The night had been surprisingly peaceful. In the heart of the iron-walled Palace, within a guest suite that smelled of cedar and cold stone, Aster, Astra, and Elian had slept in the same massive, fur-laden bed. Aster had insisted on it; he wanted Elian to get used to the "weight" of being near a Royal, so that he wouldn't be paralyzed by it during their performances.
But for Elian, it was a night of disbelief. He had gone from a damp straw mat in an orphanage to sleeping between the "Divine Twins" of Wynfall. He had spent half the night staring at the ceiling, terrified to move lest he accidentally kick a prince or a princess.
When the first light of dawn crept through the quartz windows, Astra was the first to wake. She sat up, her silver hair cascading over her shoulders like a waterfall of moonlight. She looked at Elian, who was still asleep, his face looking much younger and more vulnerable without the soot and the fear of the streets.
Astra felt a sharp, familiar ache in her chest.
She remembered a different room. A room that smelled of antiseptic and stale air. She remembered being bedridden, her body failing her while the world moved on outside. And she remembered him. Her brother from her previous life. He had been five years younger than her—just as Elian was now 5 years younger than her.
In that past life, her brother would come to her bedside every single day. He would bring her drawings, tell her about the sun he saw in the park, and hold her hand when the pain became too much. Before her last breath, she had gripped his hand and whispered, *"Take care of our parents. Be the strength I couldn't be."*
Seeing Elian's calloused hands and his desperate need to prove his worth, Astra didn't see a "star." She saw a brother who needed a sister.
***
As the sun fully rose, Aster was already up, sitting at the desk and sketching structural designs for a resonance-amplifying stage. He looked up as Astra approached him, her expression unusually serious.
"Aster," she whispered, glancing back at the sleeping Elian. "I want to take Elian to the waterfall today. Just the two of us."
Aster paused, his quill hovering over the parchment. "You want to handle the training alone? I was planning on starting him on diaphragm control and resonance-syncing today. Our deadline is tight, Astra."
"I know," Astra said, her voice soft but firm. "But you're training his voice, Aster. You're training him like a Stranger doing it for a bet. But Elian... he's scared. He thinks he's a tool for a prince's wager. If he sings like that, the people of Orestes will hear the technique, but they won't feel the heart. I want to teach him how to be himself."
Aster looked at his sister, seeing the depth of emotion in her eyes. He knew that look. It was the look she got when she patted and hugged princess El.
"Then can you train him alone tonight" Aster asked gently.
Astra nodded silently.
Aster sighed and put down his quill. "Fine. I'll handle the logistics today. I need to meet with the King's engineers to discuss the stage construction in the central plaza. I also need to secure the permits for the light-show—I'm going to need a lot of fire-aligned mana stones to amplify the sound So that we can have a good concert. You take Elian. Take your time."
"Thank you, Aster," she said, leaning in to hug him.
"Just don't go back to the orphanage if he's not ready," Aster joked, though his eyes remained warm. "The manager needs his star back by dinner."
***
Astra woke Elian gently. The boy scrambled out of bed, immediately trying to bow, but Astra caught his shoulders.
"No bowing today, Elian," she said with a playful wink. "Today it will be just us."
She led him out of the palace, bypassing the main gates and using a side path that led back toward the great waterfall. Elian followed her, his head down, walking three paces behind as if he were a servant. Every time someone passed them, he would tense up, his hands instinctively going to his pockets to hide his calloused fingers.
When they reached the edge of the waterfall, the roar of the water was just as thunderous as the day before. The mist sprayed their faces, cooling the morning air. Astra sat down on a flat, mossy rock and patted the spot next to her.
"Sit, Elian."
"I... I shouldn't, Princess," he stammered, his eyes darting to the palace guards who were standing at a respectful distance. "It's not proper."
"Forget the 'Princess' part," Astra said, pulling him down by his sleeve. "Today, I'm just Astra. And you're just Elian. I don't want to hear 'Your Highness,' 'My Lord,' or any of that. If you use polite speech one more time, I'm going to make you stand here till night with your hands held up."
Elian looked horrified. "But... how am I supposed to talk to you?"
"Like I'm your sister," Astra said, her voice turning incredibly tender.
Elian froze. He hadn't had a sister. He hadn't had anyone.
For the next few hours, Astra didn't mention music once. Instead, she talked. She told him about their life in the Wynfall Kingdom. She told him about how the nobles used to call them the "Powerless Twins" and how they were treated as shadows because they didn't have fire magic.
