“Oh, what’s this?” Diandra muttered, I tore my eyes from Lahn and looked to my right to see a young boy, slight, perhaps eleven,

twelve years old and definitely not of the warrior sort. This was probably why he wasn’t off training somewhere but instead at my cham carrying what looked a great deal like a guitar and sounded like one when my eyes hit him, he swallowed, looked up to a woman who was standing beside him and then he started strumming and then, falteringly, singing.

The woman moved forward and laid a flower carefully on the hides well away from me or my girls then she scuttled back, her eyes shooting in Lahn’s direction and back to me as her boy sang.

He looked nervous and kept screwing up the chords and he wasn’t the greatest singer in the world, it must be said, but he didn’t do half bad and it was definitely sweet. But his mother gazed down on him like the sun’s rays sprouted out his mouth with his voice and I could tell she thought he could do no wrong and that was probably why she took him to her queen to bestow what she thought was a precious gift.

I smiled encouragingly at him as he lost his way, he found it and kept going and I nodded my head continuously to keep him going.

Then I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, I looked that way and tensed. I knew Diandra and Narinda saw it too because I felt them tense.

Dortak was striding through the chams, a dirty-looking, rough-woven bandage around his middle, the carves on his chest and face had not been stitched but were glistening with goo and were clearly not going to heal very well. But they were healing.

His bride, clean but bruised up her arms, around her neck and with a cut lip, stumbled behind him.

She was wearing her claiming necklace, he was wearing a claiming chain around his waist, it was attached to her necklace but he had it in his fist and was yanking on it as he dragged her behind him.

Jeez, seriously, this guy was the king of dicks.

He stopped at a warrior that was about five feet from Lahn and he started talking to him and as he did, he yanked her to her knees beside him and his hand fisted in her hair to hold her there. Not that he had to, she wasn’t going anywhere. Not without his permission.

My eyes moved over her and my heart hurt as they did, clenching more and more the more I took in.

Whatever girl she once was now was gone. Everything was gone.

Her expression was blank, her eyes distant. She was so deep in her head that she probably didn’t even know where she was.

I looked swiftly at Lahn to see he and the two warriors he was talking to were eyeing the couple with tight faces.

But they did nor said a word. Lahn simply turned his back on Dortak and resumed his conversation.

Without thinking, I turned to the boy singing, pushed to my knees and reached out toward his instrument, wiggling my fingers at it and smiling at him. His strumming faltered as did his singing. He looked up at his mother, she jutted her chin to me, he stopped making music and handed his guitar-like thing to me.

One of my two lost loves was guitar crazy, he had four of them, two acoustic, two electric and he taught me how to play. Then he got shitty when I took to it and quickly got better than him (one of the reasons, I kid you not, why I was convinced he broke up with me but when I threw it in his face, he swore it wasn’t but I knew it was). When he left me, I bought my own guitar and always, every week, twice, three times, sometimes every day, I found time to play.

And I couldn’t give anything to Dortak’s wife, me being queen or not, except what that boy gave to me.

So I sat back on my calves as I tested the strings and the frets, found my way and then started to sing Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s

“Over the Rainbow/Wonderful World” but with a guitar and not a ukulele.

You couldn’t say my singing voice was a lot better than the boy’s but it didn’t have to be. Even if you couldn’t understand the words,

the song couldn’t be anything but beautiful. I kept my eyes glued to her as she stared at the ground and I hoped somewhere in her head the words to two sweet, hopeful songs meshed together in one beautiful one penetrated and colored that dark world she was living in with all the vibrant shades of a rainbow.

Then, slowly, her head lifted, her eyes found mine and I did what I thought any good queen would do and that was all she could do to provide what she could for her people – even if it wasn’t much and it was just one of those people.

And I knew right when the song got in there. Her eyes drifted slowly closed, her face grew soft and I hoped to all that was holy that in that moment she was over the rainbow in a wonderful world.

When I stopped playing, her eyes opened and I smiled at her.

Dortak yanked her chain which wrenched her neck and the soft look disappeared instantly from her face as a flash of pain replaced it.

The moment he did this, I heard a deep, male voice call out tersely and that voice was really pissed off.

And it was not Lahn’s voice.

I looked to my left and saw it was Bohtan. I also saw I had drawn a crowd. And I also saw Lahn’s dark eyes riveted to me in a way he’d never looked at me before but one that made my belly dip and my heart feel light.

“You disrespect your queen,” Diandra whispered and I started then looked at her to see her eyes on the action in front of us and I realized she was translating.

I followed her gaze and saw that Bohtan was striding swiftly toward Dortak and words were being exchanged.

Diandra interpreted.

“I care nothing of women singing.” That was Dortak.

“You care nothing of women.” That was Bohtan with a jerk of his head to Dortak’s wife.

“Caution, Bohtan,” some other warrior said.

“Yes, caution, Bohtan. My wife is not your concern,” Dortak warned.

“You’re right. Your wife wouldn’t be my concern. But I’m not talking about your wife. I’m talking about your dog. You’ve made your wife your pet. Do you like to thrust your cock into animals, Dortak?” Bohtan returned and I pressed my lips together because those were fighting words in my world so I was guessing amongst The Horde they were serious fighting words.

Bohtan went on. “Do not answer that, I know you do. This could not be missed considering you rarely miss an opportunity to show us what a warrior you are by thrusting your cock into in any hole your animal provides.”

“My bride is none of your concern!” Dortak shouted, yanking on her chain again.

“But she isn’t your bride!” Bohtan shot back, having made it to Dortak, he leaned in dangerously. “She’s nothing but an animal you’ve brought to heel. You sully The Horde with your actions, thrusting into her face at the games, challenging our Dax while armed, disrespecting our queen in front of our king. ”

Diandra gasped at Dortak’s reply and I knew not only by her gasp but the fact the air went still that something very, very bad had happened.

A glance showed she’d gone pale and I whispered urgently,

“What?”

She didn’t tear her eyes off what was happening when she whispered back. “Dortak said, ‘I care not for our queen or a king whose new wife rides so soon after the claiming. The yellow one has had his cock two weeks and she’s leading him around by it. Our king is the one who has come to heel.’” Her eyes slid to Lahn and she finished, “That is a challenge.”

Oh shit.

My eyes moved to Lahn too. He was surveying the scene with his arms crossed on his chest and an expression on his face that stated clearly he found it mildly interesting. But only mildly.

“You challenge the Dax?” Diandra interpreted what a warrior standing with Lahn called to Dortak.

“What Dax? ” Dortak spit the words then he spit into the ground in Lahn’s direction. “I see no Dax.”

Finally, Lahn spoke and he did this mildly too.