A Death of Music

by A. A. Chamberlynn

  “You first,” Dynah said with a laugh.

  Felicity smiled shyly and ducked through the open flap, and Dynah followed a moment later. The tent was much more spacious than it looked from the outside, reminding Dynah of the fortune teller’s tent. The ground was covered with rugs and furs and scattered with pillows of all sizes. She let out a small gasp. She’d never seen such luxurious fabric in her life. Silks and velvets and brocades. Pillows with fine tassels, pillows with ornate buttons. Everything was white or cream or eggshell, like some sort of arctic den.

  “Wow,” Felicity murmured.

  “That’s what I was just thinking,” Dynah said.

  She slipped off her boots and left them in the doorway, and Felicity did the same. She realized it was the first time she’d taken them off in days. They’d been riding almost nonstop, other than when Atsa had ridden with them, and even then, she hadn’t slept. Undressing hadn’t been necessary. Seeing all of these clean, beautiful surfaces, she suddenly longed for a hot bath and a nightgown.

  But, Rider of the Apocalypse or no, there was nary a nightgown in sight, so she’d have to make do.

  Dynah took off her brown cloak and draped it over a pile of pillows. Next came her socks and her black breeches and her crown of bones and jewels. It was strange that all of this clothing had come from magic, from their transformation. Like the feast, like the tent. She really needed to figure out how to use her magic to create things like this. The night air kissed her bare legs and she sighed. “Hey, can you help me with this corset?”

  Silence was her response. Dynah twisted her red curls into a bun and looked over her shoulder at Felicity, who stared at her with wide eyes. She was still fully dressed.

  “Um, yes. I can help,” Felicity said after a moment.

  Dynah turned back around. She heard Felicity’s footsteps as she approached from behind, felt her pause as her fingers hovered over the strings at the back of the corset.

  “I’ve never worn one either,” Dynah said, assuming Felicity was trying to figure it out. “They do seem quite tricky to get on and off.”

  “It’s not that,” Felicity said after a moment. “I’ve worn them before. My mother insisted.”

  Dynah felt Felicity’s fingers at the top of the corset as she started working on the knot there.

  “I just…” Felicity trailed off. “I never had friends growing up. It just surprised me, you undressing, is all.”

  “Oh.” Dynah let out a laugh. “Yeah, Penelope and I shared a room our whole life. I don’t know what it’s like to not see someone else undress every night. But we’re just girls. Or women.” She paused a moment. “I’m sorry you didn’t have friends. That must have been very lonely.”

  Felicity didn’t answer for a long moment, and then she just said, “Yes.”

  The cords of the corset began to loosen as Felicity worked down Dynah’s back. “That feels so much better,” Dynah said with a sigh.

  “So, when those demons asked us to… you know,” Felicity said tentatively. “You seemed surprised. But back at Hawk’s Hollow, everyone coveted you.”

  “Coveted, yes,” Dynah said. “But acted on? Rarely. Or just stuff like whistles or comments. Nothing so bold as the offer we got tonight.”

  “You weren’t… tempted in the slightest? That man was certainly handsome.”

  Dynah turned her head to try to glimpse Felicity over her shoulder. “Why, were you?”

  “No!” Felicity said forcefully.

  “Then why do you think I was?”

  Felicity’s fingers slowed on the strings of the corset. “I don’t know… I suppose I just assumed you have more experience in those areas than I do.”

  Dynah snorted. “What kind of a lady do you think I am?”

  A few memories popped into her head, however, times with Billy that had almost gone too far. It had only been the knowledge that she needed him to marry her, and couldn’t ruin her incentive for that, that had stopped her. It all seemed completely ridiculous in hindsight.

  “I’m sorry,” Felicity stammered. “I just—well, you are kind of a flirt.”

  The corset came undone at that moment and slid to the floor. Dynah turned around, nothing but her red hair covering her chest. “A flirt?!”

  “I don’t mean that in a bad way… I just…” Felicity took a deep breath, let it out. “You have to understand the kind of household I grew up in. My mother thought you could go to Hell just for looking at a man a certain way.”

