Robin Owens - Echoes in the Dark

Jaquar put an arm around her waist and squeezed. “It is our duty to figure out the Weapon Knot.”

“And you have?” Luthan asked.

“Pretty much,” Marian said. “It’s for an ensemble of at least three and no more than fifty, and the lead solo must have a four-octave range.”

“The Singer would Summon no one with less,” Luthan said. “And she’s the best to train such a range since she has it herself, and since the spellsong will be complex and difficult—” he raised his brows in question and Marian nodded, “—the Singer is the best to train anyone in Power made by the voice alone.”

Jaquar shifted. “Her voice isn’t the only Power of the new Exotique, is it? All the signs indicate that the lady will be strong in prophecy, too, like the Singer herself. And you.”

Luthan didn’t want to recall the visions he’d had in the caves. “The new Exotique is Powerful, and like all the other Lladranan communities, the Singer would have requirements for the one she Summoned.”

“Which would include prophecy,” Jaquar pointed out.

“Which would include prophecy, though I wasn’t with the lady long enough to gauge her Power,” Luthan said, then told them every detail of the Summoning, his talks with Bri and Raine and Alexa.

“Hmm,” Marian said at last. “This Lladranan cockatoo, I’ve never heard of one.”

Another squeeze from her husband. Jaquar said, “You all have animal companions, why shouldn’t she?”

“If you consider the feycoocus animals,” Marian said. “They are more beings of pure magic.”

“Who take various animal forms,” Jaquar added. He looked at Luthan. “Was this cockatoo a real bird or a feycoocu?”

Luthan hadn’t considered the matter. He went with his gut. “A real bird.”

Marian sighed. “Looks like my feycoocu will be mostly bird in the future, along with his mate and the baby, since Bri has the roc. I must admit I prefer mammals.”

“Birds may be more useful during the trip,” Luthan said. “A Lladranan cockatoo comes from the forests of the southeast, a beautiful, intelligent bird.”

“Ah.” Marian yawned, stretched and rose.

“One last thing,” Luthan said. “Alexa recognized the name of the new Exotique.”

Marian tilted her head.

“The new Exotique’s name is Jikata.”

Marian stared at him for a long moment. “I can’t believe it,” Marian said. “What is she doing here? And why would she possibly want to stay?” She seemed shocked.

Jaquar stood and put an arm around his bondmate’s shoulders. “With that attitude, perhaps it’s wise that the Singer has charge of her.” He glanced at Luthan. “For now.”

“For now,” Luthan agreed.

But tears shone in Marian’s eyes, and she clutched Jaquar’s biceps with both hands. “But we all know that the Snap to return an Exotique home doesn’t come until after she finishes her task. If she’s a four-octave Singer who’ll lead us in the City Destroyer spell, that means her task—”

“Is to go with us when we invade the Dark’s Nest and kill it,” Jaquar finished.

“The most dangerous task of any of us. Does she have any free will at all?” Marian asked.

Singer’s Abbey

Jikata awoke, stretched luxuriously, smiled at the velvet canopy above her head. The Ghost Hill Hotel was lovely and she had the Presidential Suite.

But what was truly excellent was the music. She didn’t know what radio station the hotel carried, but it was primo, something she thought she’d never find in Denver, though that public station in Greeley came close.

The piece was new-age ambient, full orchestral with rich, intricate melodies, and the acoustics of the room were wonderful since the sound surrounded her. Better than her home system. She’d get her sound engineer here to talk to the management.

She frowned, rubbed her face. She had ended a tour yesterday, that meant the crew was officially on vacation and—

She was due at her great-grandmother’s at ten! She scrambled up, shoving the binding covers down, bad dreams again.

Weird dreams—

Ishi would never forgive her for being late.

Ishi was dead.

That came flooding back, along with all the regrets and emptiness of her life. She fell back against fat pillows.

A flash of scarlet and there was a beautiful red bird sitting on a perch near the bed. It trilled a liquid melody. We are in Lladrana, where we belong.

Jikata blinked and blinked again. Cleared her throat. “I beg your pardon?” Her voice was raspy. Everything seemed slightly off.

The bird fluttered to the bed next to her. Jikata wrinkled her nose but didn’t smell musty feathers or bird manure. She smelled lavender.

I am Chasonette. We are here, we are home, we will triumph!

A mind-singing bird. Not slightly off…way off.

Music all around. Jikata concentrated and thought she could hear music coming from the very walls of this place and that sent a little shiver down her spine.

Harp notes rose and fell, then came the creak of a door, followed by the wonderful smells of eggs and bacon, freshly baked bread. Saliva pooled in Jikata’s mouth. A plump young woman walked in bearing a tray, obviously breakfast. Jikata shouldn’t eat so heavily…but she was coming off a long, stressful tour.

She noticed the food first then her gaze went from the red lacquered tray to the woman and she stared in disbelief. Music streamed from the maid in simple, repetitive notes. Jikata shook her head hard enough to dizzy herself. But when she stopped, the woman’s music was still there.

Chasonette fluffed her feathers. The bird, too, emanated music without one warble from her throat, a high lovely tune that seemed to pierce Jikata’s heart.

Jikata recalled the notion that she had a soundtrack for her life. True again this morning. More disturbing now. Surely it had to be in her mind, but she could live with it.

The woman dipped a curtsy and flushed a little. Jikata scooted back, wary, but ready to be served. She didn’t keep servants herself, but had stayed at homes of both old wealth and nouveau riche where maids were common.

After a tour she treated herself to resorts where she could be pampered. Perhaps this was just one and she’d forgotten the travel, or the Philberts had arranged for her transport. She wondered what sort of spa facilities this place had.

Speaking in a Frenchlike patter—or perhaps patois—Jikata didn’t understand, the serving woman set the tray on Jikata’s lap. Chasonette nipped half a slice of bacon and after crunching a chunk, dropped the rest in a small china dish on the corner of the tray that held a mixture of seeds.

The bird was going to eat from Jikata’s tray? That couldn’t be sanitary. Chasonette buried her beak in the bowl.

A word from the woman caught Jikata’s ear with the rising inflection of a question. “Po-tat-oes?”

Jikata stared and the servant repeated it. “Potatoes?”

Potatoes for breakfast! Glancing at her plate, Jikata saw scrambled eggs with cheese decorated with pepper and dill, and two strips of bacon. She shouldn’t even be having this. An egg-white omelet with fresh vegetables and a touch of cheese, an in-season fruit cup. Nothing like this. The thought of the cheesy eggs on her tongue made her mouth water all over again.

“No,” she said. “No potatoes.”

The woman’s eyes sharpened. “Ttho. Ttho potatoes.”

Jikata shifted in her bed, she’d been hoping that despite everything, this really was Denver. Pushing down panic, she decided to go with the flow a bit until she could discover more.

With a steady movement, the servant pulled all the bed curtains open and tied each section to the carved bedpost. Jikata gasped. In front of her was a wide rectangular window. The near distance was a field of white stone towers and spires, some embellished. Beyond that was land of a green that Colorado rarely saw except for a couple of weeks in a very rainy spring. Nothing like California, either. Or the tropical island she’d planned to recuperate on.