Chapter 14
Fourteen
Steam crept up the cottage’s kitchen window, fogging against the rain-cooled glass. Cadenza clutched the blanket Taran had found for her tighter around her shoulders while he rummaged for mugs in the cupboard.
This ability to hear music from the world, that she’d never understood and for so much of her life had only half believed was real—it had a name.
Taran had named it. A name meant answers.
But as much as her soul yearned for those answers, her mind reared back, overloaded with the evening, and she broached a different topic first.
“Are you sure you’re ok?” She ran her hands over Taran’s arms, looking for burns.
“Fine, fine.” He hadn’t stopped grinning since the field, and each time he looked at her, his eyes glowed with satisfaction. He set the mugs on the counter, planted another kiss on her mouth, and returned to making tea, whistling.
“How are you not burned?” she asked.
“That has to do with our job. Remember I said we guarded a kind of king?”
She nodded.
“The king is actually called the Crown, but we’ll get to that later. Anyway, we needed to be able to handle heat for that job. We can feel heat, but we don’t burn.” The kettle whistled and he filled the mugs.
Cadenza’s brow wrinkled. “What do you mean, you don’t burn? That was lightning. It’s straight electricity.”
“I mean,” he said, holding the kettle over the sink and pouring boiling water over his hand. “I don’t burn.”
Cadenza grabbed his hand with a yelp, but no blisters or redness rose on his skin. She flipped his hand back and forth, but his skin was clear. Taran intertwined his fingers with hers and pulled her into his chest.
“We don’t burn,” he repeated. He wrapped one arm around her shoulders and pointed out the kitchen window with the other. “And the storm was my doing. I called it while playing.”
Cadenza listened to his heartbeat under her ear. His constant drum song wrapped around her, a familiar ocean now.
“Ok, just so I’m up to speed,” she said wryly. “You’re some kind of immortal cursed to live as a Ferrari, who can call storms, and make earthquakes. And you’re fireproof.”
He laughed. “Sounds daft when you put it like that. All these things have just been normal to me, this is just who I am—well, except for the cursed part. And technically not immortal, just very long lived. But you’ve got the gist of it.”
“Bene. As long as we’re on the same page. I should know how to explain you to my sisters when I see them again, right?”
“Si, dovresti sapermi spiegare,” he agreed, translating her words into her second language.
Cadenza’s mouth dropped open. “Immortal, cursed, storms, earthquakes, fireproof, and parli l’italiano?”
He laughed. “Lots of nights with nothing else to do. I have a few languages under my belt.”
She nuzzled under his jaw, marveling. “Any more surprises I should know about?”
Timpani and bodhran spiked, hot waves against her skin. A mischievous growl spread through his chest, and he lifted her face to his. “Undoubtedly.”
The back door opened with a bang, and Drostan stomped in. Cadenza blushed, stepping away from Taran.
“It’s a wee bit damp outside!” Drostan shook the rain out of his beard. “I don’t know where this storm came from; it was still summer earlier today.”
Taran raised his hand. “Sorry, my fault.”
Drostan shot a look at his son. “I’m sure most of my gray hairs are your fault, but not the weather. Pay him no mind, Caddie. Always teasing.”
“It’s alright, athair. She knows.”
Cadenza held her breath. Until now she’d only thought of this strange, new situation in relation to Taran and herself. But this was Drostan’s world too. His life. Would he be upset Taran had told her so much?
Drostan stared at his son, then busied himself making more tea. “What is there for her to know? Cadenza, what jokes has he been filling your head with?”
“Father—”
Drostan spun and pointed a finger in Taran’s face. “I told you, I’ll not have you messing up her plans.”
“She’s a Spinner, Father!”
A clang echoed through the kitchen as Drostan dropped the tea tin. He paled and stumbled into a chair.
Cadenza rushed to help him. “Are you ok?”
Drostan covered his face with his hands. “I’m sorry, Andrea, my friend,” he muttered. Cadenza frowned at the mention of her father’s name.
“Caddie,” Drostan said. “I never wanted to drag you into all this.”
“Drag me into what?” Cadenza leaned back, pulling the blanket tighter, and sat across from Drostan at the small kitchen table.
She knew she’d been stalling earlier, savoring being with Taran, avoiding asking the obvious questions to give herself time to process.
But Drostan was acting like being a Spinner was some kind of tragedy, when she’d just begun to embrace the idea that not only was she not crazy, but there were answers about the music that haunted her life. “What is a Spinner?”
