Maze: The Unfinished Song Epic Fantasy, #9

By Tara Maya

All power and glory shall go to the winners of Vaedi Vooma...

This contest is a test of magic, a competition of dancing, and a fight to the death.

Seven couples will go to the stage to display their virtuosity, but only one couple can win.

Will it be Dindi and the man she loves?

Even if she finally proves herself, might the cost be so high that her victory turns into a nightmare?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Misque Press
• Release date: Sep 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201226657

Book preview

Maze

MAZE

EPIC FAE FANTASY

THE UNFINISHED SONG

BOOK 9

TARA MAYA

Misque Press

CONTENTS

About This Book

Prologue

1. Backwards

Dindi

Zumo

Kavio

Svarr

Dindi

Svarr

Dindi

Kavio

Finnadro

Svarr

Kavio

Dindi

Kavio

Dindi

2. Forwards

The Wind

Downstream

Downstream

Downstream

Crossing the River

Upstream

A Fork in the River

Leaf

Rill

Source

Midstream

Meeting the Dreamer

Bend in the River

Dam

3. Below

Dindi

Dindi

Zumo

Dindi

Tamio

Kemla

Tamio

Hawk

Tania (Fox)

Meira

Hawk

Nilo

Gwenika

Finnadro

Nilo

Finnadro

Tania (Fox)

Kia

Svarr

Kavio

Dindi

4. Left

Thief

Monster

Time

Bargain

Trade

Blindfold

Harpy

Food

Hand

Warmth

Cold

Sight

Bride

5. Right

Umbral (Nightmare)

Umbral

Dindi

Mrigana (Fork in the Path)

Nameless (Other Path)

Sombri (Other Path)

Sombri (Other Path)

Kavio (Other Path)

Umbral

Sombri (Other Path)

Kavio (Other Path)

Sombri (Other Path)

Mrigana

Umbral

6. Above

Mrigana (Upstream)

Vessia

Mrigana

Svego

Hadi

Kia

Dindi

Kavio

Dindi

Kavio

Dindi

Kavio

7. Center

Mrigana

Dindi

Svarr

Vio

Kavio

Sombri

Finnadro

Umbral

Vio

Svego

Vessia

Dindi

Finnadro

Umbral

Kavio

Dindi

Dindi

Kavio

Mrigana

Dindi

Contact Me

Also by Tara Maya

Acknowledgments

ABOUT THIS BOOK

The Unfinished Song Epic Fantasy Series

An ancient war between humans and fae brought a terrible Curse to the land. Now the only two who can end the Curse are an untried young woman and an exiled warrior. They must battle High Fae, Deathsworn, and an immortal evil that threatens to devour the whole world…

---

The Windwheel, created long ago by the Aelfae, just may hold the magic Dindi needs to honor her pledge to resurrect them. Unfortunately, the Windwheel is secreted deep in the Labyrinth, guarded by a terrible monster.

Maze

All power and glory shall go to the winners of Vaedi Vooma...

---

This contest is a test of magic, a competition of dancing, and a fight to the death. Seven couples will go to the stage to display their virtuosity, but only one couple can win.

---

Will it be Dindi and the man she loves?

---

Even if she finally proves herself, might the cost be so high that her victory turns into a nightmare?

PROLOGUE

MRIGANA

Water bubbled into the Looking Bowl, and an image shimmered on the clear, dark surface. I leaned over the bowl, watching with Dindi, as a newborn babe, not even fully gestated, still ruddy and sticky, was lifted from between its mother’s legs. The mother and father weren't visible—they didn't matter. What mattered was the identity of the sacrifice whose death could end the storm of all other deaths. The Looking Bowl focused on the baby as it opened its eyes.

They were purple.

The image faded. That was all the bowl showed.

I… I was stunned. That was obvious in retrospect. It’s…me… To kill me, you have to kill me as a baby. On the very day I’m born. A shivery shudder rippled through my body. Then I tossed a lopsided, sardonic grin at Dindi. Do you still think every child deserves to live?

