My personal sunstone idea was a hit. So much so, that I took everyone’s sunstones back so I could reshape them and plant them on top of the house to recharge. With the temporary lull in danger and the sun shining on this beautiful day, I could finally relax. I took the two of the sunstone pieces with the greatest amount of charge and put them to good use, lighting the way as I expanded our subterranean abode.

  Work. My relaxation was work. God, there’s something wrong with me.

  Pushing my internal musings aside, I planned as I built. Terrastria at this scale was not fast. I sunk my feet into the dirt and began molding the dirt and stone at the exact pace of the mana flowing up into me. That’s the pace I kept. Building up just didn’t make sense. If giants were real, why signal to them that there was an easily smashable town full of delicious snacks right around the corner? It made the mindset of dwarves in fantasy seem genius. Build down so nobody sees where your house is.

  But instead of excavating down and out like I wanted, I planned out how I wanted to do that while spending all of my energy reinforcing the existing structure of my home and the hill covering it. The reality of the giants scared the crap out of me, their scarily tall builds weighing hundreds of pounds running across the landscape with a hungry smile, salivating at the sight of me. Hell no. So instead of building out more, I infused. Mana poured into me, concentrating with my will before flowing right out of me to turn my hidden home within a hill into a subterranean fortress. Bit by bit, the stone walls and columns around, beneath, and above my home thickened, their solidity growing as I pushed for them to be more dense.

  Long slabs of clay flowed from the surrounding dirt to provide both cushioning and weather proofing. Dirt is an excellent shock absorber but clay is superior by far. I made mental notes to talk to Sandra later so she could use her plant magic to reinforce everything under the ground with well-placed roots. She would be able to perfectly place them so that they were an asset instead of serving their real purpose of breaking down rocks and soil to get at minerals. Any and all dirt I found that would be good for the garden, I pushed upwards to the back yard to keep it nice and healthy for our food supply.

  [Are you avoiding me? Don’t you think we should talk about this?]

  [Being productive in the face of dangerous realities is not being avoidant.] I replied, organizing the nearby stone underneath the house. The earth is NOT an organized mass, stone and dirt and clay were dispersed in uneven blobs and I was taking the time to pull it together so if I needed a specific material, I would have a place under the earth for it.

  [Fine. Elvis would be so happy to get your lunch.)

  [WAIT!]

  It did not take me long to pull myself out of the dirt and haul my hungry ass up to the surface. The sweet scent of barbecued meat lured me in so fast that I missed the fact that everyone was eating already and they were super quiet. I looked up to see my wife with her arms crossed.

  “Something on your mind, babe?” I asked, slipping the side to wash my hands real quick before sitting down with gusto. “Eh-mmm, I mean, your MAJESTY?!”

  “Don’t you start.” She snapped.

  Thomas piped up. “This is REALLY good, my queen! Sugar glaze with the ground up cayenne and that hint of rosemary. Chef’s kiss! Or is it the royal kiss?”

  Her unamused glare silenced him. “We need to talk about something more important than magical aliens thinking I’m genuine royalty. I don’t know what to do about Paul. Eli and I discussed this a bit while you were ‘working’, and by ‘working’, I mean avoiding me.”

  I looked at Eli. “You’re the healer with the magic toolbox. What do you think?”

  “There’s a vague sense of wrongness.” He replied, chewing a tough piece of meat. “He’s basically okay, from what I can tell. But what he really needs to do is wake up. I don’t know why he’s not healing but-”

  “He’s not actually Superman, he’s just similar.” Elvis said, his head bobbing up and down. “Wish I could see his Status Screen again but he doesn’t have miraculous healing abilities, he’s just super durable.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense, he is SOLAR powered, and he’s sitting between the sun and a sunstone.” Thomas set his glass down. “Make it make sense.”

  I sighed. “It doesn’t. Really, but there is something to that thought. Maybe he didn’t get healing as an ability, maybe he’s super durable but has normal healing speed. Or maybe he has to be conscious to direct his power to heal himself. Who knows?”

  I scratched at my unshaven cheek as I mulled this over.

  “Pass the potatoes and carrots, please.”

  Eli’s voice pulled me from my thoughts and I noticed Sandra’s cheek muscles twitching as she ate, her fork stabbing the food a bit too hard. I knew better than to poke her but something was clearly getting to my wife. The whole ‘royalty’ thing was more concerning to her than she was letting on. My mind drifted back to one of our conversations a few days ago, specifically about her two other powers she hadn’t figured out.

  Maybe I can help with that.

  Ignoring everyone’s idle conversation, I got to wolfing down my food before I stood up with a quick ‘thank you’ and walked inside the house making my way to my bedroom.

  [What are you doing?]

