Sing Me Your Scars (Apex Voices Book 3) (16 page)

The curse has won.
They
have won.

Silent tears slip between her
fingers. Doesn’t she deserve peace after all this time? Hasn’t she paid enough
for Poseidon’s lust?

One serpent curls around her ear.
Your fault
, it whispers
softly.

But why? What has she ever done but exist?

She rocks back and forth while the serpents whisper again and
again. The towel can only muffle so much.

§

Once upon a time, she was a young girl, a priestess in
Athena’s temple who wanted nothing more than to wake each morning with the sun,
to assist with the rituals, to drink from the sacred spring.

§

Medi tosses and turns beneath the sheets. In the darkness,
she remembers the weight of an unwanted body against hers, a mouth pressed hard
against lips fighting to scream, wrists straining beneath the iron grip of a
hand as the ugliness, the guilt, spilled out of him and into her, marking her
as sure as a brand.

Pariah. Anathema.

She chokes back a moan, pushing hard on the scarf wrapped tightly
around her head, but even so, she can hear the serpents’ reminder of the how
and the why. She sits up, gasping for air, drowning in waves so high, so
violent, she’s sure they’ll pull her under.

On trembling legs, she staggers into the bathroom and stares at
her reflection, her eyes filled with hate. She opens the medicine cabinet, and
there on the shelf, a straight razor waits.

Will this make them happy?

She grips the handle tight, the blade glimmering in the overhead
light, and touches it to the delicate skin of her wrist. The blue veins beneath
her flesh point the way like tiny lines on a map leading to an exit ramp.

A serpent slips from beneath the scarf. Coils. Uncoils. Its
tongue flickers cool against her temple.

Your fault,
it whispers
.

She presses the blade. A tiny wound opens. A single pearl of red
runs free.

Your fault.

This is the only way to make them stop, isn’t it? She watches the
red run across the pale of her skin, drop to the sink, and slide down the
porcelain into the waiting mouth of the drain.

Her lip curls. Hasn’t she bled enough? Hasn’t she given up enough?
She rips the scarf from her head, grabs a serpent, and forces its maw open. It
hisses and writhes in her fist.

Your fault.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up.”

She cuts out the serpent’s tongue. The pain is like a fire raging
unchecked beneath her scalp, a thousand brutal words slamming against her skin.
The blade slips from her hands, and she covers her mouth to hold in the scream.

The tongue sits in the basin, dark against the white. Like an
exclamation point. Like an accusation.

She takes her hands away. Shrieks. Grabs another serpent. Grabs
the blade.

“Not my fault.”

Another tongue falls. She reaches for another serpent.

“Not my fault.”

Again, the blade. Again, the pain.

“It was
never
my fault.”

One by one, the tongues fall, and when the last is gone, she
drops the razor on the floor. The serpents are writhing, their hateful words
now the sibilance of rage, of warning, of something else she cannot define,
though it feels right and sure.

The pain slowly fades to a dull ache. Perhaps it will remain,
perhaps time will turn it to memory, but it doesn’t matter. She stands tall.
Smiles. Brushes her hair away from her face. Her eyes are full of tears—a sign
of the pain or of triumph or perhaps a little of both. Her skin is still
smooth; her face still a maiden’s. If the visage captures a man’s fancy, if it
turns his heart to stone, so be it. She will not apologize for who, for what,
she is anymore. It’s time to reveal the truth and rewrite the story, her story,
the way it was meant to be written all along.

§

Once upon a time, she wasn’t the villain.

I. FRAME

We sang our first bridge, a marvel of twisted cables and
soaring towers, when Lucia’s hair was long and I thought love was a promise of
always. It wasn’t our best or our strongest, but it was the first and had
passion and hope as its support. Because we were foolish, we thought it would
last forever, but first songs never lasted that long, no matter how much power
the notes held in the making.

We knew our testing would change things, no matter what we said
otherwise. Builders did best on their own, especially if their Voice was
powerful. We always thought mine would be the strong one.

