Okay, there it was again. I was thinking she wasn’t like me.
“Um… no, listen –”
Her face changed before she cut me off to say with some surprise,
“Middleland?”
“No, I’m from Seattle.”
This time, her brows shot together and she asked, “Where is that?
Is that across the Green Sea?”
“Yes,” I lied swiftly in order to move things on. Then I asked,
“Where are we?”
Her body started and her face went slack. She stared at me a moment and then her hand in mine squeezed and she pulled me closer to her.
When I was near, she took my other hand and got closer to me, declaring, “You were sheltered.”
“Sheltered?” I asked and she nodded.
“My father travelled, my mother died when I was a child, so he took me with him. He shared with me many things…” she got even closer and her voice dropped to a whisper, “including tales of Korwahk.” Then she looked around and squeezed my hands.
“Korwahk?” I prompted and her eyes came back to me.
“Where we are now.”
Korwahk.
It could not be said I was a geography whiz but I was thinking I had no freaking clue where Korwahk was. Or Hawkvale, Bellebryn, Middleland or the Green Sea.
What I knew was, none of them were home.
I already had a feeling I was screwed, seeing I was in sacrificial virgin attire and in a corral. But now I was thinking I was way screwed.
My attention focused back on her when she went on to say in a dire tone, “The Wife Hunt.”
Uh-oh.
“The what?” I asked, my voice breathy.
She dropped a hand, kept the other one and slid an arm around my waist so we were even closer before she asked, “What’s your name, my lovely?”
“Circe,” I answered.
She gave me her small, weird smile and whispered, “Circe…
that’s pretty.”
“What’s yours?” I asked.
“Narinda. I’m named after my great aunt who, they said, looked like me. Though, I wouldn’t know because I never met her.”
“That’s pretty too,” I told her and her arm at my waist gave a squeeze.
Then she continued in a gentle voice, “So, the tales of the Korwahk Horde were kept from you.”
“You could put it like that,” I replied and she nodded with understanding.
“Many girls, my father told me, were sheltered from this information. It’s understandable. I spent my life mostly on ships with men. I was loved,” again with the small, weird smile, “but not sheltered.”
I knew what that was like.
“So you know where we are, why we’re in this pen?” I asked.
“Indeed,” she whispered but before I could ask more, a strange, expectant vibe stole through the crowd, most of the girls in the enclosure came alert and then suddenly there were drums. The steady, deep, thumping beat of very loud drums.
Oh crap. I did not get a good feeling about that.
“The parade,” Narinda breathed.
Oh crap!
“What parade?” I asked but her eyes weren’t on me though she kept her hands on me. She was looking outside the corral so I shook her hand. “What parade, Narinda?”
Her eyes came to me and she said urgently, “We’ll walk together and we’ll talk. Stay close to me. We’ll try to hide you. You do not want the Dax to see your hair.”
