The raw heave of power that crashed into Umbral, stolen from more than eighty auras, hit him like an avalanche. He fell to his knees. A roar clanged in his ears and he felt such intense nausea that he vomited. The pain had never been so bad since the first time, during his conversion. Even the torments of his rebirth ceremony paled by comparison.
For a long while, he lay curled up on the floor, insensible to the world. Gradually the ache in his head subsided. The stitch in his side eased.
He stood up. The power he had gained would devour him if he held it overlong, but for the moment, now that the initial bite had passed, he felt glorious. He unfurled black wings of pure shadow-fire behind him and flew to the hole in the top of the kiva.
He dissolved the wings when he crawled out. The other Deathsworn had busied themselves in his absence with burning the first pile of corpses.
“You took your pretty time,” Ash groused. “How many corpses are below?”
“About eighty.”
“Were you able to draw their power first?”
“Yes.”
“Of how many?”
“All of them.”
“All! Eighty auras worth!” She licked her lips enviously. “But you can’t keep it. Too much is as bad as too little. It will tear you apart. You have to share it.”
“Not with you,” said Umbral. “I may have a better use for it. But I need to think first. We’ll finish here, rest for the night, and I’ll decide in the morning.”
Umbral found a torch and dropped it into the kiva onto the pile of bodies he’d left below. Oily black smoke soon roiled out of the hole. The sun reddened the sky. The Deathsworn decided that since the bodies were burnt, they might as well enjoy the hospitality of the dead. They each found huts for the night.
Umbral did not sleep. He watched the moon through the open door. Dark energy electrified his body. He could hear the flapping of bats chasing gnats, but all else was still until the middle of the night. Then he heard a man moving outside.
It was Masher. The oaf entered Ash’s hut.
A moment later, a scream rent the air.
Masher again, running for his life. He was the one screaming. Ash barreled out of the hut with an ax raised over her head.
Mad Eye and Stoneheart ran out of their huts. They tackled Ash, who fought them both like a banshee. Masher rejoined the melee now that the odds were more to his liking. Ash chopped her flint ax halfway into Masher’s forearm. He roared and pulled a dagger to thrust into her stomach, shouting, “How dare you cut me, you ugly bi—”
Masher’s blow never connected to Ash’s face. In one smooth motion, Umbral intercepted Masher’s fist and torqued his arm to flip him to the ground flat on his back.
“No!” shouted Owlhawker. He and Pox arrived on the scene. It was hard to guess what they thought was happening, but that didn’t stop them from fighting. Mad Eye, Stoneheart and Owlhawker all rushed Umbral, while Pox clubbed Ash in the head from behind.
Umbral’s obsidian blade hissed as he drew it from the leather sheath strapped to his thigh. He barreled into the nearest assailant, Stoneheart, ducked the blow aimed at his chest and sent Stoneheart rolling over his back. Without a pause, Umbral already had twin kicks for Mad Eye and Masher, who was just getting back to his feet before Umbral’s foot shoved him down again. Rather than rush forward, Owlhawker drew back from the fight in order to pick up a spear and throw it at Umbral while the others distracted him.
Umbral vaulted backward into the air in a full-twisting double back leap. He caught the spear between his legs as he twisted in the air, and he transferred the weapon to his hands on the final backflip, landing directly in front of Owlhawker with the obsidian spear tip to his throat.
Behind them, Umbral heard Masher struggle to rise one more time. Without looking back, and without letting the spear tip move an inch from Owlhawker’s throat, Umbral tossed his black dagger so that it pinned Masher’s leather tunic to the ground.
Mad Eye hadn’t even bothered to try to move from where he’d fallen.
Ash, who had not been knocked unconscious by Pox’s insufficiently hard blow, had also turned her corner of the fight around quickly enough. First, she knocked down Pox. She knocked back Stoneheart with a kick to his throat that made him retreat, gagging.
Still lost to blood rage, Ash raised her ax over Masher to behead him.
“That’s enough, Ash,” Umbral said.
“Shut up, Umbral! I’m going to kill him!”