"Wait," Elian interrupted, his curiosity finally outweighing his fear. "People mocked you? But you're... you're Awesome."
"We weren't always 'Awesome'," Astra laughed, looking out over the valley. "Aster—my brother—he had it the hardest. He carried the burden of everyone's expectations. He spent nights in the library, working until his fingers bled, just to prove that Sound Magic wasn't a mistake. He's not doing this wager just to win a contract, Elian. He's doing it because he knows what it's like to be told you're useless."
She shared stories of their mother, Arliene, and the struggles she faced as a commoner in a royal court. She told him about the first time they sang together and how it felt like the whole world finally stopped to listen.
As she talked, Elian's posture slowly changed. He stopped clutching his bag. He stopped looking at the ground. He started asking questions—small at first, then more frequent.
"Is the valley really green?" he asked. "Everything here is grey and brown."
"It's so green it looks like the earth is made of emeralds," Astra described, her hands moving through the air. "And the flowers... they smell like sugar and rain."
By midday, the tension in Elian's shoulders had vanished. He was sitting cross-legged, leaning toward her, his eyes wide with wonder. He even laughed when Astra described one of Aster's rare failed experiments that had accidentally turned all the laundry in the palace bright purple.
Suddenly, Elian realized something. He looked at the sun, which was now high in the sky.
"Astra... are you going to teach me to sing?" he asked, his voice hesitant. "Aster said we only have two weeks. We've been talking for hours. Shouldn't I be... practicing?"
Astra looked at him and smiled—a brilliant, genuine smile.
"That was the lesson, Elian," she said.
He blinked, confused. "But you didn't make me practice singing."
"Today's training is different," Astra countered. "You laughed. You asked questions. You spoke to me without trembling. You see, Elian, a singer's voice isn't just about the throat. It's about the soul. If you are afraid of the people you are singing for, your voice will always be thin. It will always be a 'servant's' voice. But if you feel like you belong on that stage... if you feel like you are speaking to friends... then the sound will carry itself."
She stood up and brushed the dust from her dress. "You aren't nervous around me anymore, are you?"
Elian thought about it. For the first time, he realized he wasn't thinking about how to bow or what words to use. He was just... talking.
"No," he said, a small, confident smile appearing on his face. "I'm not."
"Good," Astra said. "Then the hardest part of the training is over. Let's go back. It's almost lunchtime, and I'm sure Aster is currently trying to work without eating and needs someone to tell him to eat."
***
They returned to the Palace early, arriving just as the lunch bells were ringing throughout the city.
Inside the royal suite, the scene was exactly as Astra had predicted. Aster was surrounded by maps and architectural drawings of the central plaza. Three Orestian engineers were standing around him, looking both exhausted and deeply impressed.
"No, no," Aster was saying, pointing to a diagram of a stone archway. "If we place the resonance stones here, the sound will bounce off the basalt and create an echo that will muddy the lyrics. We need to angle the stage fifteen degrees toward the East Peak. We'll use the mountain's own natural curvature as a soundboard."
"But Prince Aster," one engineer argued, "that would require moving the mana-lamps!"
"Then move them," Aster said without looking up. "I want the people in the back rows to feel the vibration in their teeth."
Aster looked up as Astra and Elian walked in. He scanned them both, his eyes lingering on Elian. He noticed the way the boy was walking—not trailing behind Astra, but walking beside her. He noticed the way Elian didn't immediately drop to his knees when he saw Aster.
Aster caught Astra's eye and gave her a subtle, knowing nod. Well done, the look said.
"How was the 'training'?" Aster asked, leaning back in his chair.
"We finished the most important part," Astra replied brightly. "Elian is ready to start the technical part tomorrow."
Elian stepped forward, and though he still looked a bit shy, he didn't bow. "I'm ready, Prince Aster. I want to learn the 'Everything there is to know about singing'."
Aster grinned, a sharp, excited look. "Good. Because while you were out, I've already started the marketing. By tomorrow morning, every miner in this kingdom will know that a 'Voice of the Peaks' is coming. And the King? He's already started building the stage."
As they sat down for lunch—a hearty meal of mountain goat and thick bread—the atmosphere in the room had shifted. They weren't a prince, a princess, and an orphan anymore. They were a team.
Aster looked at his sister and then at Elian. He knew that Astra had given the boy something he never could—a reason to trust. And as the sound of their laughter filled the stone room, Aster realized that the concert wouldn't just be a performance. It would be a homecoming for a boy who had never had a home.