Dindi cupped her hand over her mouth, unable to reply. But her silence stung me to the core. Because I knew exactly what she wouldn't say out loud. She must have suspected this all along.

There are moments when the person you imagine yourself to be turns out to be much wiser, more mature, and more self-sacrificing than the person you are, moments that strip you of the mask you constructed for yourself and force you to see your real face in the mirror as petty, immature, and terrified. The Looking Bowl, a literal mirror and a magical one, stripped me of the resolve I carefully pasted together when I begged Dindi to end my existence. I had to face the truth: all along, I had hoped she would refuse, find another way, or even hug me and tell me she would rather the whole of Faearth fall into a muck-pit than harm me. I had told her I didn’t care if she liked me or not...

How could I, ever so scornful of how others lied to themselves, fall so easily into doing the same?

You hate me, I accused her silently. My face hardened, cold and pale, outwardly, but inside I had a snot-dripping nose, red eyes; inside, I lay on my belly, I kicked my feet and pounded the floor; inside, I dissolved into a three-year-old having a fit, as far from the mature and compassionate woman of mystery I had tried to become for Dindi. As disgusted with myself as I was, I imagined she must see through me and be much more overwhelmed with contempt for me. And that filled me with rage and I lashed out at her in my stupid, immature disappointment. You hate me! You always have. You always will.

I had experienced many kinds of pain in my life. I'd been tortured—to death—over and over—every way imaginable. I fell in love—only to be rejected, betrayed, and condemned. I grew up caged or hunted, hated or invisible, feared or misunderstood, but yet a little thing like this could still rip me open like a fox torn apart by two eagles.

Dindi once told me that my older selves—Mrigana and the Crone—had claimed that one day Dindi would love Lady Death, but what did that mean? I knew that whatever cruel, forced servitude my future self would impose on Dindi, on Kavio, on humanity, would be an abomination. Slavery, spiritual debasement, annihilation of all color and magic. The opposite of love.

I had tried so hard to avoid becoming that, but now, seeing my tiny past/future self, born prematurely in the Vision in the Looking Bowl, I realized it was all for nothing

I wasn’t asking Dindi to love me, like my future self Mrigana demanded. I just didn't want to be hated simply for existing. Impossible, impossible.... If Dindi couldn't do it, no one could. And the Looking Bowl had just shown me why. I was condemned from the day I was born. Here I thought I had a choice whether to be good or evil, the choice every human being possessed, but I never did. It didn’t matter if I chose to curse anyone.

My existence itself was the Curse.

What was the point of fighting it? If the world hated me so much… maybe it was time I grew into someone worth hating.

The art of feeling nothing during death could also serve me now. I withered away everything inside that dripped or squelched and let the hardness within match my outward sneer.

Do you know what? I asked slowly. "I think I changed my mind. It’s strange, but now that I know I can die… I no longer want to. I want to live. Is that strange?"

Dindi didn't speak.

Maybe you’re right, Dindi, I mocked. I have as much right to live as anyone, don't I? Even if I grow up to kill everyone else? I still deserve a chance…

River…

Don't call me River anymore. I stood up and looked down at Dindi. Call me Mrigana. I am going to live, and I am going to embrace my destiny. I'm going to become Lady Death. I'm going to rule the world.

River, don't…

River is gone. I am Mrigana now. Thanks to you. I smiled, utterly mirthless and hollow. The next time we meet, I suspect you will be willing to kill me after all—no matter what it takes. But I am no longer willing to die.

I swirled in a circle and my clothing changed from tight black leather to a gauzy dress of midnight stars, a gown borrowed from an unborn future. I unfurled my wings and dashed out of the tent, into the sky, into the storm, into the dark.

1. BACKWARDS

DINDI

The enemy camp was a maze of tents and fire pits and warriors jogging through the winding pathways. Although Dindi had recently recovered her wings, she could not simply fly out. She did not know how to use them, they were too small to lift her weight, and if she were spotted, the archers could easily shoot her down.

Wings were not as useful as they sounded.

