Gallel's Heir

Chapter 20.1: Akroob

***

Canúden stayed in his room all morning, since no one would tell him where they’d taken Lianna. Tutang may be an idiot, but at least he had the smiting sense to keep them separated. Canúden would do anything to ruin Lianna for the ceremony. She could still get pregnant, and the thought sickened him. And then there was kel Emick. He would have her and torture her and use her….

He threw his dish of breakfast at the wall, leaving a dent and a splash of porridge.

He’d gazed over the gardens and seen Emick from a distance, stocky and muscular, always sulking. His fists would break Lianna’s bones. Everything would be all right, Dylin had said. “How!” he shouted. “I can’t protect her if I can’t even see her!”

He’d fought Tutang, he could fight Emick. He could squeeze the life out of him.

Noon rolled around, and Canúden hadn’t dressed out of the nightclothes he had found in a drawer in his chamber. They’d taken Lianna off the ship after she’d fainted, and pushed him aside. They wouldn’t let him follow. That was two days ago, and they wouldn’t answer any questions. He envied the meat the dogs devoured when he’d explored the kennels, meat that could have been his own flesh. Not that Lianna had been there, somehow hiding. He’d gone all over Al Bator, the Akroobian palace. All the corridors looked the same, the doors giving no inkling of Lianna trapped inside. He had failed and Dylin would hate him for it.

The sun edged to late afternoon, and he decided to get ready for the stupid ceremony. They couldn’t keep him away, he was a member of the Council of Six. He’d used his blasted title too often of late. What a pathetic thing he was becoming. He wouldn’t sit with the other kels, though, and not just because he hated them. He’d be too tempted to stick a knife into Tutang’s gut.

***

The sun set. Lianna followed Cassie and the guards to the great Assembly Hall on the main floor, where the ceremony was to take place. Crowds of nobles and royals gathered at tables on stone platforms at the periphery of the room, even some of Tutang’s other Sans, along with their children. All of the elite sat facing the center so they could observe the ritual at the altar and basin on the fourth side of the Hall. Dozens of servants rushed here and there carrying plates of salad and fruit. Chandeliers hung with bright oil lamps, their light glinting off darkwood trims framing white walls painted with depictions of the Ancestors. A light breeze wafted in through large half circle windows high in the Hall; even so, the air hung heavy with the heat of so many bodies in a tropical climate. Stars peeped through the windows from an orange-streaked indigo sky, like the Ancestors watched.

There was no sign of Canúden.

The Hall fell silent as someone announced the arrival of Lianna san Mangoran Altutang of Gallel, Heir of Kel Tutang the Tenth of Gallel. Cassie joined the other servants, as guards escorted Lianna to a short table in front of the room. The purple dress made her feel silly. Well, she liked the dress itself, and it was comfortable with its snug bodice and flared layers of chiffon, and it made her look like she had a figure, but she hated everything else, even her ridiculously-plaited hair. Whispering rose, and pompous eyes watched her like fingers poking her flesh. She ran off… bandits… old woman… mother’s bondman involved… She hated their ignorance, she hated gossip, she wished everyone would shut up and go away.

Everything would be all right, Mama had said. Why didn’t she feel all right, then? Where was Canúden?

He hadn’t killed himself, had he? He wouldn’t do that!

She sat down, facing her father’s nobles at another table, her back to the altar. Her fingers gripped a lace tablecloth. Vines and crockery of fruits and flowers covered the table, and she could almost hide behind them if she wasn’t at the bottom and front of the Hall. Her heart raced in her throat. There was a chair next to her, probably for kel Emick.

“Mama, please help me,” she whispered.

Tutang in his finest gold-trimmed green silk sat at one end of another table on the floor, with two of his Sans, sturdy Amber san Kellor, and plumper Taren san Hampton, along with several members of the Council of Six from Vishall. Tutang laughed with Amber; he’d be happy to see her, they were bonded. Lianna shook her head; who’d want to bond with him?

San Tamil sat at the other end of the table. She was large, and fat, and ugly, and Lianna had to marry her son. She shuddered. When Tamil laughed, multiple chains around her multiple chins clanged together, adding to the nauseating hubbub of the Hall. Gems glittered throughout her thick orange robe. How did she bear the heat? Her face dripped with sweat, which she wiped as she laughed. Her small eyes looked like the those of a pig. Well, maybe they wouldn’t look so small on a normal-sized face. Most of the people on her end watched her with rapt attention.

A beautiful woman in elegant rust silk sat at Tamil’s elbow. Her hair wasn’t plaited, but hung in tidy, seductive curls. The woman glared at Lianna with hatred and hunger. Lianna twisted her shoulders. She’d never known anyone from Turbia: How had she attracted such intensity from a stranger? Jealousy tinged her chest. That woman who hated her was a perfect beauty of elegance, a balance of curves and muscle, of silky paleness and color. Lianna was a scrawny girl that needed a tailored dress to show anyone she actually had breasts. A few blemishes that Cassie was unable to hide burned Lianna’s cheeks.

It was the same woman Mama had been afraid of at Gallel’s Feast of Lights, she was almost sure of it, though she hadn’t paid much attention to those at Turbia’s table there, since Emick had been absent.

At the table on the highest platform sat Murtex kel Umahler of Al Bator, the host of the ceremony. He sat with a large silver goblet raised in his hand, laughing with five young women in clinging blue silk. Kel Murtex was a well-built man who couldn’t be past thirty years, with sleek black hair tied in a large knot at the back of his head. Tiny white jewels glittered throughout his hair in a fine webbing of silver. His clothing was a robe of pale blue-trimmed linen, exposing his sturdy chest and muscled legs. Little red fish glinted in two tall glass cylinders on the table.

Someone announced the arrival of Emick kel Rheinkenohmen Aldamyx of Fal Josh, sixth son of Tamil san Rheinkenohmen the Third of Turbia. Lianna squeezed her eyes shut; if she never opened them, she’d never have to see him. Her throat was so tight she couldn’t swallow. Breathing came with difficulty. The table jolted; someone had sat down next to her.

Curiosity pulled her eyes open.

A young man sulked next to her, staring at the tablecloth. He was short, and sturdy, and too muscular. Probably clumsy like an oaf. Nothing at all like Canúden. He wore a too-fine silk shirt — his muscled arms bulged through it as though he was trying to be impressive — under a rust colored and viney vest, and knee length trousers. His hair was tied in dozens of rows of braids that ended in a spiky ball at his neck. The ball looked like so many brown worms. Her heart raced in her ears. His hands, stubby fingers, would do things to her… Ophia would heal her, surely. Of course she would… but Mama wasn’t there to teach her anymore.