Read The Unfinished Song: Taboo for Free Online

same thing . You have no magic. You don’t deserve to be a Tavaedi. You can’t dance. You have to keep in your place. You have to stay small.
    On the other side, there was just her. Stubborn, vain enough to think she knew better than everyone else around her. Maybe I’m no good, maybe I’m without magic, maybe I don’t deserve it. But I will dance. Alone if I must. In secret. In stolen moments. With stolen movements. No matter what it takes, I will dance .
    Everything subtly shifted again, and it felt as though the sky and earth and rocks and trees all moved to support her, though nothing moved. As if the wild places, at least, rejoiced in her decision, as though the natural world rebelled with her against the stupidity of human society’s restrictions.
    A sense of exaltation filled her when she looked down at the dancers below. She didn’t recognize the tama they were doing, which excited her. She did recognize many of the individual moves, which delighted her.
    I can do this. I can learn this .
    She picked someone to copy. Why not start with Zavaedi Brena? Dindi giggled. Why not? There was no turning back now. Her boat was in the river. From now on, every day she lived she would be at risk from someone discovering this moment.
    Soon she forgot all that. Her body embraced the movements she saw unfolding below her, and that was all that mattered.

Chapter Two
     

Pledge
     
Dindi
     
    Dindi wondered how she would explain to Jensi why she hadn’t cut even a single blade of sedge grass. While she’d been dancing with the Brundorfae and then spying on the Tavaedies, she hadn’t kept track of the time, though at least she had enough sense to quit before the Tavaedies themselves. She trudged back the way she had come. The sunshine, so pleasant before, felt like one the Yellow Bear’s famous smelting ovens to bake gold. Her shoulder basket weighed her down like a mountain.
    When Dindi splashed across the stream, Jensi ran toward her. “There you are! Don’t think I’ve forgotten our bet. We’ll compare our piles after we join the others.”
    At least that won’t take long , Dindi thought. My pile will have no grass at all .
    The maidens all gathered in a pleasant glade by the stream. Jensi had already staked out a place to sit by some round stones that made nice seats. She had also set out two mats, and now she unloaded her basket onto one of them. The neat sheaves of bundled sedge grass reached her knee.
    “There’s mine!” she said. “Now let’s see yours! Turn over your basket!”
    Heaving a sigh, Dindi took off her basket and lifted it over the other mat. Strange. The basket was heavier than she expected . . .
    Sheaves of bundled grass dropped out. Then more sheaves. Then still more sheaves, until the pile reached well above Dindi’s waist.
    Jensi’s jaw slackened. “I take it back, Dindi. You must have been working extremely hard all day. I’m proud of you. I really am.”
    A Yellow pixie fluttered to sit on the pile with a self-satisfied smirk on her face.
    Dindi covered her face with one hand. She asked the pixie under her breath, “Did you have anything to do with this?”
    “Not me.” The pixie shrugged. “My friends and I were going to fill your basket with some marvelous thorny thistles to thank you for dancing with us, but the Brundorfae filled up your basket with this boring grass before we had a chance.”
    Apparently High Faeries proffered a higher caliber of favor than the low fae. Knowing fae, the price they demanded in the end would be all the steeper.
Brena
     
    That whole week, Brena’s daughter made a point of ignoring her. Gwenika didn’t quite dare disobey direct commands, but in all other ways, the young woman made it clear to Brena that she’d not been forgiven. Brena struggled not to lose her temper over this childishness—or to feel guilty. Since the Tavaedi Initiates would not meet again until after the victory feast, she busied herself with the banquet preparations. The