Page 98 of Mated By Twilight

Her heart was thumping so hard, so fast, she was certain it would give up any moment now. She’d die from a nervousness induced heart attack any second now.

Flashes of her last performance kept hitting her. Hearing their jeers. Seeing their mocking faces. Her father right there up front, giving her a look that said she deserved this. That she asked for this. That she was a bad child who needed to be shamed.

But there was no bright blue sky beckoning her to flee here. There wasn’t even a dark sky to refuse to look at her as she wallowed in her shame.

There was only the promising caress of twilight and all that it promised.

The first delicate notes of the opening song began to play and one of the chorus members – the person playing her mom, the person who they would only see large feet of to put into perspective how small Leah was, began her opening narration.

And it was muscle memory.

She curled up into her fetal position, arms around her legs. The cute, flowy tea dress costume she wore was super cute and innocent, little bows on her shoulders where it had been tied on. It looked both like a pretty dress and like it had been made of flower petals.

Because she was Thumbelina, born from a flower.

Light bloomed around her as her flower blossomed. And she was well trained for this. Her body went through the motions Corvidair had made her practice again and again until she wondered what was the point of repeating something she had already done perfectly. But perfecting it wasn’t the point. The point was this moment, when it became reflexive for her to unfold herself in time with the musical cues.

And it helped that she looked up, where the legs vanished into the dark ceiling, not at the audience. She smiled, lifting her arms and standing.

The cords of her first song started

And she sang.

The first note wavered, but training, old and new, immediately corrected the sound in her throat. And she knew this song. She’d sang it again and again in preparation for this moment. It was partially based on the song in the movie that she knew from childhood, but also partially based on Corvidair’s own interpretation.

She was singing a happy song from her childhood, and a happy song from her present.

And it was easy.

It felt right.

When she began moving around, dancing on the stage, it was familiar and fun. The stage was so dark, it was like the audience wasn’t even there.

It was just her. Alone. Singing on stage. Reclaiming something that was stolen from her. A joy that she’d completely forgotten.

Because before the boos and the condemnations and her father’s self-righteous glare, there had been a moment of eager anticipation. There had been the thrill of the performance. There had been love.

Leahlovedthis.

And she felt tears pooling in her eyes as she came to the end of her song, because she had forgotten this feeling. She’d let her father steal this from her, and then allowed the fear he’d replaced it with keep her from feeling it again.

But it was like she’d shed it all at once. Tossing it away in her twists and turns around the stage so that when she finally came to her last mark, breathing hard from belting it out from deep in her chest, it was exhilaration that filled her even before the audience began to cheer.

Because she’d done that. She’d done this!

This was the life she’d chosen for herself. To reclaim her power. To reclaim hervoice.

And for the first time since she stood in that church, shivering in a gown she hadn’t chosen, about to meet a groom she hadn’t picked and she’d looked out that door to the bright blue sky that lay beyond, beckoning her like a sign from above, she felt like herself again.

Here. In this place. On this twilight stage.

Chapter 45

Tillos

Their mate was astounding.

He’d heard her sing plenty of times before. She sang to them in the privacy of their room all the time. If he and Sollit left and came back to find her cleaning – which was the only time she ever got to clean their room – she was usually humming. They’d heard her singing during rehearsals, even the full ones on stage in costume.

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