There was hardly a need for the river. Her tears alone would’ve sufficed.

She could make her own, maybe, and send its reach tumbling far along every shimmering rock. She could outdo what was natural with sorrow alone. It was a blessing that only moonlight bore witness to her hurt, milky beams snagging on her curls and painting her tears. There was no point in wiping them away. She’d make more soon enough.

Stop acting like this.

She’d managed to curb her sobs, at least, dimming her pain to only soft hiccups on occasion. It left the fervor of the inn distantly at her back, joyous ambience filling in where the songs of insects fell short. It wasn’t quite enough to overshadow her own shaking breaths. Madrigal tried. She failed, and no amount of conscious attention to the ripe little pepper in her hands was offering a solid distraction. The salt born of her tears was an unwelcome spice. It took effort to spare the innocent vegetable.

She plunged her trembling hands into the cool waters below, the ball of green clasped tightly in her palms following suit. It was more than was necessary. Still, the stinging chill of the river against her skin was welcome. If she could cling to it, she would. The rest of her burned, her heart most of all.

You’re not a child anymore.

That was always the worst one. They’d picked a bad night to bring it out.

Madrigal entertained the idea of plunging her head under the water entirely. If it could sweep through her head and carry away shame itself, she would never ask for anything again--aside from the usual.

This is ridiculous.

It wasn’t ridiculous. It was her fault for letting the word slip out again, let alone the sentiment at large. At the very least, she hadn’t said it in front of a guest this time.

You’re embarrassing me!

That one had been a nightmare.

No amount of shaking her head was helping. Their voices were fresh, their words raw. Time was irrelevant. Her curls bashed against her cheeks again and again as she fought to loosen every unwanted thought. It was a losing battle. If she went back, she wondered if they’d chide her again. It was a self-imposed punishment, by which the flowing waters below offered companionship. Should she lean too close, she’d be robbed of a heroine’s visage.

Stop saying that!

It was supposed to be there.

Madrigal, just…move past this, already! Please!

And still, by insistence not her own, she found anything but.

People can hear when you say things like that. The guests can hear you. How long do you plan to keep this up?

Forever would’ve been nice. She’d never truly gotten the chance to start, anyway. Madrigal doubted they’d ever let her, for whatever that would entail. It was a subjective term to begin with. There were times where she could picture the remorse on their faces, should they be incorrect someday. Tonight wasn’t one of them.

Her hands were empty. She wasn’t aware she’d relaxed her grip in the first place, and it left her one pepper shorter. Madrigal winced, swiftly withdrawing her chilled fingers from the rushing waters. If she squinted, she could follow the green marker that gently bobbed out of sight downstream. She sighed.

For a moment, she didn’t have the heart to try again. She had half a mind to dump what was left in the river intentionally, if not solely out of spite. They were already disappointed. It would’ve been preferable if their rationale was born of anything except heroism.

Entertaining the thought of incurring their ire intentionally was enough to leave her eyes blurring once more. She’d given up on trying to suppress it. This far beyond the inn, she had the right to shed her pain. That, at least, they couldn’t force her to swallow.

It took effort to will her hands back in the direction of the basket at all, still shaking as they were. Madrigal lost the escaping pepper, left with only streaming crystal in place of what color it could offer. At no point had her faltering fingers released gold.

She thought she’d hallucinated it, at first. The sparkle nestled amongst the far rocks was disorienting, gleaming beneath stolen starlight. She’d dismissed every golden twinkle as a trick of the night, at first. Creeping darkness and endless tears were more than enough to dull her senses. Still, with each heavy blink, the same earthbound shimmer remained. There was a non-zero chance it was garbage. It was beautiful garbage, if that was the case.

With care, Madrigal scooped the basket into her arms, resting one wall of wicker against her hip as she rose to her feet. Her steps along the damp shoreline were weighted, her heart faring roughly the same in comparison. Loaded with lead or otherwise, each movement forward graced her with a glimmer just the slightest bit brighter. It was metallic, most definitely. The moon did it justice. Gold was welcome to her aching eyes, and the fallen star was its own beacon. The walk meant little. It was incredibly worth it.