“No. You will not.”
Umbral did not shout but dark energy amplified his voice over the whole mountain. Echoes rippled back.
Umbral extended the strands of black fire to every Deathsworn he had touched during the fight. All of them collapsed and writhed on the ground at the ends of his leashes. Ash resisted longer than the others, but even she dropped the ax and fell to her knees.
“I am the leader of this mission,” he said in a cold and terrible voice. “Acknowledge it.”
Bad Eye whimpered. Pox, the only one who was not directly in Umbral’s power, lowered herself to her knees. Umbral released everyone from the lightning ropes of pain, except Ash.
“You are leader, Umbral,” said Pox.
“You are leader,” said Bad Eye.
“You are leader,” said Owlhawker.
Stoneheart cleared his throat, which had a bruise from Ash’s kick. “You are leader, Umbral,” he croaked.
“Ash, I will let you up if you promise to behave,” Umbral said.
She glared at him. She nodded once. Umbral stopped feeding pain into the leash and she almost fell over. When she stood, her hands were still shaking.
She kicked Masher. “If I must follow him, you damn well better submit too.”
Masher said sullenly, “You are leader, Umbral.”
“Since you all have so much vigor, we might as well begin our next mission,” said Umbral. “I have decided how I will use the power I drew today.”
“So, leader,” Ash demanded sarcastically. “What are your orders?”
“Before I killed them all, the clanholders hiding in the kiva told me that Raptor Riders from the Orange Canyon tribe raided this clanhold for slaves. It was not a plague that decimated these people, but the Riders’ inept use of Deathsworn magic.”
Ash scowled. “One day we are going to have to put them in their place.”
“No doubt,” said Umbral. “But in the meantime, they might be useful. They are after the White Lady, perhaps for the same reason we are. We will follow them to the White Lady, and follow the White Lady to the new Vaedi.”
He began to dance. Through the movements and thrusts of his limbs he expelled the shadow fire. The molten darkness coalesced into huge, winged shapes.
The huge bats were unlike any natural beast: larger than horses, with wings wider than the houses, and utterly, impossibly black. Even their eyes reflected no color except a throbbing red glint.
“The Raptor Riders are on the wing,” said Umbral. “We best have wings of our own if we wish to follow.”
“I’m not getting on that abomination,” said Mad Eye.
“The magic won’t hold together forever, Umbral,” said Ash. “What if it falls apart while we’re in the air?”
“Then we fall and die,” said Umbral coolly. “But I will kill anyone who refuses to ride.”
He strode to one of the bats and leaped on.
After a moment, Owlhawker shrugged and mounted another.
Ash snapped at the others, “What are you waiting for? You heard the leader.” She added softly for his ears alone, “This madness better help us find the Vaedi, Umbral. You might be able to knock heads, but Obsidian Mountain won’t be so easy to bully if they do not like your new plan.”
“We will find the Vaedi,” Umbral said, “and then we will kill her.”
The skies betrayed them on the third day of flight.
Finnadro spotted the birds first. When Vessia landed by a stream to allow them both to drink and rest, he cocked his head at the distant V shapes on the horizon.
“Raptors,” he remarked laconically. “Tracking us.”
“Your sight is keener than mine,” Vessia admitted. It would not have been true in her youth, but as much as she hated it, her eyes weren’t what they used to be. She squinted upward until she saw them. “They are Raptors.”
His fists clenched. “I fear travelling with me has been no boon to you, my Lady. My tribe’s ancient enemies have grown more bold of late.”
She shook her head. “They aren’t after you, but me. Zumo has asked his sister for help.”
Finnadro looked dubious.
“She’s a Rider,” Vessia said.
He raised both brows.
Raptors were humans who could take the shape of birds. They were a caste of mariahs, slaves captured from the wild by Riders. Riders were the most honored and feared Tavaedies of the Orange Canyon.
“Can you outfly them?”
“Normally…yes. But I am not used to carrying a passenger. They are.”
“And they outnumber you.”
“So it would seem.”
