The Unfinished Song - Book 6: Blood

Blood

The Unfinished Song, Book Six

Tara Maya

Copyright Misque Press 2013

Published by Misque Press

Cover Design by Tara Maya

Misque

Misque Press

First North American Edition

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real

persons
, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Also by Tara Maya:

Conmergence

The Painted World, Stories, Vol. 1

Tomorrow We Dance

The Unfinished Song:

Initiate

Taboo

Sacrifice

Root

Wing

Blood

Mask (forthcoming)

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One – To Get Over a Mountain

Chapter Two – Your Worst Enemy

Chapter Three
– At the Point of a Spear

Chapter Four
– What Was Lost

Chapter Five
– What Remains

Chapter Six
– Beyond This River

Chapter Seven
– Unwoven

Epilogue

Contact Me

Glossary

Excerpts

Dindi landed hard, though a cushion of dry pine needles saved her from broken bones. Through a ring of lofty sequoia, she could see a glimpse of bright blue. She bit through the honeycomb Kavio had given her to protect her teeth. For a moment, she sucked the sweet wax, but its shape had been ruined by Kavio’s last blow, and she had to spit it out. She rubbed her jaw as she rebounded to her feet. Her shins were scraped bloody, and her left elbow throbbed. Ever since Kavio had started training her in Red, war dancing, she had been collecting bruises at an alarming rate.

The two of them were alone in the woods—unless one counted the
sylfins perched in tree branches or the pixies cuddled in crocus buds, who watched and giggled—since their practices must be secret.

“Pathetic, Dindi,” Kavio scoffed. “You’re fighting like a girl.”

“What does that even
mean
?” she demanded. “Or is it just something boys say to feel superior to girls?”

“It means you don’t take yourself or your opponent seriously.”

“I take myself seriously…”

“No you
don’t
. You think of yourself the way a girl is reared to think of herself. Like a pretty pony in a field of flowers, a cuddly bunny rabbit, a doe frolicking in the woods. Like you need to play nice, nuzzle up to the rest of the herd. You need to think like a
carnivore
. Don’t
nibble
at me.
Eat meat
. You have to
win
your Shining Name. You have to think like a hero. Stop trying to be nice.”

“Heroes are nice…”

“Heroes are
good
; they aren’t
nice
. Why are you standing there? Strike again!”

She waved her staff in his direction, not connecting with anything but air.

“Muck it all, Dindi, you did it again.” He smacked her hard with the stave, knocking her to the ground. “Stop treating me with disrespect! That’s your second problem. You don’t respect your enemy!”

“I do!”

“Who is your enemy?”

“Right now, I’m fighting you, but…”

“Who is your enemy?”

“The person I’m fighting!”

“Wrong!” Kavio cut down with his staff.

“You can’t talk things out.”

Slash
.

“You can’t make nice.”

Slash
.

“You can’t compromise.”

Slash
.

“You never fight a
person
.”

Slash
.

“You fight a
monster
.”

Slash
.

“And if you’re going to win,
you better be the bigger monster
.”

He was beating her back relentlessly. She kept ducking and backing away, but it was getting harder to dodge.

“Stop.”
Slash
. “Holding.”
Slash
. “Your blows!”

She smacked her staff forward
, and the end of the pole slammed into Kavio’s solar plexus. He flew across the dirt clearing and landed on his back.

He didn’t move.

“Kavio!” she screamed, running to him.

He sat up, wincing. “That,” he said, “Showed respect. Do it again.
And again. Until it’s instinct:
always
kill the monster
.”

Dindi touched her lips. Kavio was dead, yet she had kissed him. Or kissed the monster who slew him…. She glanced at Umbral.
What would Kavio advise her to do now?

Umbral
had held her hand and guided her through the cave. The white limestone cavern was a large, uneven space, a mouth with a thousand teeth, stalactites and stalagmites gnashing toward each other with only a handbreadth between many of them. At the center of this forest of limestone, someone had polished flat ground from the jagged jaws of rock. Fourteen immense stalactites dangled like stone icicles from the ceiling in a perfect circle around the space. From six of these stalactites dangled cocoons the size of death jars, which bulged as if they held something heavy.

Here, Dindi and Umbral
had danced, and invoked the corncob doll. The Vision they shared was terrifying. The Bone Whistler intended to use human sacrifice to revive the Aelfae in the cocoons… and perhaps to resurrect the entire Aelfae race.

T
he six cocoons began to hum. They blushed with light, soft and sweet at first, but growing sharper, brighter, spicier until the air was so bright it burned their tongues. They fell to the ground. The illumination subsided, but the cocoons still glowed eerie colors. A scratching sounded from within.