Vegetables were of no concern, and she nestled the basket gently onto the shifting stones underfoot. It took effort to inch closer to the rushing waters without slipping, for how her sandals were robbed of traction along the soaked riverbed. She did her best regardless. With equal parts caution and curiosity, Madrigal knelt down to the cluster of rocks below.

She was correct about the metal component. She was splendidly incorrect about the garbage aspect. Even before she’d processed it in full, her hands had already risen to cup either side of the shining instrument. If the river reclaimed it once more, she’d be tempted to dive in and give chase. It wasn’t an option.

From afar, the moon had been a blessing to the little harp. Up close, the spilling beams from on high were pitiful by comparison. It had all the shimmer it needed splashed along every curve. How it had stayed perfectly dry was beyond her, glossy as its golden glow was. Not a drop of water brushed against her prying fingertips as she wrapped her hands around either end.

Every string was immune to rust, greeting her skin with just a hint of rugged resistance as she trailed one nail along the copper. It was divine. If it belonged to someone, Madrigal silently chastised them as to their careless misplacement of such a treasure.

Her thumb brushed along the sweeping inlay pressed deep into the base, curling and twisting preciously. That, too, was divine.

For more than a moment, she was content to simply savor it in her arms. Cold metal was cold metal, and the cool night air had seeped into every facet of glorious gold. It was a sweeter relief than the bite of chilling waters. Madrigal hugged it tightly to her chest, relishing the soft sting that came with the frigid touch against her forearms. In its own way, it was warm. On her knees along the riverbed, smooth stones digging into her skin, she surely looked abnormal.

This is ridiculous.

It wouldn’t have been anything new.

Stop this, please.

Madrigal hugged the instrument ever tighter. Just once, a different focus would’ve been nice. It was involuntary, and she loathed it.

You’re not a child anymore.

She didn’t realize her fingers were settled over the strings until she heard the note they drew. She hadn’t so much as felt her muscles twitch at all. It was a gorgeous interruption, one crystalline sound echoing through the vast night. Singular or otherwise, a pluck so soft rang louder than thoughts that fought to race. Madrigal indulged it. She’d never played before.

She’d hardly intended to craft a passable song, intent only on vibrating sound for sound’s sake. In a world restricted to her fingers and a handful of strings, haphazard plucking was sure to suffice in some capacity. Any string on its own would’ve been beautiful. Even so, what aimless melody drifted forth from the harp in her arms spoke to effort. If Madrigal was giving any, she couldn’t tell. She was playing, it was singing, and the resulting harmony between them was beautiful.

It was one distraction from pain, tactile and auditory all at once. She hadn’t quite stemmed her tears. Chiding mingled with plucking, try as she might to drown out the former. The less she thought about it, the better. Still, the voices were there. Sorrow was there. Pain was there. It was for the best that playing was absentminded, for how her shoulders shook once more and her breaths rattled in turn.

Why do you cry, child?

It wasn’t a voice she was used to in the slightest.

Madrigal juxtaposed it against every figure who’d ever reproached her, and she came up empty instantly. It was loud and soft all at once, echoing deep in places she couldn’t reach. It wasn’t enough to make her jump. Regardless, her wandering eyes found nothing amongst soaked stones and gushing waters.

“What?” she murmured.

There was no reason to answer back, logically. For all intents and purposes, she was conversing with nothing. As to why she continued to play, she wasn’t sure.

For what reason do you shed such bitter tears?

She hadn’t expected a response. It came from within once more, inexplicable and warm. Part of her was fairly certain that she should’ve been more scared. As it was, a heavy heart was a solid deterrent for fear. She didn’t bother wiping away the tears in question, somewhat resentful of the way they plopped onto the glistening golds in her hands one by one.

“I…nobody believes in me,” Madrigal conceded, her voice wobbling.

So, too, was there no real reason to share it. She had nothing left to lose, her pained song endless in the depths of night. If they knew she’d reached the point of talking to herself, she wondered how much further they’d berate her. The concept was enough to curse her with a fresh round of tears, stinging her eyes in earnest.