Taran set the mugs of tea on the table and dragged a chair close to her. “You are.” His eyes still shone. “I saw her,” he told his father. “In the storm, she made a shield to deflect the lightning. Completely shattered the bolt.” He smirked, like he was proud of her.
“Saints above.” Drostan scrubbed his face with one hand.
Cadenza shifted uncomfortably. “I didn’t do it on purpose. It was about to hit Taran, and I just…” she trailed off.
“You sent the music out, yes?” Drostan said. His face twisted, deepening the lines in his face. He sighed. “It’s alright, Caddie dear. Tell us what you hear.”
She stared at him. All these years she’d kept her secret locked up tight like some wicked thing.
Even knowing the Norroways had answers for her, and knowing Taran had seen her use the earthsong, she couldn’t answer right away.
She pronounced each word deliberately, half afraid the admission would turn on her somehow.
“I hear music. Not just from physical instruments, and I’m not just composing a tune in my head.
” She took a deep breath, but both men just nodded and waited for her to continue.
“I hear it from the whole world.” The words came faster, like pressure escaping a cracked dam.
“The earth, the trees, the wind, the stars, all of it. And I feel like I need to use it—like I’m going to break with the need to do something with it, but I don’t know what it wants or what I’m supposed to do with it, and when I do try to let go of it, things blow up—like, actually explode.
” Her chest heaved with her confession. Taran scooted his chair closer and placed a warm hand on her back.
Bodhran wrapped around her like another blanket.
Drostan patted her hand. “Och, everyone blows up a few things when they’re first learning. You should have seen Eithne when she was starting out.” He chuckled, face softening. “I couldn’t build us a house for a year because she kept—” He threw his hands up, mimicking the noise of an explosion.
“Eithne?” Cadenza asked.
“My mother,” Taran said.
Her eyes widened. “Your mother heard music like me?”
“She did.”
“You said last night that she had a different job than you. She was a Spinner?”
“That she was,” Drostan said, eyes shining. “And a damn fine one at that.”
Cadenza’s head swam. The adrenaline from the lightning strike waned, leaving an ache behind her left eye.
The rain outside pattered soft piano notes, and the earth, quiet since she’d loosed its song during the storm, began to thrum again.
She sought refuge behind her mug of tea, letting the apple-cinnamon steam soothe her head.
Taran stroked her hair. “I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves, athair. Let’s start with the basics.”
“Production line?” Drostan suggested.
Taran chuckled. “I can’t believe you still call it that.”
Drostan shrugged. “It’s as good an analogy as any.”
“Alright, production line.” Taran topped off her tea. “You recall we work for the Fates?”
Cadenza nodded.
“The Fates weave destiny for humanity. Most cultures have some version of that idea, some kind of being that weaves fate like a tapestry, but they don’t ask the obvious question.”
Cadenza sipped her tea. “What’s that?”
Drostan leaned across the table. “With what do they weave? Neither tapestries nor fate are woven out of thin air.”
“Precisely,” Taran said. “The earth sings. Creation makes music. You hear it all the time. People like you and my mother are able to pull this energy, this music, from the world and spin it into the Thread used by the Fates. Much like how people spin fibers into thread on a spinning wheel. But the earth needs energy to make its music, which is where the Crown—that’s the “king” I mentioned the other night—comes in.
He or she forms a connection between the sun and the earth, concentrating the sun’s energy and feeding it to what you could call the soul of the earth. ”
“Think of it this way, lass,” Drostan said.
“The sun grows grass. Sheep eat the grass and grow wool. People take the wool and spin the fibers on a spinning wheel to make thread. Weavers take the thread and make cloth. Other people wear the cloth. So, in our analogy, the Crown grows the ‘grass’ or delivers the energy that feeds the earth. The earth and everything that comes from it grows the ‘wool’ or makes the music. Spinners spin the music into ‘thread’ or organize the energies that affect us all into a usable form—like how you organized the music into a shield to protect Taran. The weavers, or the Fates, weave the thread into ‘cloth,’ or the patterns of destiny for each person on earth. People then ‘wear’ the cloth—or follow the destiny set for them.”
“People choose their own destiny,” Cadenza said stubbornly, her headache returning.
Outside of that, Drostan’s explanation made theoretical sense, but she didn’t see how something that blew up lights or shattered lightning bolts could be worked into something as biddable as this Thread they spoke of.
And the information they’d given her so far just brought up more questions.