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Alfred was usually not easy to disturb from a book, so he wasn’t certain when he had begun hearing the voice. His attention had started to slip from the words on the page, blurring with the words the voice was singing — too far away and too echoey to make out, but unbearable. Pleasant.
He set the book aside, barely aware he was doing it before he was on his feet, following the hissed sibilants into the corridor, around a corner draped in dusty tapestry, to a stairwell where the voice grew louder but no closer, no more distinguishable.
It ran like honey down the cold stone walls, tucked itself into crevasses and coiled there, vibrating under Alfred’s fingertips as he followed it up the stairs, into a wide open hall that had long been abandoned to dust and the flutter of small leathery wings in the eaves.
The voice swelled here, billowed to fill the space — the whole room consumed by a breath, a note, controlled and wide-open at once. It went straight to Alfred’s spine and he paused by a broken-down armchair to catch his breath, his balance. His dignity as he tried not to arch into the sound even as it ran between his shoulderblades, a little pinched, lovely.
He stumbled on. The ceiling dripped with purple-red vowels. Half a word sung high blossomed and swung in the air before him and he reached out, caught it, felt it shiver in his palms. He wanted to eat it, pressed it to his lips greedily only to find it evaporated.
Up another stairwell, darker and narrower, twisting through walls that muffled the singing a bit, all body to the voice gone but it was still palpable, it rang in the air and ran in a low rasp around the shells of his ears.
Some deep note, nearly a vibration, slid down the curve of his throat, his shoulder, as he emerged into a little room and he couldn’t help the gasp, couldn’t help but hear the little chuckle in the next line of the song, half pleased, more than half taunting. He had never wanted anything as much as he wanted to wrap himself in the soft shudder of the song as it dipped down nearly conspiratorial. Loving. There was a door on the other side of the room.
In the long thin corridor it ran past him on both sides, knife-sharp, haunting, the north wind whistling low outside the palace walls as he slept. He was afraid and excited at once. Silvery, eager, a black growl — it was dark here, and whatever was calling to Alfred wanted him and he was running to it.
He had not forgotten where he was. Terror still coiled in the pit of his stomach, bit at his ribs as his breathing grew thin. But the voice was blue as the ocean now, and though he knew he would drown in it he could not think straight, could only feel. He would not mind being dashed on the rocks.
And oh, it was loud now, too. Swirling around his ears, swallowing him. Alfred stood at the foot of a short staircase — at the top, a stone railing and a glimpse of sky. He climbed, heart in his throat, breaths coming thick and heavy, and emerged into the shocking cold of the night outside. Krolock was leaning on the railing, looking down into the darkness.
They were at the very top of the castle. The count’s lips were parted to sing, half-snarl and half-smile, and his eyes were half-lidded. Alfred stopped in the doorway to the balcony, hand coming to the frame to steady himself — he must have gasped, or Krolock must have sensed he was there, because as he trailed off into one last, soft, low note he turned and caught Alfred’s eye, the corner of his mouth curling into a hungry grin. Those dark eyes glinted, and Alfred stumbled back as if struck, all the threads coming loose, the music unravelling around him. That dying note turned into a growl, nearly tender, as the count sprang for him, sinking his fangs as deep as his voice into Alfred’s throat.