Chapter 5: Ballad of a Broken String

Chapter 5: Ballad of a Broken String

The library’s spectral archivist processed Lyra’s request with a hum of harmonious chords. Marcus Vance. The name, common as it was, produced dozens of hits in the town’s digital records. But when Lyra added the detail that felt like a lifetime ago—played guitar in a band called Static Bloom—the results narrowed to one.

He hadn’t gone far. According to a string of noise complaints and a single, low-rated gig listing, Marcus Vance was playing a solo set tonight. The venue was a place called ‘The Gilded Pixie,’ a bar located in the Old Town district, a part of Port Blossom that the glittering, magical revitalization had seemingly forgotten.

Lyra navigated the unfamiliar streets, the glowing sigils under her feet feeling less like magical infrastructure and more like the wiring of a beautiful, elaborate cage. The Old Town was a maze of narrow, cobblestone streets where the neon glare of the city center barely penetrated. Here, the air was thick with the smells of damp brick, fried food, and a strange, cloying sweetness that reminded Lyra of wilting flowers.

‘The Gilded Pixie’ was less a bar and more a hole in the wall, announced by a flickering sign of a leering, winged creature drinking from a bottle. The windows were blacked out. A hulking bouncer with grey, mottled skin and the distinct facial structure of a troll grunted at her as she slipped past, his small, piggy eyes dismissing her as unimportant.

The inside was a sensory assault. The floor was sticky, the air heavy with the competing smells of stale beer, ozone, and something metallic. The patrons were a motley collection of beings that would have sent the people of Lyra’s old Port Blossom screaming into the night. A wiry man with eyes that glowed like embers nursed a steaming blue drink. A trio of small, goblin-like creatures bickered in a corner booth, their voices like grinding gravel. This was the supernatural underbelly Kael had mentioned, the messy reality hidden beneath Jenna’s polished utopia.

And on a small, poorly lit stage at the far end of the room, a man was torturing an electric guitar.

He was older, his face etched with lines of exhaustion and regret. His dark hair was thinning, and a perpetual five o’clock shadow dusted his gaunt cheeks. But it was him. It was Marcus. The defiant spark in his eyes that Lyra remembered was gone, replaced by a hollow, bitter resignation. He wasn't playing his own music, the angry, cathartic punk rock they used to write in his garage. He was playing a soulless, acoustic cover of a pop song so vapid it made Lyra’s teeth ache. His fingers, once nimble and passionate on the fretboard, moved with a tired, mechanical precision. He was a ghost of a different sort.

Lyra threaded her way through the strange crowd, her presence causing a few of the more sensitive creatures to recoil, sniffing the air as if they smelled something both intriguing and rotten. She stood near the stage, hidden in the shadows, and waited.

When his set ended, the applause was sparse and indifferent. Marcus unplugged his battered guitar without looking at the audience, his shoulders slumped in defeat. As he turned to leave the stage, his eyes swept across the room and landed on her.

For a moment, there was nothing. Just a flicker of confusion. Then, his face went slack with shock. The blood drained from his cheeks, leaving him a ghastly white. The guitar pick slipped from his numb fingers, clattering onto the stage. He froze, his eyes locked on hers, wide with a terror that was twenty years old.

The moment was broken by a jeer from the bar. “Get off the stage, has-been!”

Marcus flinched as if struck. He grabbed his guitar and practically fled, pushing his way toward the back of the bar. Lyra followed, her non-beating heart a cold lump in her chest.

She caught up with him in the grimy, trash-filled alley behind the bar. He had his back to her, one hand braced against the brick wall, his breath coming in ragged, panicked gasps.

“Marcus,” she said softly.

He flinched, spinning around. “No,” he whispered, his voice trembling. “You’re not real. You can’t be. I’m just… I’m drunk.”

“You’re not drunk enough to be seeing things,” Lyra said, stepping into the dim light filtering from the back door. “It’s me.”

“Leave me alone,” he pleaded, backing away. He was terrified, a cornered animal consumed by a guilt so profound she could almost feel it radiating from him like heat. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I didn’t have much of a choice,” she retorted, her voice hardening. “Someone put me in a grave twenty years ago. I thought you were part of it. I saw you, Marcus. Arguing with Jenna on the pier that night.”

“You saw…?” His face crumpled. “It wasn’t like that. You don’t understand.”

“Then make me understand!” She surged forward, her frustration boiling over. Her hand shot out, not to strike him, but to grab the one thing he was holding onto like a shield: his old, sticker-covered guitar.

The second her fingers touched the scarred, worn wood of the guitar’s neck, the alley dissolved.

A psychic scream ripped through her mind, more powerful and lucid than any echo she had felt before. She was no longer Lyra; she was Marcus. It was his memory, his terror. She was standing on the old wooden pier, the wind whipping his long hair across his face, the taste of salt and fear on his tongue.

Jenna stood before him, her face illuminated by the distant bonfire, her eyes burning with a terrifying, fanatical light. And Lyra could feel his thoughts, hear his silent pleas.

It’s wrong, Jenna. This pact… it’s not worth it.

“It’s our only chance!” Jenna’s voice was a furious hiss, a memory embedded in the psychic echo. “He promised us! Prosperity. Power. A way out of this dead-end town!”

But a sacrifice? And Lyra? The name was a shard of glass in his heart. She’s our friend! We can’t do this to her!

He pointed back toward the path leading to the cove, where he knew Lyra was waiting for them. “We have to warn her! We have to get her out of here before he arrives!”

“No!” Jenna grabbed his arm, her grip like iron. Her ambition was a cold, physical force, snuffing out his fear. “She’s the perfect price. Strong spirit. Tied to the town’s oldest bloodline. The Fae requires it. A pact is a pact.”

The vision shattered, throwing Lyra back into her own mind. She gasped, stumbling away from Marcus, the raw, visceral terror of his memory clinging to her. He hadn’t been arguing with Jenna about a plan. He had been arguing against her. He had been trying to save Lyra’s life.

“You tried to stop her,” Lyra whispered, her voice choked with the revelation.

Marcus was openly weeping now, fat tears carving paths through the grime on his cheeks. “I was a coward,” he choked out. “I should have… I should have done more. When she… when he…”

Before he could finish, a skittering sound echoed from the mouth of the alley. A high, chittering giggle that made the hairs on Lyra’s arms stand on end. The cloying, sweet smell of decay intensified.

Kael’s words slammed into her mind. Your very presence bleeds necrotic energy… you’re a walking contamination.

The emotional eruption of the vision had been a flare, a beacon in the dark. And something had answered.

From the shadows, they emerged. Small, twisted creatures, no taller than her waist. They had wiry, thorn-like limbs, faces of cracked bark, and mouths filled with needle-sharp teeth. Their eyes, a multitude of them, glowed with a malevolent crimson light. They moved with an insectoid speed, their claws clicking on the cobblestones. Fae. Vicious, primal, and hungry.

They weren't looking at Marcus. Their dozens of glowing red eyes were fixed on Lyra, their chittering giggles rising in pitch. They sniffed the air, drawn to what Kael had called her "necrotic energy," but what to them must have smelled like a feast. The sweet rot of a soul that didn't belong.

Marcus screamed, a raw, terrified sound. One of the creatures lunged, its thorny claws flashing in the dim light. The confession died on his lips, replaced by the primal need to survive. The hunt for answers had just turned into a fight.