The Lark and The Wren Author:Mercedes Lackey Her skin crawled, as if there were something watching her from the center of the wind that had suddenly blown up around her with a howl and a rush. Malignant; that was what it felt like. As if this wind was a living thing, and it hated every creature it saw. A voice, an icy, whispering voice, came out of the darkness from all around her; from ev... more »erywhere, yet nowhere. It could have been born of her imagination, yet Rune knew the voice was the Ghost's and that to run was to die.
"Why have you come here, stupid child?" it murmured, as fear urged her to run anyway. "Why were you waiting here? For me? Foolish child, do you know what I am? What I could do to you?"
"I've come to fiddle for you," Rune managed to gasp out...
Music was what Rune lived for, and self-taught though she was, any with an ear to hear it could tell that she had the Gift. But, born out of wedlock, and forced to slave as a tavern drudge from the time she was old enough to hold a broom, Rune knew her chances of ever achieving her dream of becoming a Bard slim indeed.« less