This new release from the Newbery Award-winning author Shannon Hale is the story of Dashti, a young peasant girl who has lost her family and her home and comes to the city to find a new life for herself. She is what’s known as a mucker – someone from the steppes who knows how to sing songs to the body and spirit that heal and return things to a state of balance. Lady Saren, just a year older than Dashti, is frequently troubled by headaches and other ailments, so Dashti is brought to be a maid in her house.
Saren is betrothed to a man named Lord Khasar, a ruthless and blood-thirsty man who will destroy all in his way. She refuses to marry him, and to punish her for disobedience, her father has her locked away in a tower for seven years. He has built a well into the base of the tower and provided her with sacks and kegs of food, but the tower is dark and there is little to do. Even faced with such a horrible fate, Saren refuses to marry Khasar, saying that she will only marry her true love, Khan Tegus. She asks Dashti to go into the tower with her, and, afraid to say no, Dashti goes.
The darkness is only broken up by candle and firelight. The girls cannot see the sky, but Dashti goes immediately to work to keep her mind off that fact. She takes an inventory of the food and figures out a way for them to stretch it to the full seven years. She hauls water up from the well and they are able to bathe. But Saren’s mind is affected by their situation and she becomes more and more childlike, depending on Dashti for every little thing, and Dashti’s healing songs aren’t working like they usually do.
One day, Khan Tegus comes for a visit, and Saren is too scared to talk to him. Dashti speaks with him instead and finds him a wonderful man, even if she can only see his boots through the small metal door they talk through. Much less welcome is the visit they get from Lord Khasar.
After two and a half years in the tower, Dashti finds a weak spot in the foundation and they are able to force their way into the open. They try to return to Saren’s home, only to find that Lord Khasar has burned it to the ground. Their only choice now is to travel to Tegus’s land and beg him to take them in.
This is a fascinating story of perseverance and the power of the human mind to stay strong even under the worst of conditions. I highly recommend it.
(This book was published in 2007 by Bloomsbury.)
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