I put both my hands to his shoulders and asked, “Who painted you last night?”
He stared at me and I watched the shutters cover his eyes.
Not a good sign.
“And,” I went on, “who bathed you this morning?”
His arms curled tighter around me and he said a soft, “Circe –”
Oh no, I did not think so.
“Did you visit the Xacto?” I enquired in a dangerous voice and his arms got tighter.
“Kah Lahnahsahna –” he murmured.
That meant yes.
Oh no, I did not think so.
“You promised!” I exclaimed, reverting to English, pushing hard against his shoulders and he went back but he took me with him, twisted and then I was on my back, him on top of me again. “Get off me!” I yelled, still pushing. “You promised!”
“Quiet, Circe,” he ordered softly.
“I will not be quiet!” I shouted.
His arm moved from around me so his hand could cup my face, his thumb coming to my lips and pressing lightly.
“Quiet, my queen,” he said in English then reverted to Korwahk, most of which, luckily, I understood. “You were in no state to paint me last night and by tradition, in a ceremony where I would be passing my judgment, I needed to be painted. I had no choice and although I promised, you must understand I broke it with a thought to your state of mind. This morning, I swam in the creek to rid myself of my paint and in order not to further break my vow to you.”
Oh. Well then. That was understandable. It was even nice.
Shit.
“Well,” I whispered against his thumb, “okay then.”
He looked into my eyes for a heartbeat then he threw his head back and laughed. Before I knew it, his thumb left my lips, his still laughing mouth replaced it, his tongue slid into my mouth and he kissed me hard and deep.
Totally a natural.
I kissed him back and he rolled so I was on top, both his hands moving to hold back my hair.
When he broke our kiss I saw from close up that his eyes still held mirth.
I would know why when he stated with not a small amount of arrogance, “My tigress is stubborn and her claws are sharp but I knew I would win her mouth.”
He was gloating.
He was also not wrong.
So, I rolled my eyes and muttered, “Whatever.”
This made him chuckle which made me roll my eyes again.
Then he stopped chuckling and called, “Circe,” and when my eyes went back to him, his hands dropped my hair and his arms wrapped around me. “I will not be attending the pyre with you. I have much to do. You will be escorted by an honor guard. I command that you not leave their sight and,” his arms tightened, “if Dortak should have the insolence to attend the pyre of the bride he drove to take her own life, you will show no response. I will deal with him in less than a week and then you and Suh Tunak will only have bad memories.”
Again, he was speaking in Korwahk so I didn’t understand all of what he said but I followed. Even so, I was stuck on the concept that Dortak would be there which was such bad taste, it defined bad taste and that my king wanted me not to grab the nearest blade and send it flying at him.
“Circe,” Lahn called again, I focused on him and he asked in English, “Okay?”
I stared down at him. Then I heaved a sigh. Then I forced out my, “Okay.”
He grinned, then he lifted his head and in my ear he whispered, “Kah teenkah tunakanahsa,” telling me he knew it was difficult for me to agree to his command but he was pleased I did.
Then he kissed the skin of my neck, rolled me to my back, grinned down at me a second while I tried to recover from how hot he looked smiling at me with his hair flowing down his shoulders, chest and back then he bent forward, touched his mouth to my forehead and exited the bed.
I rolled to my side and watched him tie the ties on his hides as he barked, “Teetru!” then without looking back, slapped the flaps aside and he was gone.
I rolled back to my back, pulled the silk over my naked body and hoped they didn’t wear black to funerals in Korwahk.
Then I listened to my girls calling “poyah” to me as they rushed into the tent dragging the bath and I heard the tinkling silverware which meant breakfast was soon to be served as the rest of this morning washed over me: Lahn’s mouth on mine; my husband sharing his most precious possession with me; him telling me I was beautiful and he didn’t like other men watching me; his thinking of me when he needed to be painted and still thinking of me when he washed it off, doing so without breaking his promise; and just how much I liked his hair down and how much more I liked to hear him laugh.
