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Patricia Burroughs Untune the Sky, Volume Three of The Fury Triad.

I don't want to spoil anything for those who haven't read both the previous books, since these are not stand-alone novels but beginning-middle-end of a single tale. So please, leave comments, but show the same care!

Here is a snippet, unedited and rough, but I hope it gives you a taste to hold you over....

~o~o~o~

She shoved away, swallowed the stone in her throat, choking on tears she refused to shed.

He touched her chin with his fingertip and a shiver shimmered over her skin. “Spill them,” he said. “Let them out.”

“No.”

“Then protect yourself,” he snapped. He leapt to his feet and yanked her after him. “Block me.”

And he assaulted her.

Not with mind magic. Not with Dark. But with the one weapon she never thought to defend herself from, not from him.

He raised her throbbing right hand high and the elevation lessened its throb.

He put his other arm around her, his hand on her back, and she froze in disbelief.

He began the studied [box step] she had guided them through at Myrtle Grove.

And then as straight from his cruel arsenal as any assault he’d used against her as an enemy—

Music...

He took his sinister silken voice that could so easily have cut her to the quick and turned it to even more pain. It was a soft, rumble of a baritone, velvety and warm.

And she had no defences—none—against this unexpected assault.

Ym mhalas Llwyn Onn gynt, fe drigai pendefig,
Efe oedd ysgweiar ac arglwydd y wlad;

Of music.

Ac iddo un eneth a anwyd yn unig,
A hi nôl yr hanes oedd aeres ei thad.

His voice.

Aeth cariad i'w gweled yn lân a phur lencyn,
Ond codai'r ysgweiar yn araf ac erch,
I aethu'r bachgennyn, ond gwyrodd ei linyn,
A'i ergyd yn wyrgam i fynwes ei ferch.

Persephone had thought the tinkling harpsichord would drive her to madness but this—this—

Oh goddess save her, this—

This left her as hollow as if he’d carved out her heart and her soul and sent the melody echoing through her, and left her unable to move except for the one, two, three stumbling of her feet in the sand, unable to buck his will as he sang—sang.

He sang with deceptive gentleness, sang that Welsh tune she’d first played in London to thwart him. The tune she’d played so achingly that it brought people to weeping.

He sang “Lwyn Onn”, the Welsh words so musical when spoken taking on new power, new pain, as song, his song, of a palace made of ash trees, of a powerful chieftain...

Stepping one, two, three. One, two, three.

Of a beautiful daughter who refused the offers of marriage from many wealthy suitors.

She only had eyes for a pure-hearted peasant,
Which kindled a rage in her proud father's chest.

Surely he didn't consider himself the pure-hearted!

He shot at her sweetheart, but misfired the arrow,
Which sunk itself deep in his dear daughter's breast.

She stumbled.

That arrow that struck her just as surely as it had the princess in the song, and why did he sing this of all songs, of a father's betrayal of his daughter?

But she knew.

Block me, he had demanded. Block me.

Even as the unceasing nightmare harpsichord in her head struck discord with his insufferably seductive voice. Because of course he who turned his wicked voice to silken seduction at will could turn it to music as well, a deep voice like sizzling honey tinged with delicate poison? Low and delicate, barely a whisper stirring tickling against her ear with Darkness, lacing even the sweetest honey with its poison.

And just as he surely had anticipated, her anguish was consumed by rage.

She blocked him, oh yes, and in a quick, fluid movement, she slipped her wand from her sleeve and jabbed it at his jugular, freezing him mid-word, mid-step.

Until he looked down that long nose at her and smirked.

Dhe sliced a hot blister down his neck.

She spun away from him but paused to glance over her shoulder at his scowl. "My beloved," she said with her own sweet poison. "I know I am nectar to your lips and heaven in your arms but surely you can restrain your urges whilst we have a guest?"

She sauntered away showing no rush, no indication of the blood curling in her veins in response to his, but savouring his frustration she felt with the hairs on the back of her neck.

After all, if he chose to manipulate her tears away and replace them with anger, how could she resist using it to retaliate?

He could heal a blister well enough.

And she kept her countenance sweetly bland, revealing nothing of the secretive smirk teasing the corners of her lips, that would reveal how fervently she anticipated his retaliation.