Finnadro pressed his lips together. “My lady, if I may suggest, it might be better to travel on foot from now on. We can hide under the tree cover, and I can cover our tracks.”
Vessia tried not to nod too quickly. In truth, the flight had begun to exhaust her. Not that walking through unbroken wilderness would be much easier.
As if he read her mind, Finnadro said, “We are not entirely without friends of our own, my Lady. I have hesitated to mention it before, but I did not set out on this venture without allies. They do not fly, but they have been doing their best to keep up with our flight in their own way.”
Finnadro put two fingers to his mouth and let loose a piercing whistle.
In the distance, from deep behind in the territory they had covered the previous day, wolves howled back.
“My friends can change their shape too,” said Finnadro with a feral smile. “They are no man’s slaves, but they will answer the call of one they trust.”
“Should we wait for them to catch up?” asked Vessia.
“They are much swifter than we are likely to be,” said Finnadro. “And with Raptors and their masters hunting us, I do not like the idea of staying still. We should keep moving.”
Vessia sighed. Her joints ached. She would have preferred a seat by a fire with a warm cup of herb tea. But without a word, she set a brisk pace through the tangled underbrush of the forest.
On the day Tamio made his move, he gathered his fellow quail hunters, all young men from Broken Basket clan who had gone through Initiation with him.
“Where’s Hadi?” asked Yodigo, Tamio’s cousin.
“He won’t be included on this hunt,” Tamio said. Not when the prey came from Hadi’s clan.
The men grinned, except Yodigo, who crossed his arms. “Not Jensi. I’ve already shared bread with her family.”
“Not Jensi.”
“Who else is there in Lost Swan clan? We already did Olibi, and Tibi is too young—”
“Dindi.”
He watched the why-didn’t-we-think-of-that-before looks spread over their faces.
“Exactly,” he said. “This little quail has been ruffling her feathers in front of us for months now, and somehow we overlooked her. I’m going to stake my claim first, but don’t be surprised if she agrees to notch more staves after I’ve done her. If she’s opened her thighs once, what’s to stop her from allowing a few more licks from the jar?”
They elbowed one another. The insatiable widow Huldea came to mind.
“I want this hunt to move swiftly,” Tamio continued. “We’re going pull a Danger and Rescue routine.”
“Strong arrow for a little bird,” said Yodigo. “I thought you were saving that trick for Kemla.”
“Fa, it wouldn’t work on Kemla. She doesn’t know the meaning of gratitude.”
The men laughed.
They took up bows, loaded full quivers, and told the clan elders they were going hunting—true enough—though not what prey. Possibly the elders suspected, because Tamio’s mother shook her fist at him. She sat under a shady oak with the other women, kneading snakes of clay for new pots. Her withered arms were stained reddish brown past the elbows.
“You wolf!” she shouted. “Stay away from the mares of Full Basket clan! I won’t have this clan go to war because you can’t keep your hands on your own drum!”
He blew her a kiss. “Ma, I promise!”
True enough.
Ma and the other women shook their heads and clucked their tongues, but they were laughing, secretly proud of their wolves. They had already paid several baskets of meat and corn to the parents of a low-status girl from Full Basket. No one had even suggested Tamio marry her. Not his own kin, not even the elders of Full Basket. Both clans expected him to marry a woman with land and prestige.
The men began as they would a real hunt. Any dangerous animal would have worked, but a wild boar had been trampling the corn recently, which suited Tamio’s plans perfectly. They would spend a few hours building a boar run, tracking the boar, and driving it toward the run.
“You’re about to see how a master hunter nabs a quail, men,” Tamio declared. He pictured the whole thing as he described it. “The wild beast will rush at her, causing her heart to race. She will probably scream, but she might be too frozen with terror to even make a sound. In the last minute, I will dart in between her and the boar, frightening it with a blast of magic and an arrow to the eye. If it’s still kicking, I will drive it back with my spear into the pit, where it will be impaled on the stakes. Blood will spurt up like a geyser. She will still be shaking when I turn around to comfort her. I will insist on walking her home.”