Shit, shit, shit.
I was in trouble.
It was not until much later when I would remember that I forgot to ask him about why he kept saying I commanded the heavens and why he called me a new name – his goddess.
* * * * *
I wore ice blue to the funeral and none of my signature gold: an ice blue sarong shot with silver, an ice blue, wide suede belt (that was so plush to the touch it was shocking and I fell in love with it instantly), another fold of silk to cover my breasts, also ice blue with heavy, silver ovals dangling at the ends. My jewelry was minimal, just silver chandelier earrings and the seed pearl bangles I bought at the marketplace. My makeup was pearlescent and for the first time, Teetru arranged my hair in twists and curls pulled back at the top and sides into a fall at the back that was created by pins she slid in so they were invisible.
I heard the horses before I walked out of my cham but was surprised how many there were. Four horses held warriors I had not seen before. Diandra was on her roan, Seerim beside her on a black mount. Feetak held Narinda in front of him on his chestnut. A dapple gray held Bain with his new bride Oahsee sitting behind him, her arms about his waist. Zahnin, alone but on his feet, his hand holding the bridle on a buckskin horse. Bohtan with Nahka on a palomino. And Zephyr was there for me.
The women all held flowers and as I approached Zephyr Jacanda handed me a beautiful, vibrant orange bloom that looked like a tiger lily except with twice as many petals.
I noticed right away that no one was in their finest finery, even if it was never as fine as mine. Attending the pyre clearly was not a cause for celebration, an opportunity to show off or a fashion parade. It was what it was, a sad occasion, the marking the end of a life – this one more tragic than most and every death held tragedy so that was saying something.
Zahnin moved forward to spot me while I mounted then instantly walked to his steed, swung up and off we went, two warriors in front followed by Feetak and Narinda next to Bohtan and Nahka. Me with Diandra’s roan falling in on my side. Seerim behind us next to Bain and Oahsee, Zahnin then the last two warriors.
“The pyre is far away, my dear,” Diandra said to me then she lifted her chin to the air, “the wind,” she finished as an explanation.
She was right, it was windy. Luckily, the rain had wet the dust and sand so it wasn’t swept up to bite us. Not that the wind was fierce but it was no cool breeze either. It was good the pyre was set far; we didn’t need a spark to fly and the Daxshee to burn to the ground. We’d had enough heartbreak for awhile.
“Are you all right?” I asked her.
She turned her head and gave me a small smile. “This is what I was going to ask you.” I returned her small smile, reached out a hand, she grabbed it and gave it a squeeze. Then we dropped hands and she answered, “I am sad,” she turned forward and said with feeling, “it was sad.”
She could say that again.
“You?” she prompted.
“Lahn took care of me last night,” I replied and felt her eyes on me so knew her head turned my way. I sighed, thinking of my crazy romantic Korwahkian friend and how she would take this news. Then I admitted honestly, “It’s true. He was lovely.”
I felt her eyes leave me as she muttered, again with feeling, “I am pleased.”
I was too.
>
Damn.
We rode through the chams at a sedate walk for awhile in silence.
Then Diandra spoke and I was surprised to hear her voice held a vein of hurt. “Why did you not tell me you held magic?”
I blinked and looked at her. “What?”
She didn’t answer my question. Instead she said, “I do understand, my friend, why you would hide it. I must admit, I have long since given up many of the beliefs I held growing up in the Vale, but the ones I have given up do not include my disdain for magic. So, you growing up in that part of the world, I can see you wishing to withhold this information perhaps thinking it is the same here. But you should know,” she looked at me, “that the Korwahk do not hold such disdain for those who have magic. They are few and they are revered.”
I kept staring at her. Then I repeated, “What?”
Again she ignored my question and stated, “But I do wish you would have trusted me enough to tell me. It was a grave surprise to see you command the heavens.”
There it was again.
“Diandra, I didn’t command the heavens,” I told her and she looked at me.