But we were young.

II. BEAM

“Where are they sending you?” I whispered in Lucia’s ear,
the night before she was scheduled to leave on her first assignment.

The chirrup of bugs and the scent of white lilies wafted in
through the open window. The curtains fluttered in the breeze, revealing a hint
of the darkness beyond.

When Lucia rolled on her side, her hair fell over her shoulder in
a riot of spiral curls. She took my hand, and our fingers intertwined. Her brow
creased. “You know I can’t tell you.”

“I won’t tell anyone.”

“Delanna, I know you’re upset because I’m going, but please, let
it go. I can’t tell you.”

She started to rise from the bed. I put my hand on her arm.

“I’m not upset,” I whispered. “I’m just going to miss you.”

“I’ll miss you, too.”

I rolled over and grabbed my glass of wine. “Are you sure you
don’t want some?”

She sighed. “You know I can’t do that, either.”

I should not have offered; I knew she couldn’t. No cigarettes, no
alcohol, no acidic foods. And the musts: a tablespoon of honey three times a
day, a scarf wrapped round her neck, no matter the temperature, and a willingness
to stay silent.

“Maybe they should keep you in a gilded cage.” My words came out
sharper than I intended. Warmth bloomed under my cheeks.

“That isn’t fair,” she said.

“Okay, I’m sorry.” I traced my fingertips along her cheekbones,
her jaw, the tiny dimple in the center of her chin, the fullness of her lower
lip. “Please, I’m sorry.”

She took my hands away and shook her head. “I have to go. I’ll
come and see you as soon as I get back, and if I can call you while I’m there,
I will.”

§

The old stories said the first Voice belonged to a girl who
emerged from a whirlwind storm. The storm’s origin, land or water, depended on
the teller of the tale. The girl’s name, the same. My mother said the how
didn’t matter and some mysteries were best kept that way.

There were still buildings in the oldest section of the capitol
city said to be her creations, towering things of arches and alcoves, rooms
that swallowed up every sound, every heartbeat. When I was small, I tried to
chip away a piece of stone from one—for what purpose, I can only guess—and my
mother smacked my hand hard enough to leave a mark of her anger behind.

§

Lucia didn’t call.

I saw her creation on television—a new dam crafted of pale white
stone streaked with grey in a country on the opposite side of the world. I knew
it was hers; I could almost hear her notes, her perfection.

My chest ached, and my eyes burned with tears. I buried my face
in a sweater she’d left behind and breathed in her scent, willing her to come
home soon.

Until a few years ago, our builders never sang on foreign soil.
Now, though, there were churches and museums and monuments across the world
shaped by our Voices.

Some said our gift came from the goddesses below the surrounding
sea, while others claimed a magic in the air. Still others said Voice was the
reason our tiny country had never seen war upon its shores, that no one wanted
to taint the beauty of our land or the gift in our blood with hatred and
weaponry. Perhaps they were afraid of what other talents we might have hidden.
Tourists came to see what we’d built but were never allowed to hear the making.

I wondered if they’d altered the rules; I wondered if they’d
allowed anyone to hear Lucia’s Voice. A bitter taste filled my mouth, stronger
than the taste of tears.

§

“I can feel it inside you,” she said to me one night when we
were half-asleep in tangled sheets.

“What? My heart?” I said with a laugh.

“No, your Voice.” She placed one hand between my breasts. “It’s
here.”

I laughed in the darkness. So did she. Then we kissed, and all
thoughts of Voice disappeared into urgent whispers and the soft sounds of love.

The testing was only a few months away. We still thought we had
forever.

§

A river ran along the back of my family’s expansive
property. I don’t know when the tradition started, but a bridge sung by my
mother stood not far from one crafted by my grandmother. Traces of older
bridges, older attempts, lingered here and there as rubble on the shore,
nothing more. Even the best Builders made mistakes sometimes. Especially in the
beginning. Love tokens, my mother called them. Even the broken ones.