“What if she refuses?” asked Yodigo.
“She will refuse, at first. Everyone knows I’m a scoundrel.” Tamio grinned. “I’ll tell her that’s because she’s probably just like everyone else, ready to judge me based on nothing but rumors. I don’t expect her to believe the truth any more than they do. I’ll hint that I was really the wounded party, but I’m too tough to let on. Girls can’t resist a hook like that. She won’t like to feel that she’s just as insensitive as those other oafs. She’ll want to rescue me from being misunderstood and heart broken, just as I rescued her from the boar. Then I’ll turn the tables and tell her I just remembered I need to skin the boar in the hunter’s shed before nightfall, so she should go on without me. She’ll insist on accompanying me.
“But the coup is yet to come.” He rocked back on his heels. “That’s why we have to move today. By this evening, those gray clouds will break and we’ll have the first snow of the year. The Blue fae have as much as promised me. Dindi will never make it home to her own clanhold. She’ll have to take shelter in the hunter’s shed. With me. The two of us, trapped in the snowstorm, with just a fire to keep us warm. By morning, she will be mine.”
And soon, so will Kemla.
Full Basket clanhold was the largest of the three clans in the Corn Hills clanklatch. Many dozens of huts and three kraals sprawled over several slopes, surrounded by terraced cornfields. Although Kemla was not yet married, she already had her own house, a staunchly built three room adobe cottage painted white with decorations of fiery red, orange and yellow. In deference to her skills, people gave her gifts, and this wealth adorned the inside of her home: rugs, jugs, baskets, beaver furs and shells.
At first she had been happy with such gifts, but now, as she sifted the crude lumpy weave between her fingers from the latest blanket someone had given her, she felt annoyed.
“The Tavaedies in Yellow Bear received much better gifts,” Smokey Toes, a nasty Red flame fae hissed, from his spot in the hearth fire.
“What do you expect from a piss hole like the Corn Hills?” said Kemla. “But I won’t be stuck here forever. I am destined for better things.”
The fire fae danced in excitement. “Burn it! Burn it!”
Kemla almost threw the rug into the fire. At the last minute, she tossed it into a corner of the room instead. What use was another stupid, scratchy blanket? She wanted real wealth. Gold, aurochsen, land, slaves. Not goats and blankets. On the other hand, she couldn’t stand to throw away anything, even things she hated.
She was sick of being inside. She needed fresh air, away from the Red fae. She did not bother with a fur cape, despite the threat of snow, but she did take her bow. Pity the rabbit that crossed her path when she was in one of her moods!
Once outside the house, away from the smoke and the taunts of the hearth fae, she felt better. She would make a point to thank the auntie who gave her the blanket. It never hurt to lavish butter on one’s elders, even if secretly she despised their rustic ways.
A Red pixie flew by her ear, hissing, “Outtribers! Beware!”
Kemla pulled the bow from her back and notched an arrow.
“Show yourselves, Outtribers!” she shouted.
Bushes rustled. She heard quiet voices before she saw anyone. Then two people stepped from out behind the trees, an old woman and a scruffy young warrior.
A beggar and a Rover, Kemla pegged them at once. Probably fleeing the plague, which was reputed to have hit clans to the east of the Corn Hills.
“Niece, do not be afraid,” said the old woman. (As if I would fear a pair of beggars, Kemla snorted silently.) “We are travelers who only ask leave to sit by your fire one night, before we continue on our way.”
“Vagrants aren’t welcome here,” Kemla said without lowering her bow. “Nor have you leave to trespass our lands. Keep moving, and stay outside the trees marked with our clan sign.”
The scruffy warrior stepped in front of the old woman protectively. “Does your clan know nothing of hospitality?”
Kemla heard a low-pitched growl.
Two or three dogs padded out of the bushes to flank the warrior. The dogs were as big as wild wolves, and their hackles were raised.
Wonderful, they wanted to bring fleabags into her home as well. Never going to happen, goat turds.
“We owe nothing to outtribers,” Kemla said flatly. “Now get out of here before I make you go.”
