Not because I felt brave.
Because two months earlier, the Royal Meridian Opera signed me as their newest lead soprano under my stage name, Elena Maris.
And Mara had just handed me the microphone herself.
Part 2
“Are you sure?” I asked quietly.
Mara tilted her head. “Scared?”
Her bridesmaids burst into laughter again. One raised her phone to record while another whispered loudly, “This is going to be painful.”
I heard every word.
I trained for years to hear breath, pitch, tremors, weakness. Cruelty carried its own rhythm, and Mara’s heartbeat was speeding up.
Daniel lightly touched her arm. “Maybe don’t do this.”
Without looking at him, she shook him off. “Relax. It’s only a song.”
No, I thought.
It is never only a song when someone chooses it as a weapon.
I walked toward the small stage where the musicians sat trapped somewhere between pity and professionalism. The pianist — a gray-haired man with exhausted eyes — finally met my gaze.
“Key?” he whispered softly.
“B-flat,” I answered.
His eyebrows lifted slightly.
Mara caught the exchange instantly. Her smile twitched.
“Oh, she knows musical keys now?”
I turned toward her calmly. “Would you prefer Schubert or Bach-Gounod?”
The atmosphere shifted instantly.
Mara blinked hard. For one brief second, her mask cracked apart.
Then she laughed too loudly.
“Whichever one you can survive.”
There it was.
Her first real mistake.
She stopped pretending this was generosity.
I nodded once to the pianist.
