Page 3 of A Voice of Silver and Blood (Crown of Echoed Dreams #1)

CURTAINS AND CRUSHED DREAMS

T he worn strap of my guitar case was a second skin on my shoulder, a weight I’d grown used to carrying.

I pushed through the Vinyl Vein’s back door, welcoming the familiar punch of stale beer and old regrets.

The awning over the door, torn since last fall, flapped a lazy hello.

This wasn’t a place you came to for clean tables or working jukeboxes; it was a place for people who, like me, knew what it was to be broken in the right places. It was a mess, but it was home.

“Evening, songbird,” June says, a chipped mug in her hand. She squints at me over the rim, her gaze soft but direct. “You’re late.”

“Bus stalled,” I say, and the lie hangs in the air between us. She doesn’t call me on it.

June snorts, her ponytail high and defiant. “The city’s always stalling.” She puts the mug down. “You okay?”

It wasn’t really a question, and we both know it. It’s the script we follow, a ritual born of months, maybe years, of just showing up. A way to say, I see you. I know. And sometimes, that’s enough .

I give her a tired smile. I lean my guitar against the bar and slide onto the nearest stool. When I touch the bar it’s sticky from too many spilled-drinks that have soaked into the wood and formed their own kind of varnish.

She pours black coffee without asking and sets it in front of me like it’s a gift from the gods. I wrap both hands around the mug. Too hot. Too bitter. Just right.

“Lucky night,” she says, nodding toward the sagging curtain that passes for a stage. “Couple acts canceled. You get a full set.”

“Oh, joy,” I murmur. “A whole fifteen people to ignore me instead of three.”

She laughs—soft, raspy. “Don’t be like that. You know you pull ‘em in.”

I glance around. There are two guys hovering near the jukebox, one already slumped over his drink. A couple in a back booth are tangled up in a whispered fight. June’s definition of “pull” is generous.

“Packed house,” I say, deadpan.

June just grins and hands me a coaster for my mug. “Hey. Atmosphere’s not everything.”

I pull my guitar case onto the barstool next to me, fingers working the latches with more muscle memory than intention. The click of each one settles something in my chest. It’s a ritual. A prayer.

“Any chance someone finally fixed the amp?” I ask, not really expecting it to have been done.

She raises a brow. “Same chance as they fixed the ladies’ room door. ”

“So… zero.”

I lift the guitar from the case like I’m drawing a weapon. My fingers find the strings, tighten a peg, test a note. The vibration hums through me—low and sweet—like it’s tuning my bones. Like maybe, if I’m still long enough, it’ll hold me together. It’s the only thing that still feels like mine.

“City eats people like you,” June says quietly.

I blink. “People like me?”

“Ones who still feel things.”

I don’t know how to respond to that, so I nod, then cover the awkward feeling by taking another scalding sip.

In my periphery, I see the stage curtain sway, even though no one touched it. A draft, maybe. Or something else. The lights overhead stutter like they’re thinking twice. My stomach knots. June doesn’t react, so I don’t either.

“You know,” June says, drying a glass that’s already clean, “when you sing, this place changes.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“An observation,” she says with a half-smile and a shrug before she leans in. “You hush the room, Skye. Even the drunk ones listen.”

I want to believe her. I do. But all I feel most nights is invisible.

“I’ve still got rent due by Friday,” I say instead.

“I know.” Her voice softens. “Wish I could do more.”

“You already do.” I gesture to the stage. “You give me space.”

“It’s not just space,” she says, a tired smile on her face. “It’s belief. ”

That lands heavier than I expect. I shrug and look down at the strings, brushing my thumb across the smooth wood, grounding myself. My guitar doesn’t lie and it doesn’t make promises it can’t keep.

The bell over the door rings, three quick chimes like a warning.

A couple more bodies shuffle in, shedding rain and indifference.

I glance at the janky clock. It’s show time.

Sliding off the stool, I slip the strap over my head, the familiar weight settling onto my shoulder.

I grab the empty case, carrying it with me, stashing it on the side before stepping onto the stage.

The tip jar’s already out. Nearly empty—just a single sad five crumpled like it’s ashamed to be there. A few coins rattling at the bottom.

This stage isn’t much. A cracked amp, a blown speaker, a curtain that sags like it’s tired of pretending. But when I step up here, for a few minutes, I get to be something else. Not a sister with too many bills. Not a girl still grieving a ghost. Not a body surviving in a city that never saw her.