“As I explained, you do not have to hide this. In fact, I wish I had known earlier.” She faced forward again. “You are my friend and even if you shared your secret with me, it would not change how I feel about you. It is obvious, considering your personality, that you hold noble magic.”
“Diandra, sweetheart, I don’t hold magic, noble or any other kind,” I asserted and her eyes came my way again.
“Circe, I was there,” she replied. “I saw you shout your lament to the heavens and the instant you did, they wailed.”
“I didn’t do that. That storm was brewing all day,” I pointed out.
“This is true, but you called it down,” she returned.
I shook my head and whispered gently, “That’s insane.”
“It is? I do not see why you think this, considering I and thousands of Korwahks witnessed the same.”
I shook my head again and started, “I –” but she cut me off.
“This, too, has been whispered through the night. Many a cham stayed lit as husbands and wives put heads together, neighbors met with neighbors.” She looked forward. “Your storm coupled with the unprecedented acts of the warriors on behalf of Dortak’s bride…” she nodded her head once and finished, “if there were any nonbelievers, there are none now.”
I blinked then again asked, “What?”
She turned to me. “The golden queen of legend, her fierce king, the Golden Dynasty, there are many stories and as the years pass, these stories, as they have a tendency to do, grow and build until they become mythical, fantastical.”
“And what is the fantastical story of the Golden Dynasty?” I enquired although I was uncertain I wanted to know.
Of course, Diandra told me. “The one I always thought was a flight of fancy was the one that stated the mighty king and his golden queen were god and goddess. He had strength that was unparalleled, cunning beyond compare and his queen had magic. He was impossible to kill and she commanded the moon and stars, the sun, the rivers and seas, the heavens and the earth.”
I stared at her.
She kept talking. “The story tells that they never grow old, they live in youth until their first son succeeds the Dax. Then they fly on winged horse into the heavens.”
“That’s absurd,” I said softly.
She peered at me closely. “Circe, last night, I could feel your despair. I could feel your frustration at your powerlessness. It shone off you like an aura. And when you stood and shouted your lament, your one word felt like it pierced my skin. And it was your word that did that, my dear, not the thunder and lightning, which, I will remind you, does not come at once while the heavens open at the same time they pour down their tears. They start distant and one follows the other, they offer warning. They do not come one on top of the other with the wet. I have lived many years on this earth and I have not once seen that until you called it upon us last night.”
Okay, I had to admit, I lived many years on the earth, my earth, but still, I’d never known that to happen and I lived in Seattle where it rained a lot.
Oh man.
Still, it couldn’t be true. It had to be a fluke.
“Diandra, my sweet friend, I’m telling you, I don’t hold magic,” I whispered and she studied me closely.
Then she said quietly in return, “Perhaps you do and you did not know you did until last night and it flooded out from you when your emotions were careening out-of-control. But it matters not, now your people believe you do, they believe you hold great power, they believe your king cannot die, they believe you will never age and they believe, deep into the depths of their spirits, that the Golden Dynasty is upon us.”
I faced forward thinking, holy shit, now what do I do with this?
“There is more to this than last night, my dear,” she continued. “You fit the description of the Golden Goddess exactly. Golden hair, golden eyes and now, with your time in the sun, golden skin. You sing like the seraphs and your heart is as golden as your eyes. But you are the queen of the warrior nation because you are a warrior, fierce of spirit, a match to your formidable king from the very beginning, the night of your claiming. The warriors themselves respect you like no other woman, you have earned great loyalty in a short period of time as evidenced last night when so many came forward to intervene, an occurrence so extraordinary, I still have trouble believing it. The same holds true for the mighty Dax. Seerim has told me for years he has never seen a warrior like your King Lahn, even when he was younger, he had no compare. He has never been unhorsed, he has never been disarmed, he rode out for his first kill at the age of fourteen for his trainers had nothing left to teach him, he so excelled in his studies. ”
Oh man… really? Fourteen? Holy crap.
