The wet streamed down my cheeks and pain burned my throat.

With a hiss of steel, Lahn unsheathed his sword.

“I wish you hadn’t been kind to me.”

Those were her last words before Bain stepped free and Lahn severed her head from her body with a vicious swing of his sword.

I turned into Diandra’s arms and shoved my face in her neck so I missed the flash of lightning that rent the sky, trailing down the cliff five hundred yards behind me.

“Throw it off the cliff. Return the head to the Maroo king with one of their warriors you captured. Unman him before you free him. Her head and his balls, my gift to their king before we lock steel,” Lahn ordered.

I stifled a painful sob by swallowing and that hurt even more.

“Bathe my f**king bride!” Lahn bellowed, I felt Diandra nod and then she and Claudine gently guided me toward my girls’ cham and I heard Zahnin’s soft, “Attend your queen,” as I went.

But I heard no more and felt no more and this was because I slunk into my head to sort it out.

I was Korwahk, Queen of Korwahk and we were at war.

I was Korwahk, I repeated to myself, Queen of Korwahk and we were at war.

I had to find some way to get my shit together.

Somehow.

* * * * *

“You must eat, my golden queen.”

I turned and looked down at Jacanda.

I was in her tent. Whatever belongings she and the girls had were gone, whereabouts unknown (to me). Our bed with a clean silk sheet had been moved in, our scrubbed trunks and our cleaned furniture. The tent was smaller, the stuff crammed in the space.

I was bathed, my hair washed and the skin behind my ears and at my wrists had been anointed with perfumed oil. I was wearing my robe of blue.

Incense Teetru had sourced weeks ago at my request burned, smelling of berries.

Packa set this to burning because she knew I liked it and probably thought it would soothe me. But I would find the stash and get rid of it later, when they weren’t around. It reminded me of Teetru whose actions could have killed me, or harmed me, they did harm Zahnin, but at the same time she did what she could to save me. A paradox I would never understand because she was no longer breathing for me to ask.

“You sleep with Diandra’s girls tonight?” I asked and Jacanda nodded.

“Yes, my true queen. But we will be here before the dawn in case you need us.”

“Sleep in, my doe, today has been busy. You and my girls need your rest. I will get on,” I assured her.

“We will be here,” she replied firmly.

“I will –”

She cut me off. “The king will expect it.”

I stopped talking and nodded because this was true, Lahn would expect it.

Then I lifted two hands and put them on her cheeks, dipping my face to hers.

“I’m so sorry about Teetru,” I whispered and I watched with surprise as her eyes went hard.

“She is a traitor,” she hissed, pulled away, turned her head to the side and then made a spitting sound with her mouth though no spit came out before she turned back to me. “I was born slave. I was lucky to have good masters, like Beetus. Packa and Gaal were not. This makes Packa timid and Gaal guarded. But we have talked many nights of you, our golden queen, who laughs with us and speaks kindly, touches kindly, whose warrior provides us with plentiful food better than we’ve ever had. You are our true golden queen and she was of Maroo but she knew the gold of your touch, just like us all. Slaves are normally commanded, not asked and not included; we do not exist, even though we serve. We exist for you. It feels good to exist. She nearly took you away from us. This is unforgivable and this will not be forgiven, not by warrior, not by warrior bride, not by free man or woman, not by slave, not by anyone Korwahk and most especially not by what you call us, Your Girls. She was honored to be among us and now her headless body rots at the bottom of a cliff, a body that will never join her spirit in the next realm. We will not miss her, not one of us. Your Dax was too good to her. He should have turned her over to the warriors to do what they are forbidden to do even to the Xacto instead of taking her head.”

Okay, mental note, do not get on Jacanda’s bad side.

This was what I thought. What I said was a whispered, “All right, sweetheart.”

She nodded and moved to the cham flaps but stopped and turned back.

“I burned her bolt of fabric with your cham as well as her other belongings and Beetus threw her bangle over the cliff. She no longer exists.”

I nodded. I got the message. I was not to speak of her again.

She nodded back.

“Goodnight, Jacanda,” I whispered.

“Eat something,” she tipped her head to the table where she’d put food. “Then sleep well, my golden queen,” she whispered back then exited the cham.

I sucked in breath. Then I lifted my hands to my cheeks and pressed in.

Then I felt the tears and shakes come again and I struggled to keep them in check.

I won this fight as the tent flaps slapped back, my eyes flew there and I watched my husband bend low and enter, accompanied by Ghost.

I stared at him as he took a step in and stopped. Ghost didn’t stop. She ambled to me so I bent in a knees to chest squat and she kept coming until I had her head in my hands. When I had a hold on her, I started to scratch behind her ears.

“The animal sprung to your aid,” Lahn declared and I kept scratching as I tipped my head back to look at him. “From now on, she sleeps with us.”

I nodded and studied his face.

He still looked pissed.

I bit my lip.

This made him look more pissed.

I stopped biting my lip.

His eyes dropped to Ghost and he looked even more pissed.

What on earth?

He looked back at me and ordered tersely, “Rise, wife, and come to me.”

I didn’t want to, mainly because he looked pissed, but I did. I gave Ghost’s head a rub, straightened and walked to him.

I stopped a few inches away.

“Put your hands on me,” he commanded and I felt it prudent in the face of his continued anger to keep quiet and do what he said so I lifted my hands and rested them on his chest.

The minute they touched, his hands came up and, as they did earlier, they clamped on either side of my jaw but this time he pulled me roughly in and up so I was on my toes as he bent toward me.

“No one,” he ground out, his eyes an inch from my own, “no one touches my queen.”

“Okay, baby,” I whispered.

“No one threatens her with steel.” He kept grinding out his words between his teeth.