Unfinished Song(Book 4): Root

by Maya, Tara

  Dindi fights but her own mind spins in loops and soon she is in bed, cozy and warm, falling asleep, unable to remember something important…

  That bitch.

  She did it. She did this to me. She set me up.

  I hate her.

  Dindi

  “Leave me alone!” Dindi yelled at Jensi and Tibi.

  “Dindi, we need to…”

  “You will leave now!”

  They hurried from the sweat lodge.

  Dindi stared at the planks in the floor, fighting the hard, cold feeling that seemed to be swallowing her from inside out. If she closed her eyes, she remembered Kemla tugging her into this very room to be prettied and painted. She could still feel Kemla’s fingers in her hair. Oh, the serpent, pretending to be her friend. All along, Kemla had only had one goal: To stop Dindi from performing for the White Lady.

  Some part of her must suspect the truth about me. Some part of her must know there’s something different about me and loathe me because of it.

  Or fear me because of it.

  And she should fear me.

  The bite of the cold outside was nothing to the ice inside her.

  She stood on the edge of the steam pit.

  Dindi began to dance.

  Her anger and pain burned into movement, while inside she lost herself in a whirlwind of vengeful fantasies. If Kemla would not share a stage with her, then let Kemla begone! Let her know hurt, know guilt, know shame and fear and agonizing pain! Let her suffer as Dindi had and sevenfold!

  As always, she danced in a kind of trance that admitted no distraction. The fire salamanders awakened in their pit. The dragons keened and slithered up and down her body as she gyrated in the billowing steam.

  Dindi

  Eventually she burned off the nervous energy and sank into a stupor in the corner of the sweat lodge. She dreaded the moment she would have to face the rest of the world again.

  Dancing for the White Lady was out of the question now. If Abiono had been nervous about her role before, he certainly wouldn’t want her now that she was a criminal.

  Tamio would have tired of his joke about marrying her.

  Her clan and tribal kin would be ashamed of her.

  The Green Woods tribesfolk would hate her for hurting one of their beloved Sylfae.

  She was the Duck all over again.

  Walking out of the sweat lodge, she felt like she had a boulder tied to her back, like Gremo used to have.

  Finnadro waited for her. So did a large crowd of Green Woods tribesfolk. Her heart sank.

  But the crowd parted silently. No one heckled her. Finnadro escorted her to the foot of one of the conifers.

  “Your new home,” he said gravely.

  “I’m surprised you trust me with another one.”

  “I thought I understood what happened the night the fire started. Now I realize, I know nothing. For I have never seen the Sylfae do what they did for you. No one who has the favor of the Sylfae can be a true enemy of Green Woods, or of me.”

  “They favor me?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  All she remembered was the Vision of Mayara and her lost dream.

  “When you fainted from the cold, the Sylfae who held you lifted you further up into the branches of his arms. He and the trees on either side of him all reached to enclose you in a bower of their pine needles, to protect you from the wind and chill. When we saw that they would not let you be harmed, and that you seemed unable to ask for mercy, Nann decreed you be taken into the sweat lodge and revived. Only then would the Sylfae release you. Can you explain this?”

  She rubbed her temples. A headache pulsed behind her eyes. “Not really.”

  Finnadro gestured again. “Your new home.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Can you clarify something for me?” Finnadro asked.

  “Yes?”

  “Are you a Tavaedi? You practice with them, yet in your aura, I sense no Chromas. Perhaps I merely lack the colors you possess…?”

  Dindi laughed, or maybe it was more of a sob.

  Oh, Mayara. You still have not told me how to undo the curse you put on me. Was that your vengeance? You lost your dream, so you decreed that the children of my lineage would not be allowed to dream either?

  “I’m just a serving girl for the Tavaedies,” she said.

  “Then you won’t perform in the contest for the White Lady?”

  “There would be no point.”

  She climbed down the ladder into her new den. It was a bare dugout, full of dust and cobwebs. For some reason, it made Dindi think of Mayara’s child-sized wings, powdery with disuse.

