Unfinished Song(Book 4): Root

by Maya, Tara

  Dindi screamed prettily. She skipped around almost as if she were dancing. Tamio wished she would do something more helpful, like put an arrow in the wolf.

  The beast had grey fur, but suddenly, it began to glow emerald green. The wolf’s body pulsed and contorted and shifted into something else. Tamio found himself wrestling a man instead of a wolf.

  The man wore no clothes. He had a thick beard and pepper hair down his barrel chest. His eyes glowed green-gold, with no whites, like an animal’s. He snarled and tried to bite Tamio.

  But against this suddenly-human opponent, Tamio took the upper hand. He plunged his dagger into the man’s chest, right into the heart. The hairy attacker slumped into Tamio’s arms. Tamio dropped him to the dirt. He bent to slit the man’s throat, just to be on the safe side, before he finished with a kick to the corpse to express his contempt.

  “Must be one of the big bad wolflings Finnadro warned us about,” Tamio said. He felt heroic now that it was over, and was glad after all that Dindi had not diluted his manliness by helping him defeat the monster. “They swarm all over the Green Woods, it’s said.”

  “You’re hurt.” From under her fur overwrap, Dindi took off her blouse, rinsed it in snow, and used it to dab at the wound on Tamio’s shoulder.

  “Just a scratch.” He winced at the slight pressure. “Really.”

  “Let me clean the blood at least,” she said.

  He let her fuss over him. She had a gentle touch, and cleaned the wound deftly. He remembered that although she had no magic, she had illicitly studied the Healer’s art in Yellow Bear. He could almost fancy he felt healing magic ease the injury, though that was impossible.

  “Thank you,” he said. He kissed the palm of her hand.

  “Tamio,” she chided. “Don’t.”

  “Why not? Why shouldn’t we, Dindi? We are both Tavaedies, aren’t we? We are both the kind who throw taboos to the wind. Why shouldn’t we live for the moment, take our pleasure where we find it? I thought Kavio was a fool because he walked away from you after touching you. Well, I say he was a double fool if he walked away from you without ever touching you.”

  He bent and kissed her. She tasted sweet and warm and wild, like a secret summer.

  Summer ended too soon. Dindi pushed him away.

  “Do you really think,” she asked, “that I would ever be with you like, like that, after what you did to Gwenika?”

  “Gwenika?” Tamio threw up his arms. “What does Gwenika have to do with anything?”

  Dindi all but spat at him. “You know exactly what I mean.”

  “Fa, I really have not a fish in my net on this one.”

  “You really don’t know, do you?” The tucks of contempt around her mouth deepened. “Then I pity you, Tamio. I really do. You are a sorry excuse for a man.”

  She stomped away through the heavy snow. Over her shoulder, she called, “Oh, and don’t bother offering me a ride tomorrow! The rest of the way to the Green Woods tribehold, I will walk!”

  “Damn you!” shouted Tamio. “I killed a wolf for you!”

  Tamio

  He could not believe she had just walked away from him.

  Dindi had scorned him.

  Gwenika? Who cared about Gwenika? What did a former quail have to do with anything? Surely Dindi wasn’t jealous of her? His fling with Gwenika had lasted only days and been over for many moons.

  Dindi had scorned him.

  Dindi, that nothing, had scorned him.

  He paced the bloody clearing on the ridge, his anger rising. He imagined Kemla’s laughter when he had to admit defeat. He did not have to tell her, but what if she found out directly from Dindi? What if Dindi told everyone that Tamio had tried to seduce her and failed?

  Darkling fae gathered in the shadows of the woods. The blood from the slain wolf-man drew them. They slavered for it, and only Tamio’s presence held them back.

  “Damn you, Dindi,” he swore aloud. “You will not walk away from me. You will not laugh at me. I promised to make you mine, and mine you will be. So I swear by the life I have taken tonight!”

  He swept his hand to point at the dark Green and Red fae lurking. “You are all my witnesses! I call on your aide! Make her love me, absolutely, desperately, helplessly!”

