Kristen Ashley - The Golden Dynasty

I made my way across the pen and jumped when one of the black-haired women reached out and pinched me, hard, on the sensitive skin behind my arm.

“Ouch!” I snapped, my hand going to the skin, my eyes going to her.

She leaned forward and hissed at me from between her teeth sounding like a snake.

I jumped further and scuttled away.

Jeez, what was that all about? Bee-yatch.

I glared at her as I backed away and when I was out of her reach, I turned back to my target. I saw she’d stopped concentrating on whatever she was concentrating on and had her eyes on me.

“Hey,” I said quietly when I got to her, her brows drew slightly together, her head tipped a bit to the side and she replied hesitantly, “Erm… hey.”

“Do you, um… mind talking?” I asked.

“No,” she said softly.

Awesome, she spoke English.

Then I watched a small, weird smile play at her lips. “Especially not since you’re the first person I’ve talked to from Hawkvale since I was taken.”

Oh no.

Taken?

Oh no part two.

Hawkvale?

I was getting the distinct impression she had not woken here from a dream. Not like me.

Her hand came out and captured mine, holding strong, her eyes searching mine, she whispered, “It’ll be good knowing, once we’re claimed, someone close will be from home.”

Um.

On no again.

Claimed?

She’d spoken two sentences and we already had a lot of ground to cover so I prioritized.

“I’m not from Hawkvale,” I told her and her head tipped further to the side.

“Bellebryn?” she asked.

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.”

“What?” I whispered but the girls were moving, pushing in toward a swing of the stakes that was being opened by a guard.

Narinda moved me with the girls, keeping me close, her hands on me, her eyes scanning.

“We will not be able to hide you from the warriors. They will see you. The Dax, though, I hear does not leave his podium and gives scant attention to the parade. It is said he is prepared each Hunt to claim his bride, should he see something he likes, but he has never seen something he likes. We should try to keep it that way.”

We moved through the opening and out being jostled by some of the girls who clearly could not wait to start the parade.

Very weird.

“They don’t seem scared,” I whispered to Narinda as she kept us moving ever forward, a line of onlookers forming at both our sides.

“They are Korwahk,” Narinda explained. “Some, daughters of The Horde, others from the villages and settlements of Korwahk. They feel this is a great honor, to be chosen for the Hunt. They grow up wanting nothing more than to be chosen, paraded, hunted, claimed and taken as wife by a Korwahk warrior.”

There were a lot of words I didn’t like in that statement but I didn’t dwell. We were walking through tents and moving toward an area that was much better lit. I didn’t have time to dwell.

“And you and me?”

“Scouts sent out to faraway lands. I don’t know this Seattle where they found you. I did not know they travelled beyond the Green Sea. I have heard they scouted in Hawkvale but rarely. King Ludlum is not a big fan of this and will, if a scout is captured, deal with them harshly so they usually find women like you and me who are travelling. I was with my father on a ship on the Marhac Sea. We’d anchored at a Korwahk port. Father left me with two guards who were overwhelmed and I was taken.”

“Kidnapped?” I hissed in shock, her eyes came to me, she didn’t smile her small, weird smile; she just looked in my eyes, kept us steadily moving forward and nodded.

Oh crap. This had not been pleasant. Even in the torchlight dancing, which did not exactly illuminate the space like a football field, I could see this had not been pleasant.

“I’m sorry, Narinda,” I whispered on a squeeze of her waist, “so sorry.”

“It has happened, it is past. I must look forward. Father taught me that. What has been has been but what will be is what you make of it.”

Well, that was a positive way to look at it.

Still.

“I just hope the warrior who chooses me is kind,” she said softly, her eyes were now peering at the sidelines from under her brows.

I did too.

“And I hope we can keep the Dax from seeing you,” she continued.

“Why do you keep saying that?” I asked.

“You are fair,” she replied. “You are the only fair woman in the parade. You stand out.”

Oh no.

“And you have great beauty,” she went on.