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Wedding Preparations
3 Months Earlier
The long-anticipated wedding of Princess Areenna of Freemorn and High Prince Mikaal of Tolemac would take place in three days. As was the custom in Nevaeh, the wedding gifts were brought for the new husband and wife to view before completing the bond of marriage.
As was also custom, the worth of each gift was not valued for its treasure, but rather prized for its emotional and personal value to the giver of the gift. When a prince or a king of Nevaeh married, the gift giver offered something of personal value, not to the world at large, but to themselves. The gift was something of great importance in the giver’s life and had one purpose above all: to set an example to the new the couple, one that emphasized the significance of what they were about to do when they pledged themselves to one person above all others.
The presentation of gifts was done during the three-day period prior to the ceremony, with the gift givers presenting their gift to the couple, describing its purpose, and telling the couple of its personal value to them. Once the wedding couple understood the true nature of the gift, they would formally accept the gift.
The presentation of the last two gifts, from the parents of the bonding couple, as tradition required, happened in a separate ceremony at the banquet dinner on the evening before the bonding. Last night’s banquet was no different from any other bonding ceremony as Nosaj presented the binding cloth from his marriage to the couple. Roth and Enaid presented Mikaal and Areenna with the bonding blade from their ceremony twenty-five years before. The citizens of Nevaeh not of royal blood were not expected to give gifts; rather, the bonding couple gave gifts to them.
Yet in the room where the royalty had placed their gifts after the explanations, dozens more gifts had appeared, left during the night.
Earlier in the morning, Areenna and Mikaal had gone through the newer gifts, left by many of the people of Tolemac and Freemorn. They’d read the short notes attached to them, most written, she could tell, by Enaid. The one gift that had touched her the most had been from the exile Elyl and his mate.
Turning it in her hands, she looked over the unique and small intricately carved doll, dressed in armor and wearing a sword. The note explained that Elyl and his mate had created the doll for their son, who had not survived the badlands. As she held the doll, she’d detected no hint of sadness attached to it, only the gentle warmth she knew to be a part of Elyl.
<><><>
Neleh fidgeted beneath her mother’s hands while Sirod braided her hair. Her tunic draped from her right shoulder down and across her breasts before wrapping around her waist and hips. A seamstress of The People had created the tunic, which was white with slashes of pale golden yellow dye swirling in artistic patterns, the color matching her hair perfectly.
“Strange do I feel, wearing this tunic.”
You look very pretty.
I still feel strange without pants and a short tunic.
Sirod laughed, finished what she was doing, and stepped back. “Stand and look in the mirror. Strange you may feel, daughter of my blood and heart, but beautiful and womanly do you look,” Sirod praised, speaking aloud for the first time.
“I—” Whatever she was going to say disappeared the instant she saw herself. Her pale-yellow eyes grew wide, her breath catching as she examined the stranger in the mirror. The tunic did not just hang; rather, it encased her, falling gently over her breasts before dropping to her waist. A thin deeper gold braided cord cinched it to her waist before flaring over her slim hips to cascade in gentle folds to mid-calf. It made her look taller than the not-quite five feet she had reached two years before. It also made her look more mature than her barely sixteen years.
Stepping back, Sirod looked Neleh over from head to foot. “Pants and a short tunic is no way to dress for a wedding, especially this wedding.” She paused, shaking her head slowly. “My little girl has grown into a woman.”
Neleh glanced at her mother. She did not have to push within her mother’s thoughts to know exactly what Sirod was thinking, for it was written all too clearly across the lines of her forehead, and the sadness in her eyes.
“I am but newly turned sixteen and still your little girl.”
“I know you are, yet...” A tear slipped from Sirod’s left eye to slowly trail down her cheek. Neleh could not stop from watching it, until the tear reached her jawline, elongated as it hung at the edge of her skin, and then fell.
What bothers you, Mother?
Bother is not the right word. It is something else. A child no longer are you. You have done more in your short life than most women have managed in eight or nine decades. Yet—
—Mother, why this sadness?
Because called upon for more I know will you be.
Neleh met her mother’s eyes, duplicates of her own, and spoke softly, “I will, when I become Woman of the Village, but not for a while.”
Sirod took both Neleh’s hands in hers. “No, called upon will you be again ... soon.”
Her brows drew together in a frown. “The darkness is over. We have defeated them.”
Sirod shrugged and smiled. “Perhaps it is but an old woman’s worries over her child.” I saw young Siwel watching you yesterday. Taken with you, he is.
A single eyebrow arched above Neleh’s right eye. She stared at her mother for several seconds, sensing the full extent of her mother’s thoughts. “No! When ready I am, if ever, I—"
“—It is your duty, your obligation.”
Neleh dropped her block. I am most certainly aware of this. But think you not that after all these centuries, The People have fulfilled their duty? Still, I will honor our tradition by fulfilling my duty, without doubt and without hesitation—when I am ready and with whom I choose.
Forget not Jalil’s words. His healing is not permanent. The sickness will return.
Not for a long time. This I know. I know too, that everything from now on will be different. The People will fade ... we will become part of all the people of Nevaeh. Feel you not this as well?
I know this for a fact; it is as it was meant to be. Happen in days, this will not; rather, in decades will it take to accomplish.
Neleh held her mother’s gaze for several seconds before smiling. Yes, it will take many years, and with you beginning the process, all will happen as it should.
Sirod closed her eyes. When she opened them a heartbeat later, she drew Neleh to her. “I love you as my daughter, I love you as my friend, and I love you as a woman of great power.”
