23. The Broken Spell
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Kavio
…wafted from the fields.
Mother’s
nose wrinkled slightly in distaste. She’d never liked corn, something
she’d only eaten after she married Father. “I must have concocted wild
things to save you.”
Why had he thought otherwise? She would never change.
“This
is the last time I’ll see you, Mother.” He was proud of his straight
back. He would not let himself scratch the dried mud that caked his
body, though it itched like crawling flies.
She
ruined the solemn moment by crying. He let her hug him and weep into
his chest. He patted her shoulder. He realized he had been looking
forward to her quest, to give him purpose in his exile. In his mind, he
tore up the idea of finding the Vaedi, and all the other crazy things
his mother had urged him, all lies, all spider-silk and parrot feathers.
As
he walked away, the mud didn’t itch as badly. Her fierce hug had rubbed
away most of the dust cake, leaving behind only a stain.
Rthan
Rthan
surveyed the damage to his water spell. Weeks of fasting, planning,
traveling and dancing, ruined. The careful crystalline lines he had
built up around the mountain snows had been realigned, diverted. His
original configuration would have unleashed a flood of snowmelt several
months from now, with spring’s kiss. No longer. The new glowing blue
lines of magic would sluice the melt water harmlessly down a dozen
smaller arroyos, instead of toward the enemy settlement in the main
valley below the mountain. Someone had protected the Rainbow Labyrinth
tribehold.
“Who could have done this?” he asked aloud.
The
other six men and women with him only mirrored back to him his own
bafflement and bemusement. They shivered and wheezed in the snow, not
used to either the temperature or the altitude. He knew they were
wondering if he would order them to stay the long weeks required to
dance the entire spell again.
He wasn’t really speaking to the little girl at his side. Nonetheless, she looked up at him with large, grave eyes.
“Kavio the Rain Dancer,” she said. She had joined him almost unnoticed.
Meira.
His daughter, his only child, was only eight, but already she promised
to be a classic beauty. Her long, straight black hair was knotted by
strings of pearls in twists that reached her ankles. Her tiny face was a
perfect moon, her mouth an adorable pink shell, and her eyes deep tide
pools reflecting the shades of the ocean and the sky. People said she
looked like him, but miniaturized and refined. He was a bulky, tattooed
tower of muscle, with his long hair dis- ciplined into a top tail of
tiny braids to mark his kills. She was an adorable pixie doll.
Meira.
His daughter, his only child, had died six years ago. He knew this,
knew the person at his side wasn’t really Meira, and yet, he couldn’t
stop the love and pain he felt every time he looked at her…
TO BE CONTINUED
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