Chapter 2: FIRST NOTES
Two months had taught me the shape of my new power.
I called it Bardic Resonance in my head, for lack of a better term. The music carried something—emotion, influence, a weight that pressed against listeners' minds like a gentle hand. When I played and pushed, people felt what I wanted them to feel.
But tonight I needed to test it properly. Not in my dormitory room with a single candle and my own skepticism for company. In public. With an audience.
The Red Boar sat three streets from the Academy's main gates. Popular with students who wanted to drink cheaply, with locals who wanted entertainment, and with travelers passing through Oxenfurt's famous markets. A good crowd tonight—forty people, maybe fifty. Enough to test my limits.
I took the stage—a small raised platform in the corner—and settled my lute against my hip. The instrument had become an extension of my arm over the past eight weeks. Julian's muscle memory combined with my deliberate practice made me genuinely skilled now, not just technically competent.
"Good evening, Oxenfurt!" I let my voice carry. Julian had a performer's projection, trained over years. "Who wants to hear about love? Tragedy? Perhaps a bawdy limerick or two?"
Scattered cheers. A few raised tankards. The tavern keeper—a heavyset woman named Marta—gave me a nod from behind the bar. I'd played here three times before, always well-received. Always holding back.
Not tonight.
I started with something safe. A sea shanty everyone knew, getting the crowd singing along. The familiar words and rhythm warmed them up, loosened tongues and shoulders.
Then I shifted.
The melody dropped into something slower, sadder. A ballad about a soldier who never came home. I'd written it myself, pulling from Julian's education and my own understanding of what made songs stick in people's hearts.
And I pushed.
The feeling was hard to describe. Like flexing a muscle I hadn't known I possessed. I poured melancholy into the music, willing the emotion to spill beyond the notes themselves.
Across the room, a merchant who'd been laughing at his companion's joke grew quiet. His expression softened. His eyes went distant, lost in some private memory.
At the bar, a woman with gray streaking her brown hair reached up to touch her cheek. Her fingers came away wet.
The butcher's apprentice near the fire—a loud young man who'd been boasting about some conquest—sat back in his chair with his mouth slightly open, all bravado forgotten.
It's working.
I continued the song, watching the room change around me. Not everyone responded equally. Some people seemed unaffected, their expressions unchanged. Others swayed slightly, caught in the emotional current.
When I finished, silence hung in the air for a long moment. Then applause—genuine, not polite. Several people were wiping their eyes.
"Beautiful," someone called. "Play another!"
I played two more. Happy songs, this time. I pushed joy into the music and watched smiles spread across faces, watched conversations grow louder and more animated, watched the whole tavern's mood lift like fog burning off at sunrise.
Emotional influence. That's the foundation.
Then a drunk stumbled into my stage.
He was big—farm worker, by the look of his hands. Three sheets to the wind and angry about something. His face was red, his stance aggressive.
"You. Bard." He jabbed a finger at my chest. "I don't like your face."
The tavern went quiet.
I kept playing, switching to a calming melody. Something gentle, soothing. I reached toward the drunk's mind the way I'd reached toward everyone else's—
And hit a wall.
His anger didn't just resist. It actively blocked me. My influence slid off him like water off oiled leather. I pushed harder and felt the music falter, the notes going slightly sour.
"Didn't you hear me?" The drunk stepped closer. "I said I don't like—"
"Andrei!" Marta's voice cracked across the room. "You sit down right now or you're barred for a month. The bard's done nothing to you."
The drunk—Andrei—glowered at her, then at me. For a moment I thought he'd take a swing anyway.
Then he spat on the floor near my boot and stumbled back toward his table.
I played another song, but my mind was elsewhere.
Hostile minds resist. That's a limit.
After the performance, I sat in a corner booth with a bowl of mutton stew and a cup of ale I'd barely touched. My fingers ached from two hours of playing. Good pain. Honest pain.
An elderly woman approached my table. She was well-dressed—merchant class, maybe—with kind eyes and lines around her mouth that suggested a life spent smiling.
"Bard. That song about the soldier." She pressed something into my hand. Coins, more than my usual tips. "I haven't thought of my husband in months. He died at the border wars, twenty years ago. Your song brought him back to me." Tears tracked down her cheeks, but she was smiling. "Thank you."
She walked away before I could respond.
I looked at the coins. Then at my lute.
Truth amplifies.
The soldier song had been real to me when I wrote it. Not my own experience, but drawn from genuine emotion—grief I understood, loss I could imagine. I'd believed in the song, and that belief had given it weight.
The drunk hadn't been sad. Hadn't wanted to feel what I was offering. His hostility had been a shield my power couldn't pierce.
Two rules. I'd learned two rules tonight.
I finished my stew slowly, processing. The crowd filtered out as the hour grew late. Marta came by to collect my payment—decent, especially with the elderly woman's tip.
"You've got something special," Marta said, counting coins into my palm. "People leave happier than they came in. That's worth more than pretty melodies."
You have no idea.
I walked back to the Academy through streets silver-lit by a half moon. The night air cooled the sweat on my skin. My mind raced.
Emotional influence on willing or neutral targets. Resistance from hostile minds. Truth—or at least genuine belief—as a power source.
What else didn't I know? What were the upper limits? Could I affect more people simultaneously? Stronger emotions? Could I influence supernatural creatures—monsters, mages?
Too many questions. Not enough answers.
But I had time. Two months down, nearly three years to go before Posada. Three years to experiment, to grow, to understand exactly what I could do.
I needed more challenging venues. Places where the stakes were higher, where hostile minds were common, where I could push my limits without revealing what I was doing.
Rougher establishments. Dangerous patrons. The kind of places a smart bard avoided.
I adjusted the lute strap on my shoulder and turned down a side street toward the Academy gates.
Time to find some trouble.
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