Page 33 of Requiem of Silence

Taking care with the old parchment, he flipped toward the back—he always read the end of a book first to know what he was in for. He stopped on a page filled with writing, but with one word larger than the others, outlined over and over again.

BLOOD.

Zeli gasped.

“Can you read this?” he asked.

“I can read. It says ‘blood.’” She sounded affronted.

“But it’s written in Elsiran.”

She frowned. “No, it’s in Lagrimari.”

He squinted at the words, clearly written in the language that his mother had painstakingly taught them all to read. They’d learned to speak Lagrimari from Papa, though he hadn’t known his letters in order to pass on reading and writing to his children.

“But the written languages aren’t the same,” he said, heart beating faster.

“They’re not,” Zeli said. “But the characters are. This is sort of like an old-fashioned version of Lagrimari. It’s not particularly easy to read but—”

“It’s understandable.” Varten felt the same way. It was like wading through the classic literature Mama had made them read. Jasminda had loved the stuff, Roshon hadn’t particularly cared one way or the other, but Varten hated it. He’d struggled through the lessons, always resenting having to learn something so archaic.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “It shouldn’t be possible.” Zeli’s gaze was tense. She scooted her chair closer for a better look at the book. Now they were knee to knee and she draped herself over the arm of his chair to read.

“Here,” he said, giving it to her.

She shrank back. “Plausible deniability.”

He chuckled, shaking his head. “You learn fast.”

“That, I do.”

On the opposite page from the ominous, underlined word was an outlined sketch of a man’s body, a circle in the middle of his chest with arrows pointing in and out. Varten traced the text below it with a finger and read.

“‘The question of whether there is, in the body, an internal organ such that separates the Silent from the Songbearers hasbeen definitively answered. There is not. The Song then must be deduced to have manifested in some other sphere, perhaps from the combination of bodily humors or some other esoteric blend of forces.’”

He met Zeli’s perplexed gaze with one of his own.

“‘Regardless of whether its source is physical or energetic, the removal of a Song from a Songbearer requires a fleshly severing of the aethereal from its bodily form. Its restoration cannot be undertaken by simply reversing this process, though true mastery of the replacement methodology may provide a future procedure to that end.’”

The last words dissolved into breath. “Does this mean what I think it does?”

She didn’t respond, but the truth was in her wide-eyed expression.

He was almost too scared to put it into words. “Is there a way to restore lost Songs?”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Power rests in action

acts in resting

brings the shallow world to heel with its perception

runs nipping at your heels for its protection.

—THE HARMONY OF BEING

You are given warmer clothes that hang loose on your emaciated frame. A thick coat of gray, matted, stinking fur. Wool leggings. Boots a size too large for your feet. Accepting them makes you feel vaguely ill.

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