Dawn was not far off although the sky was still dark, and the torches still burned. Already slaves responsible for making the morning meal added wood to the fire pits. She could hear the pounding of pestles on mortars and the scrap of flint knives against pelts or fish scales as women prepared meat. Birds in wicker cages chirped noisily and mangy dogs growled over bones near the stinking waste pits.

The smell of hot red peppers and other more exotic spices from south of the Rainbow Tribehold spiced the air. That pepper in concentrated powder was so powerful that it was used as a weapon in battle to briefly incapacitate enemies, but the Red Spears used it regularly in their food. Dindi had to be careful not to sneeze as she scurried with her head down through the camp, trying to look like one of the female serving slaves.

The further she traveled from the main tent in the center of the camp, the War Chief’s lodge-tent, the easier she breathed. If she could reach the edge of camp altogether then she would try to fly again. Failing that, which she almost certainly would, she would run back toward the Rainbow Labyrinth camp. Or would it be better to run directly south, toward the tribehold itself? Yes, probably.

Directly in front of her, an argument broke out between three men, two of them Red Spears tribesmen, and the third, Purple Thunder. At least, Dindi guessed he was from Purple Thunder because his legs bowed from a lifetime of riding a horse. He wore leather garments laced like a second skin all the way from his thigh to his ankle and shoulder to his wrist and his dark hair was plaited into three long braids, after the manner of the Purple Thunder.

The two Red Spear men were tall and straight, and row upon row of raised scarification patterns covered their nearly naked bodies. The scars were highlighted with either red, white, or black paste when they went into war, but right now, were gleaming lumps of flesh.

Dindi smelled equine meat mixed with the less pleasant sting of burning horsehair before she saw the dead horse, the focal point of the argument. Horses were new to the Red Spears tribe, at least as companions. These two men had seen the horse as no different than an aurochs, and all indifferent to the sensibility of their ally, whose horse brother it perhaps had been, had killed a horse to butcher and eat it. The Purple Thunder warrior was furious. Amongst their people, the first tribe to steal horses from the fae, horses were buried with honor, like men. But an army never had enough food and there were three armies moving across the prairie now, all headed for the Rainbow Labyrinth tribehold. Game must be scarce.

The argument grew louder and started to wake up more warriors who were drawn into it. Most of them were Red Spears, but some of them argued on the side of the Purple Thunder warrior, their new ally.

Dindi realized she needed to go around, or she would get trapped in the fracas. Far too many men were waking up and someone would notice her. She had to go backwards to advance. She backed up from the knot of men and, still facing them, hurried backwards along the path she had just taken. When she returned to a fork in the trails between the tents, this time she headed north instead of south. Perhaps if she tried to leave the camp from the opposite direction expected, she would find it easier to get out. She could always turn south again once she was outside of camp.

Unfortunately, heading back toward the War Chief’s tent, she skidded to a halt again when an argument erupted there as well. In the east, the sky had lightened to pearl rose rather than purple-black. The longer she took to escape the camp, the less likely her chances of escaping at all. Dindi turned again and this time headed west, away from the light, as if she could outrace the rising sun.

A third argument broke the morning time, this one in the War Chief’s tent itself, which turned out to be more relevant to her chances of escape than the argument over eating the dead horse. She clearly heard Zumo himself bellowing at warriors. She had first met Zavaedi Zumo five years ago, in Yellow Bear tribehold, at a feast thrown in his honor by the War Chief of Yellow Bear. She had been a serving maiden at the feast. She had been so distracted by seeing the guests from Rainbow Labyrinth, whom she recognized from Visions she had because of a magic Corn Cob Doll, that she had tripped and spilled sugar bread all over the other guest at the feast, Zavaedi Kavio.

The memory of how Kavio had reacted, how surprised and yet surprisingly patient he had been with her clumsiness, made her smile and blush even in retrospect. Her younger self never could have imagined the twisted paths of fate would have led her here, to this enemy camp, trying to steal back the Looking Bowl from those who had stolen it from Kavio, who had rightly won it in a pit fight tournament.