Just in case the beggars doubted her sincerity, Kemla focused her power, and the head of the arrow burst into flame.
The dogs started yapping. The warrior put his hand on his own bow.
Before he could draw it—not that Kemla would have let him get that far—the old woman put a hand on his shoulder.
“Let it go, Finnadro,” she said. “We’ve camped in the woods before, we can do it again.”
A Green pixie alighted on the rock in front of Dindi. She shifted the heavy, beaded cape in her lap. Without looking at the pixie, she asked, “Is he still there?”
“No,” said the pixie. “He left. He’s hunting.”
“Finally!” Dindi shoved aside the cape. She was so tired of Tamio spying on her. What did he want? What did he suspect?
Well, she had more important things to worry about…like staying alive. To ensure her own survival, she needed to break an age-old curse, and to do that, she needed to use magic, and to do that she needed to know why the Aelfae had hidden her magic from everyone, even from herself.
Dindi took out the corncob doll. She did not need it to find strands of magical memories, as she had once thought, but it still helped her focus and amplify the memory strands she worked with. She held it and began to dance.
The humans called their settlement Full Basket clanhold. The man and woman who had adopted Mayara called themselves Bobbo and Umka. They had six other children already, strapping boys who hunted and plump daughters who farmed. Umka missed having a baby on her hip, so she babied Mayara. Though Mayara wasn’t a baby, compared to the human children, she was slight for her age, and this brought out Umka’s protective streak. She made Mayara sit next to her all day in the kitchen, or in the garden, where, in between hugs and snacks, she imparted a constant stream of advice, always couched in Don’ts.
“Don’t slouch. Don’t stare. Don’t point. Don’t say that. Don’t eat this. Don’t skip. Don’t run. Don’t touch that. Don’t cry. Don’t laugh. And don’t you sass me back, young lady!”
Mayara seized her first chance to run away. By now, months after the massacre of the Aelfae, nothing remained of the dead but scattered bones. Wolves—real wolves, not the human beasts—had moved into the cave, perhaps drawn by the feast of carrion. The wolves weren’t fooled by her lack of wings. They sniffed her with wagging tails, then left her alone while she dug under the rock.
Bobbo and Umka found her before she could dig deep enough under the boulder to find her buried wings. Bobbo scared away the wolves with his spear. Umka grabbed Mayara by the ear.
“Don’t frighten me like that! What if you had been killed? The woods aren’t safe. Did you see those wolves? Don’t ever run off like that again!”
Mayara thought, Wolves wouldn’t attack me. Wild things know me as one of their own.
However, the humans thought she was one of their own too, and she didn’t dare contradict them. Umka lectured her the whole way home. Mayara stayed sullen, silent, under the barrage. The more Umka yelled, the more determined Mayara was to try to escape her prison again, as soon as she could.
That evening, Umka fed her all her favorite foods. Mayara pecked at the dishes. Suddenly, Umka burst into tears and grabbed Mayara into a fierce hug.
“I love you like my own daughter! Don’t you know that?”
Mayara wanted to pull back, to retort, You’re not my mother! You don’t even know who I really am. If you did, you wouldn’t love me. You’d kill me. Instead, to her horror, she began to cry. Umka held her close and rocked her.
A scream tore through the woods, dissolving the Vision. Dindi shook off her dizziness and darted toward the sound. She saw an old woman, wrapped in a ragged white cloak, standing in the path of a charging boar.
Dindi had no weapons, but she grabbed a fallen branch and waved it at the boar. The beast grunted and changed trajectory.
Now it bore down straight at Dindi.
She took off running, with the huge boar stomping right on her heels.
“Dindi, watch out!” cried a sprite, pointing to a pile of leaves and branches in front of her. Dindi realized it was a covered pit. She leaped into the air, grabbed a branch overhead and swung herself to the far side. She landed in a roll.
Behind her, the boar charged right into the pit. Dindi did not see its fate, but she guessed. The wail from inside the pit reverberated through the woods. She peered over the edge and saw the boar impaled on a number of spikes.
