Melody

Part one

Arista, a flower native to Briar, with cornflower blue petals during the day, that transformed into a vivid shade of Persian pink as the sun set. They only bloomed here, herbologists all over the world had tried growing them in other nations, but to no avail. They were so rare in fact, that they only grew in one specific part of Briar.

The Heart.

I had been so arrogant to think that I could be the first in a century to cross the forest, and for what? Pretty flowers that could change their pigment? All because I had been commissioned by the mayor’s daughter to make her a gown entirely out of flowers, and only aristas were sturdy enough for this project. Any other flower would either wither by the time I was finished, or crumple as I worked. 

I should have declined, but the I needed the money. No one paid like the mayor, no one could afford it. With this money, I could buy so many new materials, dozens of sheets of silk and velvet, in a multitude of colours rather than just choosing one.

I could make more clothes, accept more commissions, create new designs. All I had to do was make it across a forest and jump over a river.

And I did. I was making my way through the true Heart of Briar, now inhabited by ruins, when blinding pain invaded my body. I looked at my legs in a panic and saw cobalt scales wrapping around my leg.

A Nymphe snake.

It released me as I screamed, its fangs still soaked in my blood.

“Cause of death: bit by a venomous snake”. I could already see my tombstone. “Aurore Jour, a seamstress”. This was all it would say, that’s all I was. Not a wife, or mother, or even a sister or daughter. Just a simple seamstress.

It must have been in the midst of my fever induced delirium that I heard someone softly play a lyre in the distance. Still dying, I rose, and made my way towards the melody.

***

The music guided me through a long-lost village. Corpses laid in the grass resembling daises, completely intact, as if they had been asleep this whole time. It guided me past the homes of the villagers, past an orchard where plants still thrived, with moonflower blossoms and fruits of the sun ready to be picked. And finally, to an ancient castle, walls adorned with thorns and roses.

The music came from within the castle, but I couldn’t tell where. It kept me going, as if it had enchanted me. It didn’t matter that I was bleeding out, or that the poison in my system was shutting down my organs one by one. Maybe it was the melody itself that had kept me alive for so long, that was postponing my inevitable death.

When I reached the last room in the castle, a bedchamber in its most secluded wing, the music stopped.

A girl with raven feathered hair slept in the room, on a bed embroidered with threads of pure gold and silver, clutching the very lyre I had heard, for it was her namesake.

I remembered a tale from the past, about a cursed village and its princess who had decided fall with her people. There was a remedy, according to the legend. A way to awaken the princess and the villagers, to restore the Heart to Briar, but it was long forgotten.

Mesmerised, I approached her to try to awaken her, but to my horror her skin turned to ash as I tried to feel for her pulse.

Lyre crumbled beneath my fingertips as I backed away from her bed, suddenly reminded of my own approaching death.

I tried running, but the door had been sealed behind me, not even locked, sealed. The wood had calcified, melting into the wall. This room had become both mine and Lyre’s tomb.

A sudden gust of wind blew into the bedchamber through what had once been the only window in this room. I would have considered jumping from it to escape, but I knew the fall would shatter my bones immediately. I instead wished I had my cape with me.

And once again I heard something, and I chose to blame it on my delirium, only it was a voice this time.