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“We will.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dalk
Somehow, I had gone from escorting Fiona and the others into Gahn Thaleo’s territory for a day trip to being their chaperone for a period of seven long days. And this would not be the only time, either. It would be seven days after that, and after that, and after that, alternating with stays in Gahn Errok’s mountain until, presumably, the three remaining new women were mated and settled.
Either that or I lost my patience, which was not abundant to begin with, and did something so violent that it put this new arrangement, or even the entire alliance, in jeopardy.
But even if I went rogue and ended up killing half of Gahn Thaleo’s stupid men, I doubted even that would put an end to this new back-and-forth agreement. Gahn Thaleo wanted access to the new women, and perhaps especially Nasrin, no matter the cost. I had no doubt he’d be willing to shed a little blood to do it. No, if I were foolish enough to sacrifice my good sense to the hot anger of my blades and launch some sort of attack, I would likely only get myself banished or even killed.
If I were forcibly removed from these lands or left to bleed out in some dark blue cave beneath the ground, then who would guard Fiona?
Who would make sure she pulled up the hood of her cloak and put on her eye-shells in the sun?
Who would stand beside her – stand right in front of her if he had to, so that no other male was in her line of sight – to help her fulfil the New Year’s Eve kiss the next time it came around?
Though she’d already made it clear such a thing would not happen again, so maybe the point was moot. Although, a human year was much longer than a Sea Sand age. It was 365 days to our 100. That meant I had more than 300 days left to somehow change her mind.
But either way, it was very clear to me now that I would have to hold back my tongues and my weapons. If I caused undue violence here, I would be separated from Fiona one way or another, and that had become a far worse prospect than the idea of stewing in sullen silence under Gahn Thaleo’s insufferable rule.
But the vaklok...
Oh, the vaklok sounded excellent indeed. Though we did not have this exact event in the Sea Sands, I had no doubt there would be some kind of sparring or wrestling involved. At the very least, I’d get to hit some Deep Sky men, or maybe even Oxriel if he participated, and it was with that buoyant thought of inflicting future pain that I forced my feet into step beside Fiona’s as we entered Gahn Thaleo’s mountain.
The first thing I noticed was the light.
This was not so unusual – Gahn Errok had also installed lanterns throughout his mountain – but these lights had not been in Gahn Thaleo’s mountain before, at least not back when I’d been taken prisoner. No doubt they’d been installed at some point after that for the new women’s comfort. The new women did not see well in the dark. Or the sunlight, now that I thought about it, watching Fiona as she removed her eye-shells, folded them up, and placed them in a pocket of her cloak. Something twanged inside me, maybe disbelief, maybe worry at the fact that any creature could be so very vulnerable that she could barely see in either day or night.
None of the new women seemed surprised by the lanterns in the vast, glittering space that greeted us upon immediate entry into Gahn Thaleo’s mountain. The lights must have been here for them last time. Last time, when I’d been too brash in my anger and had elected, or had really been commanded by Valeria, to remain behind at the caves below the Vrika’s peak. I wanted to reach through time and strangle my past self, not enough to kill him, but enough to starve his foolish brain of air just long enough to make him see what a dunce his vengeful rage had turned him into. Because I had threatened Gahn Thaleo and then I had stayed behind that night. And Fiona had gone on without me. Because of that, I was now several large strides behind the others when it came to knowledge of this mountain and everything that had passed since I had last been here.
The next thing I should have been prepared for but was not was the path we took through the mountain. Predictably, we were not led into a cave below ground to be held as prisoners as had been my experience before.
Instead, we followed Gahn Thaleo and his man Warrek up a winding set of stone steps that I’d once seen Priya get taken up. At the very least, this proved that Priya had been well taken care of during that hateful time, and that she had indeed been given comfortable guest quarters. She’d told me that very thing once, that she’d had a very nice cave up here. I had a feeling it was to lessen some of my anger around that whole event. Or maybe it had been try to assuage some guilt she sensed in me, guilt that the other men and I had not been able to protect her and to deliver her back into the Sea Sands as was our original mission. But it gave me satisfaction to see it now. To see that these steps did indeed lead upward into large sleeping caves very much like those occupied by the new women in Gahn Errok’s mountain.
I stayed very close to Fiona’s back as we moved up the steps. Even ahead of me as she was, on the steps above, she was not as tall as I was. She was not especially big as humans went, which meant that she was very small by Sea Sand standards.
“I think this is the same place we stayed last time!” Fiona said, excitement clear in her voice as we turned down a darkened tunnel and emerged into a cave with glittering blue walls. A fire in a pit beneath an opening in the stone crackled, sending warm light licking up the multi-faceted interior, but this was not the only source of light. One side of the cave was not as opaque as the rest. The clear stone allowed a view of the outside, and sunlight seeped in.
“You are correct,” Gahn Thaleo said. He remained in the outer tunnel as our party moved into the cave.
“This was where the Sea Sand guys slept last time,” Fiona explained. She turned around to look at me as she said it, then started, appearing somewhat surprised by my proximity to her back.
“Holy... When did you get there?” she demanded, lurching away from me.
“I have been here the entire time,” I grunted back at her.
“You’re so quiet!” she retorted, an odd pinkness creeping into her cheeks. “Let a girl know you’re looming why don’t you!”
“I am not especially quiet,” I remarked. This was true. In my tribe I was known more for the relentless fury of my strength, for the bludgeoning force of my fighting arm, than I was for stealth.
“Maybe you just do not listen well enough.” I frowned as I studied her. “You should braid your hair,” I added. “Your ears are already small and not optimally-placed. It does not make sense to further hinder them with your own hair hanging over top of them.”
“Wow. Alright. Thank you for your thoughts on my small and non-optimally-placed ears.”
“You’re welcome.”
She gaped at me, then laughed, but it did not sound like one of her usual cheery laughs. It was oddly breathy and a little brittle. I was not sure why she was laughing at all. I was actually rather concerned now about the state of her hearing. She already could not see well under conditions that her human eyes deemed too dark or too bright. None of those things were laughing matters.
