Chapter 10: THE HUNDREDTH VOICE
Someone was singing my song.
I stopped in the doorway of the Crossroads Inn, pack over my shoulder, road dust still settling on my boots. A merchant at the card table was humming "The Burning South" while he played, the melody unmistakable despite his off-key interpretation.
Four months since I'd written that song. Four months since the Kowalczyk family had given me their truth to sing.
Now a stranger in a tavern I'd never visited knew it by heart.
"—fled the burning south, with nothing but their lives," the merchant sang under his breath. His companions didn't seem to notice; the song had become background, familiar, unremarkable.
My song. Spreading without me.
I found a table in the corner and ordered ale, watching the room. The merchant finished his card game and left, still humming. A serving girl cleared tables, her lips moving to words I couldn't quite hear. When she passed near enough, I caught the fragments: "—white wolf on the road, silver blade and—"
"The White Wolf's Road." Another composition of mine, written six months ago about monster hunters and lonely highways. I'd performed it maybe a dozen times across Temeria.
Now it lived in this girl's mouth, in this tavern, in this town I'd never been.
Something shifted inside me.
The sensation was hard to describe—like a key turning in a lock I hadn't known existed. Power I'd been accumulating for eighteen months suddenly coalesced, threads weaving into rope, potential becoming actual. My skin tingled. The air tasted different, charged with possibility.
Is this it? Is this Stage 2?
I finished my ale and approached the innkeeper. "I'm a traveling bard. Any chance you need entertainment tonight?"
He looked me over with the practiced eye of a man who'd heard that question a thousand times. "You any good?"
"I wrote 'The Burning South.'"
His eyebrows rose. "That's a bold claim."
"Test me. If the crowd doesn't like what they hear, I'll pay for my own drinks."
An hour later, I stood on a small stage in front of thirty people, lute in hand, and reached for the power.
It answered differently than before.
The emotional resonance that had been a gentle push now flowed like water, filling spaces I hadn't known were empty. I could feel the crowd—not just sense their general mood, but perceive individual emotional states like distinct colors in a painting. The merchant's lingering satisfaction from his card game. The serving girl's bone-deep exhaustion. The young couple in the corner, nervous and new and desperately wanting this night to be special.
I played to all of them.
The music carried weight it had never held before. When I sang of joy, the room brightened without candles being lit. When I touched sadness, tears came easier. The emotional influence wasn't stronger, exactly—it was deeper, more precise, more real.
This is Stage 2.
After the set, I sat in my corner with the best wine the house offered and let myself feel satisfied. Eighteen months of work. Eighteen months of traveling, collecting stories, building a reputation song by song. The threshold had been crossed.
I thought about that first performance at the Red Boar, back when I was still learning what I could do. The drunk who'd resisted me—Andrei—and the lesson he'd taught about hostile minds. That fumbling experiment had led here, to power that hummed beneath my skin like a second heartbeat.
What else can I do now?
The texts I'd studied suggested Stage 2 unlocked new abilities. Healing melodies. Battle hymns. The capacity to affect supernatural beings, however slightly.
A tired merchant at the next table was nursing a headache, massaging his temples between sips of ale. I watched him for a moment, then made a decision.
I hummed a healing melody. Nothing dramatic, nothing that would draw attention—just a soft tune under my breath, reaching toward the man's pain.
The power flowed. Different from emotional influence, more focused, more demanding. I felt the effort in my throat, my chest, my bones. But the merchant's hands dropped from his temples. His shoulders loosened. He took a deeper breath than he had all evening.
It works.
I stopped humming. The strain faded, leaving me tired but not depleted. Minor healing was possible now—nothing like a real healer could accomplish, but enough to ease pain, reduce fever, clear minor toxins.
The merchant looked around, confused, as if he'd forgotten what was bothering him. Then he shrugged and returned to his drink.
Stage 2. Voice alone carries power. Healing. Battle enhancement. Fear projection.
I needed to test all of it. Carefully, privately, somewhere without witnesses. But tonight, I let myself simply sit with the achievement.
Eighteen months of work. A hundred voices singing songs I'd written. Power growing in response to belief.
I ordered another cup of wine and raised it in a silent toast to the Kowalczyks, wherever they were. Their truth had started this.
Tomorrow, I'd begin exploring what Stage 2 could really do. Tonight, I'd earned a celebration.
The wine was excellent. The fire was warm. And somewhere out there, a hundred strangers were humming my melodies, feeding power they didn't know existed to a bard they'd never met.
Not bad for a dead man from another world.
I started humming a battle hymn under my breath, testing whether I could sustain the enhancement effect while doing other things. The power stirred, ready and waiting.
Eighteen months down. Eighteen more until Posada.
I had work to do.
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