ShadowSong [Book 1 & 2: Complete] [NaNoWriMo16/17]

Chapter 62 - Discord In Harmony

Once Jason was at the performance hall, Banshee said her farewells and left him without another word.

Outside of her shadow, anger burned away the numbness that wrapped around him like a blanket. What right did Banshee have to assume such things about his mother? He was the one who'd failed her. He was the fault. He was the one who wasn't good enough.

Jason's muscles clenched. He punched the air beneath his fists and shook with a silent scream that trembled everything he was. With fatigue weighing him down, he struggled to clamp down on it, to suppress it like he usually would. The anger. The hatred. All of it for no one but himself.

Jason gripped his hair by the roots, stopping just short of pulling it out.

Sae appeared through the wall, the sunlight glinting off the ice of his wings catching Jason's eye for a brief, sharp moment that cut through the hollow feeling eating him inside and out. Jason looked away, but not fast enough to miss the pained expression that took hold of Sae.

"What happened, Jason?"

Jason straightened himself out, every inch of it killing him to do. He wanted to punch the walls, to break the windows and scream until he passed out. "Absolutely nothing you need to concern yourself with."

Violin. He needed his violin. He needed to play. To find a truth that he couldn't ignore.

He strode across the room, his eyes locked on it as Sae zipped in front of him, his tiny wings of ice and snow leaving a trail of frost in their wake.

"Jason? Jason. Please, kid, look, I just need you to talk to me. Just a little bit. A few words. Anything?"

Jason's gaze didn't waver as he flicked open his violin case and lifted the instrument up by the neck in one hand and taking its bow in the other. With those in his grip, he allowed himself to exhale, and with it, he touched the bow to the strings of the violin.

He didn't know what he played. He just let it fall out of him. The anger. The burning, hollow feeling that wanted to crush himself from the inside out. He played and played and poured everything out onto the strings, releasing it in a jolting stream of song, out into the air, further and further away from him with every sound he made.

Banshee. As everything else swept out of him, his thoughts remained lingering on her. Banshee. Why had she bothered to say anything? Why would she care enough about him? Banshee. Why had she given him the power to fire his mother? Why did she see that necessary? It didn't make sense. Banshee. Why she'd trust him enough with that decision. He wasn't worthy. He never would be. Banshee.

Banshee. Banshee. Banshee.

A song of smoke and fire poured out of him, an unsteady, turbulent rhythm that hadn't yet found its mark. The melody swayed towards the fire until the smoke smothered it out. They warred together, fighting, pushing as the smoke did its best to suffocate the very thing that birthed its existence, but the fire would not yield, would not stop burning, even though every flame made the hazy, acrid wall grow higher and higher until--

Some feeling made his bow come to a dead stop on the strings.

Jason turned, finding Olivia standing in the doorway of the performance hall, watching him with wide, open eyes and one hand over the centre of her chest. As the music's spell shattered around them, she blinked, rubbing her eyes the same way she had earlier after waking from her nap on the table.

"Lunch isn't over yet," said Jason stiffly, lowering his violin. "Why have you returned?"

"I--I thought I heard... um, nevermind," said Olivia, shaking her head. "I'm sorry. Please don't stop playing on account of me."