AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“The Song and I were in accord at the time. We were angered by the same thing. We wanted the same things.”
“And you are not in accord now?”
“No.”
“What does it want?”
“To destroy this room.”
“And what do you want?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“I want to be left alone.” I want to be free, but freedom doesn’t exist.
“You want the power itself to leave you alone?”
I want everything to leave me alone.
The smell of the marsh invaded her nostrils. Thick, squelching mud and the brittle crack of bones beneath bare feet. The long, piercing cry of a loon, as if to say, That was alone. Did you like it so much?
She shrugged the memory off. “Does it matter?”
It was dangerous, this freedom to speak as she pleased.
Marquin sensed her shutting down and returned to the previous subject. “And when you are not in accord, you have no trouble holding the power in check? It is only when you want what it wants that you lose your grip on it?”
“Not exactly.” Clare thought on the puzzle, and that was new enough. She avoided thinking about the Song as much as possible, wary her thoughts might call it forth.
“Anger,” Clare breathed. That had been the catalyst, had it not? That moment in a wet, filthy room in Renault County, her stomach squeezing itself to death from hunger, the air outside too frigid to sleep in the relative safety of hidden outdoor hovels, her grip on the shard of mirror in her hands turning frozen, knowing the escape she had effected would be short-lived, and she would be found and taken back to him.
And when the latest threat had approached, her limbs had been too rigidly locked in place to move. She had waited for the fear, but it had refused to come, and in its place had risen nineteen winters of repressed rage. Anger she had been too scared to feel because fear kept you alive, kept you moving even as if it fed on you, but anger…
Anger was your own recognition that the whole of your life was a series of injustices not of your own making and well, how could you live acknowledging that if you couldn’t do anything about it?
In her memory a hand reached out and plucked the excuse-for-a-knife from Clare’s motionless fingers. Rage rose like the flames of Ferrian’s fires, and a younger Clare opened her mouth and screamed, the sound harsh and hoarse. The careful tethers inside her had snapped, loosing the Song on a Renault County ill-equipped to withstand the force of its regard.
Clare jerked backed to the present, gained her feet and bowed to Marquin with all the formality she possessed. “Thank you. This has been most instructive.”
Marquin frowned. “Clare, I have not really taught you anything,” he began, but she was already striding from the room, following the curves of hallways that led her to the back patio door, out into the cool winter sunshine, feet taking her to the ancient tree whose brokenness had so profoundly bothered her upon her arrival.
She closed her eyes and fell inward until she came to press against the walls of the cage she had built for the Song. She could not open the door because, should it allow her to enter, so too would it allow the Song to leave. She traced invisible fingers along the walls, envisioning those walls as a specific substance, one that would allow her to move through it, but would not allow the Song the same privilege. The walls turned liquid, enveloping her, accepting her into their bounds and depositing her on the other side.
Darkness. Emptiness, and the unfeeling cold of a power a thousand times more ancient than the tree before her.
All of this, and…surprise?
You came to see me? Its voice, raw and unfiltered by the layers of its prison, hit Clare with the force of high tide crashing against Renault County’s cliffsides. Why?
She buckled under the force, ears ringing as she answered. Fix it. She gave it, without quite knowing how, the image of the tree.
Let me out, and I will.
No.
Then why would I help you, little one?
