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

people, a girl from a medium-sized town in rural Serocia, not worldly like Gunnar was. “I don’t know.”
    “I don’t know, either, but as I prepare my son to leave the relative safety of Kaild to kill other men’s sons, I think about it. A lot.”
    And of course, those other men’s sons were planning to kill and not be killed, just as Boden was. Jora’s eyes welled with tears. She didn’t want to think about losing her friend the way she’d lost her eldest brother. She didn’t want to consider the possibility of Boden falling in battle with a terrible, painful wound or bleeding to death on the battlefield. “Did your father ask the same question when you were going off to war?”
    “I never knew my father,” he said softly. “He died in battle when I was six. I only remember the corpulist delivering his body, wrapped in a shroud, in the back of a wagon along with the bodies of three other men, stinking of death and drawing flies.”
    Tosh had been returned home the same way almost ten years earlier. She was only thirteen when she witnessed her brother’s death in the Mindstream, seeing Tosh being struck down from behind, a sword going into his back and through his heart. Jora had watched in mute horror as his body arched, his head snapped back, and his mouth fell open with his last gasping breath. She shook her head to dislodge the image. Such a violent death was something she hoped never to witness again, especially if it was someone she loved. “We’ve all lost family members, but I’m certain we’ll see Boden home safely in a decade.” This she said more out of a desire to convince herself than of belief in what she was saying, but to speak her mind, to say aloud what they both surely feared, would have felt like a condemnation. Hope was all they had.
    “Right. Enough of such morose talk,” he said. “Are you excited about this afternoon’s ceremony?”
    In the three years since he’d returned from the war, Gunnar had never asked her that, never shown any interest in her participation in the Antenuptials. She supposed that this time, because the boy becoming a man was his son, he would have an interest in who was chosen to be Kaild’s newest First Wife. “I’m happy for him,” she said, “but I won’t be submitting for the Antenuptial.”
    He lifted one eyebrow, but he didn’t look offended. “Did my son do something to displease you?”
    “No,” Jora said. “Not at all. I won’t qualify, and so I don’t care to go through the humiliation of being tested and denied in front of the whole town. Again.”
    He looked at the flute in her hands. “Is that a promissory, then? You’ve agreed to wait for his return?”
    She felt warmth flood her face. “No, it was just a gift, not a promissory. We have no such agreement.” Why did people assume the flute was a promissory? True, giving a gift to someone who wasn’t leaving Kaild was highly unusual, especially when the one giving was a man about to choose a wife, fill her with seed, and then leave for war. That didn’t make the gift a promissory.
    “So you’ll be seeking a husband from among the returned soldiers.” His was a kinder way of putting it than pointing out that she would join the ranks of the latterly maids, the unmarried women of age. The ones desperate to avoid ending up like old lady Xerba, childless and alone. Although half the married women in Kaild had at one point been latterly maids, it was an embarrassment every woman wanted behind her.
    She nodded. “Two men are due home within the next few months. Perhaps one of them would overlook my... talent and offer his hand.”
    “I submit myself for consideration.”
    She blinked twice, unsure what to make of his words. Was that a proposal? Surely not. A man as respected as Gunnar Sayeg, or as handsome, or as virile, didn’t take homely women as their wives. And no sane man wanted a Mindstreamer.
    “I’ll keep you warm and safe at night and try my best to give you at