Why is that so?

Exhaling steadily was difficult. Madrigal did her best. “There’s…something I want to be, and nobody likes that. It’s all I want, though. I don’t know what I did wrong.”

And what is it that you seek to become?

Even to a voice unseen, the idea of saying the word was mortifying. She kept it in her heart, lest it burn her more than once tonight. “I want to help people. I want to save people, and to protect them from all the bad things in the world. I want to be strong, and I want people to be able to rely on me.”

A noble goal, indeed.

Feminine, gentle, and silky, Madrigal appreciated the lack of judgment inside. Emotional fatigue blunted the urge to unravel it. “No one else thinks so.”

You would weigh the worth of your ambitions by the words of another?

Madrigal was quiet for a moment. A song still so beautiful filled the gaps, and she didn’t hate it. In the depths of the night, crowned with spilling moonlight and company unseen, she submitted to whatever ethereal environment she’d fallen into. “It’s all I ever hear, over and over again. I can’t help it.”

For how long have you desired such a path?

Fighting the crack in her voice was trickier than she would’ve hoped. “Forever.”

Were it within your grasp, how would you make it so?

Again, Madrigal was quiet. She gripped the harp just the slightest bit tighter, her aimless melody still soft by comparison. “I don’t know. I know what I want to be, but I don’t…know how I’d get there. Maybe that’s why everyone’s mad at me. Sometimes I just wish for a miracle. I pray a lot. Nobody ever listens to that, either.”

The quiet hum she earned in her head was far from condescending. If anything, it was a comfort, somewhere between empathetic and contemplative. She might’ve decided that herself. At this point, she would’ve believed anything.

“Who are you?” she tried.

That which you hold in your arms.

Madrigal’s eyes fell to the shining instrument. The idea didn’t compromise her song, and she tilted her head. “The…harp?”

What rests beyond such a vessel, rather.

She paused. “You can talk?”

To you alone, who may hear my voice in turn.

Every answer was instant. Every question was hesitant. “Do you have a name?”

Lyra.

“Lyra,” Madrigal repeated. The name on her tongue was soft and sweet. She swallowed it whole, returning what she could. “My name is Madrigal.”

Madrigal, the voice responded. It is my pleasure to make your acquaintance.

Madrigal nodded to nothing at all. “It’s nice to meet you, too. What were you doing here? Were you lonely?”

That you would be in my company, I would no longer be so.

It was just barely enough to warrant a smile, her lips curving upwards in the slightest. The feeling was almost foreign. Madrigal's tears had stilled, at some point, only dried trails of sorrow left taut on her cheeks. That, too, was new. “I’m…I don’t…have a lot of friends. Everyone thinks I’m weird. This is the first time I’ve gotten to talk to someone in a long time. You’re really nice.”

I regret that the world has wronged you, my child.

The term made her heart skip a beat. She couldn’t pinpoint why, instead simply savoring the warmth that followed. “What do you…think I should do?”

Regarding?

Madrigal sighed. “Everything. Being a heroine. I don’t want to give up, but it hurts when everyone tells me to.”

It took two additional seconds for her to tense. She’d gone to great lengths to swallow the word, and it had slipped out on the cusp of acceptance. Her heart skipped a beat for a different reason entirely, and Madrigal held her breath.

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To her absolute shock, she found indifference--if not understanding. Then you have no reason to surrender.

She’d been playing forever. Somehow, her fingers never tired. Madrigal rose to her feet with care, doing all she could to avoid slipping on the smooth stones below. “I still…don’t know how I’d actually do it. I’m trying to figure that part out.”

Must you hurry?

To carry the harp and a basket all at once was difficult. Stemming her song was a tragedy, and her fingers felt empty the moment they came to rest. A trickling river once lonesome was tranquil. She embraced its calm alongside the chilling air, growing ever more so as it brushed her skin. The moon no longer served as her sole companion. “Not really,” Madrigal answered. “I’m just…I really want to, as soon as possible.”

Patience will always be rewarded.