I inhale. My foot taps the worn floor in sync with the rhythm in my head. The one that keeps me standing. The one that says just one more song.

The strap digs into my shoulder. My fingers itch. The air feels thicker on stage, full of dust and old echoes. I glance over the room, one final time before beginning.

The crowd is indifferent as usual, but my eyes catch, for a moment, on a shadowy shape at the back of the room. Something silver flashes but it’s gone so fast I think I must have imagined it.

I step up to the mic. Feedback crackles as I exhale—then I sing .

The words come. I didn’t plan which song to sing, I never do, but it’s always there, ready and flowing. A song that embodies what I’m feeling in the moment. This time it’s Words by Skylar Grey.

The moment I start singing, the rest of the world drops away.

My voice threads through the static in the amp, a soft rasp smoothed by melody. I keep the first verse low, intimate—something private said too loud. My fingers glide over the strings, calluses catching on metal. That first chords settle into me like the first breath after almost drowning.

The room doesn’t hush all at once. It never does.

It’s a slow bleed—one barstool turning toward the stage, one conversation trailing off mid-sentence. Someone laughs, loud and jagged, but it dies on the second verse. The rhythm isn’t perfect. The mic hisses with age, but I keep going.

I always keep going.

It’s not about being heard. It’s about making the silence answer back.

I don’t look up, not at first. If I do, it’ll break this moment. The fragile stillness, the thing in my chest that only survives when no one sees too much of it. I sing to the floor, to the cracked grain of the stage, to the weight of everything I can’t say out loud.

But I feel it. The shift. The pull.

It starts as a chill against my skin, like the air is changing density, becoming thicker and heavier. Then I feel a presence from the back of the room, coiled in the dark like it belongs there. I glance up, just for a heartbeat. And I see him .

In the far corner. Booth half-swallowed by shadow. He’s leaning forward which partially reveals him. A sleeve of a pitch-black coat, and hints of long white hair. Every other face in the room is slack, distracted, or glazed over—but not his. He watches like he already knows how this song ends.

Still. Unmoving. A silhouette made of silence.

Something catches in my throat. I miss a breath, skip a half-beat, but keep the rhythm. My fingers move on muscle memory alone. Knowing that if I stop, I might unravel.

Whoever he is, he doesn’t blink. Doesn’t sip the mandatory drink in front of him. He just stares. And the strangest part is…I don’t feel afraid.

I should. Men don’t look at women like that in this city without wanting something. Something more than I’m willing to give, but there’s no hunger in his gaze. No expectation. No heat.

Only a weight. Like he’s seeing something I didn’t know I was showing.

I shift, letting the melody drift into one of my own songs—an old one, written on the floor of my apartment during a rainstorm that lasted three days. A song that bleeds my soul, pouring all my loss and longing into music and words. The chords fall into place like old bones settling.

“Leave the porch light on,

In case I come home ghost-shaped,

A shadow still chasing a name…”

The words come easier than they should. Maybe it’s the stare. Maybe it’s the way the bar holds its breath around me. My voice gets a little louder. Not braver—just clearer. The song is pulling me forward and I’m trying to keep up .

Another glance. He hasn’t moved, but something around him has.

The light behind the bar flickers, dimming slightly—like a gust of wind passed through without touching anything else. No one else seems to notice. No one but me.

June is wiping glasses, focused on her own rhythm. The drunk at the jukebox slumps deeper. My skin prickles. My voice falters, just for a breath. Then I find the thread again.

“I carry rooms with me

People I can’t forget

Even when they’ve left their names behind…”

The man in the corner tilts his head. Slowly. Like he’s asking a question. The light seems to pool in his eyes, reflecting with a silvery tint.

For a moment—just a blink—I swear I see something move behind him. A blur. A shadow with too many edges. When I blink again, it’s gone. He’s just a man and it’s just a booth. Even so it leaves my hands trembling.

I shift my stance, replant my feet, and wrap the final verse tight around me like armor. I don’t look at him again. Not directly. But I feel him.

Watching. Listening. Like the music matters to him in a way that I can’t comprehend. And it’s not only that he sees me. It’s that he knows me. In some, impossible, or at least improbable way.

The room breathes when the song ends. Not a cheer. Not applause. A subtle exhale. A quiet that feels like reverence or maybe exhaustion. Then the spell breaks and I’m just a girl on a stage again .