  Could it be that Dindi was seeing Visions of Mayara, not because the Aelfae had anything to do with the curse on her family, but because they were alike in an important way? Mayara had clung to her dream so long, she didn’t realize she’d outgrown it. Maybe it was time for Dindi to grow up too. Stop play-acting at Tavaedi. Accept the fact she would never win back Kavio.

  Except…she had promised the faeries she would help the Aelfae. Ha. That was never going to happen either. Unfortunately, they still trusted her. Why else had the Sylfae tried to protect her? They had placed their faith in her even though she was destined to fail them.

  A man cleared his throat.

  Someone was waiting there, and it wasn’t Tibi.

  He stood up from behind a support beam. Zavaedi Abiono wrung his hands. “Dindi. I know I have no right to ask this of you, but I need your help.”

  Amdra

  Amdra found her father Vumo still in his tent, half drunk and half naked. She tossed him his quill-embroidered tunic.

  “Don’t forget you must do your part,” she said.

  He twisted his face like a baby in a tantrum. “Don’t make me do this.”

  “I will not have to make you do it. You will do it out of loyalty to all Morvae.”

  “Muck all Morvae.”

  She pressed her hand to her forehead. “I’m not going to have this conversation with you. And I’m not going to use Compulsion on you either, because I know that’s what you want so you can play the martyr. You are not the martyr here, father.”

  He picked up his bowl of beer.

  Amdra dashed it from his hand.

  He picked up the empty beer, and a jar.

  She lifted the jar and smashed it against the pole holding up the tent. Then she called out to the warriors outside the tent.

  “My father has made himself beer-sick again,” she told them. “He’s to have nothing whatever to drink as long as he is in our camp.”

  They nodded. “Yes, mistress.”

  “That was uncalled for,” said Vumo, acting hurt.

  “If you want a drink, I suggest you crawl over to our enemy’s camp and ask to celebrate the Midwinter Rite with them. I’m sure Nann will be glad to fill your bowl.”

  “I wish I had never sired you,” he spat. “I wish I had drowned you at birth.”

  “Maybe if you had bothered to father me as well as sire me, you would have less complaints about my conduct.”

  “You’re just like your mother.”

  Amdra’s lip curled. “You do one thing well, father, and only one thing. So I suggest you make yourself useful and go do it.”

  “And when I’m done with this. Will he release me?” whimpered Vumo.

  “You’ve known him longer than I have. What do you think?”

  He began to cry. “I need a beer.”

  “You know where to find it.”

  Vumo stood up. He staggered out of the tent. The warriors outside the door looked inquiringly at Amadra.

  “My father needs transport to the gates of the Winter Warrens,” she said. “He’s feeling festive.”

  “Yes, mistress.”

  Back at her own aerie, Amdra paced the octagonal wooden platform. Hawk knelt nearby, leashed to a post. She took off his blindfold, not so that he could see, but so that she could admire the golden flecks in his malt eyes. He was so ha
ndsome, her hawk.

  “Am I beautiful?” she asked him.

  She flicked her tongue and tasted his aura. As always, she felt the sharp tang of a struggle there. Tangled furious thoughts roiled deep inside his being, silenced shouts of hate. She smoothed those threads into an orderly pattern of desire.

  “You are the most beautiful woman in the world,” he said.

  She had taken other lovers before Hawk. They all started the same way, a knotted mess of hate and resentment and fear. She tamed them and trained them and smoothed their thoughts into neat rows and boxes. Then, when the last glimmer of resistance died out in their minds, she threw them away. She hunted the mountains until she found a new wilding to break.

  Hawk still had kick left in him. But he resisted less and less each time. It seemed to her that each of her slaves lasted a shorter time than the one before. She was becoming too good at breaking them. She knew she needed to slow down, not intrude in their minds so often. No more than once or twice a moon was needed to keep them captive once they were past the initial induction period. But she craved more frequent contests. She had been fighting Hawk daily ever since they’d come to this accursed woods.

