to the…” her hand gave mine a squeeze, “festivities.”
“Maybe he doesn’t want me near his spirit,” I muttered, she chuckled and squeezed my hand again.
“Oh, my dear, from what I’ve seen, I think you have no worries about that.”
Hmm.
“Circe!” I heard, my head came up and I saw Narinda walking out of a cham her head turned our way.
“Narinda!” I cried, let Diandra go and ran to my friend.
When I got to her, I threw my arms around her, she threw her arms around me and we rocked each other back and forth as we embraced like identical twins cruelly separated by an evil stepmother and reunited after decades.
Then again, sharing the horrors of the parade, Hunt and wedding rite would do that to a girl.
Our torsos separated but we kept our arms around each other and smiled in each other’s faces.
“I don’t know, my queen, should I be touching you or bowed in a deep curtsy?” she teased.
“If you curtsy, I’ll have your head chopped off,” I teased back.
We grinned at each other then we sobered. My eyes moved over her face and I saw she looked healthy, fed, watered, her eyes were clear of the resignation I’d seen that night and she looked like she might even be happy.
I pulled her back in my arms and whispered in her ear, “You’re faring well?”
I felt her nod. “You?”
“Hanging in there.”
Her arms tightened. “He treats me well, Circe, I think… I think…” she paused and her lips came to my ear where she whispered, “I think he likes me.”
I giggled and moved my torso back but kept my arms around her. “Rumor has it, he’s kept you to your cham he likes you so much.”
I watched pretty pink stain her cheeks, she started then let me go and looked over her shoulder to the tall, handsome warrior I saw with her that night. He was standing just outside the cham looking forbidding and his arms were crossed on his chest.
“Feetak, Queen Circe, erm… Circe, my husband, Feetak,” she introduced, her hand moving back and forth between me and her husband in a shy way that was cute.
He bowed his head to me. “Kah rahna Dahksahna hahla,” he rumbled with an added thump to his chest then his eyes turned to Narinda. I watched them warm and he moved to his wife. He said some stuff to her softly and ended it with “Narinda sahna”.
She looked up at him and nodded but I knew by the semi-baffled look on her face (a look I was certain I’d adopted on more than one occasion the last few days) that she didn’t catch half of what he said.
“Dohno,” he said softly, moved to her, put his hand to her waist, bent his head and touched his mouth to hers. Her cheeks got pinker, he jerked his chin to me and then Diandra and he strode away.
“He said, ‘I will leave you to your friends, enjoy your time, beautiful Narinda’,” Diandra translated and Narinda’s looked to her, eyes wide.
“Is that what ‘sahna’ means?” she asked, her voice breathy.
“It is, indeed, my dear,” Diandra replied on a smile.
Narinda’s eyes took on a faraway look as she gazed in the direction where her warrior disappeared and she whispered, “Golly, he says that all the time.”
I pressed my lips together and met Diandra’s eyes which were dancing.
Welp, it didn’t take a love doctor to see things were going well for Narinda and her savage brute.
Narinda seemed to shake herself out of it, she focused on Diandra and her fingers went to her cheek. “Oh! I’m so sorry! We haven’t met. I’m Narinda.”
“Diandra,” Diandra said, moving in to touch cheeks.
When they separated, Narinda asked, “Are you from Hawkvale?”
“I am Korwahk but many years ago, yes, I was from the Vale.”
Narinda smiled at Diandra then at me. “Well, isn’t this wonderful? Now I have three people I can talk to and actually understand.”
“Yep, it’s pretty wonderful,” I replied.
She jumped and cried, “Oh my goodness! What am I thinking? Come in, come in. I’ll ask one of my… erm, people to get us some refreshments. Let’s get out of this sun.”
I smiled at Diandra as Narinda hustled us in her cham thinking the change was remarkable. That night that seemed years ago, Narinda might not have been cool but she was collected. Now she was acting like a schoolgirl with her first crush.
My savior my first night in this world was in a good place and I was glad of it. It felt nice to have one worry off my mind.
We went into her cham and I saw immediately that it wasn’t like mine. It wasn’t as big, for one. And there weren’t as many trunks. Nor chests. Nor candlesticks. The furniture was nice but not heavily carved. The sheet over the hides of the bed (which was smaller) was gauze, a pretty gauze but not silk. And there weren’t as many pillows and only a few of these were covered with silk or brocade, the rest were covered in cotton.
Though, I had to say, her outfit was kickass but it wasn’t shot with silver or gold. The sarong was red, her belt was braided red, purple and blue and her halter top was purple. She had earrings on, some bangles but nowhere near my finery.
Okay, maybe it was good being queen.
We settled lounging on her bed, her girl brought us fruit juice and a platter with slices of cheese and grapes and we chattered away. She told us she had picked up some Korwahk words while being transported and held prior to the Hunt but she wasn’t even close to fluent and obviously hadn’t lucked out and had an interpreter almost from the beginning like I did. And it was clear Feetak wasn’t doing his talking with words. Nevertheless, it was also clear what he was saying was stuff Narinda liked.
After I ascertained she was settling, she took over the conversation, her eyes coming to me. “I’ve been so worried about you. I tried to ask my girls and Feetak about you but they don’t know what I’m saying or, when they answer, I don’t know what they’re saying. The king,” she shook her head and shivered, “he was frightening. How are you handling everything?”
“It’s taken a bit of time and I was lucky to have Diandra’s help but I’m adjusting.”
She leaned into me and whispered, “It’s all very strange, don’t you think?”
I smiled at her. “You can say that again.”
She returned my smile and leaned back. “But, I’m thinking, not a bad strange, just a strange. Though, I’m also thinking it’ll take awhile to get used to it.”
And I was thinking she was not wrong about that.
She turned to Diandra. “How long did it take you?”
“I, like you and our queen, was lucky to be claimed by a warrior who grew to care for me very deeply, very quickly. So, I’m happy to say, it did not take long at all.”
Narinda’s eyes came to me and they were wide. “That large, fearsome man cares about you already?”
“Uh –” I started.
“Deeply,” Diandra said firmly, Narinda looked at her and then at me.
The she cried, “Isn’t that lovely! Oh, Circe, maybe this won’t be all that bad.” I bit my lip but she missed it when her head snapped to Diandra and she asked, “How long did it take you to learn their language?”
Thus commenced Narinda asking Diandra approximately one thousand seven hundred and twenty-three questions about all things Korwahk, Diandra answering these questions in great detail and then Diandra offering up juicy snippets of my life for the past week.
“Oh my,” Narinda breathed, “how wonderful he was so worried for you when you were ill. It’s almost, I can’t believe I’m going to say this but… romantic.”
Diandra beamed.
“The brute did leave me out in the sun for nine hours,” I grumbled, the light shining from Diandra’s face extinguished and she gave me a narrow-eyed look.
“Oh, I saw you,” Narinda said. “I tried to catch your eye but you didn’t see me and I couldn’t get Feetak to understand me when I said I wanted to go see you. Night had fallen and for some reason he didn’t want me close
