I watched the man jump from the tree and land—dozens of feet below—without making a sound. As he approached, I realized that his clothes weren’t cloth or silk in the same way that mortal clothes were. They were woven from something altogether different.
His shirt was made of leaves and laughter and light. His shoulder-cape was shadow and fire and ash, pinned to his chest by a button one part silver, one part starlight, and one part sapphire. His left sleeve was longer than his right, made of feathers that shone like cerulean gems under moonlit lakes. His oud was wrought not from wood, but golden glint and silken song. Everything about him shimmered between physical and ethereal, unable to decide. Perhaps unwilling to.
Perhaps it didn’t even need to.
A man, made of material and immaterial, made real, taken form, turned tangible. A whole more complete than anything else in existence.
I couldn’t say anything to him. No, I was too busy trying to understand.
He was a walking song. Every step he took was the whisper of a note, and every swing of his cape was a chorus, a verse. He moved not against the wind, but as a part of it.
Fae, he called himself. A being of myth and legend.
And seeing him, I understood why that was. He wasn’t someone who lived in the world. He was someone who lived with it. A walking piece of nature. A piece of magic and wonder brought to a shape that my mind could comprehend.
“Normally,” he said, his smile amused, although his eyes did not say the same, “the man who sees Fae bows. He lifts a hand, places it on his chest, and he says: ‘ashari qunir.’ A sign of respect.”
The little blue sunbird on his shoulder flapped its wings, then pecked the side of his face.
“Hm?” the Fae raised an eyebrow at the bird. Then he frowned. “The teachings of parents today neglect basic etiquette?”
A chirp in response. He nodded, looking peeved.
“The Fae forgives this breach of manners,” he said. He turned his rainbow eyes to me and grinned with cat-like teeth, in the same way that a wolf would greet a field of fat sheep. “Greet me as I have lectured, child, and speak your Name and its name. A wise boy remembers when the Fae teaches.”
I did as instructed, my body moving to his command. There was a feeling of obedience around him—a charm that made all things obey.
I was not forced to bow. I was made to want to do so.
“Ashari qunir,” I said, eyes wide, my hand to my chest as my mouth uttered words that felt like second nature to say. “My Name is Rowan Kindlebright. After a rowan tree in summer and my forgemaster father; wielder of steel, anvil, and iron hammer.”
When I rose, the man was nodding in approval. “This is how one greets Fae. You will remember,” he declared, and his words were made truth. The memory solidified—suddenly crystal clear in my mind forever at a single command. The Fae turned. “You will follow, Rowan Kindlebright. Your father dies to a blight in his chest, and answers await in your home.”
My eyes widened at that.
“Are you here to save him?” I asked the Fae, speaking the words to his back.
“I am not one who saves. I am Fae. Walk with me, little summer tree. I will find the reason for your ability to play.”
He waved his hand, and before I could say a thing, the world around us warped, and I was the wind. I was a gale, blowing past the trees, flying to the sky, formless and immaterial, a being of thought and air. Up there, I saw my house in the distance. A little dot of light, lit at the crest of the curving, stone rib.
I swept down. Landed in the yard, where the Singing Tree was. The leaves swirled around me as I coalesced, returning to my normal form, and then there was suddenly touch and taste and sight and smell and—
“Ugh,” I groaned and staggered forward, my stomach trying to crawl up my chest. In my nausea, I found the Fae standing in front of the Singing Tree, peering into the hollow with a smile that was all teeth.
“This one understands,” he said. “So it is you, who teaches this boy to sing. A master of time and tongue.”
The wind whispered, and there seemed to be an exchange of words only the two could hear. A conversation unheard, between a tree of songs and a being of primordial myth. I stepped forward to speak, but no words left my mouth. My voice was sealed. After another second, the Fae’s smile turned dangerous, his needle-row teeth seemingly turning sharper under the moonlight.
“You sing the songs, old one, but who are you to order the one who helped write them?”
Our surroundings rustled, and a wind passed. A leaf flicked upward and flashed past the man’s hand. It drew blood. Black ichor, glinting under blue moonlight. The Fae laughed. “This one sees,” he said, turning and meeting my eyes. ”You are liked much, Rowan Kindlebright. It is good and bad. Both. The Fae spare you today.”
Spared?
He raised a hand, and wind coalesced into it. He flicked it at me.
It shot into my throat, then dissipated, spreading through my lungs like a cool breeze. My voice returned to me.
“You were going to kill me?” I asked, dumbfounded.
“Originally, that is true.”
“For what?”
“For the songs you play, child,” he replied, motioning to the bansuri in my hand. “They are dangerous and powerful, and the man who sings them calls to things far more vicious than a servant of the Winter Court. You are lucky such a powerful guardian keeps you hidden, even as it dies.”
I cast my eyes to the tree and pursed my lips, “So the Singing Tree really is dying?”
The Fae turned to leave, the wind swirling around him. “Indeed. It dies soon. As does your ailing father. Your mother hurries, but she is slow. She arrives tomorrow, full of hope, only to find sorrow in a dead husband and a hate-ridden son.”
There was a certainty to his words that I couldn’t bring myself to doubt.