Hands clawed at the webbing—from inside. Human forms ripped and tore their way free of the cocoons. The liberated beings were naked, three men and three women. Five of them uncurled wet wings from their backs and flapped them until the wings were full and dry.

The Aelfae lived again.

Vessia smelled humans, and it wasn’t pretty.

Mud crawlers
, her people called them. An insult to good, clean mud. The human stench was closer to offal—a whiff of bad blood on top of damp fur and rancid corn. It soiled the wind even from here.

She stood on a rocky outcrop overlooking the grassy fields of the canyon floor, her wings camouflaged like a moth, to blend with the mottled grays and browns. Human warriors filled the valley on both sides of the river with their campfires. This was no innocent sheep drover clan, wandering too far north. It was an army up from the Rainbow Labyrinth, sent to hunt Aelfae. Spells guarded the only pass into the canyon, yet the human Tavaedies had known the dance to remove the boulders in the path.

Vessia crept back from the edge and rejoined the other seven Aelfae scouts. They camped inside a natural circle of huge stones, surrounded by trees that leaned over the stones to touch crowns, forming a canopy of branches. No trees grew inside the circle itself, but the ground was thick with wet, fallen leaves.

“The humans are here,” she said. “I suggest no one take wing anytime soon.”

“They can’t hit anything past their own noses with those spears,” scoffed Gwidan. He worked the string into his bow, testing the knots and the tautness with a few plucks. “If they ever figure out how to use my sweet device, then I’ll worry.”

“I won’t worry even then,” said Xerpen. He stretched out on a log with his legs crossed at the ankle. Like all of them, he wore little over his splendid physique besides a dabbling of paint and leaves that would enable him to blend into the forest.

“If you were the last Aelfae in Faearth, you still wouldn’t worry,” said Gwidan.

“No, and why should I? One look at my handsome face, and they’d probably make me their chief.”

“Go on then, show them your face. I’m eager to see an Aelfae become chief of the humans.”

“Later maybe,” said Xerpen. “Right now I’m busy with a new song. I can’t seem to get the ending right.”

He warbled a bit on his reed flute.

A dark-haired beauty, Mrigana, sat near Gwidan, whittling arrows for him.
Never much for chatter, Mrigana inclined her head, acknowledging the human threat and Vessia’s command. In contrast, Lothlo and Yastara nuzzled by the fire, so lost in mutual appreciation that Vessia wasn’t even sure they’d heard her.

Hest tended a boar on a spit over the fire. “What if I fly in the other direction?”

“It’s not worth the risk,” Vessia said. “I’m sure they have scouts, same as we do. There are probably humans combing these mountains as we speak.”

“I really need some rosemary, and we have none.”

“Seriously, Hest? Rosemary?”

“This boar isn’t going to season itself, Vessia.”

“I shall season it with song,” Xerpen said grandly. He began to sing, “Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme…”

“Really not the same, Xerpen,” said Hest. “And, by the way, that is the dumbest song I’ve ever heard.”

“I’m hurt.”

“One of your worst. And that’s saying something.”

Vessia said firmly, “No flying.”

Hest sighed. “No rosemary.”

One person was not seated around the campfire, but Vessia had only to follow Gwidan’s disapproving glance to find the last member of their band. Xerpen touched him on the arm. “Play your bow, Gwidan, and I’ll sing.”

Gwidan nodded. He added strings to his bow so he could pluck them. The beautiful, eerie sound echoed a fall of water over round stones. In his voice as rich and deep and sweet as cream, Xerpen began to sing an old song:

To get over a mountain,
go through it.
To destroy your fear,
go to it.
To escape your worst enemy--
keep him near.
You can only find peace
at the point of a spear.
What was lost will be found
in what remains.
What is unwoven shall
be regained.
To receive the greatest gift,
become the giver.
To swim, keep your eye on the land
beyond this river.

Kia sat by herself with her back to one of the big rocks, almost out of sight of the others. She didn’t acknowledge Vessia’s approach until Vessia touched her shoulder.

“I hate you,” said Kia.

“Still having trouble?”

“You can turn into anything you want,” said Kia. “A bird, a butterfly, a wolf, a cat. Why can’t I become
anything
? What’s wrong with me?”

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Kia.”

Kia kicked a bare foot at the wet leaf carpet. “It’s not just shapeshifting. What kind of Aelfae has no wings?” She lowered her voice to a whisper hoarse with pain. “I know what the others call me behind my back. ‘
Kia the
Human
.’”