Chapter Fifty

  “Delve you! You sy ass chi!”

  That pn was supposed to work. Create a thick yer of mist, quiet all the sounds and drift in with it. That's being stealthy, right?

  The thunder roc had disagreed that the creeping area of mist was stealthy enough. The bst of wind from its wings stripped the crafted fog away, toppling Harmony in the process.

  “Graup?”

  Wishing the fluardian would back doointless. “Fine. Let's head back.”

  [Manipute Dead] Collected the Feathers scattered across the floor to sell. Fashion, bedding, pens, and crafting pos. Who to sell to was for someoh a mertile profession to decide.

  With a bit of magic, Harmony pulled a feather to her hand, letting the way it floated through the air do the hard work of having it drift to her. That let her imagination py with the idea of crafting a bunch of bone arrows and slinging them at that damn bird. Too bad roups had tried a simir tactid it didn't work. The wing gusts knocked un-empowered arrows out of the sky. No, if this would work, the battle o be up close. As she desded the stairs, she pyed with the different colors she could ge the feather.

  Ambrosia waited at the exit in a yellow dress with a wide-brimmed hat with a wide grin on her face. Beside her, Tess was the maid on duty, now with a sed smaller spider joining the first, small and silver, riding on the rger spider's back, adjusting the bowtie when it seemed out of pbsp; Hyath bailed to rest, taking most of the feathers but leaving Harmony with a bundle.

  “You ready to put on a show?” Ambrosia asked giddily.

  This would be Lady White’s first reveal as a dancer for Songstress and The Flows in Naewauld. It had taken that long to build up a reputation and book a venue Ambrosia sidered worthy enough of su introdu. Ambrosia had less leveraged their friendship and mently prodded to get her to agree to go.

  “You don’t want only those with access to Ma Bell's table to be the ones who get to know you. This lets the public put a fay songs.”

  Harmony’s biggest had been the bodyguards objeg, but they'd worked out pns with Ambrosia’s cert security. “Ready as I’ll ever be. And I’ve brought props.” She lifted the tightly packed bundle of shimmery multi-colored feathers.

  Five Flowers Colosseum was the sed rgest one in Naewauld and rimarily used for pet battles. How Ambrosia had booked it for the cert was still a mystery, as they hadn’t been in the capital that long, even with all the hustling her friend did. The banners outside dispying artistiderings of Harmony hanging rger than life outside the venue did away with most of that mystery.

  The Songstress should pick up more fans if the crowd sists of those ied in the Asdant Games and its challenger over the headliner. For someone whose profession didn’t rely on them advang their singing and perf, Ambrosia was mighty cutthroat.

  As with everything in Naewauld, the Colosseum was covered in vihat straonework as they could build it. That went into the pnned designs and the pilrs looked like trees with glow stones hanging out like fruit, sure to look spectacur o gets dark. Ma Bell had celed tonight's dinner in exge for a bunch of tickets.

  The group traveled through the staff entrahere were still hours of set-up before the event, chraphy to practice, pns to be made, and security to be checked. The stage was already a bustle of activity.

  “Hi, Harm!” Stiriling greeted, her hands re-stringing her instrument with golden threads that hummed with power.

  “gest cert ever!” Jimmy said with a woot as he passed by with a wave.

  “Graaaaaaaaaaaaacccccck.” The croak was long and blissed out.

  “Hyath, I thought you went back to the stables?” Harmony asked as she rouhe er.

  The giant shadow toad y on his back, with Milo climbing and scrubbing him with a soft-bristled brush to his pleasure. The st time Harmony had seen that little helper the girl had been way off in Hazeldown.

  The g Ambrosia brought a shrug. “Her family felt her development would titer if she was with me. Came with a bunch of the Hazeldown stage crew.”

  So Ms. Rockfoot had mao show up. She’d left the girl with a letter to get her in before heading to her room after dihe girl was sitting on a bench surrounded by pillows staring wide-eyed at everything. Harmony gave her a little wave.