  I answered Sandra with a quick reply. [You’ll see. Had an idea, kinda obvious in hindsight but gimme an hour.] I left the feeling of not wanting to be disturbed hanging on the outside of the door on our mental link, a sort of ‘Do not disturb’ sign. Chuckling at the imagery, I gathered up my wife’s musical instruments. It didn’t take long because the ones that weren’t nicely put away in cases were hanging up on the walls like display pieces. Music wasn’t my forte but it was my wife’s, which is why I was kicking myself over this lack of personal insight.

  An insistent knock resounded on the door of our link. Ignoring that in favor of keeping on track with my minor burst of inspiration, I flew through the house. Within five minutes, I found myself in the basement with an enlarged Alchemy ritual table and several stringed instruments laying next to each other. The violin lay in between the banjo and the guitar. Below them sat an open violin case with an extra violin bow and four small packages of extra strings. Lastly, above them sat a beat up violin I had bought two years ago in my misguided attempt to learn how to play.

  Much to my wife’s chagrin and continued amusement, I have zero musical talent. I did however, have a serious talent for focusing and specialized ignoring. Cracking the door on my mental link, I hung up another ‘sign’.

  [Busy. Be back soon. Tell Eli to stay near Paul and keep healing him. Love you.]

  An exasperated huff was all I heard before I placed my two little sunstone bulbs, a small bit of spare wire, and a plate of dried bug chitin in the ritual circle and fired it up. Soft light flowed around the border before rushing inwards. I grinned, the old violin dissolving completely into component waves of light that rushed out to infuse into the other instruments. Their blemishes faded and strings tightened while the wood of the body took on new life.

  Smiling as this entire effort did not take very long, the instruments gleamed as if they were freshly made without a hint of use showing. I loved it. Curious, I picked up one of the packages of spare strings and read aloud.

  “Nickel-plated steel. Huh.” I picked up another package. “Same thing. Weird to see plastic bags. Good thing all this was kept out of the rain when it hit.”

  Taking great care, I put the instruments in their cases except Sandra’s violin. This one she has had for the longest time, longer than I’ve known her. It was all I could do to keep my excitement from leaking out into our mental connection. Even with the door firmly shut to prevent thoughts from getting to her, she had told me there was often a ‘glow’ that eeked out along the edges of the door frame. I couldn’t remember how that all happened but I could care less.

  My steps up the stairs and out of the house were light as I cradled the violin like a baby. I didn’t have to check on Sandra via our mind link to know where she’d be. I darted into the garden.

  “Yo! Babe!”

  She stood up from where she knelt in the garden, the tomatoes in her hands falling into the dirt.

  “What’s wrong? I can’t feel anything-”

  My big smile caught her off guard even as I felt her emotions trying to flood through the mind link.

  I lightly shoved her before gently placing the violin in front of her. Blue energy picked them up as she squinted at me, wiping her hands on her pants.

  “What is, why? Huh?”

  Putting a finger to her lips, I moved the floating violin closer to the violin bow.

  “Stop talking so much.” I said, pushing the instrument closer to her. “You don’t have to know every thought of mine before I act on it.”

  “What are you-”

  I threw my head back. “Babe! Are you doing anything super important? Life or death?”

  She squinted before saying a curt, “No.”

  “Okay, good. Then just feel for a second.” I took a deep breath, knowing I’d have to speak quickly to get my point across. She both does and does NOT like surprises. “Your other powers, the ones you haven’t figured out. Music. You don’t do your powers, you feel your powers. Like the plant stuff and moving stuff with your mind and how you connected ours together.”

  My hands slowly pushed the violin and its bow into her hands. “Just stop talking, stop thinking, tune your violin and play me some damn Vivaldi! And if that doesn’t get your creative juices flowing, then I wouldn’t mind a bit of Mountain Music by Alabama.”

  Her eyes never left mine as she ran the bow across the violin slowly as her telekinesis turned the tuning pegs at the top and the fine tuners at the bottom. The sounds quickly changed from dying rabbit caught in a trap to soothing melody delivered with long practiced ease.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “Now, just play. Play something easy, something light, something you enjoy just whipping out, like “Devil Went Down to Georgia’ or ‘Five O’Clock Somewhere’.”

  “That makes me want a beer.” She grumped, cracking her knuckles. The bow eased up and down to hit a note to make a dog cry and she laughed. “Sorry. Need a minute.”

  It was all I could do to not tap my foot or vibrate with anticipation. First, she played a scale then put the bow down to shake her arm and work her fingers then put the bow back on. Each note, she sawed back back and forth until she hit it cleanly several times in a row creating an elongated scale. My smile grew as her eyes closed, her body beginning to move just in time with the violin.

  Note after note came faster and cleaner, her warmup switching without warning into the opening of something classical I didn’t recognize. That was, until she hit a discordant twang.