  “Well, are you your mother?”

  “No.”

  “Then don’t act like it.” Dynah took Felicity by the shoulders and turned her around. “You next.”

  She unclasped Felicity’s cloak and tossed it over by her own. Felicity shivered as the air hit her bare arms. Her skin rippled with goosebumps. Out of habit, Dynah placed her palms over Felicity’s biceps and rubbed to warm her up.

  Looking at the back of Felicity’s corset, she realized she was way out of her depth. It was solid black, like her own, and the laces crisscrossed down the back, woven in and out of eyelets in a complicated pattern. She remembered that Felicity had started at the top, and found where the strings were tied in a knot. Her fingers began to work at loosening it.

  “I’m starting to realize that lots of things my mother said were wrong,” Felicity said, breaking the silence. “I mean, I suspected before, but now that we’ve become Riders, now that I know what I know, it’s…it validates my suspicions.”

  “I know what you mean,” Dynah said. “I view everything from a different perspective now. I still have my old thoughts and feelings and memories, but now I also have this…expansion of my mind. Like I’ve lived a thousand lives before this one. Like I’ve seen the whole world. Beyond even.”

  “Exactly.” Felicity let out a big breath as her corset loosened the first little bit. “The demons, for instance. I never would have thought before that something from Hell could be anything but evil. And I’m not saying that some of them aren’t… but they clearly have some good in them. Maybe that’s just it—it’s not all black and white. There’s a gray area. Growing up, there were no gray areas.”

  “I had a strict upbringing in a lot of ways, but it doesn’t sound anywhere near what yours was,” Dynah said. She had finally gotten into a rhythm with the laces and was about halfway down Felicity’s back now. “You should seek out those things that you used to be close-minded about, and…well, open them.”

  “Open them?”

  “Yes. When you recognize something the old Felicity, or rather, the old Felicity’s mother, would have done, just do the opposite.”

  Felicity was silent for a moment. “That would have resulted in spending the night with two demons.”

  Silence fell between them, and then Felicity giggled. Dynah laughed. “Ha, well don’t forget I would have been there!”

  Felicity giggled again, which soon dissolved into a full-on laugh. Which helped significantly in loosening the corset the rest of the way. As it slid to the floor, Felicity reached up and covered her chest.

  “You can turn around, silly,” Dynah said. “Remember, I saw my sister in the nude every night. It’s hardly anything I haven’t seen before.”

  Dynah laid down on a pile of soft blankets a couple of feet away. She was bare except for her underwear, and it felt marvelous. She thought she might even be able to sleep tonight.

  Felicity slowly turned around. She’d uncrossed her arms, though she still held them in tight against her sides, stiff as a puppet. Against the pale tones of the blankets and pillows, Felicity’s skin was a beautiful warm cocoa, her hair a shade of the night outside.

  “Your skin is so pretty,” Dynah said. “Warm. Mine is so pale. Like ice.” She held her arms out before her, turning them this way and that to prove her point.

  Felicity just stared at her a moment, then said, “Thank you.”

  “Well, it’s true.” Dynah rolled over onto her back and stared up at the ceiling of the tent. “You know, I th
ink that was the first time I’ve ever heard you laugh.”

  “What?”

  “A couple minutes ago. When you said you would have spent the night with the demons.”

  “Oh.” Felicity smiled, then sat down in her own pile of blankets and started to work on getting her breeches unfastened.

  “I guess maybe doing the opposite of anything your mother would have done could be extreme in some circumstances.” Dynah laughed. “But you get my point.”

  Felicity finished tugging off her pants and tossed them down by the door of the tent. She looked supremely uncomfortable without her clothing, and pulled one of the blankets up over her, then turned on her side, propped up on one elbow, to face Dynah.

  “I do,” she said. She paused several moments, then said, “What will you do differently? Now that you can.”

  Dynah stilled. She hadn’t thought much about it. She rolled up on one elbow like Felicity and looked into the other woman’s dark eyes.

