The Unfinished Song: Taboo (7 page)

Brena had entrusted Dindi with this one special treat, the sugar loaves, and Dindi didn’t want to disappoint her. She lifted the platter and carefully balanced it on her head. On the walk from the courtyard to the High Table, she minced her steps.

All of the guests at the High Table sat on the same side, so they could look out over the stage where the Tavaedies would perform after the meal, which meant they had their backs to her as she approached from the cooking yard. Dindi followed the lead of the other serving maidens, who moved in a constant stream to and from the table with bowls of washing water, baskets of food and jugs of corn beer.
There were three guests of honor, an older man and two gorgeously brawny young bucks whose splendor had all the other serving girls giggling and whispering.

The young man to the right of Hertio, a Zavaedi, to guess by his costume, wore an elaborate beaded harness over a bare,
muscular
chest, a torque of painted beads,
a
gold and feather headdress. Dindi puzzled over why his broad back seemed familiar.

Zavaedi Brena turned in her seat, caught Dindi’s eye and motioned her to wait. After a moment, Dindi realized why. The conversation at the High Table was anything but sweet. Hertio
was grilling one the guests.

“How is your mother, Zumo? Tell me, what is it like to grow up with a mother who can
eat your thoughts
? You must have been so much better behaved than most mischievous little boys.”

“My mother was never able to
eat my thoughts
,” the one named Zumo replied.
He had a handsome face, but his eyes were strangely light in color, like bleached bone.
“Do not make the mistake of thinking I am her puppet. I act on my own behalf. For too long all
Morvae
have been made to feel ashamed because of the excesses of the Bone Whistler. Enough, I say! I intend to lead the
Morvae
back to greatness…”

“Ah, yes, you’re the grandson of the Bone Whistler, aren’t you?” Hertio said. “I’d forgotten.”

“If so, you’re the first person in the seven tribes.”

“Zumo the Cloud Dancer.” Brena forced this title through
pinched
lips. “You have also earned a Shining Name at a remarkably young age. Just like your cousin.” She glanced at the young man who sat to Hertio’s right. “
Are
you also able to perform the Rain dance?”

“Yes,” said Zumo. He appeared at ease, but from her vantage, Dindi noted the tension across his shoulders and jump of the vein in his neck. “Can’t let my cousin better me.”

“How is it possible for you to perform the Rain dance, given you are a
Morvae
?” Brena pressed.
“Which Chroma did you say you danced?”

“
I didn’t
,” he said. He lifted a jug to his mouth and took another swig of his beer.
“But there’s nothing an Imorvae can do that a Morvae can’t. Don’t believe all the lies the Imorvae spread about their supposed superiority.”

The other guest, an elder, cleared his throat. “Er, I’ve heard that you’re the one to thank for a special treat this evening, Zavaedi Brena.” 

Dindi stared. She knew that voice—she recognized the man from the Visions. It was Danumoro! Twenty years older, of course, but unmistakable . . .

“Yes, of course,” Brena said. “The serving maiden is already here.”

Zavaedi Brena turned and motioned Dindi forward.

Oh, yes, the sugar loaves.
Dindi glided up to the table with the platter on her head.

Zumo glanced in her direction,
then
did a double take. On his second examination, his gaze traveled from her head to her toes and back up again.

“Desert looks delicious,” he said.

Something in his tone made the other young man at the table, the guest of
honor,
turn sharply to look first at him, then at Dindi. He too stared at her, not in appreciation, but in simple surprise.

She stumbled in such shock a
t recognizing him
she lost her balance. The platter of carefully pyramided loaves careened forward, dashing a rainstorm of flying sugar loaves all over Kavio.

One minute, Kavio turned to see Dindi standing before him, poised gracefully with a platter upon her head, her shapely silhouette backlit by the fires from the cooking courtyard. The next minute, calamity unfolded as if in slow motion.

“No!” Brena wailed from down the table.

Time tripped and caught up with itself and the next thing Kavio knew, rock-hard sugar loaves pelted him. A loaf landed in his headdress, another in his soup.
Many of the hard candy blocks shattered upon impact. Sticky sugar powder coated his skin and hair. He was nearly buried in the crystallized brown candy. The res
t landed in the dirt.

Dindi turned ever-deepening shades of pink. The only one who enjoyed the debacle was Zumo, who laughed openly at his cousin’s predicament.

“Looks like the maiden is sweet on you,” he mocked.

Kavio shot his cousin a dark look.

Dindi hurried to his side, blushing and babbling apologies.
“Oh, no, it’s all over you!” she said, rubbing her finger on his cheek. She put the finger in her mouth and sucked. “You’re covered in sugar!”

Transfixed by the sight of her licking her finger, Kavio lost whatever he’d been planning to say to reassure her. His cheek tingled where she’d touched him.

Looking as mortified as if she had spilled the loaves herself, Brena rushed to attack the fallen loaves.

“Forgive the Initiate,” Brena said, while doing her best to tidy up and salvage as many loaves as possible. “She’s inexperienced. I’ll send her down the hill at once.”

Dindi blinked back unshed tears in her huge, dark eyes.

