Heartfelt Sounds Read Online Free PDF

has five chairs instead of four, with two occupied. At the center of the table sits a deep wooden bowl that's as wide as it is large, with five smaller plates surrounding it in a circle. Steam wafts from the center bowl, sea salt tickling my senses. My mouth waters.
    A light touch brings my gaze over my shoulder. “We normally eat together, but it seems Kokoros has gone missing. While I'm looking for her—” her gaze slides to the back of Chima's bouncing bob. The back of a wispy black head sits next to her. I can hear hushed whispers. Suppressed laughter. “—don't let Chima do anything to the soup.”
    I nod—bite back a smile and approach the table as Shanti disappears behind the door. Closing it softly.
    I take a seat near Chima, who blushes a deep scarlet. “Shanti doesn't like me.” she whispers, the black haired girl peers over Chima's head with wide eyes. I assume this must be Nyx. “Do you like me, Naia?”
    Softly, I smile. “You remind me of the younger apprentices from…back home.” before Althea forced them into prostitution.
    At this, she smiles. “Even with the scars?”
    I nod, my hands moving to my lap.
    Nyx's wide eyes narrow. Her lips are tiny, as if she is always tasting something sour. “And what are you, miss? What's home for you?”
    I chuckle at the honorific. “I'm from the Orthella. A silkhouse in this quarter.” a little lump forms in my throat when I say its name. I raise my hand to my neck. I rub it.
    “We were sisters at the Saints. Me and Chim, here. When this milksop ran away to be with some boy, I tracked her down—”
    “You didn't f-find me till I was here!” Chima hisses as she jabs her index finger into the table. “And that was—what? A couple years time?”
    “I still found you, didn't I?” Nyx snarls. Rolls her eyes.
    “Y-yeah, but I wouldn't call it tracking— I'd call it following.”
    “I left the Saints to find you—not follow you!”
    I shake my head at the noise, memories of the girls at the Orthella flood back like unshed tears. Lore and Hana often argued like this. Like enemies and sisters.
    As of late, they had begun to see each other as sisters less and less. The sisterhood of the songstresses was crumbling beneath Althea's rule. She pitted us against each other. Gave some high positions—positions that came with enough power to put a girl out on the streets—while giving others lower jobs. Performing being one of them. The job of a songstress had been taken down a tier. Made low. This served a singular purpose: to make us fight.
    Althea —I blink the memories away.
    “Naia? Naia—w-what would you say it is? Following or—or tracking?”
    I smile at nothing, my eyes peering into my lap. “Neither.” I tell her. I look up. I watch the rise of red in her cheeks as I meet her mismatched eyes. “I'd say it's sister looking after sister.”
    This leaves them speechless.
    Until Nyx snorts. “What kind of answer? In a way—I'm still right. I looked after you by tracking you. Not following you! Just admit it and I'll shut up.”
    …
    Soon, this place begins to feel like home. My home.
    I lock my memories of the Orthella away, but they always come creeping back. Between Shanti's loom room and Akane's parlor, sometimes I hear songs wafting on the winds. Or rhythmic dancing being beat into the dirt. Like a well trained animal, my hands will move before me as if they're swimming on the strings of my zither. Or I'll sing along to what I think I hear—and it's always the same song. Yarne's song. Some days, I'll wake from my memories with a wet face and at other times I'll be angry—empty and agitated.
    But Shanti's there to talk me through it. Or Chima's there to blush and stammer as Nyx gives me a silly smile. Akane's sympathy is a rare treat, and one day as I'm sitting in her parlor alone—blankly watching the people of Felicity go about their daily business on the gray street outside that's like a crowded marketplace—Akane requests my