Page 154 of Envious Of Fire
It used to be more of an accident, when he played down in the cells and his music grew so beautiful, almost on its own.
He has lately discovered an intentionality.
Using his music like a tool.
Wielding the melody like a weapon.
Kaleb drives the song with purpose, like an instrument that doesn’t inspire mere music, but bends hearts toward him.
These are the thoughts that push the doubt away. Doubt in that last look in Lord Markadian’s eyes before he left his room. In the warnings Raya shared about the cruelty of siblings.
Whatever ill feelings that might have lived in Markadian’s heart, Kaleb will eliminate them with the music.
He believes this to his very core.
Until: “KALEB!”
The shout pierces the music like a needle.
Then comes something else. Like a slow and steady drum. Thumping beneath Kaleb’s feet, as if the stage itself discovered a heartbeat.
Kaleb opens his eyes.
The room is so dimly lit, he sees no one, only hears them. Gasps and whispers, scattering through the dark. Someone letsout a wail. Another whimpers. Kaleb can make no sense of it as he clings to his melody, striving to win back the attention of the audience. Everything depends on this. Markadian’s happiness in him. His own ability. His safety here.
Then comes a rippling, rattling growl from behind.
Kaleb turns.
The face of a lion, wreathed in a wild, hairy mane, big eyes pouring intensely into Kaleb like black lava, enormous mouth spreading a sea of needle-sharp whiskers.
A lion’s face is nothing in a photograph.
In the flesh, it is positively overwhelming in size.
The music cuts off. Kaleb staggers back to the noise of the audience gasping, nearly falls over, rights himself quickly, then finds his back pressed to the bars that enclose the stage.
He thought the stage was a semicircle wrapped in bars with a red velvet backdrop, but instead has turned out to be a complete circle, the other half enclosing a beast Kaleb could not have hoped to predict was there the whole time.
And now the barrier separating them is open.
Perhaps he shouldn’t have thought of it as a stage at all.
It’s an arena.
“W-Wait,” says Kaleb, trying feebly to communicate to the animal. “S-S-Stop. Easy. Easy.”
He slides along the bars, trying to create as much distance between himself and the beast as he can—without looking like he’s running from it. Isn’t that how things turn deadly in the wild? The moment one runs? Turning an innocent dance into a chase with grim consequences? Deadly animals love to chase. Maybe the same can be said of humans.
Or blood-drinking gods.
The lion watches Kaleb with unsettling indifference, makes a brief snarling sound, then slowly pads forward.
Kaleb continues to move around the perimeter of the cage,slowly, smoothly. “Easy, easy …” he repeats over and over, his voice as calm as he can manage despite the way it trembles.
The lion stops, yet his eyes remain on Kaleb.
The lion licks his lips.
