Fantasyland 02 The Golden Dynasty (61 page)

I did not think this kind of search would
prove fruitful.

But I had hope. Every day, I hoped my
father was working with that witch and Korwahn would melt and I’d
be back home. Then I was finding a protection spell to root me
there. I didn’t care if that meant I had to tattoo weird shit on
every inch of my body. I was
never
leaving.

“They are missing you, my queen,” Lahn kept
talking and I focused again on him. “They are concerned for you,
the child you carry. They wish to see you.”

“I don’t wish to see them,” I said
quietly.

His eyes got soft. “Circe –”

I shook my head. “I can’t build strong ties
here. My father knows of a witch at home who can take me back. I’m
sure she’s gearing up. I’ll be leaving soon.”

Wrong thing to say. His face got hard and
his hand slid down my belly, up my side and then his arm tightened,
locking my other side to his front as his face got close.

“You will not leave again,” he growled.

“I’m afraid you don’t have any choice in
that, Lahn.”

“
I know at this time this will upset you,
kah Lahnahsahna, but I do. Did you not think when I crushed your
spirit that, when I got you back, I would not know you would again
try to leave? The spell cast to guide you to your
true
home also tethered you to this
world, Circe,
our
world.
You’re never going back.”

I stared at him.

He wasn’t serious.

Was he?

He kept talking. “It also anchors you to me
so even if you were to try to escape me in this world, I would
sense you and could seek you out. You couldn’t cloak yourself.
You’d always somehow be visible to me.”

I kept staring at him.

Seriously, he could not freaking be
serious!

“You didn’t,” I breathed.

“I did,” he returned.

“You didn’t,” I repeated on a breath and his
face got closer.

“
I…
fucking…
did,” he growled. “You promised never to leave me and you
left me. I’ve seen to it that will not fucking happen
again.”

I knew my lips had parted and I felt the
sting of tears in my nose.

Then I whispered, “I can’t believe you did
that.”

“
You gave me you of your free will, you are
mine. And I gave you me, I am yours. I will do anything to keep
you, my queen, believe
that.
”

“That’s like… stalker psycho.” I was still
whispering.

“I have no idea what that means and I do not
care. It is the way it is. And Circe,” his face got closer, his
hand sliding up my side, over my chest, up my neck to cup my jaw
where his thumb swept my cheekbone as he finished softly, “I will
resurrect your spirit inside you. I will stop at nothing to do it.
It will shine for me again. You can believe that too.”

Before I could stop him, his thumb swept
over my lips, locked around my jaw and he held my head steady as
his dipped down and his lips touched mine.

My belly clenched.

Then he lifted his head and looked deep in
my eyes before his thumb swept back over my lips, he lifted up and
kissed my forehead then he rolled off the bed and stalked across
the room.

I got up on my elbows to watch him open the
door and saw Twinka was there holding some bath cloths.

“Her warrior wives visit, you do not send
them away. You let them in. If they do not, you send one of her
girls to go get them. This is a command from their king and if one
of them disobeys, any of them, wife or slave, they answer to me. Am
I understood?” Lahn asked firmly.

Twinka looked at me and smiled huge.

“Meena, kah Dax,” she muttered, as she would
because she knew this would piss me off and/or upset me and she was
all for anything that did that.

“Dohno,” Lahn muttered and then he was
gone.

I collapsed back on the bed and stared at
the ceiling.

Twinka hummed happily as she took the cloths
to the bathroom-type room.

* * * * *

I sat on a lounge chair on the roof, stared
into the distance at the sun sparking off the gold on the Avenue of
the Gods and I pulled the intricately knit, loose-woven shawl
closer around me while wondering if there was some troop of slaves
who went out every day and polished that gold. It always sparkled
even mostly surrounded by sand and dust.

So I figured there was.

Ghost, as always since I got home, was at my
side, now lying on her front, jaws to paws.