It wasn’t her hunt, but by the law of light and shadow, since she’d made the kill she must claim a piece of the meat. She climbed down, slit the throat and drained the blood, then patiently sawed off a hock. She drew the clan symbol of a swan in blood on the remaining carcass so the hunter would know who had claimed a portion of the kill.
As soon as the bloody work was done, she left the pig and hurried to check on the old woman. At the same time, an unshaven warrior jogged toward her, crying, “My lady!” just as Dindi asked her, “Are you all right?”
The warrior had the gut-cord lean look of a wolf after too hard a winter. When he moved, Dindi almost fancied she could see a green glare whipping around him, and she although she could not say why, it seemed to goad him and bind him at the same time. It reflected the driven look in his eye and the sleepless energy in his hands.
“That wasn’t necessary,” said the old woman in white. She stuck out her chin belligerently. “I am perfectly capable of defending myself.”
“Of course, auntie,” Dindi said. She tried not to smile. The poor old lady looked as though a drift of wind might bowl her over.
The warrior shared a significant look with Dindi. He spoke gravely. “Thank you for your act of bravery, niece. We have had scant hospitality in these parts until now.”
“Are you travelers?” Dindi asked. She took in their rough attire and dusty feet, though they carried no large packs. Perhaps all they owned were their weapons and the clothes on their backs. “Do you need shelter? I have a roof I can share with you, although it is not large.”
For a moment, Dindi thought the proud old woman would refuse, but then she inclined her head. “A roof would be welcome on this night, I confess.”
The warrior bowed. “I will hunt for your larder. We will not come to you as beggars, I promise.”
“That isn’t necessary,” said Dindi. “At the very least, worry about that tomorrow. The wind is biting and I fear it might snow tonight. It is a bit of a walk to my clanhold, so we should set out at once.”
When he heard the scream, Tamio signaled the other quail hunters.
“My drum to dance.” Tamio leaped through the woods to flank the boar, bow already in hand.
He passed the rock where Dindi usually sat darning costumes. All that remained of her were a few widely paced footprints; she had been running.
The boar had already come through. But he should hear it crashing through the underbrush. Instead, he only heard birdsong and a few nattering squirrels. Where was the pig? Where was Dindi?
Muck and mercy, he cursed. If his stupid plan had gotten an innocent girl killed…
The camouflage over the pit trap had been disturbed. Tamio peered over the edge and felt a slap of surprise. The boar had already been impaled and a portion of leg had been neatly cut away. The clan sigil left no doubt who had taken the meat.
The other young men joined him. When they saw the pig and the clan sign, they laughed.
“Looks like the mouse escaped the trap with the cheese!”
“Aw, shut up,” said Tamio, laughing as well. “And help me carry this pig to the hunter’s shed.”
All humans, like wolves in a pack, had a clear place in the tribal hierarchy based on their age cohort, clan connections and personal charisma. Try as she might, however, Vessia could not easily guess the status of the young girl who led them through the woods. The girl’s deft courage in the face of the boar attack suggested a warrior, and her grace hinted at a dancer. A Tavaedi then: Except she dressed simply and carried a huge rucksack like a serving maiden.
The wind picked up, wet with snow, chilling Vessia to the bone. Soon they had to crunch through a rapidly growing blanket of white. She had always scoffed at human luxuries, but as her toes froze in her sandals, she began to dream about a big, warm farmer’s kitchen, a hot oven and a meal of roast pork and warm milk.
The girl led them a fair distance through the woodsy hills to the outskirts of a clanhold. Tucked behind a hill, so it wasn’t visible from the rest of the clanhold, as if someone wanted to keep a stinky spot out of sight, was a clay shed in bare dirt yard. Instead of taking them any further, their guide stopped here.
Though it had four adobe walls and a solid thatch ceiling, the shed was just large enough for one mat and a miniscule fire pit in the corner. The hut wasn’t painted white, like human domiciles. No one had spared so much as the traditional coat of whitewash, never mind fancy colored designs. The clay walls were plain reddish brown.