The bell sounded at that exact moment, signaling everyone to the Great Hall of Tolemac.
<><><>
After spending most of the day being pampered and prepared for tonight’s wedding, Areenna sat at the small table, gazing into the mirror and at the silver-flecked green eyes which stared hauntingly back. So much had happened in the past three or so years, that if she had not lived it, she would not believe any of it even remotely possible. Yet the eyes floating in the silver mirror before her told her the truth. Her birthday had passed the month before. She accepted the differences within her that had grown so powerful over the past three years: the abilities and powers she controlled, and the love for Mikaal over which she had no control.
Tonight, would be her second wedding, but the first to happen in the real world. The never absent memory of when the Dark Masters had taken ... had stolen her and Mikaal, returned yet again. The Masters had abducted and taken them to an ethereal plane, where they used their dark magic to create an illusion to make them believe they had defeated the Masters and Mikaal was now High King. After the wedding ceremony, she would be High Queen.
They had almost accepted the deception as reality, nearly succumbing ... but they had not, and by breaking the bond of the Dark Masters, they’d gained their freedom.
Tonight, there would be no darkness; tonight was for them. Tonight, they would become one in the only way they had not yet—physically, as bound mates.
“My Lord,” came Irol’s voice behind her. Within the mirror’s reflection she saw her father enter and Irol bow her head. She took a moment to study him. Badly wounded in the battle with the Dark Masters, he now walked with a limp. He had been near death, and she had not left his side for three days while she worked her healing magic on his broken body. She stopped death from claiming him, repaired his leg, and sealed the gash in his side.
Turning, she went to him.
He stopped her at arm’s length to look her over from head to toe. She wore a gown of white woven silk that hugged her as if a second skin. The dress’s material lay around her neck in an almost seamless collar. From the collar, the dress flowed across her shoulders and wrapped her arms to the wrists.
Not a fraction of an inch of pale mocha skin was visible, except for her hands and face. The material enveloped her chest and abdomen, enclosed her waist and hips, and draped downward in a single sheet to within a half-inch of the floor. Her feet were bare, and her toes peeked out from the edge of the hem. She wore no jewelry, no rings, no adornments. Her white-blonde hair fell free and straight, ending at mid-back.
A tear glistened in the corner of one eye. Emotions made Nosaj’s words rough edged. “I know your mother is watching. I feel Inaria beside me. Beautiful, so beautiful are you that she could not help but see you from wherever her spirit resides.”
He drew her into a fatherly embrace and held her close for several seconds before releasing all but one hand. “Are we ready?”
Areenna did not reply; rather, she squeezed his hand, and flashed a radiant smile.
<><><>
Wave after wave of near perpendicular rain, driven by storm winds, ravaged the most southern point of Nevaeh’s eastern coast. Like a charging animal, the hurricane tore across the Nevaen badlands, weaving through the old swamps, uprooting trees and bushes, striking animals and birds alike, and attacking anything above ground level in the remnants of what once was the Floridian peninsular of the United States
Five hundred feet below ground level, safe in a deep cavern whose only entry lay in the stone face of the rocky palisades—created by the mad shifting of the earth when the nuclear missiles struck, three thousand years before—the Dark Master Fasil Abdul-Mu'eid, stood over a large grey cocoon.
Staring at it, he saw not the greyish gauzy pod holding his last Afzaleem, Lessig. Rather, he looked deep into the pod itself, where for the first time since the battle with the Nevaens, he sensed Lessig’s mind opening.
Master, came a weak thought.
I am with you, Lessig. Think not, sleep again. You have much healing to do.
I failed you, my Master.
The fault was ours. We underestimated our enemy. It will not happen again. He reached a mental hand to her, stroked her face, and pushed more healing toward her. You must sleep again. You were gravely injured. Long has it taken for me to push the healing process ahead. Sleep and grow strong so serve you may at my side. The Dark Master directed a command to the center of Lessig’s brain, and the connection between them faded as the coma the Master had set in her took effect again.
When he was satisfied, the last Dark Master walked to the edge of the cavern. Lightning flared between clouds, the wind howled, and the rain slashed across the opening; yet, not a drop entered.
From the distant recesses deep within the cavern, came the low grumbling rhythm of a half-thousand sleeping ghazi, whom he had summoned to him on their escape from the destruction of the Dark Circle’s army. The ghazi slept under a spell of the Master’s, waking only long enough to eat and drink enough to stay alive, then toilet before returning to sleep. The Master needed the ghazis’ life source in order to live. The five hundred ghazi would keep him alive for several years, if necessary ... of course they would not survive.
The Master continued to stare at the cocoon holding Lessig while his memories played through his consciousness. When the Dark Master Jalil had abandoned them twenty-five hundred years before, he had spent the next two hundred years maneuvering within the circle, until he had taken full leadership of the Circle and pushed forth his vision of conquering Nevaeh. It had almost been accomplished, but with the loss of the Staff, they could not finish their conquest.
Now, in order to survive, in order to recover all that was lost, he had to regain the Staff of Afzal.
He understood how unique was his problem, now that he alone of the eight Masters survived—he and Lessig. But no ordinary sorceress was Lessig. She was the most powerful woman of dark power he had discovered in two thousand years. If she were but male, she would already be a Master...
Patience, he counseled himself, she will regain her strength. When she did, he knew there was a way for them to do what was necessary. First she must regain her strength. Then he would rebuild the Circle of Afzal.
