Aria of the Eclipse

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 1As much as I crave my freedom, I’ve lived so much of my life in a cage that I’m not sure what I’d do with it once it was mine. I have fantasies of mocking those men who think me some stupid animal, but sometimes, when the night is deep and I’m curtained away from any glimmer of civilization, I wonder if I’m becoming what I fear most, if the lack of true companionship is molding me into the creature they profess me to be.

These are my nightmares. These are what force my hand when my cage is on display and I’m instructed to sing. I will not succumb to complacency, no matter how impossible my circumstances seem.

I cannot.

My current—I’m reluctant to call him “owner” though in the laws of his land, he is—beneficiary, then, since he is my primary audience and has been since I was given to him by the Serberian diplomat, rules over this new world with the aid of a ten-man council he doesn’t seem to like very much. I do not know his name. Everyone refers to him only as the Regent, bowing and scraping to him without ever meeting his eyes. As far as I can tell, they must not be allowed, but he confides to no one in my presence for me to be certain.

I look at him. I see. But in any world, this one of steel and stone or mine of wind and water, the unseen’s perspective remains as unknown as its identity. The Regent cares not for the wisdom I could impart. I am his distraction, a prize to display. He will govern these people as only he sees fit, even if I wonder if he will drive them to destruction.

For the six months I have been a part of the household, one event has consumed their lives. Their scientists predicted a solar eclipse some time before my arrival, but rather than use it as the learning tool it should’ve been, the Regent has turned it into a party, ordering the construction of a special solarium at the heart of the capitol for him and his guests to view it in safety. My vantage in his glass-domed conservatory gave me the perfect view to watch it rise above the city’s horizon, climbing higher and higher as his crews raced to complete it in time. I didn’t think they would finish, honestly. My faith in them was not as great as the Regent’s.

I was wrong.

“Your first guests have arrived, your Eminence.”

The Regent stood at the window, tall and broad, presumably gazing out over the city, but other than me, only the solarium attracted his interest these days. Risaeng stretched for miles in every direction, bigger, from the sound of it, than the entire Lake District I had called home for the first thirteen years of my life. The planet itself wasn’t that remarkable. From space, Ymoro was dwarfed by all of its neighbors. But it held wealths the galaxy wanted, the mines that ringed Risaeng rich in rare minerals, and the Regent was smart enough to recognize his role in expanding their power on an interplanetary scale.

“Who?” he asked without turning around.

“The Merodines from Llereld.”

His soft sigh momentarily fogged the glass. “I was hoping that boor would turn me down this time. He wouldn’t know a good time if it took up permanent residence in his pants. Though…” He glanced over his shoulder, frowning at his porter in the doorway. The sunlight filtering through the window turned his brown hair to ash, as well as deepened the lines in his forehead. He wasn’t more than a few years older than I, thirty-five at the outside, but the weight of his responsibility was etched in the harsh angles of his face. “There’s more than one? Don’t tell me Dourack got married.”

“The younger recently came of status. This is his first invitation.”

“And we’re the lucky ones to get his sparkling company. Joy.”

The Regent spoke of a lot of his guests in this fashion, disparaging them behind their backs while smiling and laughing at their faces. Nobody was safe from his scorn. I hadn’t understood it at first, how someone with so much to embrace couldn’t look past others’ deficits, but now I just felt sorry for him.

“Shall I present them, your Eminence?”

“The sooner, the better.” When the porter bowed and left him alone again, the Regent sagged and shook his head. “This is going to be a very long day,” he muttered.

Occasions like this, I fight the urge to respond. I speak to no one, though. I never have. My only forms of communication have been my songs, and though I have a facility for language that allows me to learn new tongues quickly, I discovered long ago that sharing that knowledge is a waste.

My very first owner had been an elderly woman to whom I was supposed to be some sort of companion. Her son had purchased me from the hunters who plundered my home planet, but it had taken the entire journey for me to learn enough vocabulary to communicate with him. By the time I could string coherent words together, I was ensconced in her home, locked within a glass room.

