THE SKY LOOKED odd this morning, Trevik of the Midli of the Seventh of the Red thought as the Queen’s entourage left the residence wing of the palace and began the short walk to the Dwelling of Guests. Perhaps it was clouds, he thought: clouds too high and too thin for his eyes to distinguish through the mists rising from the Dreaming Waters that lay to the north of the Red City.
But he’d seen the sky through thin clouds before. More likely it was something their guest had done, the chief of the thirty beings who had arrived a month ago, creatures with yellow eyes and hair the color of a storm cloud. Had their chief not said he would protect the Red City from the evil forces gathering among the stars over Quethold?
“Drink.”
Quickly Trevik lifted the ornate bowl of nectar that he held clutched to his chest. The Queen leaned toward the bowl, her embroidered robes moving in time with the rhythmic swaying of her canopied litter, her long abdomen stretched out along the litter’s couch—
“Higher,” Borosiv of the Circling of the First of the Red growled tersely from his far less ornate litter behind the Queen’s.
Wincing, Trevik stretched up his arms, raising the bowl as high as he could. The Queen drank deeply and then straightened up again, her mandibles shaking off the last drops of the rich liquid, her eyes flicking impassively across Trevik’s face.
Trevik lowered the bowl again to his chest, feeling the thudding of his heart within his torso. Being selected to act as the Queen’s bowlcarrier was the highest honor any Midli could achieve. It was as if all the Midlis on Quethold stood behind him, just as all the Circlings stood behind Borosiv. The last thing in the world he wanted was to fail, and through that failure to bring shame to his family.
“Straighten up,” Borosiv continued in the same low, grouchy voice. “Watch the Workers. Duplicate their stance.”
Trevik swallowed, a quick flush of shame flickering across his heart. He’d been told all this earlier, of course, but in the heat of the moment he’d forgotten.
Now he looked over at line of Workers carrying the Queen’s litter. There were eight of them, their torsos held nearly vertical despite the weight of the litter on their shoulders. Each Worker’s abdomen stretched out behind him, perfectly level with the ground, with his four legs moving in precise lockstep rhythm.
Swallowing again, Trevik tried to match their stance and movement. The Queen, he’d heard, was willing to give a new bowlcarrier a certain degree of latitude on his first day. But that didn’t mean he shouldn’t try his very best.
Especially since Borosiv didn’t seem inclined to give the new Midli any of that same slack.
The Dwelling of Guests was a circular building situated in the center of the courtyard. It was small, with only a modest central gathering area on the ground floor and ten small privacy rooms on the floor above. Two of the storm-haired aliens stood at the south entryway, their strange weapons held across their shoulders as they watched the Queen and her entourage approach.
It was the closest Trevik had ever been to these particular aliens, and he eyed them curiously as he and the litters drew near. They were upright beings, unlike the Quesoth but very similar to the Quesoth’s allies, the Stromma. They had two legs, a torso with no separate abdomen, and a head topped with flowing black storm-cloud hair. Humanoid, he’d heard such beings called before.
But at least their eyes were proper, multifaceted like those of the Quesoth, though they were a bright yellow instead of Quesoth’s pale blue. Perhaps their eyes were why the Queen had chosen to defy Quethold’s old alliance with the Stromma and accept the Storm-hairs into the Red City as her guests.
Or perhaps it was because of the weapons the Storm-hairs had brought with them. Weapons more compact and powerful even than
Similar Books
