The Cursed Heir

Chapter Twenty

Sarita was sitting on the paddock fence. Cassie paused, taken aback. She had never seen the musician on this side of town. There was something in the way she sat, the preternatural stillness, that made Cassie think there was either too much going on in the other woman's head, or too little.

She had been spotted. One of the horses, used to receiving treats every time Cassie came out here, trotted for the fence to meet her.

She couldn't let the poor beast's hopes down. Trying to keep her footsteps as quiet as possible so as not to startle Sarita, she approached the roan mare who was impatiently waiting for her.

After some attention and carrots, the horse returned to her own business, leaving Cassie leaning against the fence while Sarita continued to stare at the trees beyond the paddock.

"They sing to each other, you know," Sarita said without preamble.

Cassie followed her gaze to two of the horses, who had passed each other with some unceremonious whickering. She had never heard a horse make any sound resembling song, but she hardly had the ear for it.

"Does it give you ideas for your music?" she asked, not wanting to pry—but then, Sarita was the one who had spoken first. "Or do you come here to clear your head?"

Sarita answered neither question. "Did you have a clear head before you came here?" she asked Cassie without looking at her. "Or has it only gotten more muddled?"

"Do you mean here as in the paddock, or here as in Telyre?"

"I thought it would be quieter," she said, as though tasting the gentle breeze.

It sounded as though she had been disappointed. Cassie could empathize. She had thought life would be so much simpler, so much easier, once she ran away from home. Instead, it had only gotten more dangerous, and more complicated, with time. If she returned home, would it be just as difficult?

"I never thanked you for helping sing the farewell for that soldier," Cassie said instead. She braced her arms and stared at the treetops. "Your voice is...a great blessing." She tried, so hard she tried, to muzzle the envy. "I am glad he had that to give him peace." Everyone, even an enemy soldier, deserved a piece of that beauty on their passing from this life.

"I keep hearing whispers about you," Sarita said, not acknowledging Cassie's clumsy gratitude. "They say you're cursed."

Cassie stared straight ahead without flinching, although her jaw clenched. "They're right." She was cursed. Everyone who knew her came to ruin. She had brought darkness to Telyre, sure as she had brought it to the Gemmaros.

"Your name does not sound cursed," Sarita said, at last drawing Cassie's gaze as she sounded it out. "Ca-ssie. It sounds...green."

"Green," Cassie repeated. "Like the color?" How could a name sound like anything other than a name?

"Green. The color of new beginnings. Vitality." Sarita gazed at the small leaves spring had brought to the tree branches as she spoke without inflection. "Envy."

Envy—it was not the association Cassie would have chosen. Never mind that she at times felt consumed by it.

"The farewell is blue." Perhaps Sarita spent so much time lost in her head that she had forgotten the way back out of it. "Like the last shade of dusk."

"You hear...colors?"

"Sometimes I can combine them. And then it's..." Sarita inhaled deeply, as though tasting something secret, something revered. "My father thought I was cursed," she said, not completing her last thought before jumping to the next. "But it does not feel a curse, to see and hear the world different from others. It feels like..." She blinked slowly, pulling her thoughts together. "Like bread dough."