Page 17
We sail on winds the stars have spun,
Our names are sung by moon and sun.
From house to hall on silver breeze,
We drift like birds through cloud and peace.
A garden grows on sapphire air,
With rose and bloom beyond compare.
Its petals hum with magic bright,
And drink the sun and dream of night.
The halls are glass, the bells are gold,
Our stories bloom, ever told.
We sip the dawn, we sing the rain,
And kiss the winds that come again.
O Realm Above, so wild, so wide,
We keep the sky, we do not hide.
Let roots sleep deep in soil and stone,
The heavens hum, and we are home.
The notes are soft, wistful. His voice is beautiful.
I’ve heard Farron sing before, but not in such a long time. Long before he was cursed.
A quiet beat follows the last chord, then a door creaks from behind us.
“The first lines are wrong.”
We all turn. Aurelia stands in the doorway, wrapped in a blanket too big for her. Her hair is loose and tangled.
“It’s supposed to be ‘The sky is wide, our wings are flame, we dance between the stars by name.’”
Farron gives an awkward smile. “Wings of flame. Got it.”
“And for the last line, we didn’t call it the Above. Not then.” Aurelia steps forward, just enough for the firelight to catch her face. “Our land was named Airaleth.”
She lowers herself to the edge of her bed, still half in shadow. Not quite in the room, not quite out.
“Airaleth,” Rosalina whispers.
Aurelia’s voice drops, almost a whisper. “This song is ancient. I first heard it when I was a child.”
A song of the Above, of Airaleth, passed down by generations of fae, finding its way to a small cottage in the human realm.
Farron sings again, using the correct lyrics, before going into a love ballad from the Autumn Realm. His voice carries through the room, soft and steady, each note like a thread stitching something back together. The strings hum beneath his fingers, and the melody curls around us. It feels a bit like magic.
I watch them. Aurelia leans against the back wall, eyes distant but clear. Wrenley closes her eyes, letting the breeze play with her hair. Keldarion, Caspian, and Rosalina rest shoulder to shoulder on the sofa bed, the firelight softening their sharp edges. Dayton sits on the floor, running a hand along Farron’s leg as he sings.
