Page 6 of Of Songs and Silence

“Mayima can’t drown.” This from the closer voice—Kane.

He swims faster now, the currents tugging at my hair and plastering my nightgown against my skin.

“Then why is she terrified?”

A new set of arms wraps around me, massive and solid and warmer than they should be. There is still no air in my lungs, but the panic ebbs away as surely as the tide, even as my body screams for the air my mind knows it won’t get.

“She’s probably faking it.” Kane’s voice is fainter now. “You know who her family is.”

My mind is fuzzy, black spots filling my vision that are even darker than the sea around us. Just as I open my mouth to finally inhale, to succumb to my fate, another growl sounds.

“Don’t you dare,” the man bites out. “We’re almost there.”

I have no choice, I want to snap back. But of course, even if I had air, I would have no voice. So I will meet my death as I have my life.

In silence.

It’s the last thought I have before the darkness swallows me whole.

CHAPTERFOUR

MELODI

Iawake to the rough feel of stone beneath my back. I’m breathing now, but the air feels…different. Thicker. Richer.

“We should go. He told us to bring her.” It’s Kane who breaks the brief silence.

“Well, unless he wants us to bring him a corpse, we’ll have to figure this out first,” the warmer voice intones.

They’re talking about me, obviously. Who wants me? Has Mother managed to make enemies of even the Mayima now?

I remember what Kane said earlier.

You know who her family is.

For an unreasonable moment, my fuzzy mind surges with hope that I might not be related to Madame after all. But of course, we are nearly identical. It’s infinitely more likely that she’s who Kane is referring to.

“Knowing him,” Kane mutters, responding to Ari’s corpse comment.

A bitter snort sounds. “Go into the village to send a message about the delay.”

There is a long, weighted pause. “Fine. I’ll bring her back some clothes, too.”

The man sighs. “Kane.”

“Ari,” Kane responds in a mockery of the same warning tone.

Ari.

A name for the second voice.

“Do as you will,” Ari says after a beat. “But take Napo.”

Whoever Napo is, he doesn’t speak up. Perhaps he isn’t here. Something like a suction cup pulls from my skin, then there’s a light splashing sound that I suspect is Kane leaving.

The air is charged in his absence, the silence, more so.

“You can stop pretending to be asleep now,” Ari says.

---