  “We’re going to die, Hawk,” she said. “We don’t have enough warriors, riders or raptors. He promised me reinforcements, but where are they? He has decided to sacrifice us, I think.”

  “Run away, mistress,” he whispered. “Run away from it all.”

  She touched his mouth, amazed. So seldom did he volunteer any original advice anymore. He had been full of opinions at one time. Immediately after his capture. Of course, they had mostly been useless, as this bit of advice was useless, but she was touched nonetheless.

  She reached out to him, and he flinched. He thought she was going to pluck the thought away, hurting him.

  “I just want to touch your face,” she said.

  His eyes widened. She had surprised him. Sometimes they could be gentle with one another and it always surprised them both.

  “Mistress,” warned Hawk.

  She felt the wind at her back of a Raptor landing. No one but the Great One would have dared use her personal landing platform, so she already knew who she would see when she turned around.

  He was there, on his eagle. But behind him, landing on the ground around her tree, were a dozen more Raptors and Riders.

  “I told you to expect reinforcements,” he said.

  She wanted to clap her hands like a little girl. Instead, she saluted the Great One, and touched Hawk’s shoulder.

  “We’re not going to die, Hawk,” she said. “We’re going to raze that dog den to the ground!”

  Dindi

  The Midwinter Rites.

  Everyone from the oldest gramps to the newest baby gathered in the Great Lodge. In the place of honor directly in front of the platform, in a booth with actual benches, sat the Green Woods War Chief Nann, Finnadro, and the White Lady.

  Never before a dance had Dindi felt such an overwhelming desire to vomit.

  Kemla's injury had been kept a secret. In a concealing Orange mask and mantle, Dindi's face was hidden. Her arms and legs were painted in complex henna patterns, just like Kemla; her hair was dyed ginger, just like Kemla. Dindi and Kemla were of an age and size, so Abiono was hoping no one would notice the switch.

  We’ll be twins. Kemla had predicted better than she knew.

  Abiono had Kemla stashed away for the duration. Apparently, while Dindi had been recovering from her ordeal in the sweat lodge, Kemla had fallen down the ladder into her home and broken her leg. Abiono planned to bring her out in a few days and announce that she had injured her leg the day after the festival. The other Tavaedies, especially the young women, had kissed Dindi and wept their thank-yous into her shoulder; if there had been no one to take Kemla’s place, no one in the troop could have performed in the contest.

  Dindi had never danced for an audience before. She’d laid out props, she’d danced with the fae, but to perform a real part in a real tama?

  She was beginning to wish that she had broken her leg instead of Kemla.

  Surely it couldn't feel worse than this dread like liquid fire that sapped her strength and made her feel her limbs were turned into corn mush? Following tradition, the Tavaedies walked single file through the crowd up onto the platform. As the star dancer, Dindi was required to lead them. She feared she'd forgotten how to walk, but somehow she made it, though she dropped her stomach somewhere along the way. Her whole insides were empty by the time the Tavaedis assumed their initial positions. Why, oh, why did she feel this way? How was she going to dance in this state?

  Dindi knelt in the center of the stone platform, curled up in a ball inside a tight circle of Blue Tavaedis. A circle of Greens surrounded the Blues. The Yellows started to beat their drums, and the Pattern began to unfold.

  All the nervous heat that had been tormenting her before now turned into a delicious bonfire of pure energy. Ah, so that was what that prickly feeling was for—when the time was right, it transformed into power. During practice, she had never been able to tap the same degree of passion that she found when she danced from pure joy or anger with the fae. But she found that passion now, though her mind was clear and her heart open.

  And though her steps were precise and perfect in the Pattern, she felt as free as if she were dancing with the fae. She was dancing Orange, so she envisioned Orange, sheer Orange. She imagined she could see it smearing through the air in the aftermath of her movements, as if she were a living paintbrush on the mural of the universe. She could actually see the ribbon of color she painted, weaving in and out of the bands of color that the other Tavaedis made with their bodies, until the Pattern they were dancing was truly a pattern as clearly as in the warp and woof of a tapestry.

