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“No,” he said, freezing Dalk in place, “the competitors do not fetch their own food during the vaklok. The traditional meal is to be brought to them,” he turned his gaze down to Nasrin, then over to Tilly and me, “by the new women.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Dalk
“How can this be the tradition if the new women have never even been here for a vaklok until this one?” I asked, staring at Gahn Thaleo. His sight stars met mine calmly, registering no offence at the impertinence of questioning a Gahn in such a way.
But he had to be questioned. He could not claim Fiona and the others as part of his tribe’s traditions when they’d only just gotten here.
“The tradition is that the unmated women of the tribe bring the food to the vaklok’s competitors,” Gahn Thaleo replied.
“They are not of your tribe,” I snapped back. My words did not come out as sharply as I’d intended, though. They sounded odd, and it felt strange to shape them. The memory of a little foot colliding with my mouth and sending my lower lip against the cutting edges of my own fangs emerged, and I realized that my mouth must have swollen up more since then.
“No, they are not,” Gahn Thaleo conceded, but not fully, not in a way that satisfied me. Almost as if there were an unspoken yet tacked on the end of what he’d said, silent but unmistakable.
“Why can’t everyone help bring the food?” Fiona asked from her place on the stone bench. “There are twenty hungry guys down there and only three of us. Give some of those kids a job; they’ve got the energy to spare.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder, aiming it at the cubs seated with their parents on the benches rising above and behind her.
The pregnant Deep Sky woman beside her looked aghast at the suggestion.
“That would be highly inappropriate!” she exclaimed.
Her name came back to me then. Zaria.
“The delivery of the food is symbolic,” Zaria went on. “It is symbolic of a potential, future mate bond. By handing over the ceremonial meal to each of the males, you are handing over a small piece of your future, acknowledging that any one of them might be your mate.”
“Alright, fair, I see why that would be extremely weird for a kid to do,” Fiona said with some discomfort.
“Or a mated woman,” Zaria added. Then, with a small smile, she said, “You have no idea how glad I am that you are here. At the last vaklok I was the only unmated woman. I had to hand-deliver each meal to the men. The second round of the events could not get underway until well into the afternoon!”
“I mean, we’re glad to help, of course,” Tilly said dubiously while I seethed, imagining Fiona handing another man food that represented some future with her, “but I don’t know about this whole symbolic ‘you could be my mate’ thing.”
“I understand that this may feel foreign to you,” Zaria said, “but the truth of the matter is that if you do not bring the food to them, they will not eat.”
I could see Fiona, Tilly, and Nasrin casting their sympathetic gazes at the seated Deep Sky men.
Too soft-hearted, all three of them.
“Then let them go hungry,” I growled, ignoring the hollow ache in my own belly.
I would have rather starved than watched Fiona simper and smile while handing Deep Sky men, or even Zoren and Oxriel, a pretty little chance at her future. If she was going to bring any male food, it would be me and only me, and since I doubted she would find excluding all the others to be acceptable then I would just have to accept my empty stomach and suffer.
But Fiona seemed keen on making me suffer in other ways.
“Knock it off, Dalk,” she called over. “We’re not going to make everybody sit there hungry all morning. You guys need energy for the next rounds of the vaklok. Besides, we haven’t eaten either,” she said, indicating Tilly and Nasrin, “and I’m pretty sure none of us are going to want to sit here stuffing our faces while you’re all watching.”
Rage rose in me like a wave of hateful water.
“So you would serve these males?” I asked, stabbing a claw at the seated Deep Sky men, “even knowing what it means to them?”
“It doesn’t have to mean that to me,” she replied. “I’m just delivering breakfast over here. That’s it.”
Tilly and Nasrin added their assent to this sentiment. Gahn Thaleo said nothing in objection, and for a moment this surprised me. I thought he would have been arguing harder for the meaning of the ceremony, making sure the new women understood and acknowledged exactly what they were doing when they brought his men food.
But then, with the startling slam of a hammer falling, I suddenly understood.
He was not a participant in the vaklok. A new woman would not bring him a ceremonial meal.
Nasrin would not bring him a ceremonial meal.