Her smile came naturally, and she left it aimed squarely at a little harp. Nestling it amongst useless vegetables felt almost sacrilegious. Granted, she didn’t have many other options to accommodate her cargo. Again, Madrigal settled the wicker against her hip, minding her step as she inched cautiously back towards grassier footing. Parallel with the river, she embraced its own quiet song instead. “Can I take you with me? Is someone waiting for you?”

I am yours, as you are mine. That I would go where you go is destiny itself.

The butterflies in her stomach were inexplicable. Once more, Madrigal didn’t bother trying to dissect them. “Can anyone else hear you?”

My voice reaches you alone.

That, too, left her warm. Every step towards the inn was light, in stark contrast to those which she’d taken towards solitary waters. “Will you be mad if I keep you a secret?”

Madrigal had a feeling she’d need to, anyway. Of the harp, she could explain enough. Of the voice, she’d be abnormal at best and insane at worst. The former was nothing new. She didn’t need any additional fuel for their hurtful fire.

It may be in your best interest to do so.

Madrigal eyed the harp with concern, twinkling gold serving as a beautiful star in a sea of greenery. “How come?”

You are in possession of that which would--

Madrigal saw it before she heard it. It was out of the corner of her eye, and she first thought it to be her imagination. It wouldn’t have been the first time tonight, albeit born of something far darker than an earthbound sparkle. She was fairly certain the water hadn’t harbored the fog before. If it had, she’d never noticed.

It was her fault for being distracted, lost in sweeter company as she was. It was quick, a broiling cloud that swept clean along the surface of a rushing river. Where it claimed the shoreline, scrambling beyond wet stones, violet crawled between stony crevices and came to threaten her toes. It served as one of many problems, for how the height rapidly grew to be alarming. Solid land was a catalyst for cresting indigo, rising and writhing to meet her in full.

Madrigal took one step back. She took another. She took another, and another, useless in every way as it pressed forward still. It wasn’t enough to earn her reprieve, any meaningful gap shrinking by the second. The screeching was abysmal.

The sound was all-consuming, piercing in a manner that bored into her eardrums and tore down into her soul. The nausea was immediate. Madrigal outright staggered. Raising her hands to her ears was a reflex, her arms suddenly emptied as the basket tumbled to the ground. Vegetables so recently pristine rolled helplessly into vulnerable grass, threatened more by creeping violet every second. She initially chalked up her dizziness to fear, her heart pounding terribly against her ribcage. Still, it was overwhelming. The world spun, and her vision blurred.

Madrigal screamed. It was the most she could do.

Madrigal.

“What is that?” she cried, her voice wobbling with horror.

Forward it came, and backwards she went. She thought to run, and yet her steps were sickeningly unstable. Were she to try, she worried she’d stumble immediately. She wanted to vomit. The longer she stared at advancing indigo, murky and screeching, the closer she got to that threshold.

Listen to me.

Madrigal’s eyes snapped down to the harp, languishing amongst hastily-spilled vegetables below. It was all she could do to snatch it up, for whatever that was worth. She almost stumbled in the process, and the momentary steps forward she had to take in the process nearly left her heart bursting. There was the tiniest relief that came from sparing precious gold from whatever grotesque violet continued to scream inches from her face.

Even so, the instrument in her arms only eased her terror in the slightest. As to why it helped at all, she wasn’t sure. “What’s going on? What is that stuff?” she asked frantically.

It is a poison that should not be so.

Breathing was impossible. Pure terror had replaced what little oxygen she could find. Madrigal could’ve sworn there was more of it, for whatever “it” was. Born of a river so recently tranquil, it was abundant and drifting upon a disgusting wind unseen. Were she to stand still, she would surely be swallowed whole. The thought alone risked killing her first. She was hyperventilating. She couldn’t help it.

Do not be afraid.

It was an impossible concept. Still, it was easier to stare at resplendent gold than vicious violet. “What?”

My spirit is yours to claim. Do as you must.

“I don’t understand,” Madrigal whimpered, gripping the harp ever tighter.

Offer up your touch, and I will offer up my spirit. I am yours, just as you are mine, my child. You are not alone.

