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

had
been easy to bully. As she grew more and more restless, however,
sooner or later it would occur to her to use her magic to escape
him. Although he could prevent that, it would be
unpleasant—especially for her. Umbral wanted her to stay of her own
volition. It would be inconvenient if he had to drag her by the
leash the whole journey.
    “Have you forgotten you owe me a lifedebt?” he
asked. “I did save your life on the battlefield.”
    “And then erased that debt by trying to kill
me.”
    “But I spared you.”
    “I owe you nothing .” She said it flatly. “You
have no right to me. I am not yours to spare. And even if you had saved my life and not tried to kill me, you killed
Kavio. Not even saving my life could have balanced ending his. His
life was worth far more than mine.”
    “How could you think that?”
    “Because I am nothing to anyone, but he was much to
many.”
    Had any other young and lovely girl said such a
thing, Umbral would have suspected her of being coy. But not this
girl, Dindi. It was possible that she did not realize how beautiful
she was, how desirable, especially to him. Now that he had
penetrated her secret, he could see her as she truly was, as none
of those bumpkins in the local clans would be able to perceive her.
He could see her radiant with a kaleidoscope of light that made her
skin glow, her hair glint, her eyes shine, her whole face light up
like a captive sun.
    He remembered how her body had felt squirming next
to his on horseback, and he imagined her squirming again, but
underneath him on his raven cape, naked, her face suffused with
ecstasy. That fantasy was followed by another, darker image.
Instead of welcoming him, she recoiled from him, in horror and
disgust, knowing, as she did, what he was.
    Noticing that Dindi was staring at him with wide
eyes, Umbral broke off his perverse reverie. Could she see his
thoughts in his aura? No. That was absurd. He could not read her
thoughts in her aura; she could not read his. But perhaps it wasn't
hard for her to guess what he'd been thinking. He met her fawn-like
eyes, making her blush and lower her lashes.
    He cleared his thoughts and his throat.
    “You wanted to know what you could trade for your
life, or at least a delay in your execution. The time has come for
me to tell you.”
Finnadro
    At dawn everyone gathered in the field outside the
tribehold for the Chase. The prisoners were brought out together,
to the jeering of the crowd. Scampering boys hocked mud. Fights
broke out when the guards refused to let the men and women with
skull-painted faces, relatives of the dead, do worse. The Rainbow
Labyrinth tribesfolk wanted to use their horses during the Chase,
and some Green Woods tribesfolk—jealous, probably, because they had
none—argued that it was cowardly. More bickering, more
barely-avoided brawls. Finnadro knew from experience, it would take
a while before the churning mob settled down enough for the Chase
to begin.
    “I won’t be coming back after the Chase,” he told
War Chief Nann.
    The war had worn her down. Her jowls sagged lower,
and more white hairs specked her hair, while her once white fox
headdress was smudged with so much soot, the fur had grayed.
    “I want you on the raid,” protested Nann.
    “My duty to rescue the White Lady must come first.
With every delay the trail grows colder.”
    “What about your duty to me ? I am your
War Chief, not the Green Lady.”
    “Don’t make me choose, Chief.”
    Nann snorted. “Because it wouldn’t go well for me,
would it? But Finnadro, there is one thing I must tell you. We can
call this a victory if we want—we sent them back with their tails
between their legs, at the last, and that’s not spit. But you and I
both know that though the pups yap for revenge, Green Woods tribe
cannot take on Orange Canyon. They have three times our numbers,
even if most of them are worthless sheep keepers. If they came back
in full force, it would be like the war against the Bone