  Tamio's strong hands grasped her waist. As he swirled her in the air, she could see her tangerine after-trail twist around and around with his emerald after-trail in a vast spiral.

  She smiled at him, though he could not see her through the mask. As Orange and Green, their duet together formed the last steps of the Pattern. All too soon it was over. As Dindi's heart thumped hard with exertion and exhilaration in her chest, she secretly wished they could dance the Pattern over and over again for the rest of eternity, just to keep the moment from ending.

  The White Lady stood up.

  She began, “I am pleased to announce—”

  Before she could finish her speech, the roof of the Great Lodge exploded.

  Vessia

  Explosions of orange light blinded her. She heard wings whistle overhead, and caws. Smoke billowed up from the roof of the Great Lodge. Ash rained down on her, and blackened splinters. She instinctively spread her wings to shield herself from the debris.

  She flapped her wings to clear off the dust and flew up through the burning hole in the roof. Sparks stung her as she passed the flames, but then she emerged into the air over the marae.

  The panicked crowd stampeded out of the burning lodge. Outside offered the humans no more safety than inside. Raptors dived toward the tribehold. The Sylfae thrashed as if the trees were caught in the throes of a storm. The reach of the trees covered the whole marae and prevented the birds from entering. One Raptor tried. A hand-like branch snatched the intruder out of the sky and hurled bird and rider to the ground with such forced that both died.

  But the Raptors found a breach in the wall in the gap where the burnt tree had once stood tall. Now she sagged, droopy black, against her neighbor. Her brittle arms could not fend off the birds.

  Vessia launched herself into the breach and began to dance on crystal wings. She darted to and fro, like a dragonfly. In her wake, she wove six threads of light. With these she wove a rainbow net, like a loose basket, to cover the entire tribehold. The Raptors shrieked anger. They tried to fly toward the white weave, but could not break in.

  “Friends, for now we are safe!” she cried to the milling crowd. “But this shield will not last more than a handful of days. We mu
st put out these flames and repair the damage. Then, with your War Chief’s permission, I need all the Tavaedies and elders to meet with me in the kiva to perform the war dance!”

  Dindi

  War Chief Nann herself tapped Dindi on the shoulder. “Kemla of Full Basket! The White Lady would like to you join us in the kiva. At once.”

  Dindi still had on her mask. They still thought she was Kemla. She could only nod dumbly.

  If she joined the war council with the White Lady, she would need to remove her mask. The deception would be uncovered. But War Chief Nann would not take no for an answer.

  “I will be there as soon as possible, but right now I am urgently needed to…to…”

  Dindi saw Tamio across the marae, shouting something about his horse Clipclop.

  “…Rescue our horses and aurochsen!” she concluded. It was a perfect excuse. She had to switch back with Kemla before anyone found out what she had done. Abiono had told her that Kemla was hiding in the kraal.

  “Impossible,” said Nann. “The kraal is outside the shield woven by the White Lady. There is no way to get to them without lowering the entire shield.”

  “But that means…”

  That meant Kemla was trapped outside the tribehold, at the mercy of the enemy. And Dindi had a terrible feeling it was all her fault.

  Kemla

  Lame leg, downhill from her kin, with winged enemies circling overhead. An impossible situation. Unless she could grow a new leg, Kemla had no chance to warn her people.

  Grow a new leg… Kemla stumbled out of the hut and stared into the kraal where more than twenty tamed horses padded around the slushy circle. A few wooden hoops were hung on some of posts of the log fence around the kraal.

  If Tamio can do it, how hard can it be?

  Of course, Tamio danced Purple, so he could see the vassily, the spirit of a horse. Kemla hopped over to the fence. She examined the hoops there, dismissing several bland wood rings. She selected one that had been beaded and painted.