  “I suppose…well, I was thinking about it just a few minutes ago.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “With Billy. Really, with everything. My main goal was to find a husband to take care of me.”

  “My mother was trying to marry me off to a stranger,” Felicity said with a shiver.

  “Really? That’s awful. I’m really starting to dislike your mother.” Dynah played with the fringe trim of one of her pillows. “But back to Billy… to marriage… that’s just completely off the table now. A normal life.”

  Felicity pulled her blanket against her chest even tighter. “Does that make you sad?”

  Dynah shook her head. “I thought it would, but it doesn’t. It was all part of the trap set for me. I was just a pretty bird kept in a cage. Saving herself for marriage. Trying to set my own trap for the perfect husband.” She snorted. “It all seems pretty silly now, when we’re trying to stop the Apocalypse.”

  “I felt like I was in a trap, too,” Felicity said. “But for a totally different reason.”

  “We all have our roles to fill as women. Told what to do, how to act, how to feel. I pretended to have the upper hand, but I didn’t. Not really.” Dynah looked over at Felicity and shivered. “I got lucky because I was pretty. So that meant I had more choices of husband. But that didn’t change my fate in life. Ultimately, whether I ended up with Billy and you ended up with the stranger, we would have had pretty much the same life. Wives of men and nothing more.”

  “And now we’re Riders,” Felicity said. “Nothing is the same.”

  Dynah sighed. “I can’t even think about having a normal life anymore.”

  But as she said the words, Dynah realized she wanted something. Something beyond this journey to find the final three seals. Something beyond saving the world. She wanted to get out from under Heaven’s thumb, that was for sure. Just another cage of many. She wanted her power, her magic. That much, she knew. But everything else?

  She had no clue what the future held anymore.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Willow

  Willow pulled Indigo into the tent with her. There wasn’t much left to say; they’d been talking for hours. And it had been a foregone conclusion from the moment they set eyes on each other that this moment was inevitable.

  So, they put their lips to better use, meeting in a tangle of heat and skin and limbs.

  But it wasn’t Indigo’s beautiful cinnamon skin that she saw, it wasn’t his hands that she felt. It was another night, with the rain coming down. Skin a few shades lighter, eyes that were blue and not purple.

  She gasped and pushed him back.

  “Is everything okay?” His brow wrinkled in concern.

  Willow needed this to be different. No rushed, furious collision of bodies. No frantic tumble. She needed to forget.

  She met Indigo’s eyes and pushed him to his knees in front of her. His concern melted away, replaced by that same flirtatious smile that had captivated her earlier in the evening. Slowly, not breaking eye contact, she stripped off her leather duster and tossed it onto the floor. Next came her shirt. Her pale hair cascaded to her waist.

  Indigo placed his hands tentatively at her belt buckle, and she nodded to allow it. He unbuckled it with steady hands and slid it free, including her gun and holster, then started on the button of her pants. When he had them undone, he peeled them down, like a flower unfurling. Next, he tugged off her boots and threw them into the corner of the tent. The night air was cool on her skin as she stood bare before him.

  His lips dusted kisses over her hips, her thighs. Willow sighed and closed her eyes. She felt a flush of heat that banished the wintry nip in the air. Every curve, every inch of skin, every cell in her body sung with anticipation. Indigo worshipped her, excruciating in his attentiveness. When she thought she might die from it, if such a thing were even possible, she pulled off his vest and pressed him back into the pillows.

  Indigo’s boots and pants joined hers in the corner. Willow watched him watching her, feasting on the vision of her flesh. She devoured him as well, drinking in every bit of his beautiful dark skin, the ripple of his muscles, the violet of his eyes. Slowly, she knelt over him, leaving kisses on his chest, his collarbone, his jaw, then finally, his lips. When she finally brought them together, it felt like velvet and gold dust and music.

  And forgetting, forgetting, forgetting…

  Afterward, they lay in the furs and Indigo stroked her bare shoulders absentmindedly as she lay on his chest.

  “I wonder what Sassafras will tell us tomorrow,” Willow said.

