Page 61 of Monster's Melody

Why won’t you fight for us?

I stood in the middle of a swarm of people, so many people streaming past, their thoughts grazing mine, like tiny blurs of lightning bolting past.

We’re lost.

We’re unfound.

No one knows where we are.

We’re gone,

Gone.

Gone.

Why won’t you find us?

Even though the world was made of shadows and nothing more, the people streaming by mere ghosts of lives once lived, I felt every loss as if it was happening right then, as if the people and their lives were lost right in that moment.

Gone.

That place inside me, that place that had cracked, it gaped wide and the anguish of millions poured in.

I couldn’t contain it all, so as the shadows came for me, as Lydrel Zowen came for me, I opened my mouth and I sang to him the melody of his life, the melody of his legacy.

I sang the song of loss, pouring all the anguish and grief millions of people had felt during his rampage through the realms.

The Shadow Realm itself shook and buckled as my voice exposed the cracks at its center, the souls it was still eating to this day.

A roar I recognized.

The roar of a madman.

Of a killer.

Of a man who’d loved his mate too much to live without her and not become a monster.

“I see you!”I shouted into the abyss.“And so does Celia!”

The roar increased in volume and the dragon we all feared appeared in streams of shadow.“Do not speak her name,” he hissed at me.

I didn’t bother to respond.

Instead, I flung my voice out, once more singing the melody of a million losses, but this time adding in the horror of seeing the one you love descend into darkness.

With a roar of rage, Zowen flung me from the Shadow Realm.

Again.

I hit the ground hard and rolled over with a groan.

“I’m getting really tired of this,” I muttered as Vorzak helped me sit up, The Hissies petting me frantically.“I’m okay,” I told them as I struggled to my feet.

The Hissies weren’t particularly interested in helping me stand or walk as they writhed around me, petting me, wrapping my legs, nesting in my hair, and generally making nuisances of themselves.

Understanding they were simply frantic with worry, as was Vorzak, I pet them and dropped kisses on their heads, crooning softly to them, as Vorzak seethed in frustration at my back.

Soothing him would take a lot more time than soothing The Hissies and would go better if it was accomplished in privacy.