It had made him feel guilty, because Seraph had given up her magic entirely. But she'd never seemed to mind, never seemed to miss the power that she'd set aside.
He could never have set aside his music.
There were some things he'd avoided. Some things were harmful to his audience; music alone shared the darker emotions with his audience, never magic. He was very careful not to use his magic to persuade others to his will - words were enough. And then there were the things too obviously magic to use in Redern.
Alone in the darkness of his cell, he'd succeeded in creating small lights to accompany his songs the first time he tried. They were flickering, faint things, but they comforted him.
Sounds were more difficult, even though he'd accidently called them once before. After a particularly nasty battle, he and a bunch of the other officers got roaring drunk and someone thrust a small lyre, part of the spoils, into his hands. The song he'd sung had included fair maidens and barnyard animals. He was pretty certain he'd been the only one who noticed that the moos and quacks of the chorus were accompanied by the real thing.
He had been trying to re-create the experiment the first time his visitor arrived.
The constant dark had honed his other senses, and the scuff of a foot on the boards above him stopped him midword. He'd sat silently, waiting for something more.
Finally, barely audible over the burble of the water that flowed under the grating in the back corner of his cell, he'd heard it again.
It hadn't been a rat; a rat was too light to make a stout board creak under its weight. He'd been almost certain that the noise was made by a person.
"Hello," he'd said. "Who is there?"
The boards had given a small, surprised squeak and then there was nothing. Whoever it had been, he had left.
Some unknowable span of time later, while Tier was doing push-ups, he'd heard it again. He'd stilled, too worried that he would drive whoever it was off again if he made another move. He hadn't heard another sound, but somehow he knew that his visitor was gone. Desperate for company, Tier turned his thoughts toward enticing his visitor to stay.
Tier awoke with the knowledge that there was someone nearby. He hadn't heard anything, but he could feel that someone stood above him listening. He sat up, leaned his back against the wall, and began his story with the traditional words.
"It happened like this," he said.
If he pretended that his eyes were closed, he could think himself leaning against the wall at home telling stories to his own restless children so they'd fall asleep faster. Seraph would be cleaning - she was always in motion. Maybe, he thought, she would be grumpy as she sometimes got when Rinnie was tired and the boys were restless. Her face would be serene, but the tautness of her shoulders gave her away.
I wonder if she knows that something has happened to me? Is she looking?
It was an old thought by now, and held a certain comfort.
"A boy came to be king when he was only sixteen," Tier said, "when his own father died in battle. War was common then, and the kingdom he inherited was neither so large nor so powerful that the king could sit in safety and leave the fighting to his generals."
The story of the Shadowed was one he knew so well that he had once told it backwards, word for word, for a half-drunken wager. He'd missed one phrase, but his comrades hadn't noticed.
"This young man," he said, "was a good king, which is to say that he promoted order and prosperity among his nobles and usually kept the rest from starvation. He married well, and in time was blessed with five sons. As years passed and his sons became men, his kingdom waxed in wealth because the king was skilled at keeping the neighboring kingdoms fighting among themselves rather than attacking his people."
The floor above him made a sound, as if a listener were settling in more comfortably. Tier added his unknown listener to his audience.
A boy, he decided with no more evidence than his visitor's willingness to travel without lights. There were spaces between the boards that would have let light into Tier's cell, if his unknown guest had brought so much as a single candle with him.