I stepped forward, clutching my bansuri in my hands.
“Save him, then,” I said. “You can do it, can’t you?”
Silence.
The world stilled, and the temperature dropped as if a sickle of ice had culled the heat.
The Fae turned, and his gaze was suddenly dull. A colorless, angry gray. Like storm clouds and death. I felt the shiver rake down my spine as he said, “You dare to order the Fae, Rowan Kindlebright?”
His voice rang like a physical blow, sending shudders through my body. It squeezed at my heart, a hand of invisible force, ready to crush my core like a ripe tomato. It scared me. Terrified me. But in my seventeen years of life, the only constant in it was my father’s smile. His broad back, the ring of his hammer against metal, and the booming of his laugh.
I refused to let that escape me.
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I swallowed and met the Fae’s eyes, “It’s not an order. It’s a request.”
“Requests are made to equals. You presume to be the Fae's?”
“I played my song. You answered.”
“Pride is poison, boy. Do not think your song above mine.”
“But my music was worthy enough for you to play alongside it, was it not?”
The man of the immaterial narrowed his eyes at me, and the wind stirred. The tips of the leaves around me were suddenly dagger-sharp, and the earth was suddenly a bloodthirsty titan, waiting to taste my blood. The world turned jagged and angry. A monster ready to strike.
Just as I cursed myself for pushing too hard, the sunbird on his shoulder pecked at the man’s face. There was a moment of stunned silence, and then the anger dissipated.
“The manners of this world are toxic now, like cold iron and red suns. It shames me to even stand in it,” the Fae groused, the color returning to his eyes. He glared at the bird, “Does this boy truly intrigue you so?”
It chirped, then flew towards me. The little sunbird landed on my shoulder and stared at him, as if daring him to protest.
It felt warm. Like a patch of sunlight on my shoulder.
He harrumphed at the sight, then met my eyes. “The Fae do not give freely, boy.”
Of course they didn’t. But I stood my ground.
“Then I’ll pay,” I said. “Whatever it takes.”
He stared. Then nodded.
“Hmph. So be it. Follow, Rowan Kindlebright. The Fae grants you your request.”
With those words, he turned and strode into the house. I followed, watching his steps. There it was, even now. Every one of his movements was music. It was in harmony with the world, as if each sound he made, each breath he took, was part of a melody only he and the earth could hear.
I tried to copy him as I followed, down to the tiniest detail, but my feet only creaked against the house’s wooden floor. He wove through the house, and I ambled. His sounds were chimes and whispers and songs, while mine were ugly rustles and creaks and cracks. But when I listened closely, I could hear it.
The sounds. The language unheard. The same one that composed the Singing Tree’s songs, and the same one that slipped from my bansuri minutes ago.
It was in every single one of his movements. Layered, subtle, and beautiful. A walking song, an eternal chorus brought to life. Despite the fear I felt before, I could only stare at his back in amazement.
This was a master.
And between us, there was a gap so wide I could not comprehend it.
Wordlessly, the Fae entered my father’s room like a passing breeze. He stood next to father’s bed, shadow and moonlight coalesce. Below him, my father was pale and thin. His cheeks were sunken, and his eyes were closed, weighed down by deep, dark bags underneath. His breathing was a shallow rasp. A desperate cling to life.
The Fae laid his hand on my father’s chest, and he turned a glance to me.
“This one will tell you the Name of the language we speak,” he whispered, and the mere mention of the word brought with it a million whispers. The names of many things. “One who seeks to speak it—to sing it, must know its name. Forget it at your own peril, child. The Fae will not teach it to you again.”
He opened his mouth.
“A̷̮͛v̸̞́n̵̩͑l̸̼̀a̸̠̐s̷̪̊c̷͖͘e̸̺͆,”
White. Static.
I stood there, my feet feeling like they weren’t my own, as the Name entered my ears. I couldn’t define it. I didn’t have the words to. It was everything and nothing, the language spoken only in the rustle of leaves and the twinkle of moonlight against still water.
My mouth opened by itself.
“A̷̮͛v̸̞́n̵̩͑l̸̼̀a̸̠̐s̷̪̊c̷͖͘e̸̺͆,” I repeated.
And I would never forget.
As soon as I spoke it, the Name became a part of me. It rooted itself into the very depths of my identity, forever branding me as one of the few to speak it. I knew that should it slip from my mind, it would live in my soul. That should my tongue fail to speak it, my actions would whisper it for all to hear.
All the sounds around me became clearer. I felt colors that eyes couldn’t see, heard scents that couldn’t be smelled, and I tasted echoes that tongues could not speak. A sixth sense, separate from my mortal perceptions. A combination of all five I had before, yet still remaining altogether different.
I lost myself in that sensation for a time I couldn’t quantify.
And then, all too suddenly, l returned.
I staggered back, my new senses overloading my brain, just in time to blearily look up and watch the Fae’s hand pull away from my father’s chest. He had spoken, while I was out. He had said something in the unspoken tongue.
My father was still, now. Unmoving. His chest did not rise, and his heart did not beat.