She wasn’t calm by any means. She clung to every word regardless, and she embraced them as they slipped between the cracks of her panic. “Do you mean…”

Reach for me, and I shall be there. I will guide your way. You are not powerless. Rebel as you must.

The screeching was unbearable. Somehow, the voice came louder than even that. Madrigal was guessing, largely, as to whether her fingers were needed over the strings in the first place. They settled into place regardless, natural and comfortable in a way she couldn’t pinpoint. Even born of something far more horrified, it wasn’t so dissimilar to her prior peace. “Do I…play?”

Yes.

“I don’t know how,” she said.

As you have done.

Madrigal hadn’t figured that part out yet. It had been a reflex born of something inconceivable. To try to consciously recapture it was a trial. With indigo cresting her in turn, a false wave born of true waters, she had little left to lose. Keeping her eyes open was another trial entirely, and she resisted the urge to squeeze them shut out of fear of the inevitable. In place of frozen terror, Madrigal swept her fingers along foreign strings.

Where she’d given rise to a song so delicate before, what fled her hurried touch was something far more weighted. Her melody was rich, her notes vivid and bright. Each resonant pluck that stung the night lingered upon the open air, pure crystal challenging writhing darkness. It was still beautiful in every way, and that much was calming at the worst of times.

Blood once boiling and scorching from horror ran cool, still rushing through her ears as it was. It battled the river beyond, loud and forceful. By comparison, it was unnatural. Breaths so recently lost came shallow by content alone, thinned from something more than fear. It was enough to get by. Madrigal inhaled. She exhaled. Of the latter, she wondered if her entire being would come with it.

She never ceased her song, rapid and reflexive. Her fingertips snagged against each string in precious sequence, weaving a vibrant melody as unfamiliar as it was welcome. Her muscles pulsed in the slightest. She’d never felt her own blood surging through her veins before, startlingly light and shockingly fluid as her skin grew chilled in turn. The sensation was perplexing. The wind was infinitely more so.

It wasn’t explosive by any means. It didn’t need to be. What miniscule breeze rattled her dress skirt and shuffled stray sprouts below was sudden. It trailed over her toes, swirling about her ankles and rocking languishing vegetables at her side. That which began as something delicate grew stronger, and yet stronger still. Like so many things, she didn’t try to dissect it. In the face of enveloping indigo, it was one more impossibility.

Her song persisted. Madrigal didn’t dare stop, for what instructions she’d been given.

The gust was localized, and she clung to its byproducts with her eyes for all it was worth. It enveloped her in full, gushing through her curls and whipping against her calves. Grass bowed deep beneath its pressure, roaring louder than even the screaming before her. It spun. Madrigal claimed its center, a stagnant eye of a personal storm. In a way, she was afraid to move. The gale ravaged her buns and battered her face, by which she winced in the face of the windy onslaught. Still, even now, she played.

For how it bent and twisted in the wake of her every ringing note, it took Madrigal more than a moment to make the connection. Her eyes widened, whether blighted by the spiraling tempest or not. Wrapped up in foreign gales in the depths of the night, she didn’t fear being blown away. There was still fear in there, undoubtedly. It rode on each whirling gust, stolen straight from her heart.

“Is this…me? Am I doing this?” she breathed.

This is the power with which you are blessed, came the voice in her head.

Madrigal’s heart was pounding for a different reason altogether. “What do I do?”

If it was hers to keep, it felt strong in another way. Her blood was pulsing, surging with something equal parts weightless and fluid. Where wind besieged her from without, she was just as turbulent within. She submitted to her own storm, content to merge into her gorgeous creation in full. Were she to become wind itself, she wouldn’t have objected.

You seek to protect, do you not? Stand firm and resist.

In more ways than one, she was fearless at last.

Madrigal braced against the soft earth, her sandals digging into the dirt. Blessed by silky starlight above and miserable violet beyond, she clung to that which was invisible. What she couldn’t see, she could feel in every way. Swift fingers moved of their own accord. Her gusting song was natural, thoughtless and perfect. The winds woven of her inexplicable harmony were both chilling and not, for the way they warmed her heart in turn.

