Page 66 of Unraveling Fate

“You really do need to work on that, athair,” Taran teased. “Old age has made you loud enough to wake the dead.”

“Enough of your cheek, boy.” The air around Drostan wavered. He vanished, a great, gray wolf hulking in his place. The air shimmered again, and he reappeared. “I still have some teeth in me.”

“Show-off,” Taran muttered.

Cadenza stood transfixed, gaping at Drostan. Taran rubbed her shoulders gently. “It’s what we do, remember?”

She swallowed, nodded.

“Sorry, hen. That was abrupt of me.” Drostan sighed. “Now, we’ve work to do. Caddie, have you ever watched someone work a spinning wheel?”

She shook her head.

“In a spinning wheel, the fibers go in at one spot, get twisted together, and come out as yarn, or thread, in another spot. Input, output, see?”

“Input, output,” she repeated.

“When you Spin the earth’s song into Thread, you are the spinning wheel. When you made that shield, you took in the music, and you formed it into something usable, even if you didn’t know you were doing it. But when you Spin Thread, you have to organize the music and make it usable but notassigna use—the Fates do that—so the process is a wee bit different.

Cadenza stared at him. “You already lost me.”

Drostan scratched his head. “There’s a difference between real Spinning and using the music for somethingyouwant. When you make the music into something you want, you pick what you make it into, just as if you took yarn and knitted a sweater. But on our ‘production line’ the Fates choose what we’re ‘knitting,’ so to speak. You’re making the yarn, not the finished product. When you create Thread—when you Spin—you must organize all the inherent possibilities of each note into weaveable form, but then it’s the Fates who decide what pattern to weave with it in someone’s destiny, their tapestry, if you will.”

“Wait, that means I can make things other than Thread with the earthsong?” she asked.

“You already have.” Drostan held his hands together over Taran’s head like her shield. “Once you’ve organized the music,” he continued. “You send it back out. Input, output.”

“You make it sound so easy.” She squeezed her arms around her middle, remembering the glitter of broken chandelier at Thomas’s club.

Taran wrapped his arms around her from behind and loosened her grip on her ribs. “Don’t worry,” he joked. “Even if you blow something up, you’ll still be the sexiest spinning wheel anyone’s ever seen.”

She laughed, and her stomach relaxed.

“Shut it, you,” Drostan scolded. “Stop being distracting, or I’ll banish you from practice.”

“Aye, teacher.” Taran grinned and held Cadenza tighter. She turned her face up to kiss his neck.

Drostan rolled his eyes but sat cross-legged on the ground. “Now, I want you to sit and listen to the music for a moment.”

Cadenza knelt, Taran beside her, knees touching, and listened. Bass thrummed beneath her. The moon crested the hills in the east, curling harp and cello around her shoulders and stretching the tree shadows like fermatas across the grass.

“Now draw it in,” Drostan said.

Cadenza sent out the barest invitation, and the earthsong rushed in. Bass spread through her bones. Melody seeped into her chest. Pressure built in her throat.

Taran laid a hand low on her back, and the drums crashed, flooding the music. She clung to his heartbeat, leaning into his shoulder to keep her head above water.

“Organize the possibilities,” Drostan whispered. “All the options for a life.”

What does a possibility look like?The song pushed at her from the inside out, and she grimaced, trying to keep control. She tried to envision the music spooling like a ribbon of energy, but the rush of earthsong pressed against her skin, a flood held back by a dam of silk.

The dam ripped. The song escaped. A pop exploded on her right, flames jumping up in the dry grass. Taran leapt to his feet and stomped out the fire.

Breath ragged, she pressed a hand to her heart. “Sorry.”

“That’s alright, that’s alright.” Drostan patted her shoulder. “At least you don’t have problems accessing the music.”

“No,” she gave a shaky laugh. “That’s definitely not a problem. There’s plenty of earthsong.”