Song of the Sea Spirit: An epic fantasy novel (The Mindstream Chronicles) Read Free Page A

note.”
    Jora began to untie her friend’s hair. “I don’t know how to play one note. That’s why I have to do it in private—so I can figure it out before someone hears me be awful.”
    Tearna laughed. “I’ll bet you’re naturally good at it.”
    Jora wrinkled her nose at the back of Tearna’s head while she separated the hair into strands for braiding. “I’ve never even held a flute until this morning. I don’t know how to blow into it.”
    “You’re too modest.”
    Jora continued to braid Tearna’s hair while they talked about Boden’s upcoming Antenuptial and the preparations that were underway. When she was finished, she patted Tearna’s shoulders.
    “Thank you. Are you doing Hanna’s hair for the ceremony?” Tearna asked, standing.
    “She hasn’t asked me. I don’t know if she’s submitting.”
    Tearna went out the back door and returned momentarily carrying a bulky burlap bag across her shoulder. “Have you told Boden you’re not?”
    “Yah, we talked this morning and agreed that we like our friendship the way it is. Besides, I’m not fertile right now. If I submitted, I’d be disqualified anyway.”
    “You tested yourself?” Tearna untied the bag and dumped its contents, charred wood, into the forge.
    “No, but a girl gets a sense of her own cycle after so many times being disqualified.”
    “So what are you going to do?”
    Jora shrugged. What could she do besides become a latterly maid? Tearna and Briana, her two best friends, had both been chosen as First Wives. For years, they tried to reassure her that someone would choose her, too, that she wouldn’t have to suffer the humiliation of spending years as a latterly maid, hoping a returning soldier would propose before she was too old to bear children, but Jora knew better. That boy Oram had been right: no man would want a Mindstreamer for a wife.
    She leaned against the doorframe and looked down the road toward the boys’ training center where Gunnar conferred with Boden outside, one hand on his son’s shoulder. He looked directly at her, his gray eyes seemingly darker and filled with something that made her insides flutter. Desire? Jora held Gunnar’s gaze long enough to communicate her interest, then let her eyes drop to the flute in her hands, a dream come true. If Gunnar proposed to her, then her other dream would be fulfilled. First a flute of her own and then the husband she wanted? She would owe Retar something truly special for granting her two dreams in one lifetime.
    “You know,” Tearna said, “that’s a pretty extravagant gift for someone who’s not leaving. Are you sure he didn’t give you that flute as a bribe?”
    “A bribe for what?” Jora asked with a laugh. She stroked the flute lovingly. Something this beautiful could never be a bribe.
    “To convince you to submit for his Antenuptial?”
    Jora shot her an annoyed look. “Retar smite you.”
    Tearna chuckled. “I was jesting. Don’t be so sensitive.” She went out for another bag of charcoal. “Speaking of gifts, how’s Boden’s bag coming along?”
    “Slowly. Maybe if I move my workbench in front of the shop’s door so no one can come in, I’ll be able to finish.” So many people interrupted her during the day to ask about their loved ones away at war that she barely managed to finish her regular work, let alone work on an extra project, and Nuri was adamant that she only work on the bag in the mornings and evenings. She’d stayed awake all night to work on it, and her eyelids were heavy and sticky.
    “Maybe if you said ‘no’ now and then.”
    She found herself looking at Gunnar again, as if he were steel and her eyes magnets. “No isn’t really an option. Have you ever looked into his eyes?”
    “Whose eyes?”
    Startled by her blunder, Jora lifted one shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. “The eyes of the parent or wife or sibling or child asking me.”
    “What are you looking at?” Tearna went on tiptoe to look out the