To Cassandra Fairchild, going blind was simply a part of life.

Or that was what she had told herself over and over in the seven years that had passed since her father first sat her down and explained the nature of stone song. She had inherited his gift for the song and the accompanying fate of blindness. She had never really spent much time considering what that would mean for her practically speaking.

At first singing a song or two just made the edges of her vision blurry. As the years passed and her powers grew the cost became more pronounced. She would see spots or flashes of light as she sang. Then the world would turn fuzzy for a few minutes, then a few hours. Yet she could still see, even if it wasn’t with great clarity and that was some comfort to her. The fear of darkness was still a long ways away.

Certainly she had never once wished she couldn’t see.

Not once, that is, until a black hearted wizard dumped terror itself into her brain and it refused to leave. Then, it seemed, blindness might offer some respite from the fear. So she’d sung recklessly, seemingly endlessly, until the wizard fled and left the fear to pursue her into the dark. For a time she’d held it at bay, keeping herself busy. However, business in Riker’s Cove could only keep them occupied for so long and she’d been forced to make the long train flight back to Keagan’s Bluff in complete darkness.

During that time she learned what dread really was. 

It took a full week for light to come back into her vision. Five of those days were spent blindly stumbling around Oakheart Manor, trembling at every sound. The panic von Nighburg set on her had faded as sight crept back in. The dread, however. That remained.

It made itself known at all hours of the day. In the sound of animals scurrying past the walls at night, in the roar of winds on stormy days. Even in the sound of footsteps passing down the hall or even stopping in the doorway.

“Morning, dear,” a bright, clear voice said, chasing the specters away and grounding Cassie in the present. “Did you sleep well?”

“Better, thank you, Mrs. Sondervan.” Cassie turned her face towards the sound of the housekeeper’s voice, imagining the woman’s round, pleasant face beaming with her customary smile. “I can almost see you this morning. Are you wearing blue?”

She tutted under her breath, something Gertie Sondervan was in the habit of doing when she was upset but didn’t want other people to know about it. Cassie knew Roy had explained her remarkable hearing to his employees when she first came with her brother but she wasn’t sure Gertie really understood what he was saying when he said she heard better than most. However, the woman didn’t mean ill so Cassie was willing to overlook it.

“More of a green dress, dear,” Gertie said in her normal tone. “Not to worry, though, the gentlemen aren’t planning to hare off on any errands today, once they’re back from Mr. Harper’s customary visit to the post. They aren’t likely to leave you here with such poor company as myself.”

“I’ve spent my time in far worse company, and recently.” Cassie closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting her hearing slowly submerge her in the song of the stones. Pebbles trembled and sang. The dirt churned in the slow and ancient dance of the earth. A shovel cut through the ground outside as Georg Sondervan dug weeds from the garden and the pattering footsteps of Nat Sondervan echoed up the bluff as he scampered towards the river at the base of the hill.

Beyond that, the steel clop of horseshoes echoed on the dirt path up from Keegan’s Bluff. Cassie’s eyes fluttered open and she got up from the chair at her dressing table, extending a hand towards Gertie and said, “Could you take me down to the sitting room, Mrs. Sondervan?”

“Of course, dear.” A feminine hand with a surprisingly strong grip took her elbow and gently guided her through the hall and down the stairs. “The gentlemen aren’t back yet, though. Would you like to eat breakfast while you wait?”

“They’ll be back soon,” Cassie said. “And I’m sure your breakfast is delicious, Mrs. Sondervan, but I’m afraid I’m not hungry this morning.”

Another tutting came but Gertie didn’t say anything else as she helped Cassie navigate the stairs. At the bottom Cassie paused, a strange wave of foreboding washing over her. The songs of the earth had their own tone and tempo, far different from human music, but she knew them just as well. Yet for a brief moment she thought she heard an unnatural staccato among them.

The grip on her arm adjusted slightly. “Something wrong, dear?”

“No…” Cassie listened a moment longer but the strange rhythm didn’t repeat itself. “I just thought I heard something from the basement.”

“The basement?” Gertie sounded incredulous. “Nothing making noise down there when the gentlemen are out.”

“Might have been rats?” She’d heard rats in the pantries before and they didn’t sound like that. Then again, Roy had never told them what he kept in the basement, just that he kept it locked for a reason.

“Not likely,” the housekeeper replied. “Mr. Harper’s Armory isn’t a place the living would like spending a lot of time. I used to go down once a month to tidy up but it’s so very unsettling down there.”

Cassie frowned. It made sense that a professional firespinner like Roy Harper would have a large collection of weapons and a place to store them. It was strange that his employees would find them distasteful. Especially since she’d seen both the adult Sondervans carrying blades on trips into town. There were mountain lions living in the higher bluffs, after all.

“I see. Well, let’s hope we won’t have need of the Armory today, then.” She patted Gertie’s hand and they continued on to the sitting room, a warm room on the eastern side of the house. Cassie’s shoes sank deep into a thick, comfortable rug. A few steps later Gertie rested her hand on the back of an armchair and she found her way into the seat. “Thank you, Mrs. Sondervan.”

“Of course, dear. I’ll let your brother and Mr. Harper know where you are when they get back.”

The housekeeper bustled away and Cassie leaned back into the chair, listening to the hoofbeats in the distance. The quiet rumble of the men’s voices echoed off the bluffs. Between the walls and the wind off the highlands it was impossible to make out the words but she could guess they were only five or ten minutes away. She settled in and waited, taking deep breaths and trying to ignore the dread creeping back.

Something felt wrong. It might have been the last echoes of Heinrich von Nighburg’s malice but it might not. Maybe the temporary loss of her sight had made her more sensitive to whatever was in the Armory that made Gertie so wary. It was impossible to tell. Whatever it was, there wasn’t much she could do but keep her ear to the ground and listen for that strange staccato rhythm to come again.

---

Marius lowered the spyglass once Harper and his companion vanished inside the house. He didn’t know who it was the firespinner was riding with, everything he’d heard told him Columbia’s best mercenary preferred working alone. That was an unfortunate wrinkle. Marius was working on a very tight timetable and he hadn’t anticipated an additional fighting man at Oakheart Manor.

And the new man was definitely used to violence. He was enormous and carried himself with an air of comfortable power that made that clear. It was hard to tell when he was in the saddle but Marius thought he’d been favoring one leg once he dismounted, so at least that was something. There was still no getting around the fact his job had become much more difficult.

Making matters worse was the fact that he could not get the earth elementals around the house to answer when he called them. Some other working kept him from establishing a connection with them. That might explain the new face among Harper’s employees. The stories agreed that Roy Harper himself was not particularly skilled in magics of the earth. 

Perhaps he had hired someone to offset that weakness. If a powerful lithomancer had done something that bound the local elementals to him it would make it much more difficult for Marius to summon them. There were countermeasures one could take, of course. The problem was that many of those countermeasures would make it obvious to the lithomancer that there was an interloper on hand. Much of Marius’ plan relied on speed and subterfuge.

Of course, he could also be reading too much into things. Elementals were finicky things where mercenaries set in their ways very much were not. Perhaps Roy Harper was just entertaining a friend from when he served in the Columbian Regulars and the stones were so deeply asleep they couldn’t be bothered with answering Marius’ summons.

Whatever had happened Marius would have to figure out how to respond to it quickly. He had given his word that he would sort matters out by the end of the month and a Menendez did not go back on his word. He collapsed his spyglass and tucked it into his jacket then scrambled away from the edge of the bluff he’d been observing from. He would cast the tiles on his lithomancy board again. Perhaps the stones would speak to him this time.

If not, there was nothing else to do but press forward.