Dindi and Kavio needed the Looking Bowl to confront the Lord of Nightmares, who guarded another magical object, the Windwheel, which had been hidden at the center of the Left-Hand Maze under the Rainbow Labyrinth tribehold.

Mazes within mazes, that was what her life has become. So many pathways that seemed to lead forward only led to dead ends, and just when she thought she was making progress toward solving the faery riddle she had promised to solve years ago, on the Tor of the Stone Hedge, Dindi had to backtrack to the beginning, feeling no closer than she had been at fourteen summers.

Now, thanks to memories that had resurfaced in her nightmares, she knew that she had not found the doll by accident; she had been given the Corn Cob Doll as a gift, for saving Lady Death from a faery. Three times now, Dindi had saved Lady Death, once from the attack by a bear, and twice from the Bone Cage, the only known cage that could hold someone of Mrigana’s power. Dindi had assumed for the past five years that if she was working on anyone’s behalf, it was on behalf of the Seven Faery Ladies, including Vessia, the Last of the Aelfae. But if Mrigana had been the one to set Dindi on that path in the first place, had Dindi unwittingly been an agent of Death all along? And if so, how could she escape that knot of alliances and choose the side she truly wanted to help?

Mrigana had unambiguously betrayed Dindi this time, shattering their fragile alliance, and abandoning Dindi in an enemy encampment. Did she intend to betray me from the start? Dindi wondered. Or was she truly struggling against the darkness of her own Curse, and finally surrendered to it? Dindi would probably never know.

Many men were now awake in the camp. Groups of seven warriors, septs, started systematically racing along the trails of the camp, punching their heads into tents, kicking over sleeping mats, shouting, and cussing. They were looking for someone.

They were looking for the thief of the Looking Bowl.

She resisted the urge to break into a run. Nothing would look more guilty than if she started running now. But as fast as she could, without drawing attention to herself, she hurried her steps. She had to turn away from the path she was on when warriors came toward her. She ducked down a different road and headed south again, then turned east.

A voice Dindi recognized: Meira, Zumo’s betrothed, shouted out. That girl! She’s Rainbow Labyrinth! Grab her!

There was no point hiding anymore. Dindi broke into a run.

Seven warriors ran right for her. She leaped at the last minute, rolled over the back of the first one, kicked the second one in the face, ducked and rolled between the legs of the third, and then crawled through a tent to avoid the rest. The tent was filled with supplies, so she grabbed a stack of baskets, baskets filled with the spicy chili powder. When she came out on the other side and another group of seven warriors tried to grab her, she started tossing the baskets like throwing-disks to land in their faces. Coughing and screaming as they wiped their eyes, the Warriors backed off; she darted through their ranks.

Two groups of septs raced up opposite trails, ready to converge on either side of her. She waited until they almost reached her, rushed at one sept, suddenly reversed herself, launched into a backwards flip, and then climbed up the body of the Red Spears warrior to throw herself onto the shoulders of the other group of men. She used them like stepping stones, so quick and light that they weren’t able to grab her ankles before she had already crossed their bodies.

Five tents down, she saw the answer to her escape. It was a kraal. It was not large, but the fence posts held in a dozen horses. If she could leap onto one, she was light enough to have an advantage to race ahead of pursuit on horseback. It was certainly her only chance. She would never escape on foot, when they could ride her down with horses of their own.

She yanked a tent pole out of the ground as she ran, using it to vault herself closer to the kraal, and also intending to have something to wield as a lance when she was on horseback.

However, just before she reached the kraal, a shadow crossed overhead.

A winged monstrosity pitched between her and the horses. The wings were ragged and rotten, like a corpse. The body looked human, but not something living, something that had been dragged out of the ground. Muscle showed through rotted skin; maggots crawled over the flesh. Instead of a human head, two vulture heads grew from its neck, faced at uncanny angles, both with burning black eyes, like glowing coals. The tail of a lizard lashed out behind it. It was like no creature, animal, or faery that Dindi had ever seen or heard of in a history dance. The different pieces of its body did not seem to belong together but seemed held by bands of sticky black magic.

