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

spare moment I can.”
    To her surprise, the dolphin whistled the same notes she’d played—the correct notes, as if it knew which of her attempts was the right one.
    “How did... You just...”
    The creature twittered again and rolled in the water. It acted like it was flirting with her.
    “Do it again.” She waited, but the dolphin merely watched her with one dark eye. She lifted the flute and played the notes.
    And the dolphin repeated them.
    “Goodness!” This was astounding. Jora wondered whether she had unwittingly found a way to say hail or something else in Dolphinese. Then it struck her that the name of the piece was Song of the Sea Spirit. Perhaps the enchanting melody hadn’t been composed by a human at all but a dolphin. A sea spirit.
    “Jora!” Tearna was waving more frantically now.
    Boden’s Antenuptial. “Oh, Challenger’s bollocks!” She scuttled to her feet. This was the one event she couldn’t be late for. She started to run back to shore, but stopped and returned to the edge of the rocks. “It was a pleasure meeting you,” she said to the dolphin. “I hope to see you again.”
    With that, the dolphin rose up onto its powerful tail, twittered happily, and dove back into the water.
    Jora laughed and waved before running back to the beach.
     
 

Chapter 2

     
 
     
 
    The town looked deserted by the time Jora made it back. She laid the flute on her workbench before running to the civic hall. Entering by the rear door, she found everyone already seated, facing the dais in the front of the hall. Those who’d arrived late stood along the outer walls and along the back wall, the benches already taken.
    She caught her mother’s disapproving glare and gave her a dim, apologetic smile. Briana waved to her, and she made her way past people seated on the end of the row to join her cousin and Tearna. Three-year-old Ransom sat quietly in Tearna’s lap, his eyelids heavy and his body leaning against hers. Briana sat beside her six-year-old daughter, who seemed enraptured by the affair. “Pardon,” she said, squeezing herself between Tearna and an older woman she knew only from sight.
    “I saw Boden in his robe a minute ago,” Briana said, leaning forward to look at Jora. “He looked so handsome.”
    “Just like his papa,” Tearna said, winking.
    Gunnar was sitting in the front row with eight of his nine children and all four wives. On his lap sat his daughter Ricca by Third Wife Janli. The smallest ones sat on the laps of their mothers, and the two elder children, Welliam and Sharten, assisted with the toddlers. All Gunnar’s children had his dark brown hair, even Ricca, whose mother was probably the blondest woman in town. Looking over his shoulder, he caught Jora’s eye and acknowledged her with a nod.
    When the council leader stepped onto the dais, the civic hall quieted. At the front of the room was a table upon which sat a row of wooden cups, each adorned with a ribbon of a different color. Beside each cup was a wooden stick of the Son Maker tree with the bark removed to expose the sensitive bare wood. Three councilwomen conferred beside the table. One of them used her finger to count the cups while the two others whispered about the content of a tablet one of them was holding. They caught the attention of the council leader and whispered something into her ear.
    Jora watched curiously, as did nearly everyone else in the hall, until the council leader’s gaze swept across the audience of some two thousand villagers as if she were looking for someone. To Jora’s horror, the council leader pointed directly at her. One of the councilwomen peered at her, nodded, and walked down the aisle toward her row. With every step, Jora felt her heartbeat quicken and her face warm hotter.
    “Jora Lanseri,” the woman said, crooking a finger in a beckoning gesture. “I need a word with you, dear.”
    Jora shot her two friends a horrified look before standing. Tearna squeezed her hand