The Unfinished Song (Book 5): Wing by Tara Maya Page A

when he touched her
arm. She felt the nausea his closeness evoked in her. Yet she
steeled herself not to pull away from his grip.
    When he reached out and caressed her face, she stood
stock still, compelling herself with stony resolve not to
shudder.
    Umbral let his hands drop from her. He turned his
back and walked to the far edge of the camp, restless and palpably
angry.
    “I’m trying my best not to fight it,” she said
through grated teeth. “If you’re going to take me, do it now.”
    He managed to glower with his back, since he would
not turn to face her. “I already have what I want from you,
Dindi.”
    “You do?” she demanded incredulously. “But…you
haven’t…”
    She trailed off, too embarrassed to finish the
thought out loud.
    “What did you think?” he asked dryly.
    What had she thought? What else could she have
thought? Had she not caught him peering at her, when he thought she
didn’t notice, with naked lust in his eyes? Or had she misread him?
What did she know of the lusts of strange men, after all?
    “I told you already,” he said with a touch of
impatience, “I am Deathsworn. There is nothing you have that I am
permitted to use…except your magic.”
    “My magic,” she repeated flatly. Ever since her
failed Initiation Test, she had yearned for someone to recognize
her magic and ask her to dance.
    But, mercy, not like this.
    “Orange Canyon has captured the White Lady. I know
you had a Vision of her yesterday, and another one just now. I need
your Visions to track her.”
    “To help you capture her? To throw her from
the mouth of the dog to the mouth of the wolf!”
    “No, Dindi. I wish only to free her. I don’t know
what Orange Canyon intends to do to her, but I assure you it will
be worse than anything the Deathsworn desire. The White Lady is not
a threat to us; she has already accepted the Gift.”
    “She has already been Cursed to die, you mean.”
    He shrugged. “However you prefer to phrase it. My
guess is that Orange Canyon plans to sacrifice her at the
Paxota.”
    “What is that?”
    “A ritual offering of tribute, held during the
spring equinox. Both animals and humans are slain as sacrifices,
and the more powerful the blood sacrifice, the more powerful the
magic. Powerful prisoners of war are highly valued tribute
offerings. This equinox will be unusual, because it will coincide
with a full eclipse of the sun, so Deathsworn on Obsidian Mountain
have prophesized. It is likely Orange Canyon Tavaedies have
foreseen the eclipse as well. It’s hard to imagine a more powerful
sacrifice than the last Aelfae. We have a common goal in preventing
that. The winter solstice has just passed, so we have three moons
at most to rescue her.”
    She did not believe him, though she wanted to. She
dared not believe him because she wanted to. He had
perfected the art of showing people the face they wanted to see. He
would tell her whatever she wanted to hear, anything to trick her
into helping him. The only thing she believed was that he needed
her willing cooperation, because otherwise he would not have asked.
He would have simply taken.
    Dindi wished she were not so afraid. Her thoughts
felt sticky and tangled like a spider web poked with a stick. She
wanted to stay alive to see Kavio avenged. Or did she just want to
stay alive? She was sure, without knowing why, that she was the
only one who knew that Umbral had murdered Kavio. Umbral was too
powerful for her to fight alone, so any dream she harbored of
paying Kavio’s deathdebt herself was vain.
    The White Lady, on the other hand, would surely
unleash the molten bowels of the mountains and the blazing bolts of
the storm clouds on her son’s murderer. If Dindi could just tell
her. If Dindi could just free Vessia from those who held her
captive…without delivering her to a worse fate.
    “I don’t see how knowing the White Lady had her
wings stolen helps you,” Dindi said.
    His eyes widened. “Is that what you saw? Orange
Canyon