“For your own good,” he’d said to her. Then, he’d pecked her on the cheek and left us alone.

I started jabbering to her, begging her to let me go, trying to explain how it was all a mistake and that I wasn’t what she thought I was, that I was sure if she could help me return to my family, they would do everything in their power to repay her for the kindness. But I was thirteen and terrified of what had happened to me, and she was an old woman whose mind had long ago abandoned her. My frenetic outburst shattered what little control on her sanity she had remaining.

To this day, I can still hear her screams when the winds pick up and my world is blind. I have no idea what happened to her after her son arrived with the officials. I just know that was the longest night of my life. I haven’t tried to talk to anybody since.

Abandoning the window, the Regent returned to the seat he had placed next to my cage. “Play, Dek,” he said, his voice weary. “Something should be salvaged of this presentation.”

I had known I’d be expected to perform—the Regent had used every opportunity to show me off since acquiring me—but his tone prompted me to choose one of the more difficult compositions I knew, a rhapsody that required my hands to play different melodic lines simultaneously while I sang a third. I started with the right, splaying my fingers best to allow the air to pass between each and create the notes, then added the left once the Regent began to hum along. This was his favorite. I hoped for his sake it helped him endure the day.

I was lost in the music when the doors swung open and Johaf, the porter, announced the Regent’s first guests. Their approaching footsteps added an unwanted bass to the music, so I closed my eyes and concentrated inward, on the way I tipped and tilted my hands to stir the webbing into the proper notes, on the vibrations in my vocal folds as I sang the lower line. Like most of my songs, this had no words, nothing to distract from the purity of the music. Everyone could understand. Everyone could appreciate.

Everyone listened.

I became aware of the silence when the last note faded away. Sometimes, the Regent’s audiences ignored me, but more often than not, they appreciated my performances, treating me with a respect I’d experienced only sporadically before coming to Ymoro. When I opened my eyes, I found three men watching me.

The Regent, at the rear, a small, pleased smile curving his mouth.

A dark-skinned stranger several feet away, clad in a form-fitting black suit that looked nothing like the styles I usually saw traipsing through the conservatory.

And the third, mere inches from the gilded bars of my cage, staring at me with an expression of such awe, my throat went dry.

The two strangers were obviously brothers, with the same muscular build and slight slant to their dark jade-colored eyes. But where the one in black looked like he would be more comfortable in the military, his back ramrod straight, his features closed and unsmiling, the one closer to me seemed to welcome liberty, wearing his emotions like an added accessory, his brilliant yellow suitcoat fluttering around his strong legs.

“He is absolutely stunning,” this one said.

Though I didn’t blink, my heart skipped a beat. It was the first time in years anybody had referred to me by my gender rather than as an “it.”

“The diplomat was very generous,” his brother added. “Astinian, you said?”

“What’s his name?” the first jumped in before the Regent could respond.

“It’s called Dek.” The Regent came up to join him, ignoring his brother. “So you know, Tylen, it probably understands us. It doesn’t perform randomly. I tell it to play, and it plays.”

Tylen. That made the somber one Dourack.

He accepted the Regent’s statements without question. “Is it different every time?”

“No, it has a specific catalog of pieces. That one is one of my favorites.”

Tylen glanced up at the Regent and smiled. “I’m honored you shared it with us.”

“Oh, that wasn’t me. That was Dek.” When Tylen’s eyes widened and snapped back to me, the Regent chuckled. “I told you it’s a smart one.”

My earlier desire to speak resurged, to confirm my choice for the Regent, to offer something else for this beautiful young man. But to do so in front of guests would risk my privileged status in the Regent’s household. He might like to show me off, but I was very much his, and I couldn’t betray further skills without granting him the right to know of it first.

In the doorway, Johaf cleared his throat. “The Banrales have arrived, your Eminence.”

The reminder that this wasn’t a private audience shattered the delicate spell between us. Tylen stiffened and backed away from my cage to stand at his brother’s side, while the Regent turned his back on me to return to his seat. Both Merodines dropped to their left knee in deference, but while they waited for the Regent’s touch of dismissal, I caught Tylen glancing at me out of the corner of his eye.

