“Who wants the pleasure?” he asked, and the one in the middle, the one who reminded me of Quen, smiled.

“I’ll do it,” he said, and I tensed, shocked when a heavy lassitude filled me. My legs buckled, and that fast, I was on my knees, the tingle of wild magic coursing through me, robbing me of strength. There was music in my head, like green, growing things, and my hands hit the ground, bits of twigs biting into my palms, making them tingle. I gasped, my lungs reluctant to expand.

I fought it, finding strength from the ley line. I pulled it into me, feeling it burn. Teeth clenched, I looked up through the strands of my hair. The man in the middle widened his eyes as if in surprise. And then he started to sing.

My breath escaped me in a rush as his words washed over me, and my head bowed. My elbows trembled, and everything I had won back left me. “Stop…,” I whispered. I couldn’t think, the thick, muzzy blanket swallowing me up as he sang, the lazy words unclear as they became my entire world. My pulse shifted, becoming slower, meeting his song beat for beat. It was too slow, and I fought for control, failing.

I felt myself start to fall, and a warm arm caught me, gently cradling me. I could smell cinnamon and wine, bitter and spoiled. I couldn’t fight the music beating its way into my existence, making me live to a rhythm too slow, and my eyes shut as someone propped me up against the tree. I was losing my hold on the ley line, and in terror, I reached for it, trying to make a protection bubble in my mind to wall the music off. But it was already in my head, and I couldn’t separate it from me. It was too beautiful. I couldn’t help but listen.

“That was easy,” I heard the long-haired elf say derisively, but I couldn’t move. Couldn’t fight the lassitude that had become my world, hated and familiar from my childhood.

“You have her then?” the voice asked, and finally the singing stopped. The fatigue lingered as the song echoed in my brain, circling over and over, going more slowly each time. It was killing me.

“Go,” a breathy voice said, and my head landed on a shoulder. “I’ll be done by the time you finish Kalamack.”

Oh God. Trent. But the spark quickly died. My breathing had slowed to a shallow hint. I was faltering. I recognized it. I’d lived this before when I was younger. The grass sighed as two of them left, and it was only me and the elf singing me to death. So beautiful I couldn’t let it go, couldn’t forget it, mesmerized.

The air grew cold on my face, and I realized I was crying. I didn’t want to die like this. Damn elf magic. Wild magic. Divine, slippery…alive, uncontrollable.

Uncontrollable, I thought, fastening on that idea. Malleable. I couldn’t control wild magic, couldn’t fight it. But maybe I could…change it.