Whispers (Book 3 of Wielder series)

Chapter 21 - Sacrifice

Roger couldn't keep his hands from trembling. The Wielder had heard him playing piano. She'd walked in to his room as easily as if she had been invited. No one should have been able to do that. Not even her.

Especially not her.

He'd been stupid to leave the wards in her cell down. Of course the first butterfly to roam the halls would have flown straight for her. They gravitated toward her like bees to honey. What he didn't understand was how no one had seen her. Not a single guard. Not a single of his Phantoms. Even the alarms in the halls that were supposed to detect magic hadn't gone off.

He couldn't explain how she'd escaped.

But he also couldn't afford to let it happen again.

He locked the prison down for twenty-four hours while he investigated how she'd maneuvered around without being seen. He questioned the patrols that had been on duty. He increased the number of those on watch, especially in the areas around her cell. He fortified any security weaknesses he found, strengthening wards everywhere. The warden praised him for his efforts, but also claimed he must have been imagining things. No one had ever escaped before. And what prisoner would be stupid enough, upon managing to escape their cell, to linger in the guards' housing areas?

Roger couldn't explain it. He only knew that the Wielder would not be escaping again.

But as the lockdown finally ended, and he personally oversaw the last of the added securities going into place, he still couldn't get his hands to stop shaking.

It wasn't until he finally returned to his room that he realized he hadn't punished the Wielder for her escape.

Something was wrong with him. He never should have forgotten something so important. It should have been the first thing on his mind, an obsession that refused to leave him alone until his prisoner lay black and blue on her cell floor.

But he'd forgotten completely.

He blamed the piano. That damned instrument. There was a reason he'd refused to play after all these years. Nothing good could come from losing himself to the sound of its strings.

Except, he reasoned, something good had come out of it. His music had called butterflies.

Butterflies that had freed the Wielder from her cell.

Butterflies that had once gained the attention of a young princess, and changed the course of his life.

Roger shook his head. He passed his hand over the locks of his door, sealing it with his power. Had he forgotten to seal the door before he'd sat down to play? Was that why she had been able to wander in on him? He waited for the shadows to melt away into the door before he turned for the bathroom, eager to wash the sweat off his skin.

The shiny black piano reflected his likeness as he stripped off his jacket and loosened the lace of his shirt. It showed him peeling off his boots, and propping them upright beneath the bed. It watched him check the comm board for any messages from the few Phantoms he had left scattered throughout the Realm.

It waited, silent, for him to return.

He snorted at it. He couldn't afford to return to its keys. He'd lost himself for days in the sound of its music. And for what? The onslaught of repressed memories to resurface and torture him? The feeling of loss to once more overwhelm him? The reminder of loneliness to pull at his soul, and remind him what a despicable being he'd become?

The piano made him weak. It should be destroyed.

Roger paused. It was just a piano. It was capable of beautiful things. It didn't deserve his wrath. Destroying it wouldn't help him feel better. If anything, he'd feel bad for ruining such a perfectly crafted instrument.