I knew I should look away. But I was as amazed at Tylen Merodine as he was of me. I not only maintained the contact, I nodded my head once in gratitude.

I started the next song before they left. This time, I chose a slower ballad that utilized a more delicate registry.

Tylen broke protocol twice more to look at me.

The rest of the day was a blur of music and faces as the Regent welcomed the rest of his party. Though many asked questions about me, none were as bold as Tylen to approach, and certainly nobody deigned to refer to me by either my name or as “he.” My fingers were tired when the Regent left with the last, and I collapsed in the corner of my cage, gulping down the rest of the water in my reservoir.

I was asleep within moments. Images of Tylen’s brilliant smile followed me into my dreams.

* * * *

The soft swish of the conservatory door sliding shut woke me from my nap. I lifted my head and blinked into the fading light, expecting to find Johaf to retrieve me for a dinner performance. Instead, Tylen’s broader outline filled my vision.

He froze just inside the doorway. With the watery afternoon sunshine casting long shadows across that end of the conservatory, I couldn’t see him as clearly as I had before, but the details weren’t necessary. His body language said it all.

I didn’t move, for fear of driving him away. After several seconds passed, he glanced behind him, his head c****d. I could’ve told him nobody was out there, but speaking would frighten him into even more movement, I suspected.

His next words confirmed that.

“I’m pretty sure you can understand me,” he murmured. “So please be quiet. If anyone finds out I’m in here without the Regent’s permission, I’ll be cast out of the Circle, for sure.”

My brows lifted in surprise. He’d sneaked in to see me? That was a first. The conservatory remained locked whenever the Regent wasn’t in attendance. He was too scared somebody would steal me. Only he and Johaf had the key. Somehow, Tylen must’ve stolen it.

My continued silence emboldened him. He ventured one step, then a second nearer. “I just wanted to see you again without anybody else around. You really are stunning. I’ve never seen anyone like you before.”

I was hardly unique in other corners of the galaxy, but I knew my worth here on Ymoro. Still, his flattery both thrilled and embarrassed me, and I felt my skin grow hot in spite of the cooling temperatures.

More steps, and now he’d moved into softer lighting, easier to distinguish, better to behold. He wasn’t the only one who could gaze at his heart’s content. I could stare back, just as curious, just as fascinated. His coloring was more distinctive than the Regent’s, though in keeping with the darker tones prevalent in the population. It wasn’t rare—his brother was darker, and in my travels throughout the galaxy, I’d seen every color visible to the naked eye—but something about his skin glowed, a health, a vitality, an intangible I rarely encountered.

Then there were his eyes, as jubilant and alive as the rest of him. The hazy sunshine didn’t hide it. I wasn’t sure it even could. It burned brighter with each advancing foot, until he stood in the same spot he’d occupied the first time he’d been in the room.

“I don’t know why they call you a songbird,” he said. “You’re obviously not a bird at all.”

The observation was so blunt, I smiled. He was correct, but appellations like that were easier than truth for almost everyone.

“I’m sorry I woke you up. You must’ve been exhausted. I could hear you playing for most of the day.” He hooked a thumb toward the western wall. “The Regent put me and Dourack in rooms not far from here. At the very back of the citadel, which isn’t exactly an honor. Dourack says it’s my fault for not restraining myself when we were presented, but I think it’s so it’ll take us longer to get to most of the festivities. That way, the Regent won’t have to get stuck with Dourack for conversation.”

The more he said, the more I liked him. His matching opinion of his brother amused me, but it was the echo in his voice of the same animation that lit his eyes that compelled me to sit up and meet his attention more directly.

“My name’s Tylen, by the way. Tylen Merodine.”

He bowed his head as he spoke. I’d seen similar gestures of manners in countless other people, but never directed at me, never for me. It proved the respect he’d shown earlier by addressing me as an equal wasn’t an act.

And for that reason, more than all the rest of the combined, I broke my self-imposed suppression.

“I am Dek.”