Chapter 1 First Row, First Column A stately veil of birch hid Dindi from those she stalked. The trees encircled a wide clearing of stamped down reddish earth where the Tavaedis, the Chroma Dancers, practiced their Patterns. They began every day in the misty rose twilight before sunrise and ended when the noonday sunshine poured down molten gold. Dindi roused herself earlier still, to hide in the woods before they arrived, and she dared not leave until after they were gone. She went there to watch them, to envy them, and, in shameful secrecy behind the trees, to imitate them. Her mimicry was clumsy beside their grace, she knew, but she could not help herself. Though she did not have the Chroma magic and never would have it, she loved to dance. The Tavaedis performed at births, weddings, fairs, exorcisms, charmings -- in fact at any event of importance in the clanholds of the Corn Hills. These occasions kept them busy most afternoons. There were dance patterns effective for healing, for ...