The Unfinished Song: Taboo (40 page)

“None of this would be necessary if I had not failed.” He grated his teeth.

“Look around you. All the Shunned here owe you their lives.”

“Maybe Nargano was right to distrust me if I could not kill them because they were Imorvae, like me.”

“You wouldn’t kill them because they were
people
.
Like you or like Nargano, just like anybody. And they were innocent. They did not deserve to die.”

“Don’t be so mucking naïve! Do you think there won’t be innocent lives sacrificed if there is a war?”
He did not shout, but his low, icy words chilled her. “There will be seven and seven times the number of dead, and who will collect on murder so large? Will there even
be
survivors left to grieve? Brave men will waste their pride on death, thinking death is hard to find, when nothing is easier to find; mothers will see their children’s heads smashed in with rocks; beautiful girls like you will be pushed against a wall and used by man after man until you faint, and when you wake you will be a slave, to endure the same the rest of your life. That is war. The sacrifices have only begun!”

“But—”

“And it was my fault. I should have guessed at Zumo’s involvement, but I wanted to think the best of him against all evidence. I should have been a step ahead, not a step behind. I should have known I needed power, whether I wanted it or not, because only the biggest rock sways the course of the river. Instead, I let myself float along wherever the journey seemed to take me, never questioning it, never asking what wind was driving me there.”

She touched his arm, the skin cold beneath her fingers, and slick with ocean spray.

“I put every hope and power that was mine into trying to secure this peace, and I
failed
.”  He shuddered again. “
You can’t know what that’s like.”

“The same thing happened to me.”

He snorted.

“When I failed my Test.”

“Is that what this seems to you?” He tightened his lips. “You think this is a mere personal failure, like an Initiate whose petty dream of magic doesn’t pass muster? I’d say the life or death of thousands of people across three tribes amounts to something just a smidgeon more important than your personal inadequacy.”

Her throat closed and she couldn’t speak. She looked out across the sea, glad of the salted wind that scratched all evidence of emotion from her face.

“Dindi? That was cruel, I didn’t mean it like that.”

A swell jarred the boat so abruptly she dug her hands into the wooden side to keep from toppling over the edge. The sea was one vast roil of mist and shadow. It made her feel small, and close to death.

“All I meant was…”he grappled awkwardly for words, “if I fail, it means terrible things happen to thousands of people.
I can’t fail
. You can. No one cares if you fail.”

“Because I don’t matter, but you do,” she whispered, although the wind snatched away her words and chortled over them.

“What?”

“I said: That’s not what matters.” She turned back to him. “What matters is not that you failed to secure the peace but what you will do now.”

“Prepare for war,” he said. “There’s no other choice.”

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For my mother,

who
helped me begin the song,

and
let me dance.

I began this novel, in a very different form, on the Online Writing Workshop and I would like to thank all the critiques I received from members there over the years. Thank you, too, to all my other writer friends who agreed to beta read various versions, to my editors, and to those of you who have been generous enough to share your affection for this book with me and with others. Your enthusiasm and encouragement means so much to me.