It was clearly an animal shed, probably built to house goats. Yet the girl had brought them here to spend the night. Vessia’s suspicion it was a deliberate slight increased when the girl asked them to wait a moment. She disappeared with the ham hock, and returned with a few scraggly pieces of bread and just a thin slice of pork fat.
The sun had set and the wind grown cruel, so Vessia was in no position to complain, but a part of her felt that the outright unfriendliness of the first young woman they’d met was preferable to being shunted into an icy shack like animals.
The girl struck rocks together to light the fire. She sliced the lard on a stone in the fire until the pieces curled up crispy brown, black at the tips, and hot grease oozed from the fat. She rolled the bread around the greasy mess and offered the pishas to them.
“Thank you,” said Finnadro, as politely as if it were a whole roast shank.
Vessia snorted, but she nibbled the meager meal. Her stomach growled. Teasing it like this only made her hunger worse.
“Did you tell your clan we were here?” asked Finnadro.
The girl’s cheeks turned pink. “Um, nobody asked.” As if aware this did not reflect well on her people, she said, “Here in the Corn Hills, we keep mostly to ourselves. It’s not that people don’t welcome strangers, they just welcome them more if they know them already.”
“Then they wouldn’t be strangers, would they?”
The girl’s blush deepened. “There’s room for one on the mat, and if you don’t mind, the loft above.”
Vessia looked up. The “loft” consisted of a few slats of wood just under the roof, stuffed with straw.
“I will sleep in the loft,” said Finnadro. “Lady, you take the mat.”
Vessia nodded.
The girl left them alone in the goat shack…probably to go spend the night somewhere with a decent fire.
“If they knew who I was, they would not treat us like this,” Vessia grumbled.
“They might also turn you over to your enemies.”
She grumbled inaudibly. Her arthritis ached. Her back hurt from too many nights sleeping on rocks instead of a soft fur sleeping mat. The day before she had strained her knee, and the fatty meal she’d had for dinner threatened to make her incontinent again. This journey was brutal for her. How spoiled she had become, living in the human tribehold.
I’m getting old. She massaged her hands. What if I die before I find the girl? What if I die before I see my son again?
She closed her eyes in pain for a moment. She heard again her own voice, croaking like a frog, exasperated and angry, shouting at her son, You will be the death of me yet!
Those had been her last words to him before his exile. How many times had she wished to pick those words out of the ground and replant sweeter ones?
There had been a day when she had needed no tent to shelter her from the elements, when no aches had made it hard to stretch out her graceful fingers, no tiredness drained her even after dancing all day and all night. Ah, there had been a time when her youth had stretched before her into an eternally fresh afternoon. There had been nights when she slept only from boredom, never exhaustion, and even then untroubled by any dreams.
She had dreams now. This night, she had dreamed of That Day again, the day she first heard the cruel demand: Choose the Windwheel or the Maize.
The crystal glitter of blue and purple willawisps danced in the wind. Gorgeous as they were, Dindi did not look forward to spending the night with them. She brushed away the snow next to the shed and pulled the blankets up over her. Even with two heavy wool blankets, she shivered.
With no dreamcatcher to ward them off, nightmares found Dindi as she slept. In the first dream, it was time for the Midwinter Rite. In reality, this was Kemla's biggest moment, when she performed both a duet with Tamio, and then a solo, the most demanding and breathtaking dance she would do all year. In the dream, when the circle of dancers peeled away to reveal the solo dancer in the center, it wasn't Kemla. It was Dindi.
Suddenly, in the jumpy, senseless way of dreams, there were riders in black flying on black ravens charging across a field full of clashing warriors. Flashes of color leapt everywhere, only to disappear, as if swallowed by shadow. A dark rider galloped straight towards Dindi, swallowing all the color in his wake. His face was impossibly fair, yet cold as snow. He grabbed her onto his horse.
Before she could scream, the second dream melted into a third.