Even worse than the foul, stinking odor of rotting meat and spoiled wine, was the foul pollution of dark magic that roiled off of the creature. The scent of Death magic always made Dindi feel nauseated, but this was worse than anything she had suffered when Umbral used his magic. She staggered backwards and vomited. When the thing moved closer to her, although every fiber of her being screamed to get away, instead, to her horror, her body weakened, and she fell to her knees, as if pressed down by a heavy rock.

Rotting fingers, half skeleton and oozing with white worms, closed around her arms, and lifted her into the air. The creature beat vulture wings and flew to the War Chief’s large tent. It dropped her on the ground and then thankfully flew away.

Dindi was left on her knees at the center of a ring of warriors, facing not only Zumo and Meira and Zumo’s sister Amdra, but also a tall man who was even more terrifying than the undead two-headed vulture-creature of rot and darkness. The tall man was not undead, but he was immortal, originally Aelfae, although what he was now, she could not fathom. Like the creature he had summoned to catch her, he had made himself into something new, but something that was an abomination against reality itself. Dark magic clung to him. It emanated from him. He was the source. He had melted flesh instead of a face, and when he spoke it was through two snakes at his shoulders.

The snake-headed immortal had many names. To the Orange Canyon he had been known as the Great One. To the Rainbow Labyrinth, he had been known as the Bone Whistler. To his fellow Aelfae he was Xerpen the Silver Singer. To Zumo and Amdra, he was their secret Aelfae Grandfather.

And now she heard the Red Spears call him Two Snakes.

He spoke now and it was a terrible sound not only because the voices came from the snakes, but because both snakes spoke at once, and they said different things. One snake spoke ‘out loud,’ meaning its strange, unreal voice reverberated in many minds in the audience at the same time.

This is the thief. Look in her rucksack, you will find the real Looking Bowl.

While one snake hissed that publicly, the other hissed inside Dindi, inside her mind alone: You will pay for what you have done to me, but before I kill you, I will turn everyone you love against you.

Cloud Dancer, Xerpen said to Zumo, using the Zavaedi’s Shining Name: Can you name this Maiden?

Be afraid, the other serpent whispered secretly into her mind.

Xerpen broadcast his inquiry. The crowd had gathered, and the sun had lifted its brow high enough in the sky to turn the camp into gray shapes in the early morning fog. More and more men had come to see who had been caught stealing from their War Chief. Even the three men arguing over the dead horse were standing there, watching curiously to see what terrible death Two Snakes would give to the thief. They were exchanging little knuckle bones, as tokens of bets.

Toad Woman, commanded Xerpen. Eat her thoughts and find out who she has been working for all along.

There is nothing you can hide from me, promised the other serpent.

Amdra, whose Shining Name was Toad Woman not only because she was as ugly as a toad, but also because she was poisonous as one, had the ability to pick apart the Orange strands in one’s aura and discern your private thoughts from Magic. But she scowled at the gathering crowd. Shouldn’t we do this inside the tent?

Xerpen extended a curled finger toward her, and a whip of shadow snapped across her cheek, leaving a red cut behind. She flinched and crunched over her shoulders in submission, like a dog that had been kicked.

Amdra took out her frustration on Dindi, boxing her in the ear and then grabbing her other ear and pinching hard, even though Amdra did not need to touch someone to eat their thoughts. Thorns of Orange magic jabbed Dindi.

At the same time, Dindi could see little snakes of Black Magic coming off of Xerpen, coiling and circling around Dindi, then feeding into Amdra.

Amdra’s eyes widened in surprise as if she had discovered something shocking. She looked uncertainly at the Bone Whistler.

"Go on, broadcast one snake to the public, Tell everyone what you found."

The other snake was hissing as well, but this time it was spraying something directly to Amdra, and Dindi did not know what the other message was, the hidden message.

Amdra said loudly, She was working for you all along. Amdra bowed to Xerpen. Truly, you are devious, and no one could trick you, but you can trick anyone you wish.

It was a test, surmised Zumo.

