Chapter 490
Chapter 490:
“You want me to wear a dead woman’s clothes?” Skye asked, disgust curling her lip. “Is this some kind of twisted roleplay p>
“It’s a test,” Lucian said, walking over to the piano and running a finger along the keys. “This instrument demands a sacrifice. The previous owner lacked the stamina. You, Skye… you have the rage. Rage fuels the music p>
He looked up at her. “Put it on. And play for me. If you stop before I tell you to, you go back to the wine cellar. Without the coat p>
Skye went behind the changing screen. Her hands shook as she unzipped the red qipao. It fell to the floor in a crimson pool. She stepped into the silver gown. It was cold against her skin. It fit perfectly—too perfectly. It was as if the ghost it belonged to had the same starving, desperate frame as she did.
She stepped out. The silver fabric clung to her curves.
Lucian sat on a velvet sofa, crossing his legs. He pointed to the piano.
Skye sat down. The bench was hard. She lifted her hands.
“What do you want to hear?” she asked dully.
“Everything,” Lucian said. “Start with Chopin. The Nocturnes. All of them p>
Skye began to play.
The first hour was bearable. The music was a shield, a place she could retreat to in her mind. She thought of Alistair. She thought of the two taps on the brim of his hat. Hold on.
The second hour, her shoulders began to ache. The tension of her posture, the rigid demand of the classical pieces, started to knot her muscles.
By the fourth hour, the room had grown cold. Lucian hadn’t moved. He had refilled his drink twice, watching her with unblinking eyes.
“Faster,” he ordered when her tempo lagged during a Liszt étude.
Skye gritted her teeth. Her fingers were cramping. The tips were raw. She forced them to move.
By the sixth hour, the skin on her right index finger split. A tiny smear of red appeared on the pristine white ivory of the middle C key.
Skye gasped, faltering.
“Did I say stop?” Lucian’s voice whipped across the room.
“I’m bleeding,” Skye said, holding up her hand.
“Keep playing,” Lucian said, leaning forward. He looked at the blood on the key with a strange fascination. “She stopped when she bled. That’s why she failed. Prove you are better. Prove you are the masterpiece p>
𝘍iո𝘥 𝘯o𝗏e𝘭 𝗣𝘋𝗙𝘀 𝗈𝗻 b𝗲𝗹𝘯о𝘷е𝗅𝗌.𝖼o𝗺
Skye realized then what this was. It wasn’t about the music. It wasn’t even about her. It was about his hatred for weakness. He was trying to exorcise the failure of his past obsession by breaking Skye against the same wheel.
Rage, hot and white, flared in Skye’s chest.
You want blood? she thought. I’ll give you a symphony of it.
She didn’t slow down. She attacked the keys. She switched from the delicate Chopin to the violent, percussive movements of Prokofiev. She slammed her fingers down, not caring about the pain.
The cut on her index finger opened wider. Blood smeared across the keys, turning the white ivory pink, then red. Her thumb split. Then her pinky.
It was agony. It felt like playing on razor blades. But Skye locked eyes with Lucian and kept playing. She poured all her hatred, all her suffering from her past life, all the indignity of this night into the instrument.
Eight hours. Nine.
Her vision blurred. The room swayed. She was playing on muscle memory alone, her mind dissociating from the pain. The sun began to bleed through the heavy curtains, a gray, sickly light.
Skye hit the final chord of the piece. Her hands slipped off the keys, slick with blood and sweat. They fell into her lap, staining the silver dress.