Josephine's voice kills any man who hears it-except for the assassin sent to capture her for the king that's been chasing her all her life...but what happens when he decides he doesn't want to hand her over and keep her for himself instead?
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It was high noon in the thick forestry of the Briars, there wasn't a soul in sight, and I was about to break the law.
Again.
Though accustomed to my ritual, the silence surrounding the forest came to life upon the touch of my voice.
That was exactly why every morning, noon, and night, I escaped amongst the brambles and the thistles to sing to the hummingbirds matching my tune, far enough away that no one else was around to hear it's deadly call.
Soon enough, I'd return with tawny dirt marring the homespun wool on my skirts and I'd be chastised yet again for wandering away, for venturing where I could be heard, could be caught—but all those worries disappeared as the sun crested atop the pines and blasted the earth in a gilded haze, chasing away the lingering morning chill that accompanied the time closing in on the harvest.
Pulling my hand bound journal from my corset top along with my pen that I'd snagged from the market without anyone noticing my presence, I sat atop a fallen log coated in mildewed moss.
The words to the poem stuck in my head flowed out onto the pages with ease, save for the cramping in my wrist, and the melody carried itself away on a staggered wind.
The Briars swayed heavily in the early afternoon breeze and a lyricism floated by on the harvest season's air.
Though the chill that had once been stolen by the sun suddenly found its way back to my heart upon the opening of my mouth.
It was a gift, this voice, but also a curse.
A curse so horrible that I shouldn't have ever been able to open my mouth again after what it had done, but the voice wanted out.
The voice demanded to be let out.
A poison soaked my bones to the core if it did not come out often and sometimes even three times a day couldn't cure the venom rushing through my blood just begging to be heard.
One by one, the birds hovering nearby raced to my spot where I'd sat so often there was a distinct divot in the wood despite only having been living in the nearby village for a short amount of time.
Their wings flapped in time to the beat as my voice soared high above the whistling in the trees, listening intently as the gift tore out of me with renewed fervor as if I hadn't just ripped my throat threadbare not six hours earlier at dawn.
As if this did not happen so often that I desperately wished for a break from the undulating sweeping notes and dips and valleys of the voice I'd come to loathe, even in warring disposition with the awe from the raw beauty of the sound.
How many people had this voice killed? I'd lost count after the only ones who mattered—to my heart, anyway.
How many times had someone stumbled across the relentless song dripping from me, only to be struck dead at my feet, burgundy blood swirling and pooling from the eyes, nose, ears—killing them in one fell swoop?