  He had lived on the edge all his life, but he had never made up his own dance before. He danced now from his rage, from his lust, from his manly pride and his beastly need, and the fae joined him in wild abandon. He ate the heart of the wolf-man as he danced, and let the blood slide down his chest, to mingle with his own bleeding wound. He danced under the full moon. He howled. And he felt his hex harden and rise and spill out into the night.

  Chapter Four

  Obsession

  Umbral

  “We need to follow the Raptor Riders and the White Lady,” said Ash.

  “No,” said Umbral.

  “That is our mission.”

  “There’s something else I have to find first.”

  “At least tell me what it is,” demanded Ash.

  No. He was not ready to share his suspicions about the girl. It was still possible she was not the one he suspected. If she were the one they sought, he would turn her over to Obsidian Mountain.

  If she were not the one…. He would keep her for himself.

  He could not tell Ash this.

  “You’ll know when you need to know,” he snapped.

  Ash glowered at him. The other Deathsworn grumbled, but none of them dared defy him so soon after his display in the Orange Canyon clanhold.

  Her elusive trail led him to a small clanhold. All of the buildings were made of mud and wattle, plastered smooth and whitewashed thoroughly, then painted with fat belts of bright color. The designs were abstract: stripes of red or yellow; purple waves; dots of blue; green and orange zigzags, and a riot of other crazy combinations. The pigments were frequently repainted to keep them vivid.

  To Umbral’s eyes, there was a further delight. Colored bands of magic looped everywhere, a thousand times brighter to his Vision than the patterns of color painted on the whitewashed houses. The magic was as fresh as new paint, too; these were not lingering spells layered slowly over the market's history. His prey had been here.

  He ran his tongue over his lips in anticipation.

  “I apologize for doubting you,” Ash said. “The Raptors obviously beat us here.”

  Umbral forced himself to focus. His obsession with the girl had turned him into an idiot. He had been so absorbed in the strands of fresh and ancient magic, he had paid scant attention to the physical buildings here in the present.

  The houses had been burnt and abandoned. The tracks, not to mention feathers the length of Umbral’s arm, left no doubt who had done it. The White Lady had stayed here a short time as well.

  His quest for the White Lady, for the Raptor Riders and now for the mysterious girl, had just converged.

  Dindi

  She woke up the next morning knowing she was a fool.

  Why had she spurned Tamio?

  He had killed a wolf for her. Not even Kavio had ever done that.

  Too nervous to eat breakfast, she had her sleeping roll tied up before dawn fully brightened the forest floor. She paced back and forth near the path, listening for the sound of hoofs.

  Tamio rode past her half an hour later. She ran up to him.

  “Tamio!” she called. “About last night…”

  He glanced down his nose at her. “There’s nothing to say, Dindi. You were right. It’s better we go our separate ways.”

  “No… I … I was a fool, I don’t know why I behaved as I did…. Tamio, please, give me another chance….”

  “I don’t think so, Dindi,” he said frostily. He tapped Clipclop with his heel and the horse picked up her pace to a trot. The rhythmic gait tapped a drumbeat on the path until both horse and rider disappeared around the bend in the wood.

  Dindi stood alone, staring after him, emptied like an upturned jug.

  On th
at cold winter morning, she realized the truth. She loved Tamio. Absolutely, desperately, hopelessly.

  Tamio

  As soon as he was out of sight, Tamio pulled the hoop taunt around Clipclop’s neck, letting the horse know to stop. He peered back through the trees.

  Dindi stood barefoot in the icy dirt—she hadn’t even put on her fur boots!—looking forlorn. Mercy! She was even crying!

  He chortled.

  Why had he never tried hexcraft before? The power felt wonderful.

  He would let her stew in her own misery for a few days, to punish her for humiliating him. Then, when she couldn’t stand it any more (what if she tried to take her own life? He must watch out for that), he would relent and gather her back to him. He’d kiss her tenderly. She would be so pathetically grateful she hadn’t lost him that she would do anything to prove herself to him. He was sure of it. Hexcraft meant never having to be unsure of his prey ever again.

