muse

“I have brought you a companion.” He smiled, and I wanted to blot out every emerald fleck from his irises. He cranked it four times before its cheery and incessant screech echoed through the greenhouse.

“Now you can spend your time perfecting a song together, with more time performing as a duet, you’ll no longer need to sate those baser urges. They are beneath you.”

I swallowed down the acid rising up my raw throat, nodding silently, unable to look at the wooden bird. My body boiled from the inside with shame, with anger. But he was an Emperor. I was nothing. A creature admired because of what I did for the empire. What I wanted didn’t matter, thinking that it did was foolish. More foolish than the idea of trying to harmonize with this awful wooden creature.

Rap, rap, rap.

I focused on the beat beneath my racing pulse, inhaling and exhaling, dragging air into my burning lungs. By the time my heart rate slowed, the Emperor was gone, leaving only his silent symbol and a discordant tune echoing off the greenhouse walls.

six

. . .

Another three moon cycles passed.I only saw the Emperor when he brought guests into the greenhouse, but he no longer came in late at night, not wanting me to give in to mybaser urges. Not that I wanted to. I hadn’t even understood what magic had come over me, what spell had drawn me to do such things, for my body to react as it had. The shame of it and how I had disgraced myself in front of the Emperor and the two women he’d brought with him haunted me daily.

Luckily the urges never presented themselves again.

One late night, though, the guards rushed into the greenhouse, hailing me down from my tree. I sprung to the floor, knowing that look all too well.

The Emperor had fallen ill again.

Had this been why he hadn’t come in weeks?

Acid rose up my throat and I begged the skies above, the ones I missed so dearly from within the palace walls, to grant me mercy. I had used my canthymn to revive someone six times, leaving me with this last song. I didn’t want to lose my voice, to be unable to croon or sing or speak, but wasn’t this my purpose? Hadn’t the Emperor let me stay here for this very reason?

Each step felt too slow and too rushed toward the ruler’s wing.

But when I entered the Emperor’s chamber he wasn’t alone.

A hooded figure stood next to his bedside, cast in shadows. Their skin had black slashed across their eyelids, only tiny stars of light dancing within their swirling dark irises. The marking tapered at one side, disappearing into dark blue wavy strands that peeked from their hood, and the lower half of their face was covered in black fabric so I couldn’t make out their nose or mouth.

My throat dried.

Their arms were long and trim with muscle, a slip of skin showing across where their waist tapered in. Baggy black pants hung from their hips, tucked into their matching boots with thick soles.

“Y-you called for me?” I asked the Emperor, my heart racing while the near silentrap, rap, rapstrummed in the background.

My seventh and final canthymn. Would the Emperor truly expect such a thing from me?

I knew he could be cruel and ruthless for his country’s success, but I’d looked into his pale green gaze and saw the man that had begged for my help when I’d first arrived. The eyes of someone desperate and weak, looking at his salvation.

“I did summon you, splendor, but not for what you might think.”

I sighed in relief despite the frailty in his tone.

Maybe he wanted to see me before he left, hear one final melody from his great splendor that had brought him renown and riches from all over the world. I could give him solace in the end.

The stranger scoffed next to the Emperor, sharp brows drawn together.

“And who are you?” I asked.

“I’m disappointed you don’t know, considering the number of times we’ve been together in this very room, under similar circumstances.” Their voice held a rich unearthly lilt, somehow both indulgent and harsh.

My veins chilled, feathers bristling along my body.

A thick black current spread from their feet until it filled the room. It rose up to their knees, and my tail wrapped around me, not wanting to be touched by it. As if it would get them wet.

Only there was no water.

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