  The girl's eyes widehen flickered to Ambrosia, the Songstress, who gave a little waive. That caused the dy’s eyes to widen even further, her to vibrate iool, and poof, she colpsed, falling into the circle of pillows arouool.

  “This is the fourth time she’s dohat. Did you know she showed up before anyone else with that fancy letter of hers?” Growled a crew member.

  “I hope she stay awake for the show. “ Harmony murmured as they walked past.

  Now Harmony had to pn out exactly how she was going to perform. Ba Hazeldown, the certs had bee a desperate attempt to use the pressure and way authority built to train skills, practig new synergies and binations [Recall] could let her pid choose from memories where she got the best reas from the crowd. That felt inplete.

  “Looking a little lost there.” That familiar fn at didn’t trigger [Recall] as Harmony had already tapped that skill pletely.

  “Sis!” Her savior was here. The fn dance master had drifted away to other students after she’d bee a Lady White.

  “I couldn’t miss your introdu to a new audienow let me help you work on transitions. Ambrosia also mentioned something about feathers?”

  So crowded was Five Flowers that the general noise was already an uated roar. Two openers had pyed before the main performance. Harmony’s ay showed up in bits of frost as she bent her rules to dip into it to chill some of her he Songstress and the Flows were about to introduce her.

  The steady thrum of Jimmy's guitar started to rise. It set the se. “Wele Naewauld I'm proud to introduce the sparkling jewel of the Asdant Games, Lady Harmony White!”

  That was Harmony’s cue. What she used was not a stride or a strut, but something Sis called “the walk” the way you could sway, twist, turn, and slowly move your head to aowledge all viewers. Surreal because no one could look away because it looked amazing, scary, unnatural, aiful. After practig it for an hour she’d dubbed it the “horrible act in motion” because it bloody hurt to do and the pain lingered. He promised her it was worth it.

  None of this would have worked if they didn’t project her doing it for all the crowd to see. Finally taller than everyone. Every step moved to the beat of one of Ambrosia's new songs. On her mark, she started to swing her hips a her fingers run down her hair, transf her shorter more practical cut into long locks that would sway with her as the Songstress started to sing.

  “Wele to the greatest time.

  As we climb.

  Stepping up to fight.

  With Lady White.

  With Lady White.

  The future is fine. “

  In the first tes. Hyath made tearances, his gravelly rumble adding a unique uoo the songs he joined in on. They stuck glow stoo his bck exterior to have him mimic the bioluminesce of Night swaying oage.

  The props were everywhere. Three times as many birds as Ambrosia had boo her carrying streamers around the Colosseum, help recruited from local beast tamers. Harmony got to py with her multi-colored feathers letting the crowd keep them as souvenirs. Some songs sang of her rise, healing the prince from his state, the asdant games, and surviving the assassination attempt. [Cold Touch] kept the sweat off. [Renew Spirit] let her look refreshed even as her muscles burned. Physical skills weaved together for the dances. Sis helped direct her movements to tell a story nearly as much as Ambrosia’s songs did.

  Authority flowed in and the ret levels gained let Harmony ha.

  “Har..” Ambrosia sang.

  “Mony.” The crowd yelled back.

  “Har.”

  “Mony.”

  No dungeon spirits appeared. assassins. No judges with their powers stepped in. Everything was w out.

  “Har.”

  “Mony!”

  An exhausted twirling bow allowed her to slip away. The personal cheers and bows from the backstage staff as the band closed out the show touched her. The show was good. A few breaths to rex.

  Tess handed her a gss of cold water.

  It never reached Harmony’s mouth as her hand spasmed around it with such force the gss shattered, leaving shards embedded in her palm. Inside her soul ripping twisting pain reached in from outside. Already reag on that battlefield, ostasis kicked in with that still lingering refle of how good the cert had been. What now?

  KitFalbo