Wind's Aria: The Brother's Keep, #1

By Tessa Stockton

Elected as the Songstress, Aria takes her place on the sacred platform to sing before every dawn. As long as she does so, peace and abundant life belong to her people. One morning, everything goes wrong and she loses her ability to make music when Aria is distracted by a strange wind, an eerie howl and a shape, almost like that of a man, appears.

The dreaded Il-Bora, a magnificent winged creature, prophesied by Aria's people as the one who brings death, watches the singer with intent. He is set to doom her by orders from his master, the evil serpent, yet her voice gives him pause. More than her voice. In fact, he is strangely drawn to the girl and finds, for the first time, unable to do his master's bidding.

The Il-Bora is severely punished and tragedy strikes Aria's village, yet somehow the two survive. The greatest calamity might be that she has come to adore the cause of her blunder, the winged man who's stolen more than her voice, her heart too. And the Il-Bora? He's beginning to comprehend a strange, new warmth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tessa Stockton
• Release date: Jan 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9781393724988

Tessa Stockton

Tessa Stockton is a speculative fiction novelist, freelancer, and editor living in the United States. She is a former professional dancer.

Book preview

DEDICATION

To Heidi, a songstress in my life

Song of Songs 2

1

The Voice

Nightingale lee, Nightingale sung

Melody sweet as spring just begun

If ever we meet, ‘tis true I belong

My voice, my heart, my all you have won

He stilled the current and listened with intent as he had since the first time he’d ever heard the voice. At the same point every night, just before the striking of the dreaded sun upon the earth, she sang. The melody drew him, tortured him. Captured by its strange flow, like clouds streamlining the great expansive sky he governed, he moved closer to the sound. Careful to keep hidden, he watched her.

The pale girl’s lips parted slightly at first but then, as if lost in entrancing song, he watched the passion grow within her. Her mouth opened wide.

He flinched.

The peculiar melody she produced – better than the howl of his channel storms – haunted him. To whom did she sing? What horribly fortunate being did she sing about night after night? And why did it trouble him so?

Wisps of air flicked and zapped about him. Then he grew agitated by his hair, gone wild, whipping his face, distorting his vision of her.

That’s when he knew his master drew near. He soon felt his presence at his side.

Thisp!sssss. You waste your time, boy! I gave you the endless plains to oversee. The despairing winds need propelling.

With no disrespect, master, I am overseeing them.

Though given great power along with the splendor he had so thirsted for by the serpent, the master’s scream in his ear made his wings nearly buckle.

Yes, bow in my presence, you insolent boy!

He fell from the cloud cover and hit the ground with such force he gasped to fill his lungs.

The serpent slithered on top of him, pinning him face down. He said in a seething rasp, "You claim you have control over your territory – the province I gave you – yet these people, the Meleyans, hold a pocket of civilization untouched by the winds I bequeathed you to govern. And deep within these palisades at the center of your so-called plains!

Peace loving, garden growing, believers in the eternal one – yet they haven’t even seen him! Thispsssss. You failed. Failed to claim these people for my expanding den!

I’m sorry, my master. I have wasted time. I will do better. The pain in his chest intensified. What must I do? He clenched his teeth.

What distracts your mind; possesses your interest, other than me?

That voice, he wheezed. The voice of the girl who sings.

Only the voice?

Eyes wide now and body quavering, he couldn’t deny there existed something else that compelled him...except he couldn’t put his finger on what that was. She wasn’t an ugly girl, but she didn’t possess great beauty either. Great like his, that is, the kind that deserved his attention, and yet...

He feared to verbalize any of the matter to the serpent.

That girl is a good-for-nothing waif that should already be claimed and burning in your brother Firebringer’s lake, the evil one spat.

He sensed the serpent’s bent scrutiny in that unfortunate moment. The silence meant that Master was thinking, planning, devising. Then he felt the pain diminish.

Stand to your feet.

And so he did.

