Page 50 of The Unseen Hour (The Unseen Hour Duology #1)
W ind whistled in my ears. The spray from the falls battered my face.
I only had time for a split-second of relief when we hit the water below, followed by terror as the force of the current pulled us under. We’d survived the rapids, and I wasn’t going to lose Orion so easily after everything we’d been through together.
The water twisted and spun me, but I clutched at Orion’s hand like a lifeline. With my other arm I held the waterskin close.
When my head broke the surface, I was still attached to Ry.
I hacked up water and began kicking for all I was worth.
“All right, Starlight?”
I nodded my head, getting my sopping hair in my eyes. I didn’t dare let go of the music or him to fix it.
“Just splendid,” I managed.
“This way.”
We moved toward calmer water. Directly under the falls, it had been churning, but it quickly quieted the farther away from them we got, thank the gods. My joints were still ringing like Fox Haven’s clock tower with its echoing chime on the Unseen Hour, but I forced my legs to kick.
We let the current carry us downstream a bit, but the water remained fairly calm.
When we were out of eyesight of Charon’s home and could reach the bank, we swam for it.
Orion hauled us both out of the water. We sat for several minutes, panting.
I wrung out my hair and checked inside the waterskin.
All gods be praised, the music was all right, all the notes still readable.
Orion sat with his knees bent up, his arms slung over them.
“Another fun adventure, wouldn’t you say?”
I laughed, but my throat was so raw that it soon turned into a hacking cough.
“I don’t know if those are the exact words I would have used. Although it hasn’t dampened my desire for travel in the slightest.”
He looked me up and down.
“Oh, you’re most definitely damp.”
“That may be the worst joke I’ve ever heard.”
I laughed anyway, then stood and spun, showering him with water droplets.
The thrill of escaping Charon, getting the second item, surviving the falls, and the lingering adrenaline from all three was thrumming through my veins.
I was sure my body would pay for it later when exhaustion kicked in, but for the moment, I had plenty of energy to move.
“Northeast, right?” I asked.
Orion stood as well, checking his satchel, which he’d managed to keep a hold on somehow.
“That’s right. And I suggest we cut a wide path around the Meadow.”
It would take longer, but if Charon was worried about his hour, it was possible he’d spend more time checking on his Shades. I hadn’t come this far only to be discovered on the brink of victory.
As predicted, my excitement waned once we’d been hiking for a while and my aching limbs made themselves known. Both of us decided not to use the remaining water from the cavern.
“Besides,” I tried to joke, although I knew my tone was frustrated, “I’m still dripping, so the last thing I need is more water. I have no desire to be this wet anywhere but the bath.”
A warm bath sounded like perfection in that moment, not that I truly needed one.
“And would there be room for two in that bath?” Orion nudged me.
The whole thing would have been unspeakably romantic, except for the fact that we were both still sopping and I was beginning to grow chilled.
I leaned into him as we walked, sighing as he lent me his warmth.
“It will be well into August by the time we reach the cottage, won’t it?” I asked, trying to make sure I had my count of the days right.
“I believe so. As the hour gets closer, I check the Shades. We might want to give it a bit of time, make sure Charon doesn’t notice anything amiss or wander through the Meadow, but then I’ll go check on them. I can tell by their behavior when the hour is getting close.”
There were a couple of Shades in particular that I hoped to meet, but I wanted to ask Orion’s thoughts on it before introducing myself to his brothers .
“We have both items. The next thing we need is to make sure we know where your father is,” Orion said.
And we were running out of time. I trusted Death, but I didn’t want to leave any stone of the Ether unturned.
I knew in my heart that if he really was in the same realm as me, I would probably have found him long ago.
But I wasn’t one for giving up, either. Until I heard otherwise, I would look for him.
I’d kept my eyes open the entire way to Charon’s, and I was doing the same on the return journey.
“We’ve got both items with us. Could we take a bit longer getting back to the cottage and check this area thoroughly on our way?”
“Absolutely, if that’s what you want. Although it will mean more foraging. Or hunting. You still have your knife?”
I checked my leg, finding the holster still in place. I was useless when it came to actually hunting anything, but Orion could make use of it, and I’d do my best if we ran into another predator.
The area we walked through as we weaved south of the Meadow combined portions of Charon’s home and the forest. There were trees, but the ground was rockier and harder to navigate.
“That’s part of why I didn’t choose to settle here,” Orion told me several days in. “There are enough dangers in the Ether. I didn’t want to add the possibility of breaking my leg by falling over a rock to the list.”
But if my father was still hiding, maybe he’d had a different strategy .
Orion kept the baton safely in his pack, but I couldn’t resist checking on the music frequently.
“I don’t think it’s going to disappear. It may belong to a god, but it’s not a god,” Ry reminded me for perhaps the thousandth time.
“Do you want to take a look at it?”
He shook his head.
“Death wanted you to keep it. And we know it’s powerful. That melody … it was irresistible.”
My mind went back to our actions in Charon’s piano room. Utterly shameless, and I didn’t regret one second.
“Do you think the music influenced our actions, somehow? Similar to how the Shade song affects people during the hour?”
“Shade song brings people to their death. This sheet music doesn’t do that. But I can’t deny that I felt something. Would you sing again? Your voice is beautiful.”
“Not as much as yours,” I countered.
“That’s only because I have Shade-enhancement. Yours was entrancing when you were humming to the first song you played, not just the one Charon wrote.”
“I was humming?” I hadn’t even noticed. “My piano skills are better than my voice.”
I was speaking from accuracy and not some ridiculous sense of self-deprecation.
“One song? Would it help if I told you that I’ll have the new book ready for you before the hour?”
How could I refuse that promise?
Instead of Charon’s Shade song, or the first piece I’d played in the god’s home, I decided on a another classical piece from Emrys.
I’d always enjoyed it. It was from a theater production where a man fell in love with a beautiful woman he saw in his garden.
He thought she was a ghost, because he only saw her walking through the plants and singing at night .
In the play, it turned out she was the princess of a lost kingdom. At the end, the two marry and he joins her in her land. That last bit had always appealed to me, but it was the song she sang walking through his gardens that I chose. It was one of loss, but also longing.
My own voice wasn’t as high as the original, but I changed the song’s key and managed to make my way through. At the end, there was a high note the piece called for, but I chose to go an octave lower.
When I’d finished I looked over to see Orion’s reaction, but he was no longer next to me. I spun, searching for him and finding him frozen a few feet behind me.
“Stunning,” he gasped. “I’ve never heard anything as breathtaking.”
I laughed.
“Now I know you are flattering me. My voice is good, but it certainly wouldn’t stop a man in his tracks, or bring him to his knees.”
Orion dropped, shuffling over on his knees, the look of awe replaced by a wicked grin.
“Oh, wouldn’t it?”
I laughed, swatting at him.
“You are impossible!”
“No, I am enraptured.” He reached out, grabbing my hand and planting a kiss on it. Then he stood and began trailing kisses up my arm. “And as for enjoying our last few months here, I think I know just what to do when we return home.”