They claimed her, and she claimed them right back. To guide them was a sensation equally natural. They were hands she’d never extended, fingers she’d never unfurled. She repressed the urge to jolt in surprise the moment her gales rebelled.

Violet was swift. Not once did it still, nor did it hesitate. Like the wave she’d unfortunately learned it to be, it crashed down onto her at last. Where it surged, Madrigal surged back, her spiraling tempest raging in the dark. With the moon as her sole guide, the display was disorienting.

A storm penetrated the cloudy sea, rapid and desperate in a way that parted screaming tides. There was little to witness but morphing fog, battling that which her eyes couldn’t catch. With certainty, billowing gales besieged all that escaped the river. It was all Madrigal could do to show them the way.

It was on her left. It was on her right. It was forward, and she briefly feared for any situation in which it would be at her back. As to what it was in the first place, let alone why it was here at all, she still wasn’t sure. Survival took priority. If she wasn’t enough, an inn rested not so far behind her. It was one more reason to stand strong.

What she didn’t surrender, she kept for herself. Not one wisp of false darkness touched her, beset by spinning gusts that ensnared her within. Once more, Madrigal embraced her own storm, wrapped up in divine winds on every side. That which strayed too near was devoured in turn, screeching all the way to a tumbling demise as smoky indigo was torn to shreds. In that manner, she’d challenged the sinking sky itself, a cloud collapsing onto her from above. She swallowed all it would give, her own assault unyielding.

With care, deft fingers brought them surging yet faster, barreling forth and punching deep into the writhing smoke. To her mortal eyes, she was shooting at nothing, blessed with bullets she couldn’t see against an obstacle she couldn’t unhear. With certainty, she’d feel the wind forever. Madrigal was convinced there was more violet than there was water, at this point, for how the false tide seemed to rise eternally. Even so, she was just as eternal, and she trusted in her song.

The strings had merged with her skin, perhaps, and the instrument had grown just as natural. Fear had drowned somewhere in a river long lost in the dark, replaced by something that burned yet brighter. Cool as her veins still ran, she cherished both sensations in unison as her gushing gales smashed into what squirming smoke they could claim. Wisps became snagged on her streams, and she ripped them clean from the murky fog. Where she tore, it screamed. She did so again, and again, and again, a vortex born of her hands dismantling darkness.

It felt instant. It felt eternal. She was somewhere square in the middle, swept up in another type of disorientation altogether. If someone told her she was dreaming, she would’ve believed them immediately. For every tendril of indigo that she jerked from the screeching mist, Madrigal did little more than watch the way her ruthless gales devoured it in full.

Spinning, twisting, and writhing of their own accord, a storm so fast swallowed them whole and retrieved true darkness alone. With each swift rotation and each strum equally swift, she flowed against the tide and ripped it from the waters. She still couldn’t process that the song was hers at all.

And when the stars twinkled down on her in earnest, surging violet ebbing and conceding into nothing, she still played. It was out of paranoia, at first, lest she doff her gusty defenses and be beset by yet more waterborne indigo. Even so, when her eyes trailed down every last path that had once carried a tainted gale, she couldn’t find a speck of the same.

Madrigal hesitated to breathe a sigh of relief. She hesitated to breathe at all. Her winds did the breathing for her, stealing the air from her lungs and crying out above that which she’d since silenced.

In stark contrast to her instinctive melody, it took conscious effort to still her fingers. Windswept curls fell over her shoulders, and the skirt of her dress came to rest against her skin. The air grew just as quiet as her touch, devoid of a storm and song alike. Only the trickle of true waters, purged of venomous violet, filled the night. She blinked. She blinked again. She was torn neatly between disbelief and exhilaration, still savoring the ebbing chill in her blood and echoes of gales in her ears.

Madrigal’s eyes fell to the harp. Slow fingers trailed over the strings absentmindedly, and she relished the tiniest bite of rugged copper against her skin. “Lyra.”

I am here.

For the briefest moment, she feared she’d forgotten the name. Even so, it was far more natural than it should’ve been, engraved somewhere she couldn’t pinpoint. “Was that…magic?”