  Indigo chuckled, and she felt the rumble of his chest against her ear. “Oh, is that why you’re in my bed? Trying to get an inside ear?”

  “You’re actually in my bed, remember?” Willow looked up at him and he grinned. “But no. Tonight was just for me. For selfish reasons.”

  “Well, I’m happy to help you with being selfish anytime you like.”

  She laughed. “Can I tell you a secret, though?” She didn’t wait for a reply. “We’re not actually working for Heaven.”

  Indigo stiffened, his brows raised. “Oh? Then who?”

  “No one. Well, not really. We met this Fallen angel, Beziel, and he’s kind of helping us. But we’re not sure we should trust him, either.”

  Indigo was silent for so long that Willow finally looked up at him.

  “This is such interesting news,” he said. “Unprecedented.”

  “You don’t sound happy about it. I thought you’d be glad I wasn’t working for your enemy.”

  “I am, I suppose.” His eyes were so serious it made her shiver. “But this makes me worried for you.”

  “Heaven doesn’t know we aren’t on their side.”

  “But they’ll find out. And then they’ll stop at nothing to end you.”

  His words cut through her like a blade. “I guess demons don’t sugarcoat things, do they?”

  Indigo frowned. “You’re smarter than that, Willow. And stronger. You don’t need to be coddled like a child.”

  She sat up, propping up on her elbow. “That’s true.”

  “You are also wise not to trust Beziel. The Fallen… they hold no allegiances.”

  “And demons do?”

  “Yes. When it suits us.”

  Silence fell between them. Outside, Willow could hear the wind in the trees.

  Presently, Indigo said, “Sassafras will certainly be interested in this turn of events. It’s not at all what we expected.” He caught her in his gaze. “You are not what I expected.”

  “And neither are you.”

  He smiled and pulled her against him again. “So, if you don’t work for anyone but yourself, what is it that you and your fellow Riders want?”

  “To stop the Apocalypse. Save humanity.”

  “And after that?”

  “Keep our powers. I guess we’ll need to learn to use them in a different way.”

  “Perhaps I can help with that.” His fingers began to stroke her skin again. “And what else? What does
your life hold as a Rider of the non-Apocalypse?”

  Willow shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

  “Well, I hope you find it,” Indigo said. “Whatever it is you desire.”

  She couldn’t help but detect the note of sadness in his tone. As if he didn’t think they’d reach that future place and time. And for the first time, she wondered if her days were limited.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Penelope

  Penelope woke before the dawn, lying in the warm pile of furs in her tent. She’d dreamed of Atsa all night, trapped down in Spider Woman’s lair. In her dream, he’d changed, slowly, and when she’d finally arrived to rescue him, he hadn’t resembled the man she’d left behind at all. He’d become a thing that craved the darkness.

  Anxiety swam through her veins, and it wasn’t just her disturbing dreams. They needed to get going again. To ride. They had lingered too long here. Less than two days remained before the fifth seal was broken, and they didn’t even know where it was yet.

  When she heard stirring from the others, she got up and dressed quickly, then stepped out into the cold morning. The sun was just coming over the mountains. Willow and Indigo emerged from their tent together, as did Dynah and Felicity. Penelope felt a stir of her old loneliness. She belonged to no one, and no one belonged to her. She shoved it down the best she could.

  “Sassafras will see you now,” Indigo said to the four of them.

  He gestured for them to follow him down the hill. They headed back to the encampment, and Indigo led them to the far side to a large purple tent. An airship was parked next to it, reminding Penelope of Willow’s mother. Indigo stopped at the opening of the tent and held it open for them.

  Penelope went first, ducking inside. The inside of the tent didn’t look like a tent at all, but rather like an old hunting lodge. Weathered oak floors and walls. A roaring fire set in a stone fireplace. Leather-backed chairs scattered here and there, and a large table in the center. On the top of the table sat a ceramic pitcher filled with wildflowers. And a cat, watching them with spring-green eyes, tail wrapped around its paws.