“Golly,” Narinda whispered.

“Indeed,” Diandra stated. “This is why, my dears, a newly claimed wife is set to straddling her husband’s steed. It is akin to straddling him but also is a ceremonial offering from warrior to horse on the night a warrior lets in the new most important being in his life, as, while straddling his horse, his new bride will leak his seed which, I think you both have come to understand, is vital to any warrior. Therefore, they feel it is an extremely worthy offering to a creature they feel keeps them safe, makes them strong and is an extension of themselves.”

Yeah, any man, in this world or my own, thinks that kind of offering is “extremely worthy”.

Jeez.

I scrunched my nose at Narinda and she scrunched hers back.

Diandra ignored our looks and kept speaking. “So, obviously, horses as a whole are revered greatly by The Horde. It would be a guess but a good one that a vast amount of warriors pray to the Horse God. And, therefore, owning a mount is considered a privilege. One must deserve their own mount. Young warriors do not get their own mount until they are chosen to perform their first kill which means they’ll have trained for more than a decade before they acquire a steed. That said, it is no surprise that a husband does not bestow such an honor on his wife until he feels she deserves it. For instance, after she has successfully given him their first son or she has spent much time being a good warrior’s wife, providing for his needs. Therefore, the Dax, bestowing a mount of such beauty to his new bride is cause for much gossip. Gossip,” her eyes came to me, “which was mostly speculation until, of course, his cry was heard last night and his mirth heard this morning.” Her face grew wicked as it looked back to Narinda. “It would seem, sweet Narinda, our Dax’s new wife is providing quite well for his needs.”

I stared at her, too shocked at the knowledge that Lahn had given me a horse far earlier than most wives earned one to be irritated at her teasing.

“He is a contradiction,” Narinda muttered and my eyes slid to her to see her staring unseeing into the Daxshee. “From what Circe told me about his mark, I do not wish to like him and every time I see him, he frightens me. Yet much of what you say shows there is a great deal of soft under that hard.”

“I’m not certain, sweet Narinda, it is the soft our queen likes…” she paused and finished with emphasis, “but the hard.”

“Diandra!” I snapped but she chuckled as another giggle escaped Narinda.

Just then, the object of our conversation strode around a cham. He wasn’t close but he wasn’t far and still, his raw energy invaded all around.

I drew in breath as he stopped to talk to two warriors who waylaid him. Then I allowed my eyes to move over my husband.

Okay, well, I wouldn’t admit it out loud but I did have to admit to myself that I definitely liked the hard.

“Oh, what’s this?” Diandra muttered, I tore my eyes from Lahn and looked to my right to see a young boy, slight, perhaps eleven, twelve years old and definitely not of the warrior sort. This was probably why he wasn’t off training somewhere but instead at my cham carrying what looked a great deal like a guitar and sounded like one when my eyes hit him, he swallowed, looked up to a woman who was standing beside him and then he started strumming and then, falteringly, singing.

The woman moved forward and laid a flower carefully on the hides well away from me or my girls then she scuttled back, her eyes shooting in Lahn’s direction and back to me as her boy sang.

He looked nervous and kept screwing up the chords and he wasn’t the greatest singer in the world, it must be said, but he didn’t do half bad and it was definitely sweet. But his mother gazed down on him like the sun’s rays sprouted out his mouth with his voice and I could tell she thought he could do no wrong and that was probably why she took him to her queen to bestow what she thought was a precious gift.

I smiled encouragingly at him as he lost his way, he found it and kept going and I nodded my head continuously to keep him going.

Then I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, I looked that way and tensed. I knew Diandra and Narinda saw it too because I felt them tense.

Dortak was striding through the chams, a dirty-looking, rough-woven bandage around his middle, the carves on his chest and face had not been stitched but were glistening with goo and were clearly not going to heal very well. But they were healing.

His bride, clean but bruised up her arms, around her neck and with a cut lip, stumbled behind him.

She was wearing her claiming necklace, he was wearing a claiming chain around his waist, it was attached to her necklace but he had it in his fist and was yanking on it as he dragged her behind him.

Jeez, seriously, this guy was the king of dicks.

He stopped at a warrior that was about five feet from Lahn and he started talking to him and as he did, he yanked her to her knees beside him and his hand fisted in her hair to hold her there. Not that he had to, she wasn’t going anywhere. Not without his permission.

My eyes moved over her and my heart hurt as they did, clenching more and more the more I took in.

Whatever girl she once was now was gone. Everything was gone. Her expression was blank, her eyes distant. She was so deep in her head that she probably didn’t even know where she was.

I looked swiftly at Lahn to see he and the two warriors he was talking to were eyeing the couple with tight faces.

But they did nor said a word. Lahn simply turned his back on Dortak and resumed his conversation.

Without thinking, I turned to the boy singing, pushed to my knees and reached out toward his instrument, wiggling my fingers at it and smiling at him. His strumming faltered as did his singing. He looked up at his mother, she jutted her chin to me, he stopped making music and handed his guitar-like thing to me.

One of my two lost loves was guitar crazy, he had four of them, two acoustic, two electric and he taught me how to play. Then he got shitty when I took to it and quickly got better than him (one of the reasons, I kid you not, why I was convinced he broke up with me but when I threw it in his face, he swore it wasn’t but I knew it was). When he left me, I bought my own guitar and always, every week, twice, three times, sometimes every day, I found time to play.

And I couldn’t give anything to Dortak’s wife, me being queen or not, except what that boy gave to me.

So I sat back on my calves as I tested the strings and the frets, found my way and then started to sing Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s “Over the Rainbow/Wonderful World” but with a guitar and not a ukulele.