A test you failed! Both snakes danced in the air, hissing and dripping venom. This time the second snake had a secret message for Zumo, but whatever it was, it was not a gentle assurance to counteract the public insult. Dindi was surprised that the secret message was even crueler.

Zumo blanched bone white. He lowered himself all the way to the ground and rubbed his face in the dirt like the most groveling slave. His sister also fell down to her knees and rubbed her forehead in the dirt, and then, slowly, everyone in the circle did the same until the entire crowd abased themselves before Xerpen.

Dindi had seen War Chiefs who inspired love, and those who inspired fear, but she had never seen Tavaedies and warriors grovel so completely to one man. It disgusted her. It also terrified her. Even without his bone flute, Xerpen already controlled these people like the dollies on strings in a puppet dance. Dindi suspected that Xerpen was actively looking to find his bone flute again. With that, in addition to the Death magic he had learned, and was using to create terrible abominations, his power would be unstoppable.

Dindi was on her knees as well, but she had not lowered her face to the dirt. She stared at Xerpen. Why had he lied about her working for him? Why not punish her for trying to steal the Looking Bowl?

He stepped close to her, and she leaned away, instinctively expecting to be kicked, or perhaps whipped with just magic, but instead he put his hands on her shoulders. His hands were dry and scaly, like a reptile. She shuddered. He helped her stand up, and then he pressed his lips gently against her cheek. It was the gesture an uncle or father might’ve made. His lips were as dry and rough as his hands, but that was not what made her quiver with loathing at the touch. It was the underlying shadow that she felt sting her cheek that made her want to vomit again. Her stomach clenched hard, churning jagged stones, but nothing came up. She had already lost all her food from the previous day and nothing but acid lined her throat.

Everyone else stood up and she knew that they had all observed the kiss and that gesture had sealed their conviction she was his favorite spy. She glanced around the crowd, observing how their expressions changed from eagerness to see her die to unease and fear of her. The Purple Thunders warrior stood in the crowd as well, the same who had been arguing about the horse. His eyes narrowed on her, before he turned around and hurried away backwards through the crowd.

That was the secret. That was why Xerpen wanted to publicly claim her. He knew that such a splashy reception would reach not only the ears of his own people but those of any spies from other tribes including Rainbow Labyrinth. If Dindi tried to leave and return to her own people now, they would kill her, believing her to be a traitor, the one who had delivered the Looking Bowl to the enemy.

Xerpen grandly paraded into the War Chief’s tent, trusting his Zavaedies to follow—and Dindi as well. Meira, when she rose to her feet, after Zumo, grabbed Dindi by the arm.

As Meira strong-armed Dindi into the tent, Meira hissed at her, Why didn’t you tell me you were working for him? Did you think that you could become Zumo’s bride instead of me? You little trollop, you will not replace me!

ZUMO

Once inside the War Chief’s tent, Zumo’s grandfather returned to the role of a humble advisor. Although Xerpen had openly claimed the honors of War Chief of two different tribes in the past—that Zumo knew of—this time, the man who now called himself Two Snakes had decided he would not be claiming the title, although he held all the real power. Perhaps it was because he was now in charge of two tribes. For all Zumo knew, Hegaro might actually believe the fiction that he was the War Chief of Purple Thunder, but Xerpen had been in charge of that tribe almost as long as he had been in charge of Red Spears, for over a year now.

Zumo instinctively looked for War Chief Azago, Arso’s older brother, before he remembered that both men were dead. The younger brother had died in the pit fit in the Stallion’s Hoofprint, killed by Kavio. The older brother had died just last night, burned alive in front of all of them by Xerpen, punishment for losing the Looking Bowl, which Zumo could understand, but also as a punishment for not finding something that Xerpen refused to explain. That kind of punishment, for something unexplained and irrational, made even Zumo afraid. How could one please a man like Xerpen when one could never guess what he truly wanted?

It was impossible to say if others would be punished as well. Xerpen was not so predictable that he would only kill one person for one crime. Sometimes he might not punish a person at all, for instance the way he had surprised everyone by welcoming rather than hurting Dindi. Other times...

