It wasn't the song he'd planned. That had been something safe, a traditional tune everyone would recognize, easy to dance to and easier to forget. But his hands had other ideas. They moved of their own accord, fingers finding positions burned into muscle memory, drawing forth a melody he hadn't played since thatnight in his father's meadow, fifteen years old and drunk on his first taste of heartbreak.
A lament. A love song. A confession in the language of strings and horsehair and resonant wood.
The crowd faded.
They were still there—he could sense them in his peripheral vision, feel the weight of their attention like heat against his skin—but they ceased to matter. The stage beneath his hooves ceased to matter. The lanterns swaying overhead, the distant sounds of the festival winding down, the summer-sweet smell of night-blooming flowers—all of it dissolved into background noise.
All he could see was her.
Her hand had risen to her chest, pressing flat against her sternum like she was trying to hold something inside. Her eyes were bright, and not just from the reflected lantern-light. She was crying, he realized. Silent tears tracking down her cheeks, catching the glow and turning to liquid gold.
She understood.
Somehow, impossibly, she understood exactly what he was saying with every sweep of the bow. Every trembling high note. Every deep, resonant chord that thrummed through the humid air like a second heartbeat.
I've been waiting for you.
I didn't know I was waiting, but I was.
And now that I've found you, I'm terrified of losing you.
But I'm more terrified of never having you at all.
The melody shifted, darkening. The minor key crept in like shadows at twilight, speaking of old wounds and older fears. Of a mother who'd left too soon. Of a father who'd poured all his grief into wine and soil and forgotten to save any softness for his sons. Of Jen, beautiful and cruel, who'd looked at his offered heart and found it wanting.
They all left, the music said. One way or another, they all left.
But then?—
Then the key changed again.
Major chords bloomed like sunrise, warm and golden, chasing away the shadows. The tempo quickened, grew playful, and his hooves began to move against the wooden stage, tapping out a rhythm as old as his bloodline. The music turned joyful. Hopeful. Certain in a way he'd never allowed himself to feel before.
But you didn't.
You stayed.
You chose me.
He was grinning now, he realized. Actually grinning, his whole body swaying with the music, lost in the sheer exhilaration of creation. He'd forgotten this. How good it felt to let the barriers down. To stop performing and just be.
The song built toward its climax, each note stacking on the last like stones in a tower, reaching higher and higher until?—
Silence.
One breath. Two.
And then the crowd erupted.
The applause hit him like a physical wave, hundreds of hands clapping, voices cheering, the whole vineyard ringing with noise. People were standing, he realized dimly. A standing ovation. For him. For the music he'd been afraid to share.
But he barely registered any of it.
Because Marigold was pushing through the crowd toward the stage, her cheeks still wet with tears, her expression a complicated tangle of emotions he couldn't begin to untangle. She reached the steps and started climbing, and suddenly she was there—right there, close enough to touch—and she was looking at him like he'd hung the stars in the sky just for her.
"That was…" Her voice cracked. She shook her head, tried again. "Thallos, that was?—"
He kissed her.
