When Echo awakened to her power — she knew that she had become a witch. Naturally, she thought about revenge, but in the end her ability was useless, she was only able to release sound. No matter how much she begged the gods, they never heard her prayers.
Six months later when she was living in the Port of Clearwater, she came to an understanding, the thought that they were loved by the three Gods was in truth only their self-deception. Under the jurisdiction of the Church, the witches were all hunted inside the four Kingdoms. From that day on, Echo completely gave up on her hope for revenge.
At this moment, suddenly a billow of smoke rose from the distance. She looked to the East Bank of Redwater River and she saw several lights of green flames flash through the trees. The black smoke of the burning trees mixed together with the vapor of the melting snow forming a gray plume in the sky.
It was Anna’s green flame.
When they arrived for the first time in Border Town, Wendy had briefed the sisters about Anna and Nana. When Echo heard about Anna’s ability she was very envious.
Anna was able to freely manipulate flames, it could even reach the temperature hot enough to melt swords… If she had such a powerful ability when she had lived in Ironsand City, the people of the Tibia Clan would never have been able to hurt them.
Echo shook her head, thoughts like these were totally unnecessary, most probably her people had already turned into bones. Since she was still alive she could count herself as lucky. Since His Royal Highness was willing to accept her, she should complete the orders given by His Royal Highness.
She cleared her throat and began to hum the song according to the Prince’s demands.
It was a cheerful ditty, the Prince had only hummed the melody once, but she completely remembered the whole ditty.
Music was nothing new to Echo, as a superior slave she was taught many things. Seductive dances and flirtatious crooning were skills she’d had to master. But the music given by His Highness was completely differently… it was full of rhythm, full of powerful energy. Especially when he asked her to simulate the sound of a flute, every note was like a pulsing beat, people hearing this couldn’t help themselves from wanting to dance.
The difficulty lied in playing several instruments at the same time, later there were also drums and string-instruments that were added. So she had to simulate three different kinds of sounds at the same time, which overlapped each other. Something like this was something that she had never done before. Previously she would have never believed that music could also be played in this way!
In the beginning, it was hard for her to make sure that the drums didn’t disrupt the rhythm of the flutes, so Roland gave her the tip to play the beat with her hands or feet, and only later gradually start to fuse the two sounds together.
After a few days of practice, Echo had gradually mastered this kind of music.
After playing it for several times she was self-assured enough to finally add the in the string-instruments.
When Echo played the new melody for the first time, she had to change the notes again a little — if the sound of the cheerful flute were the torso, the heated drums were the bones, and the last seemingly embellished strings were the soul. She increased the beat, over and over again, until the three instruments were finally fully integrated, the sound was getting higher and higher until she couldn’t stop herself from starting to sing –
*
“My attack power is higher than yours, so it’s my win.”
Roland put his last card on the table, and Soraya who set across of him covered her face and said with a low voice.
“One more round,” then she thought for a moment, and shuffled through the cards. “Let me pick your ten cards this time.”
“Well,” coughed the Prince, “It’s already late, I have still several things to do, you should go to the other.”
After laying down a groundwork of different cards, the next part was to copy the already invented cards. With the template in front of her, Soraya’s speed of drawing was comparable to a printer. Soon, Roland got several copies of the same units.
So naturally Soraya became his first opponent.
After explaining the rules to her, the first card war was started. During the games, he quickly learned that the thinking process of the witches was completely differently from ordinary people. Soraya quickly figured out the right way to use the skills. After playing for several rounds, Roland was still able to win, but this was only due using several special cards. When Soraya asked him to create her own special cards, he shamefully rejected.
“All right,” Soraya said, then she took the cards into her arms and ran into the direction of the door. At this moment, a cheerful melody came through the open windows. Hearing this Soraya paused, turned around and ran to the window, taking a probing look outside, “Is that Echo?”
