The tall Kindred spoke not a word but he tugged her gently towards him. His movement was clearly an invitation only. If she wished, she could pull her hand out of his and ignore it.
But Ellina didn’t want to ignore it—she wanted comfort. Comfort that no one had been able to give since Guffin passed on to be with Thufar. For though she could and did speak as often as she liked with her grandmother through their chewchies, she couldn’t get a hug from her through Lor and Shel. And of course, no one else would dream of touching the Potentate so intimately, so she felt all alone.
Commander Ty’rial seemed to have no compunction about touching her, however. Somehow she found herself sitting on his knee with her face pressed against his broad chest, sobbing her heart out.
In the excitement and flurry surrounding the coronation, she had never been able to grieve the loss of her old guard, who had been almost like a father to her. In all this time, she hadn’t shed a tear—she had felt numb. But when the Kindred’s strong arms enfolded her, the numbness seemed to melt like snow in the desert and all the pain of Guffin’s death hit her in a fresh wave of sorrow.
Ellina cried as though her heart would break and, perched on her head, her chewchie Lor howled mournfully, sharing her pain and grief just the way he shared her joy and laughter when she was happy. For a long moment she gave herself up completely to unhappiness and just let herself go.
But it didn’t take long for Ellina to come back to herself. As the first wave of grief passed, a sense of shame took its place. What was she doing here, sitting on the knee of an off-worlder and crying on his shoulder like a little girl who had skinned her knee? It was most improper and if anyone poked their head in her sleeping chamber door and saw her doing it, a terrible scandal would certainly arise.
Stiffly, she sat up, swiping at her eyes. Her third eye, located in the middle of her forehead as it was with all Chorkays, felt especially sore from weeping as it did not usually perform that function. It was said that only true grief and loss could bring tears from a Chorkay’s third eye, which were exactly her feelings for Guffin.
“Are you all right, little one?” Commander Ty’rial asked softly, which almost made Ellina start sobbing again.
“Oh!” She put a hand to her throat. “Little one,” she whispered.
“Forgive me.” His tone grew more formal, though she continued to sit on his knee. “I should not have referred to you as anything so casual and informal, Your Majesty.”
“No, no—it’s not that,” Ellina said quickly. Her tall Kindred guard was finally thawing a little—she didn’t want to send him back behind his wall of ice. Though at the same time, she needed to preserve a little dignity herself. “It’s just…that was what Guffin used to call me—‘little one’,” she explained, lifting her chin. She was determined not to cry again despite the tender memory.
“Then I must ask your forgiveness a second time,” Commander Ty’rial said, though his tone was a bit less formal this time. “For stirring up old memories and giving you pain.”
Ellina stood up from his knee a bit shakily and took a deep breath. It was time she got hold of herself and stopped behaving like a little girl. She was the Potentate of an entire planet—she had to act like it.
“The memories were already stirred up,” she told the big Kindred, who remained kneeling before her. He was so tall they were still nearly eye-to-eye, even with her standing. “Besides I…” She cleared her throat. “I didn’t really mind you calling me that. It reminded me of when I felt safe.”
“You’re safe with me, Your Highness.” Commander Ty’rial’s voice was firm and decisive. “I swore an oath to keep you safe or die trying and I meant it. You will not come to harm under my watch.”
“But how can you keep me safe from poison?” Ellina demanded, frowning. “I appreciate your willingness to put yourself between me and a bomb or a blaster shot but I am the one who must drink from the Cup of Wisdom.” She began pacing on the soft, moss carpet. “I mean, it’s not that I don’t trust the High Priest—he was cleared of the assassination attempt at my coronation. But what if someone else decides to slip something into the cup? What then?”
He frowned. “Do you not have a food and drink tester? Someone who tries every dish and drink you take before you take a bite or a sip?”
Ellina shook her head.
“Guffin always did that for me but after he was gone, I was never assigned another taster. I should have asked, I suppose, but everything has been so topsy-turvy…” She shrugged expressively, ashamed to admit that there had been no one she felt she could trust to fill the post, not after all of her personal guards had been implicated in the assassination plot.
The big Kindred’s frown deepened.
“You should have told me. I can’t believe you’ve been without any kind of defense from poison the whole time I’ve been here! Everything you’ve been eating and drinking could have been drugged or worse and I didn’t even know it.”
Ellina crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her chin.
“I haven’t been eating or drinking anything the servants brought me for weeks,” she told him. “So it isn’t as though I’ve been in any danger—well, up until now when I have to