I know how to bring an end to the Meleyans’ merriment, put a stop to their blinded beliefs, and cast away that predictable ghastly screech from the throat of that scrawny-necked girl-soul.

Afraid to speak, he awaited the answer, of which he trembled with dread to take delivery.

Although he always did what his master demanded without question, this time he winced over the commands and hoped his flinch went unnoticed.

Don’t make the same mistake as your youngest brother, the serpent warned. If you do, I will seek and destroy you.

How much time do I have?

Drive the despairing winds. Because of your mindless distraction, boy, they have slowed near the bothersome mountains of blue where your youngest brother once lured. Souls are somehow being freed from the channel cells. Make haste and blow your fiercest gale to tighten the column and force them back into the continual loop. We cannot lose more by your stupidity. That is your first task. Then, two nights from now, come back here and take care of this nonsense.

The slurping reverberated in his ears until the sound disappeared completely.

Gaining composure, he fluttered his cumbersome wings and restlessly took to the sky again, increasing in elevation. He lingered in vapor and cast a furtive glance on the Songstress with hair the color of a tawny field fox.

Her singing filled his head. The music lured, yet stung.

He desired to hear more, yet at the same instant urged the torment to stop.

Clamping hands over his ears, he let out a moan. A cry that coupled with the air he stirred, drowning her out.

2

Error

Aria’s throat seized before she finished the song. She shuffled as apprehension rolled through her. She lifted her eyes to the sky, distracted. Aria tried to finish, but—

There. She sensed it, again.

No—she heard it this time. She was sure. A sort of hollow groan, torturous, spawned by bottomless sorrow. The sound pricked her heart.

She coughed and glanced down at the pendant hanging around her neck. Taking the necklace in her hands, the white emblem of the Sacred Flower etched into the crimson stone radiated, making her palms sweat. She tried to focus. She had to finish.

Voice shaky, she continued the song where she’d left off, hoping nothing would come of her mistake, and completed the melody at last.

Aria huffed, irritated at her error, anxious of consequences. Then she pondered that strange sensation she’d first experienced more than a fortnight ago. It had reoccurred since. In fact, the awareness had increased, happening more often now.

When she took to the platform that overlooked her beloved city of Meley, with all of its torchlights flickering, winking at her even from the great height and distance from where she stood, that peculiar feeling swept over her. It seemed as if eyes watched her every move. A shifting and uncomfortable presence loomed.

The breeze caressed a few strands of hair. Aria let go of the pendant and pressed the flyaway stalks, orangey like her grandmother’s, down pat.

Her vision drifted skyward. There, against the darkness, she could almost see a sable silhouette in the shape of a man take form. With translucence, the amorphous wisps remained indistinct, ominous.

She shivered after a gust of wind struck her out of nowhere. Then a massive shadow, darker than the night itself, and like a great bird with a giant wingspan, circled over and again until, finally, away.

Aria shook her head. She must have imagined it. Night had not let up. Birds still slept. Darkness enveloped the land and skies so that she couldn’t see well outside of the sparkling city.

Tightening her poncho, dyed the color of red earth clay, she wrapped it, and her arms, about her girth. She shrugged and then stepped down. Aria glanced upward once more before she made her descent. Not knowing why, the momentary glance seemed risky.

Preferring to keep the matter to herself, Aria wondered if she shouldn’t tell someone. After all, it was a small mistake. Her people would forgive her. She had no reason to fear.

Did she?

She never had before. But she’d never experienced that acute foreboding sensation either.

And she had on no account ceased mid-song. The one task in her life that mattered and proved crucial to the Meleyans. They looked to her for the favorable blessings of the Sacred Flower. She was their Songstress, the chosen communicator of the Sacred One.

Ever since she turned of-age to accept her calling and take the place of the one who served before her, she’d climbed the network of stone steps carved from the very walls of the palisades. Deep in the night while her people lay in slumber, she took the designated position on the uppermost rock shelf and sang.

From there, her voice drifted over the city. The anthem covered the land and her people with the sweet balm of peace, life, and growth that channeled through the