Kindred and Wings Read Online Free PDF Page A

seer’s prevarications. His mother—or at least the trapped memory of her—floated across the ballroom floor, her feet never quite meeting the solid surface. He waited.
    Her arms swept out in an abrupt gesture, and suddenly he could see the ghosts he had only imagined. Finn’s eyes widened as he watched the long-dead Vaerli dance and spin around a smooth floor, in dresses seemingly made of spider-silk. The women all reminded him of Talyn. The men that he saw were lithe, handsome and smiling; in such a situation he would have been the same, himself.
    Strains of music whispered in the corners, and he saw creatures among them that must have been Named Kindred: fauns, centaurs, and patterned snakes. It was a beautiful if unusual scene.
    “I thought,” he said through a dry throat, his eyes never leaving the scene Putorae conjured, “that the Vaerli did not make places. The chaos of the land surely makes such buildings . . .”
    “There are places kept aside for us,” his mother replied, and her translucent eyes also seemed lost in the vision. “Places such as V’nae Rae were made for the government of our people, but others were made for the celebration of our gifts. Here, we danced and sang.”
    Even the shifting shadow of it was beautiful, and Finn felt an ache lodge in his chest. It was wrapped in melancholy and loss, and those bittersweet moments were the stuff that talespinners dined on. He had never felt able to make his own stories, only ever repeating the traditional ones, but in this moment and place the urge came over him. He wanted to create their tales; these lost people who were unraveling in front of him like yesterday’s dreams.
    Yet, this was not the most important thing—not for the moment at least. He did not know how long he had his mother for. “I don’t understand,” he pressed. “How did you save Ysel here, when you have been dead for a thousand years?” Once the words were out of his mouth he wished them back again; it seemed very rude to point that out to her.
    She did not seem to mind. She simply raised one hand, as if she might be able to touch his face. “The Kindred do not know time. In the deep wells of this world, they live apart from it. When you and Ysel were born, that is where they kept you. You remained suspended in that state until they brought you here, Ysel they also returned, but a fraction later. When you . . . when they feared you would not suit their task.”
    Her long-dead eyes were locked with his. “You know, deep down, when that time was. When you found another, different purpose.”
    Finn knew. He didn’t have to think overly on it. He licked his lips before replying, “When I met Talyn, when I fell in love with her. That was the moment they lost faith in me?” The haunting strains of the music grew fainter now, and the lines of the dancers grew sketchier, as a child’s drawing that was being erased.
    “Yes,” Putorae said, and though her silvery ghostly form could not breathe or sigh, it somehow conveyed a great disappointment. “They brought Ysel up from the chaos, and he grew through childhood here. No one could have guessed the connection you still shared, or how you would find each other.”
    Finn glanced down at the yarn in his hand, wondering at it himself. Ysel had been trying to learn the same small gifts his brother had developed. It hurt him deeply that he’d not been able to find him and help him with that.
    He’d always been the talespinner, the troublemaker, and had known that he was not important. The message was all-important, not the speaker of it. It would take some getting used this new condition where he did matter, dragon aside.
    “What is the point?” he asked, staring down at the floor, not wanting to see it all dissolve away before him. “Why did the Kindred protect us like this?”
    The unfair spirit did not answer him; there was so little of her left here. “Go to where you were most happy, beloved son. They already know. Your