She kept talking. “I have seen him face challenges and his strength and speed is astonishing. It is superhuman and now, it would seem, this is because he is not a human but, like you, a god.”
“Diandra, I’m not –” I started but she held up a hand and I stopped.
“We will talk more later, not now, my love, for we approach the pyre.”
Considering our bizarre and scary conversation, I hadn’t noticed it but now I did. We had left the chams and climbed a small rise which we were now descending. Others on foot and on mount moved in the direction of the tall, wooden pyre on which a body wrapped in white gauze rested. There were many still approaching, like us, but it seemed there were thousands already gathered and waiting, silent and respectful.
As our procession approached, the thick crowd parted at the orders of the front of the guard and, since I was queen, we road straight to the pyre.
See? Sometimes it was not good being queen.
We stopped close to the pyre and I saw that the wood leading up to the top was mingled heavily with flowers, hundreds of them of all colors, shapes and sizes, even the body had flowers resting on it from those who had been able to toss their blooms that high.
Zahnin’s horse trotted forward and he dismounted to spot me as I swung off my horse.
Then my women and I approached the pyre, each of us lost ourselves in a moment of reflection before, in our time, we laid our flowers in the wood.
Then we stepped away and stood, waiting, as silent as the rest of the crowd as the trail of horses and people joined us and gave their blossoms in offering if they had them.
As I stood close to the pyre, I felt eyes, many of them. This was not unusual but after Diandra and my talk, my senses were heightened to the point these eyes felt physical.
I shook this off and noted our numbers were no longer swelling however I didn’t look around very much. I did this not because I didn’t want to encounter people who thought I was a goddess (crazy!) but because I didn’t want to see Dortak amongst them. I made a promise to Lahn and I needed to keep it. And to do that, I needed to adopt the ignorance is bliss strategy.
I also noted that no time was wasted for the gray-haired, female healer who had attended me when I had sunstroke was standing to the side bearing an unlit torch which another woman was lighting.
Interesting, women lit the pyre.
Then I sucked in breath when her torch was lit and her eyes came to me before her body started my way.
Oh shit. No. Was this a queenly duty?
She kept coming.
Oh God, it looked like this was a queenly duty.
Great, fucking great.
She stopped in front of me and spoke. “My golden queen, I watched as you held her gaze when her spirit moved to the next realm. It is my honor to offer you the torch which will send her ashes to the heavens so her body can join her spirit.”
Then she offered me the torch.
Crap.
Well, there was nothing for it so I took the torch and looked at the pyre. Then I looked at the healer and asked, “Do you know her name?”
She examined my face a second before her eyes warmed and her lips tipped up in a small smile.
“Her name was Mahyah, my true, golden queen.”
I nodded. Then I took in a deep breath and walked to the pyre.
Then I looked up at the body so high up I couldn’t see much except they’d changed the gauze, there was no blood to be seen and her face had also been shrouded.
Then I thought about a young Korwahk woman who possibly walked through the parade and looked over the warriors in their avenue while wondering which one would be hers, maybe excited about her life as a warrior’s wife and in three short weeks she’d been debased, defiled, beaten and abused.
Then I turned around and called to Diandra.
Quickly, she moved to me.
When she arrived, I whispered, “Can you translate?”
She nodded.
“You can say no if you’re uncom –” I started but she shook her head and touched my arm.
“I will speak your words, my queen.”
I smiled at her.
Then I wasted no time so I wouldn’t lose my nerve, turned to the crowd and spoke loudly in Korwahk, doing the best I could do and hoping I didn’t fuck it up.
“I am only recently Korwahk and I am new to your tongue. I have not yet learned it enough to honor young Mahyah on her pyre before we send her ashes to the heavens. So my friend Diandra will be translating for you the words to a song I sang to Mahyah some days ago in hopes of reaching her spirit and giving her a few moments of peace. Before her death, she told me the land that I sang of was the land where she wanted to go. Now, I will sing the song to you so you can know where Mahyah is and she is somewhere happy.”