“You will understand when you’re older,” she’d said.

She was right.

§

A night after her testing and a month before mine, Lucia
woke me in the early hours of the morning.

“Come with me,” she said.

We ran in our nightgowns to the river with our hands linked
together, shivering in the chill air. We kissed on the shore, then she jumped
in the water and swam across to the other side. She emerged from the river
dripping wet, her hair plastered to her shoulders and back.

“Sing with me,” she called out.

When her Voice filled the night air, tears spilled down my
cheeks. It was pure and true and beautiful. No mere song, but a symphony. After
her testing, they told her she had the strongest Voice they’d heard in decades.
Anyone who heard her sing would believe it.

It didn’t take long for her creation to take shape. I added my
Voice to hers. Our notes mingled and danced and built. When it was finished,
she walked back across the bridge, her feet whispering on the stone, and we
held each other close.

“We’ll travel the world and build together, but this, this will
always be ours,” she said.

I cupped her face in my hands and spoke against her mouth, her
lips warm beneath mine. “Always.”

We made love on the shore with our bridge soaring overhead and
stars in our eyes.

III. SPAN

Three months after the dam was unveiled, she showed up on my
doorstep with flowers in her hand. I ran into her arms.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming home? I would’ve made
dinner. I would’ve—”

She pressed one hand to my lips.

I kissed her palm and spoke against her skin, my words muffled.
“How long are you home?”

“Not very long,” she said.

“I’ve missed you so much.”

Later, in the dark, I said, “I saw the dam.”

“You know I can’t talk about that.”

I rolled my eyes. Such an absurd rule. Who would hear anyway? The
walls, the pillows? I wouldn’t run out and tell the world; I thought Lucia knew
me better than that. I didn’t understand the need for secrecy. We never had to
keep secrets when we built at home, even those who built for the government.

“What’s it like?”

There was a long silence, then a smile playdanced across her
face.

“It’s amazing, but it’s hard, harder than I thought it would be.”

“That’s it? Amazing? Hard?”

She shook her head. “What do you want me to say?”

“How does it feel, inside?”

“Like I’ve opened a door and all the notes come flooding out.
It’s beautiful and scary and...” She gave a small shake of her head again.
“It’s hard to describe it so you’d understand.”

“Because I don’t know anything about Voice.”

“Don’t say it like that.”

“What?”

“It’s not my fault.”

“I didn’t say it was.”

“Not with your mouth, no. I don’t want to fight with you.”

She was gone again when I woke.

§

Our second bridge was delicate and fragile with carved
waist-high railings. It was crooked in the middle. My fault. I’d had too much
wine.

We loved it anyway.

§

Six months later, I woke up to
find her asleep beside me. Her hair was cut close to her scalp. I traced the
contours of her face until she woke.

“I miss your
hair,” I said, “but I miss you more.”

I pretended
not to notice that she didn’t say she missed me, too. I didn’t ask her about
what she’d built, and she didn’t offer. It was better, safer, that way.

But we built
another bridge before she left, a beautiful structure that gleamed silver-pale
in the moonlight.

§

Testing wasn’t mandatory. Many people built for pleasure,
not profit. There were no laws against building for personal use. My family was
one of the oldest and wealthiest in the country, and neither my mother nor her
mother chose to test, but my heart wanted a different path. I wanted to mean
something. To matter.

Maybe I’d always wanted too much.

Afterward, with my chest heavy with failure, I went to her
apartment. She knew the minute she saw my face. When my tears stopped, she
wiped my face and kissed my forehead.

“They detected notes of discordance,” I said, my voice thick. “It
makes my Voice unstable. Worthless.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered into my hair. “I’m so, so sorry.”

She took my hand and led me to the river.

“Sing,” she said.

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. No matter what they said.” She squeezed my hand
hard. “And you know you can. You’ve built plenty of things before.”

I tried. I did. But my Voice emerged broken and pale. The stone
crumbled. The girders warped. I put my head in my hands and wept again.