I stroked her absently and unfortunately my
thoughts drifted from statue slaves to other matters that I didn’t
want to think about but couldn’t stop myself.

When I’d been gone, Lahn had had a busy five
months. Although I hadn’t seen my posse, I could not avoid my girls
and they had told me all they knew.

Firstly, Lahn, Suh Tunak and the Keenhak
warriors had ridden on Maroo as planned. Maroo had had their grisly
message that vengeance would be sought by the Dax so they had
planned for the invasion but they had no clue they’d also be facing
the additional challenge by neighboring Keenhak.

Gaal, with bright eyes and scary excitement
at telling her macabre tales, informed me that Suh Tunak and
Keenhak had trounced Maroo and, in telling me this, she
unfortunately went into some detail. Vengeance was sought and found
and Maroo would not soon forget the lesson they learned.

“
Not,” Gaal leaned forward, eyes wide and
joyous, “
for
generations.
”

If her stories were anything to go by, I
believed this to be true. In a
serious
way.

Apparently, Lahn and his boys didn’t fuck
around exacting vengeance.

Yikes.

This took all of about three months and Suh
Tunak rode back into Korwahn bearing a shitload of Maroo slaves and
booty.

The people of Korwahn rejoiced. As these
riches rained down on them they felt it was irrefutable proof The
Golden Dynasty had begun.

Lahn and Suh Tunak had shared in a week’s
worth of celebrations for their victory and then they road off in
their parties to wreak havoc or patrol, this including the Daxshee
packing up and going on their way.

My disappearance and my not travelling with
the Daxshee had been explained by the fierce storm that had struck
the city prior to me going back home. Jacanda told me that word was
spread that the storm was a result of me having a very bad turn and
developments in my pregnancy that night meant I had to keep to my
bed throughout it.

This was accepted readily.

But my girls and my girl posse knew I had
disappeared because my girls had been ordered to search for me in
the house the day I disappeared and my posse had been told by their
husbands. They had been sworn to silence about this information
(with threats of their tongues being cut out which would do the
trick for anyone). But Beetus explained that singly, in pairs, in
trios or sometimes all of my girl posse visited every day prior to
the Daxshee leaving and them going with it and they did this in
order to ascertain if there was news.

This was nice.

Also, the people of Korwahn or travelers who
had heard the news of my enforced rest who were passing through
Korwahn put flowers on our doorstep in hopes of me safely
delivering the heir to The Golden Dynasty.

This was nice too.

The Daxshee drifted until it was time to
return to Korwahn to settle in for the winter and for the Dax to be
close to his Dahksahna for her delivery.

I had decided that Korwahk was likely south
of the equator in this world because winter for them was summer for
Seattle. Their winters were as different as everything in my world.
The days did dawn later and dusk came earlier but only a little
bit. And there were some gray days and occasional sprinkling rain
that did not happen due to my moods (or I didn’t think so), not
many, maybe one a week. The air was slightly chillier, more so on
the gray days. And the evenings were definitely chillier. Lahn and
I now had a soft, fluffy, brightly colored woolen blanket covering
the silk quilt of our bed which worked wonders keeping the heat in
and with Lahn’s warm body thrown in, I never caught a chill.

When Lahn decided to believe me, I did not
know and obviously my girls couldn’t know. That said, his going off
to war and then travelling with the Daxshee pretty much told that
tale.

In other words, it was business as usual for
Dax Lahn, disappeared queen or not.

But Jacanda had shared that every single
day, all day and all night, while I was away, one of the girls was
assigned to sit in my room in case I returned there (only Packa
went with Lahn and the Daxshee) and there were four of my guard
assigned to the house at all times. A witch had also moved in. This
was so the girls could alert the guard and, if I returned, they
would physically detain me, the witch magically detaining me, and
orders were given that Lahn was immediately informed (or as
immediately as a messenger could ride to wherever he was).

Whether this was because Lahn was taking no
chances, especially when I might be carrying his true child and not
a monster, or because he believed me and wanted me back, I had no
clue.