  Not that he would over-use it. He wasn’t a fool. He would not use it on Kemla. He wanted his triumph over her to be completely his own. He wouldn’t share her even with the fae.

  But that war would take a long while to win, and he needn’t wait to satisfy himself in the meantime.

  He imagined what Dindi would look like lying on her back on a fur blanket, with her legwals unlaced up to her waist and her blouse pushed up to reveal her naked breasts. He wondered what kind of nipples she had (rounded? pointy?) and how they would feel between his fingers. He stroked her smooth skin in his mind and felt himself heat with anticipation.

  Dindi

  Dindi wanted to die.

  Tamio hated her and she had no one to blame but herself.

  She walked the whole day without seeing anything but the slush beneath her feet. Pines glinting with icicles and frozen waterfalls like crystal sculptures, which would have awed her on previous days, now went unnoticed.

  She had already lost a man she loved once. She couldn’t live through that again.

  There was an easy way out. The corncob doll. The Vision. She would immerse herself in Mayara’s death. Physical pain would be sweet relief compared to what she felt now.

  In the evening, she found a lonely spot to set up the corncob doll and dance herself into oblivion.

  Mayara

  Stone clubs and flint-tipped spears bit into Mayara’s flesh. Goryo and the humans could have killed her at once, but they preferred to play with her. Let her suffer before she died.

  One of them yanked by her hair and forced her, stomach down, onto the ground. Another one kicked apart her legs and lifted up her buttocks with cruelly pinching hands. She screamed and thrashed but the men held her, face in the dirt, rear up. The beasts were too strong.

  “Get away from her!” a man shouted.

  Mayara couldn’t see who had come to her defense. From her vantage, bleeding face down in dirt and rotting leaves, all she could see were the assorted hairy bare legs and buckskin legwals of her attackers.

  “Mind your own business, Joslo,” Goryo yelled back. “You’re not part of Full Basket clan anymore, so this is none of your business.”

  Joslo? Mayara knew him only slightly. His older brother had married Umka’s eldest daughter.

  “I don’t want to kill you, Goryo, but I will,” Joslo retorted. “It would be a shame to start a war between Full Basket and Broken Basket before the seeds of alliance have even sprouted. Do you really want to fight your sister’s clan?”

  Goryo cursed and called Joslo more names, but the men around Mayara slunk away, leaving her alone in the woods with Joslo. He had filled out since the last time she’d seen him. Rugged, broad shouldered now, he still retained the easy smile of his boyhood. She hadn’t noticed before, but he had a huge basket of firewood strapped to his back. He carried the weight, which was likely twice his own, without apparent notice.

  He helped her stand. “I’ll walk you home.”

  “You don’t have to.” Self-consciously, she tugged her clothing back into place.

  “I won’t leave you alone.”

  All I’ve ever asked is to be left alone. Mayara bit back the words. Don’t be an ingrate. He saved your life. “I owe you a lifedebt.”

  “Sure, if you say so.” He bent to pick up her bow and scattered arrows. He turned the weapon over in his hand. After he struggled a bit trying to grip the arrow properly against the string, he flashed her a rueful smile. “If you want to pay the debt, you can teach me to use this. How did you ever find an Aelfae weapon and learn its secrets?”

  “I made it myself. It’s not hard. Learning to use it simply requires practice, the same as using a spear.”

  He walked beside her the whole way home, as he had promised. He whistled when he saw the homestead—a little hut with an oven in one wall, garden, steps of earth prepared for corn, drying racks thick with meat over smoking pits.

  “You did all this yourself?”

  His expression made her blush. She mumbled something before she introduced him to her mother and hurried to prepare middle meal.

  Over the days that followed, Joslo visited the homestead often, he claimed because of a profound and pressing interest in the Aelfae weapon.

  “What do you call it?” he asked as he whittled his own from an aspen sapling. “How do you make the little spears fly?”