“Please,” said Kavio, in a quiet voice that nonetheless carried clearly over the hubbub. “I’m sure it was an accident. There’s no need to send her away.”

“But
you
are the guest of honor,” objected Brena. “You shouldn’t have to put up with a serving maiden more clumsy than a three-footed goat…”

“We can save all the loaves that landed on the table mat, surely,” Kavio said. “All will be well.”

“You’re very gracious,” Brena said. By now, she had replaced most of the ruined loaves back on the platter, while Kavio had gathered the salvable ones on the table. She glared at Dindi. “Take the useless loaves back to the courtyard at once and bring the guest of honor a washing bowl.”

Dindi scrambled away with the platter of broken, dirty loaves. The firelight illuminated her
translucent white shift, outlining the slender limbs and curves underneath.
Kavio picked up a broken piece of hard sugar. It was tacky and brown, and the only way to break off a piece—short of Dindi’s method
—
was to hit it with the brunt of a stone scrapper. He freed a small bite and stuck it in his mouth. Chewing it just hurt his teeth, but sucking on it released delicious sweetness into his mouth.
While he savored it, his eyes never left Dindi
until she disappeared behind
the wall to the courtyard.

Only after she was out of sight did his thoughts begin to churn again.
Why is Dindi a handmaiden instead of sitting with the Tavaedi Initiates?

Rthan clenched his teeth to keep from weeping at the pain. The human dancers with their black-pronged bear claw knives were terrible enough, but Yellow fae had joined the savage loop of dancers. Torture
tama
were primeval, one of the few that humans and fae could share with equal relish. He could not see the
Brundorfae
, but he could hear their growls and,
mercy
, he could feel them, the sting of their claws raking, ripping and peeling his
skin back to raw
muscle.

The worst part was that just as he or one of his comrades teetered on the precipice of blessed unconsciousness, or better yet, death, the accu
r
sed Yellow Dancers reversed the direction of their circle and began to dance healing. Once or twice during these sessions, strong liquid was forced down his throat. The Yellow Tavaedies revived Rthan and the other hapless captives back to strength and consciousness, then switched the direction of their dance again and resumed their vicious torture. Rthan yearn
ed
for Lady Death and her arrows of merciful oblivion

The leader of the Yellow Bear dancers hid his face beneath a bear head mask. His breath stank, rancid sweet, when he leaned forward to hiss taunts in Rthan’s ear.

“Beg for mercy, sharkbait, and maybe we will let you die. If you curse your mother, your father and your ancestors, we will slit your throat and end this agony.”

Bleary with pain, Rthan lifted his head to peer into the empty sockets of the bear head mask. He licked his dry lips and tried to say something, but all that came out was a rattle and cough. The bear masked man leaned closer to hear Rthan’s plea.

Rthan spit in the hollow socket of the mask.

He must have hit the man’s eye, because the Yellow Bear Tavaedi shrieked and jumped back. The masked man turned his back to lift his mask and wipe his eye, so Rthan wouldn’t see his face and know whom to hex in revenge. Rthan wheezed in laughter, despite the ache the movement caused him, until the bear masked man punched him across the face.

“You won’t die until you curse your tribe, you stinking worm!” He grabbed Rthan’s chin and forced the hot healing liquid down his throat. He slashed his bear claw across Rthan’s stomach, opening another bloody gash.

Rthan’s laughter turned into a sob. Yes, he wept with pain, but he still would not beg this filth for mercy, nor turn against his tribe.

The torture resumed, more brutal than ever. The enemy Tavaedi had it in for Rthan now. But it was one of his companions, a warrior whom Rthan did not know well, who broke down first, wailing like a baby,
pleading
for death. Rthan couldn’t pity him. His weakness only made it harder for the rest of them.

“I curse the womb that bore me!” screamed the pathetic coward. “I curse the fool that sired me! I curse the tribe of Blue Waters!”

“Grant him mercy,” ordered the
bear
masked man.

One of the dancers plunged his dagger into the Blue Water warrior’s heart. His body sagged like a deflating water skin.

“You see how easy that was?” the bear masked leader asked Rthan.

“Come
closer
…” rasped Rthan. “…
so
I can spit in your other eye!”

“All of you focus on this one!” roared the leader, infuriated. “Break him first! The others will fall after their hero does!”

The whole bunch of them, masked like terrible beasts, closed in on him. They whirled and stomped around him, the invisible fae too, he was sure of it, and he felt vigor sweep back into his limbs. Damn them seven times, they were healing him again. For once, his strong body was only a burden to him. The longer his body kept him alive, the longer he would have
fight
the temptation to break down and beg.

“Now…” began the bear masked leader, full of malice and glee, but before he could complete his threat, an unmasked warrior jogged up to the circle and whispered something to him. T
he growling of the Yellow Fae quieted, and the human dancers in their bear furs stepped back.
He shook his head and snapped something back, but after a few minutes of argument (Rthan thought he heard, “Mine!” and “Hertio” and “outtriber”), the bear masked leader stalked away, evidently in disgust. A sept of w
arriors came to untie Rthan from the post. The way they grinned at him warned him that though the Torture Dance might be over, whatever awaited him would be no better fate.