And I didn’t care.

I was back to needing to find a way to live
in a world I wanted no part of. And I was back to Lahn giving me no
choice about my own life.

What I wasn’t back to was finding it in me
to give much of a shit.

All the fight had left me and I had no
energy to find it.

So what has been has been and what will be
was what I would make of it.

I just needed to figure out what I was going
to make of it.

I felt a weird pain tighten in my belly and
my brows drew together as my hand went there.

That was new.

I looked down at my stomach. I now wore
sarongs wrapped around my body and tied at the back of my neck like
Twinka did. Jacanda told me that this was unusual for a pregnant
woman in Korwahk, they wore their sarongs and tops as normal, their
bellies protruding over their belts. I could dig that for the
Korwahk. They were the Korwahk; they did crazy shit all the time.
But no way
in hell
was I
wandering around with my giganto stomach on display. I had managed
to contain a bunch of extra weight being gained but my stomach was
enormous. The kid had to be huge.

“What are you up to now, kah teenkah
tunakan?” I whispered as I slid my hand to wrap around the bottom
of the enormous swell and hold him close.

Ghost’s head came up and she looked to the
top of the stairs. I followed her gaze and then I held my breath
when I saw Diandra alight at the top. Then I let it out in a gush
when I saw The Eunuch follow her.

My gaze shot back to Diandra and I kept my
silence. Her eyes were warm as they travelled over me but her face
was expressionless.

I got that.

I had been rude, insufferably and
unforgivably rude to a good friend who had stood by my side through
some serious thick and some anorexic-style thin. I was going to
have to find the words to explain it to her and what was good, and
made me feel guilt at the same time, was that I knew she would
understand and forgive me.

Something I wasn’t sure I deserved.

But now, the presence of The Eunuch, with
Diandra of all people, made me keep my silence, slap up my guard
and brace.

His eyes slid over my face then he walked to
the table and chairs. Grabbing two, he picked them up, brought them
over and set them at the foot of my lounge chair. He held the back
for Diandra until she sat and arranged her two layered sarongs over
her legs (good idea that, two matching sarongs to ward out the
chill, I’d have to remember that) and pull her own shawl closer
around her upper body that was not covered in a bandeau or short
halter top but what looked like a short-sleeved, tight fitting
t-shirt made of thin weave, soft wool that covered her to her
belly.

Only when Diandra had settled did The Eunuch
sit facing me.

Both their eyes were on me.

I said not a word.

Finally, The Eunuch spoke in Korwahk. “I
trust you are well, my true, golden queen?”

I blinked.

His voice was quiet, there was a thread of
concern in it and he’d called me his true, golden queen. Not just
his queen.

Hmm.

“I am fine,” I replied.

He nodded his head once and informed me,
“Our king speaks true. Your beauty blooms magnificently having
grown heavy with his child.”

Really, I wished Lahn would quit being
sweet, not only to me but now hearing he was wandering around
complimenting me. It was getting on my nerves.

“Shahsha,” I muttered, my eyes slid to
Diandra to see her head tipped slightly to the side, concern she
wasn’t quite able to hide now on her features.

Shit.

“It has come to my attention you do not
allow your women to attend you,” The Eunuch stated and I looked
back at him.

“I have been… not myself for some time,” I
replied.

He inclined his head.

Then he said softly, “You grieve your lost
world.”

I blinked at him.

He knew.

That was a surprise.

Well, whatever. If Lahn was stupid enough to
trust this guy, so be it. It wasn’t any of my business.

I decided not to answer.

“There is only one person in Korwahk who
calls me Karrim,” he stated bizarrely, changing the subject and I
spoke not a word but didn’t take my eyes from him. “My king,” he
finished quietly and I braced again.

Ghost shifted so her sleek bulk rested
against my lounge chair, a show of support.

My hand went from my belly back to her fur
and I stroked.