It is a blessing born of the bond we share.

Madrigal’s heart skipped a beat. “We’re…bonded? You and me?”

Once more, it is as I have stated. I am yours, just as you are mine, my child.

She paused, her creeping fingers inching their way over precious golds that glistened still. “The stuff that came out of the river. What was it doing there?”

Where agony would go, it would follow. From the hearts of those who suffer comes a plague upon this world. It is a cruel means by which to measure sorrow.

Madrigal tilted her head, casting her eyes into the water cautiously. “But…I don’t understand. Why would it be in the--”

I would suspect the catalyst rests beneath.

She fell silent. It took a moment. It took more than that, in truth, by which processing the explanation was as difficult as it was disgusting. When it hit, she recoiled, her heart pounding for another reason entirely.

“That’s awful!” Madrigal cried. “Are they still…was it on purpose?”

Where she was sickened, Lyra was calm. I know not. For what emerged, it may or may not have been so.

Tearing her eyes from deadly waters was difficult. Madrigal offered them to the little instrument instead. “What do you mean?”

Those bound by the grasp of such suffering are not sound. They endanger themselves and others all at once. This was a tragedy, and I lament what has come to pass.

She’d never seen a dead body before. She didn’t want to start now. In the most horrific way, she was almost glad that it was out of sight, sunken to the depths of a streaming river. It was a poor grave all the same. She offered a silent prayer, flinging it deep beyond the surface.

Know, though, that you have spared yet more from pain. Of that, my child, stand proud.

Madrigal stroked the sides of the harp absentmindedly. “Proud of…what?”

Were it to fester, it would haunt others in turn. It is vile, in that manner. You have saved the unknowing innocent from a similar fate.

“It would’ve…hurt other people,” she tried. “Is that what you’re saying?”

Indeed.

Madrigal hugged the harp tightly to her chest. “The wind…I did that. I did that. That was…really me, right?”

You wield such power with great courage. Even so soon, you are skilled. Your spirit is admirable.

Where the chill of gales within had so recently graced her veins, the warmth of praise scorched them instead. It was beautiful, and she couldn’t fight the smile that bubbled up onto her lips. “I did that,” Madrigal repeated.

And, that you would be at my side, you may do so again.

“Whenever I want?” Madrigal asked, somewhat louder than intended.

As you wish.

Every second that she recalled the sensations left her lighter. If it wasn’t a dream before, it surely was one now. Only when her gaze brushed tumbling waters did her happiness falter in the slightest. “The…darkness. The stuff from the river. Will it ever come back?”

It is ever-present.

“What?”

Nowhere is immune, Lyra spoke calmly within. It is a curse that torments this realm. There will be more, without question. As to when or where, I cannot say.

The concept was enough to shatter her joy. Madrigal’s stomach twisted into a knot. It took several seconds to gather her words, the harp still nestled with care in her arms. “Lyra?”

Yes, Madrigal?

“If it comes back,” she began, “can I…fight it again?”

Lyra was quiet for a moment. So long as you would have the courage, then you would always have my spirit. It is you and you alone who could quell such agony.

“I don’t want anyone to get hurt,” she said, each word stronger than the last. “I don’t want anyone to end up like that again.”

What next will you do, then?

It was hardly a question. It didn’t matter what they said, nor how many words of reproach stabbed at her back. Praise was new. Praise was foreign in every way, and she still hadn’t fully wrapped her head around it--among other things. It was possible that she would soon blink too hard, awakening with empty hands to morning light. Even so, she could still feel every last sensation, the last vestiges of winds so perfect still kissing her skin.

Where violet had threatened her, Madrigal swore to greet it with the same beautiful storm. For once, the word didn’t feel so useless on her lips. The more she thought about it, the more her heart risked bursting in the best way. What fear she knew should’ve been present was traded only for joy, and there was a chance that tears of another flavor might’ve challenged the river yet again. It was divine, in every sense of the word.

For all that a heroine could liberate with her own two hands, never had her spirit felt so liberated in turn. It was all she would ever ask for again.