A Tune to Make Them Follow

A TUNE TO MAKE THEM FOLLOW THE SEVERED REALMS T.A. LAWRENCE Copyright © 2022 by T.A. Lawrence All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Cover copyright © 2022 by Karri Klawiter Created with Vellum For Jacob, My favorite adventure of all CONTENTS Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Chapter 55 Chapter 56 Chapter 57 Epilogue About the Author Also by T.A. Lawrence Acknowledgments CHAPTER 1 PIPER It should have been harder to take the children. For that, I blamed the parents. But, then again, if it weren’t for the lousy parents, I wouldn’t have found their children in the first place. A bonfire licked at the chilled evening air, dancing with the constellations as I played. My fingers drummed my flute to a beat only I sensed, only I felt. The crowd only heard the result, the music, light and ethereal, as the villagers joined the fire in its dance. Men and women twirled in rhythm to the tune, loose hair sailing in circles around the village square. Children clapped and stomped off-beat while their laughter harmonized with the notes flowing from the tip of my wooden flute, the same one I’d played that first night for Bronger. The same one I’d played the first time I took one of them. Not here, of course. No, I’d had to travel well out of my comfort zone, the glades, into the far reaches of Avelea, almost to the border of Dwellen, to find this place, this tiny little village so far from fae civilization, they wouldn’t have heard of the red-headed half-fae who played a flute like no one had ever heard. The girl whose music would fill their hearts with such mirth, they’d hardly notice when something went missing. When someone went missing. In the glow of the firelight, a young woman dragged her husband into the dance, his reluctant feet practically burrowing into the dust in protest. But as soon as my gift delved into the chorus, his shoulders relaxed, and he tugged at her outstretched arm, reeling his wife back into his chest with such eagerness, she let out a gasp of delight as he caught her in his arms before twirling her about. Her laughter pierced the night, hooking into my heart and yanking taut. I turned my attention elsewhere, inward, burrowing into the warm cocoon of my gift’s music, and I allowed it to take over for a while, guiding my fingers, numbing that fierce, jealous ache as my body swayed. The entire village ended their dance on one glorious stomp that coincided perfectly with the last strike of my fingers against the keys. Heat flushed the women’s cheeks as their skin glistened in the firelight. The men laughed, perhaps feeling a tad silly for having lost themselves so completely to the music. Children scurried around, not nearly as affected by the tune as their parents. I was used to that. It was never the joyful tunes that captivated the children. They had not yet lost the ability to conjure the feeling on their own. The cold wood of my flute brushed my lips once more, and the song that emerged this time was not like the four others I’d already played, the ones that had a way about them that made the villagers whisper the next morning that their feet had danced with a mind of their own. Nor was it like the next five tunes I would play, the ones that would erase the memory of this song altogether. It was imperative that they wouldn’t remember it. The dirge dripped from the tip of my flute, weeping faintly into the air, the beat barely distinguishable between each pulse, a chasm of time separating each one. Puzzled looks crept over the faces of the adults as the bonfire cast shadows over their eyes. Then, just as they always did, they shook off the oddity of my song choice and determined to take advantage of the moment. After all, it wasn’t every day such a talented musician wandered upon a village so far from fae civilization. The adults each found a partner and began to sway softly to the music, assuming I had meant it for a slow dance. The children, bored with the dragging tune, returned to the game of tag they’d been playing when I’d arrived. Except for her. She had wrangled her mousy brown hair into a mangled lump on the side of her head that I assumed was supposed to be a braid. Dried dirt clung to her pale cheeks, her undernourished skin almost translucent in the firelight. She looked to be about ten, though she might have been older, her age obscured by the stunting of her height, her body’s hesitation to launch her into maturity. That wasn’t what caught my attention, though. All the children in this village were underfed. It was simply the nature of living so far from the fae trade routes. It was that she, like so many I’d taken before her, heard my tune for what it truly was. An invitation. Her eyes took on the form of the moon, watching over us. Even from a distance,