  “I know what you’re doing.” She said, a bit of defeat creeping in. “You’re thinking-”

  “No! You’re thinking. Stop thinking. Start playing. You don’t know what I’m doing. You have a ‘guess’ as to what I’m doing.”

  “What is all the noise? Y’all tryin’ to party without me?” Thomas swaggered up and I hit him in the chest with a loose dirt clod.

  “Sshhhhh!”

  He froze, backing up a few steps until he was in the doorway of the stone fence. I heard him muttering as he walked away.

  “Sheesh! Fun police.”

  I turned to watch Sandra lay back as if she were sitting in an invisible floating chair, blue energy holding her up as she ran through her scales a few more times. Faster and faster she began to play and I focused on our mental connection. I didn’t use words or pictures, I focused on feeling. Our link was akin to a violin string, humming with life and love, the idea of our lives bound together at a deeper level. It was even easier than talking through the link and it made me wonder why I hadn’t really given it a solid try before. I sent emotions down the link.

  Not jokes or one word-esque type responses filled with emotion, but pure feeling.

  Acceptance. Encouragement. Love. Wonder. Fascination. Awe.

  It was hard not to feel these things, seeing her float in midair as if buoyed up by a cloud of shining light. Her music only served to heighten the experience as the wind caught her blonde hair. She kept the music bright and fun transitioning into an old favorite of ours.

  “I love that song!”

  Elvis laughed as he tapped his way down the hill. Sandra shook as her concentration vanished, dropping out of the air. She caught herself just before she hit the ground, her violin floating a few feet above her.

  “What great timing.” My frown didn’t extend to my eyes but Elvis could tell that he’d chosen the exact moment to bump his way into the back yard.

  “Do NOT tell me I can’t dance to the Watermelon Crawl by Tracey Byrd!”

  Sandra burst out laughing. Elvis’ didn’t stop shimmying, instead he shimmied harder and sang off key.

  “If ya’ drink don’t drive! Do the watermelon crawwwwl!”

  Another idea hit me like a lightning bolt. I sprinted back inside and returned with the banjo and the guitar.

  “Yo! Elvis, can you play?”

  His joyful hillbilly dancing ground to a halt as he saw the banjo in my hand.

  “Can I?”

  He reached forward and I looked to Sandra for permission to hand it over. She nodded and I handed it over, keeping the guitar to myself even though I had club fingers.

  Elvis carefully set his shield and warhammer down so he could pull the top layer of his armor off. He sighed, looking around for a seat before vines popped up to form a stool.

  “Thank’ye.”

  I stared as his big hands caressed that instrument like it was an actual baby. He tuned it in less than a minute and gently plucked the strings and Sandra smiled.

  “Really? Dueling banjos?” Her grin turned evil. “That’s what you want to start with?”

  Elvis closed his eyes, pulling back after the warmup and flowing into ‘Wagon Wheel’. My wife, for the first time since magic entered the world, experienced unrestrained joy. I stepped back, laying the guitar on the table, and putting my hands near my gear just in case. But I didn’t stop watching.

  The evolution of the transitions wasn’t something I could easily follow. I didn’t know how they did it, the unspoken communication of when the song ended and how to flow into the new one and that beautiful dance of passing the lead. Round and round they went and I caught songs I knew and even more I didn’t. It was the one thing that I was truly jealous of in my life, musical talent. This, I loved but could not participate in. This was a side of life that my body and heart longed to join but the translation of desire to skill just wouldn’t happen.

  So I settled for the other side of music, being the audience. My foot tapped, my head bobbed, my fingers drummed. I absorbed it all. And it happened again.

  Sandra’s delicate hands flew across the violin, her bow vibrating as blue energy picked her up, her slight dancing becoming more ethereal, more alien without the ground holding her back. Elvis played it right back, giving as good as he got, his face red and sweating as he fought to control his superhuman strength on the delicate instrument. Playing at this level of skill and enjoyment demanded superhuman control before the advent of magical abilities, and now, it took everything he had to keep up without shattering the banjo in his hands.

  Green vibrations tinged with silver resonated from my wife, a strident pulse that snapped a string. We all froze, feeling something, hearing some note that didn’t come from an instrument. Something deeper.

  It came from the violin but it had echoed off of something that didn’t exist. And it was an ECHO.

  Sandra whirled around in the air, a question on her lips that she couldn’t voice. Elvis silently put the banjo down and picked up his weapons, that erie thrum vanishing almost quicker than it appeared.

  Eli crouched over his First-Aid kit moving closer to Paul as he looked around, uncertain at what it was that made that noise. Thomas had already moved to stand next to the fence, his bone armor out and ready. I noted that he still looked rough from his injuries yesterday even with all of Eli’s healing.

  Nobody moved for minutes on end. Even breathing was artificially muffled as eyes darted around looking for the other shoe to drop.