  “It’s called a bow. Those little spears are called arrows. You’ll need to string the bow before it will work.”

  “It’s sort of like a combination of a sling and spear?” he asked.

  “Something like that.”

  Once he had made his own bow and arrows, Mayara stood behind him to help him draw the string. She touched his arms lightly, a nudge here, a prod there, to adjust his posture. Odd, wonderful shivers cascaded down her spine when she touched him. Don’t be an idiot, she scolded herself. Don’t even dream of it.

  They practiced every day for two moons, and Mayara enjoyed his company so much, she regretted the day she had to tell him, “I can teach you no more. You can continue to improve by practice, of course, but there’s no longer any reason to come here.”

  “No reason at all?” he asked.

  “Not that I can think of,” she said.

  Joslo laughed and shook his head. “Oh, Mayara. What a strange goose you are. How about if you agreed marry me? Then I wouldn’t have any reason to leave.”

  “Aren’t there any other girls you could marry?”

  “Sure. If I cared for them, but I don’t. I care for you. Don’t you care for me—even a little bit?”

  Her face flooded pink. “That’s not the point.” She felt hot, confused. “If you marry me, you’ll have no clan!”

  “So we’ll start our own clan. You’ve made a good start here.”

  “I need time to think about it,” she said desperately.

  “I’m like a tree,” he smiled. “When you’re ready to nest, I’ll still be here.”

  I don’t want to nest, Mayara remembered. I want to fly. I can’t marry a human. I can’t stay here. I have to find the last clan of Aelfae. It doesn’t matter how I feel about Joslo, I have to marry one of my own kind.

  Besides, if Joslo ever found out the truth about her, he wouldn’t want her for his wife. He would be no better than the rest of the humans. She had heard him laugh and cheer along with all the others on market day when the Tavaedies re-enacted the Massacre of the Aelfae through song and dance.

  If he ever found out the truth, he would kill her.

  She sent him away, and he sauntered off, but he winked at her and assured her he would be back when she needed him.

  Dindi

  The Vision released Dindi gently. It had not been at all what she’d expected.

  “Oh, Mayara, you idiot,” Dindi murmured. “Can’t you see he loves you? How can you give up now?”

  She pressed her palms over her eyes. Hadn’t she been just as blind? Why had she been so quick to give up on her love with Tamio? Her despair before the Vision felt unreal now.

  She wou
ld win Tamio’s love, she vowed, no matter what it took. This would be her goal in life, more urgent than even dancing for the White Lady, undoing the hex on her clan lineage, or solving the riddle of the curse on the Aelfae. She would still do those things if she could. First, however, she would find a way to prove her love to Tamio. The fastest way to lose him would be to throw herself all over him, however, so instead of begging him to carry her on his horse again, she resolved to spend more time with her clan.

  Tamio

  Tamio made a point of riding past Dindi the next morning. Half of him hoped to see her weepy-eyed over him, the other half worried least she hang herself from a tree. He had always heard that love spells could drive men and women to madness, and that was his own niggling doubt about what he had done. He wanted to conquer the maiden, not murder her.

  However, today when he passed Dindi, no tears shimmered in her eyes. Instead, she glanced sidelong at him, with a secretive, sexy smile. Involuntarily, he sat up to do a double take, and Clipclop, thinking he wanted to pause, stopped walking. She giggled into her hand and darted away.

  Mercy. Was she flirting with him?

  That was so…un-Dindi.

  If so, was that a good sign or not?

  Frowning, he kicked his horse forward. He began to wish he had never accepted Kemla’s dare.

  Dindi

  In her daze the previous day, Dindi had not noticed when they’d crossed into the Green Woods tribelands. Today she paid closer attention. She remembered the crossover between Yellow Bear and Blue Waters as quite distinct, but here hills and forest followed hills and forest. A few totem marks hung from trees, and they passed one large rock carved like a squirrel sitting on a wolf, but she did not see any Green Woods clanholds. The only signs of life were smoke signals rising in the distance, and the occasional echo of drums.