Zumo shook himself out of his funk when he felt the air grow thick with expectation. People were waiting for Zumo to do something. Startled, Zumo remembered that he was now War Chief of the Red Spears. They only would follow him out of fear of his grandfather. He frowned. He hated to grovel in the shadow of that foul man. His loyal advisor, Xerpen, did not stay to talk but disappeared and went on to whatever strange business he had, probably making new creatures out of shadow and body parts. But only when Grandfather was out of the tent did Zumo feel free even to think about how much he despised the man.

The only ones in the tent now were Zumo and three women he could control, his sister, his betrothed, and his captive. He felt more at ease, almost ebullient.

Self-conscious of his new position, Zumo took the seat of the War Chief. He gestured for Dindi to sit on his left side instead of his sister, Amdra, while his betrothed sat in her usual place at his right hand.

Zumo had no idea if the girl had been working for his grandfather all along or not. Zumo rather suspected not. He had known her back in Yellow Bear, and she did not possess the guile or ambition that Grandfather preferred in his tools of flesh. He had claimed her as a spy to save face, because otherwise Xerpen would have had to acknowledge that the enemy almost stole the real Looking Bowl out from under their noses in the middle of their war camp. Zumo would have to follow Xerpen’s lead.

I am afraid that Kavio will soon hear of your true allegiance, Zumo told Dindi, speaking as if he had known all along that she was on their side.

Dindi glared at him, and he chortled inside. No, she had not been working for Grandfather before, he was certain of that now. But whether she wanted to or not, she would be working for Xerpen from now on. Once the serpent bit you, you could not get the poison from your veins. Even without his flute, he knew how to make people dance to his tune.

I am your sister, declared Amdra, pacing the tent. She wasn’t happy that Zumo had given Dindi her place of honor. If you knew, you should’ve told me. I would’ve saved many days of scheming to control her if I had known she was already on Grandfather’s string.

You know I am not at leave to reveal his secrets to you, sneered Zumo. Besides, we must be on guard that she does not try to bite from both ends of the corn cob. Treat her as a captive, only do not let it be seen that she is anything other than an honored guest. Take her and put her in a tent with a guard of honor. Make certain they understand she is not to leave without direct orders from me or my honored advisor, Two Snakes.

Do you think she is stupid enough to betray the master?

Zumo looked at Dindi. She had not said a word. But her face showed her contempt for all of them.

She is very stupid, he said, and he laughed. I think she may have fallen in love with my cousin. And what’s even more amusing, is that he may have fallen in love with her. He will be so hurt when he hears about her betrayal.

He studied her face when he said that, to observe how mere words shattered her face open like a punch to the jaw. Zumo was certain he was correct. She was a terrible liar. But no one in this camp would believe that. They would only think she was a fantastic liar for looking so hurt and innocent. But Zumo remembered who had been chosen as ‘the Duck’ in her year of Initiation. Grandfather did not fear Dindi, or consider her significant as anything but a temporary tool to hurt Kavio and Vio. If Grandfather dismissed her, Zumo safely could as well. If everyone else in the Red Spears camp thought that Dindi was a fiendishly clever spy, he would silently enjoy sniggering at them in secret.

Even his sister looked at the silly girl as if she were suddenly dangerous. She was only a single-Chroma dancer, and not a powerful Morvae like Amdra herself, but the kind that had once made Morvae dancers rightly belittled in the eyes of the Imorvae.

As always when Amdra was afraid, she lashed out with petty cruelty. Get over here! she yelled at Dindi, and hit her when she obeyed, before dragging her out of the tent. Dindi went lamely, like the Duck she had once been. Some people were born to be kicked.

After his sister took the Duck from the tent, Zumo said to his betrothed, Do you want to come here and kiss a War Chief?

Meira walked seductively closer to him, her hips swinging and her lips curled in a smile. But when she reached him, she slapped him across the face. He grabbed her wrist.

What was that?

What was that? Her voice rose several octaves. "What