She heard the riddle, almost a curse, repeating in a dizzy whirl. “Chose the Windwheel or the Maize!” Six lights, too bright, were spinning six colors, and six voices chanted the riddle. No, it was a Curse. Dindi was dancing, desperate; trying to keep someone she loved from dying. “Choose the Windwheel or the Maize!” She had no choice except to choose, and either way she chose, she’d lose someone she loved to the riddle’s curse. I do not want to send to death either one of these I love. “Choose the Windwheel or the Maize!”
She saw a dark clad lady, who, with a smiling kiss, would kill her. And again the curse, the riddle: “Choose the Windwheel or the Maize!”
Snow fell throughout the night. The insufficient fire died and there was no more fuel to re-ignite it. Vessia woke up shivering. The flimsy reed door flap would not stay shut because a wedge of snow, growing like a tumor, nudged it aside. Wind whistled into the open crack. Though the desert valley of the Rainbow Labyrinth tribehold could get quite cold at night, it had been a long while since Vessia had slept above the snow level. Once neither cold nor heat would have bothered her, but these days, the chill seemed to seep right through her skin like ice through cheesecloth.
Enough. She rose from her mat and stepped outside. She was not sure if she would stomp down to the biggest farmhouse and demand decent hospitality, hex the whole clanklatch in a fit of pique, or simply look for more firewood. Surely there must be some stacked beside the shack.
She saw a dark pile and bent down to feel for wood…but her questing palm touched something soft.
It was the little serving maiden.
She huddled in a ball, shivering in her sleep. Ugly nightmare fae clung to her hair, whispering poison into her ears. Vessia chased the nightmares off, but the serving maiden still looked miserable. Her only protection against the wind and snow was the eave of the roof and a few thin blankets. Vessia felt guilty about her earlier assumption the girl had gone to another building with a warm fire. On the contrary, the poor wretch had given up her shack, which was hardly fit for goats to begin with, to total strangers, while she herself slept outside during a snowstorm. Silly little human.
Every time Vessia was tempted to think all humans would be better wiped clean from the land, one of them would go and do something like this.
Vessia knelt and touched the girl again, this time with a warm orange glow to still her mind and deepen her sleep. Then Vessia picked her up and brought her into the shack. Vessia placed the sleeping girl on the mat next to her, and spread her wing like a blanket over them both.
They stopped to camp in the Corn Hills, at the edge of Rainbow Labyrinth territory. A Deathsworn megalith, in this case two large black rocks with a third rock lying across them, with a row of skulls driven into the top, marked this path as belonging only to the Deathsworn. Ordinary travelers used another route, which also passed through the mountains a few miles to the south. Umbral had seen a pack of hairy Green Woods nomads wandering along that way, but he didn’t fear they would come here. Ordinary people feared the Deathsworn, with good reason, and knew the terrible price to be paid if they trespassed roads marked with black rocks.
Umbral stood on an outcrop that overlooked a wide vista of misty hills. Something in the air, a taste, a smell, a sound, a flash of color as if of light flashing on distant water, something tantalized him, promised him, called to him.
He teased a strand of magic from the air. It was so potent, he could taste the memory of the one who had danced it. A girl. He shivered with a strange hunger as he reeled in the strand.
He caught a memory of the wind blowing tangles through her hair, slender limbs, laughter. She must now be in the first flush of womanhood, ripe yet unplucked, nearly fae in her wildness.
The more of her he tasted, the more his hunger grew. Some Tavaedies left prickly strands in their wake, dense and thorny, but not this dancer, whoever she was. The loops of her magic bubbled everywhere.
Yet some power veiled her from him.
He could only catch glimpses of her. Her magic flirted with his fondling probes, eluding his ravishment. Her most intimate feelings and sensations were imprinted in her magic, which he absorbed with sensual abandon, only to have the wisps of magic dart away, slip through his clutching fists. When the first strand broke off, he sought out another and then another, and then another, but Umbral could not find her name or her clan or unclothe the privacy of her past.
He had never been so frustrated in the hunt.
It only increased his determination to quench his thirst for her.
He had to linger. He had to find more, taste more, devour more of her, all of her.