  Finally, I faced the truth. “That wasn’t me.”

  Blue eyes watered as my wife shakily let her arms fall to her side, the weight of the violin forgotten. “I think . . . I think that was me?”

  Hours passed as the haunting note hung over us. It wasn’t discordant and it wasn’t awful, it just wasn’t natural. Banjos and violins do not make that noise. It was deeper, more like the wind attempting to make music than anything else. Or the groan of a tree knowing that it will fall in the next storm.

  Something had changed. Instead of being excited at possibly touching upon an ability she didn’t know how to use or activate, Sandra was frightened.

  Solemn. I caught her throughout watching her fingers absently playing a tune but every time she looked at the violin in its case, a complicated expression creased her face before vanishing into a silent, stubborn refusal. The one time I went to go talk to her, without a word, she telekinetically picked me up and put me back down a few feet further away.

  “Fair enough.” I thought, turning back to the piles of cooked meat on skewers, selecting a bunch to snack on. Eating and walking served to let my brain wander as I went up the hill to check on Eli.

  “Here. You can’t pour from an empty cup.” I said, handing him some meat and a glass of water.

  “Do you talk like a southern grandma on purpose?” Eli joked with a smile, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

  I reached forward to take a skewer away and he pulled back, shoving one in his mouth.

  “I was just kidding! Sheesh! Thank you!”

  Smirking, I sat down next to him and Paul. “I’m guessing no change? Huh? Still out cold?”

  He nodded, finishing his food quickly and I handed him so more.

  “Taking him to the church, uhg, not really something I want to do.” I said, grimacing at the thought of talking with Earl and Mansfield again. “And they wouldn’t be overjoyed to see you or me again either.”

  Eli wiped the juice off his hairless chin. “Would the dwarves have healers? Maybe they can help?”

  We both watched Elvis continue his slow walk around the compound that was my house and the much larger walled-in area. My original plans of building up and out seemed stupid now that we knew about giants being a reality and it made me rethink guard patrol duty. What’s the point? It only serves to let someone know that something worth guarding is nearby.

  And Elvis is hard to miss. Tall. Broad. Clad in gleaming armor and bearing a shield big enough to brain an elephant a warhammer large enough to crack a giant’s kneecap.

  “God, I wish I just knew what the hell I was doing.” I said, halfway under my breath. “How do I plan? How do I do anything worth doing without having some concept of what’s coming next?”

  “Stop thinking so damn hard, bro.” Thomas sat down heavily next to me, swiping a few skewers from my plate.

  “You got a bright idea? Any ideas, really?”

  Eli watched us banter back and forth before his eyes lit up.

  “Nothing’s really changed . . .” He said quietly.

  “What? Speak up!” Thomas leaned forward. “Say it with your chest!”

  The youngest member of our team coughed and took a deeper breath.

  “Nothing has really changed. The strategy, at its core, is still the same.”

  Thomas motioned for him to continue and I kept my peace, unwilling to stop the flow of possible inspiration.

  Eli took his now empty skewer and poked it into the dirt and grabbed another one. “War of some kind is coming, and we don’t know the enemy. Since we don’t know where they’re coming from, we have two real options: scout for information or intel, or harden the position.” He looked at me and Thomas. “That means to gather supplies, weaponry, ammo, food, and fortify the area.”

  “I know what it means!” Thomas replied quickly. “What I don’t know is how you know any of that?”

  “My step-dad.” Eli looked down. “If I was ever in trouble or didn’t want to do some chore, I could just ask him about his tours in the Middle East and he’d go on and on for hours.”

  Nodding in agreement, I shrugged at Thomas. “I’m game. But explain the part about ‘nothing’s changed’.”

  “The tactics are still the same even if magic is real.” Eli explained. “We can still scout and fortify the area and it’ll still work. Magic is just a new, different tool for us to use. That’s really it.”

  A new hum set my teeth on edge. All three of us whipped around to see Sandra glaring furiously at her violin. It sat in her hands just like before but this time she was looking at the magical tree we’d accidentally made in the back yard. This time, the music wasn’t light or playful.

  It was sad. Smooth. Longing but distant.

  Elvis looked up, his voice grim. “Poor Wayfaring Stranger. I know this song!”

  It felt like a punch to the gut. Guesses and instincts mixed together to form a sense of growing horror.

  Each step she took shimmered, her blue telekinetic energy fading as a greener, wilder one rippled, disguising her features like a heat wave above a hot road in the summer.

  My first instinct galvanized me to jump to her but something strange held me back. The music warned it, whatever she was doing wasn’t meant for me. I had no part in that. Panicking, I yanked on the door of our connection throwing it wide open and all I felt was a thinning.

  Right in front of my eyes, Sandra walked straight into the tree, vanishing without a trace.