I felt a flash of fury surge in me, gruesome, violent, scorching—
—and the Fae waved a hand, and my anger was doused with ice. An enchantment. A spell to numb me out of doing the stupid things I was about to say and do.
“Your father stops,” the Fae explained, turning to me. “For the next day, he will be frozen in time. He waits. Your mother travels with a cure. They will meet, the spell will end, and your father will draw breath once more.”
I ignored him and rushed to my father, who was as still as stone. I reached out to touch him, but my hand stopped just inches away from his body. An invisible barrier prevented my hand from moving past. A wall of frozen time.
Even the particles of dust around him were motionless.
It confused me. If he could stop time, then why this?
“Why didn’t you just save him yourself?” I asked, turning to the Fae. He smiled.
“Many reasons. Yet, you need only hear one. This one is Fae, and this is what Fae do.”
“I… see. And you’re sure that mother will save him?”
“Man lies, but Fae and Demon do not.”
“Alright then,” I nodded, pulling my hand away from the barrier. “What now?”
“You pay your debts.”
He watched me, as if waiting for me to run. There was a certainty in his eyes that he would catch me even if I did. That I was powerless.
I swallowed.
“Is there a chance I can postpone my payment?”
The Fae thought for a moment, then grinned. His teeth were sharp. Hungry.
“No.”
Well, damn.
“The Fae give you a Name,” he said. “So this one will take another as payment.”
It was worth a try, at leas—
A movement cut off any more of my thoughts. The Fae swiped at the empty air, and something was dragged out of me. It felt like a punch to the gut. Like all the air in my lungs was drawn out, and all my energy was sapped all at once. I staggered, gasping, and he approached. Touched my shoulder. With another word of power, we moved. Faster than wind. Faster than sound.
The world blurred around me, shifting at a pace I couldn’t follow.
I felt the blast of a hundred miles whiz past me. A thousand. Ten. My gut roiled at the sensation, and the world came to sudden stop.
We arrived at a place I’d never seen.
I fell to my knees and there was a splash. I kneeled, in the middle of a shallow lake, gasping for breath. I felt a loss, deep inside me. Like something precious had been taken. Even as the water rippled around my knees and hands, I felt no cold. And then I realized I couldn’t longer taste the saliva in my mouth, or smell the air around me. I could still perceive the world, but the colors my eyes could see were dulled.
It seemed that of my original five senses, only my hearing had been spared.
“I have taken your Name, Rowan Kindlebright,” the Fae said, standing over me. “The world forgets you at every moment. You experience a fraction of it, at the cost of being able to hear its voice. You are pale winter, fading once the cold leaves. The world will not remember your passing.”
The words passed through my ears, but they didn’t register. I was too busy looking at what was below me.
My reflection.
I stared down at it. I was pale. Changed. My autumn-shaded hair was now white, like snow, like leaves covered in frost. The whites of my eyes turned dark, and my irises glowed white in the void that were my eye sockets. My skin was colorless. The jagged stone on my cheeks was dull and grey.
And yet the world whispered into my ears, clear as river water. A persistent voice, soft like the wind. One only I could hear. It was the weal to my woe. The counterpoint to my curse.
Somehow, I was both more and I was a fraction of what I once was.
The Fae continued to speak.
“From now on, you are a ghost,” he said, and I looked up. Met his eyes. They were unempathetic, cold, but fair. They were the eyes of a collector who’d collected a debt he was due. “You are free to walk the world as a phantom—as living myth. Like Demon, Primordial, and Fae. Your Name fades, your senses dull, but your existence does not. This is goodbye, Rowan Kindlebright. We will not meet again.”
“Wait,” I croaked out, panicking. I couldn’t feel the air. I couldn’t taste the wind. “I—"
The Fae turned, his shoulder cape slashed around him, and the wind blew. It carried him away. I saw only a flash of his silhouette in that short instant, and in the next, he was gone. The shadow of a shadow, dissipating into night.
And I?
I was left with a bird of light. A patch of warmth that pierced even the dulled senses of my Namelessness. The little sunbird hopped down from my shoulders and looked up at me, a ghost. My first friend, and now my only companion. I stared at it, swallowing down breaths I was taking. I closed my eyes, clenching my fists tightly.
My hyperventilating slowed to a stop.
I wasn’t sure what exactly I lost, but it wasn’t a small price. Of that, I was sure. But panicking would only hurt me. Right now, I needed answers. And this bird, this little friend, was the only reason I hadn’t lost even more.
It was a piece of a larger puzzle. And I had no qualms with trying to get along with it.
“Do you have a name?” I rasped out, and it shook its head. The bird chirped.
It stared at me, waiting. I pursed my lips.
“…Do you want me to give you one?”
Another chirp.
…It seemed I was the mother hen, now. Or some kind of prisoner to be watched by a bird of wind and light. Probably the latter. Still, if I was going to name it, it might as well be fitting. I thought for a moment, and the first song I played came to mind. The first real one that came out from my lips.
I remembered the song that called to the wind, and led me to meeting this bird a second time. I offered my companion a name of wind.
“How does Venti sound?”
Venti flapped her wings and chirped yes.