Alanna's ears were throbbing to the ceaseless shouts of the crowd below when eventually Xanir withdrew his arm from her shoulders and with a last wave, turned to lift and carry her back up the steps to the terrace. She balked in a moment of rigid refusal, pulling away from his reaching hands, and one foot landed outside the carefully cooled area on blistering hot mosaic. Her breath hissed inward on a gritted refusal to yelp. The next second her new husband was carrying her back up the steps.
Her skin squirmed under his grasp, but Alanna kept her face calm, proud. This was a moment for dignity.
The four lords standing to attention on the wide terrace and pedestals were gazing directly ahead, focus beyond the Tahl and his bride. Despite the rapidity of her glance, their features seemed etched into her mind. Her skin was running cold despite the scorching sun, tightening over bones and muscle, every pore clenching in shame while Xanir bore her past the one standing aloft on the nearest plinth. The one who had also stood nearest her head, panting as he had watched.
Dignity?
With her back now to the public, Alanna allowed her eyes to snap closed. All four had watched.
Head swimming, she recalled her grandmother's warning that Tahl'mese marital customs would be different.
How different?
she thought in rising trepidation.
What would he do now?
More - what might
they
do?
Dread began to tighten down her spine.
Be strong.
Alanna wrenched her mind away, and forced it to stumble through the mantra she had learned to recite as a child, standing endlessly to attention through interminable parades.
Hjuortmark, Hjarnland, Kjellund, Vik...
the names of the provinces of her home evoked stunning memories of sharp, high mountains bounding lush valleys. Shoulders burning under the merciless sun, Alanna felt her brittle equilibrium lurch again sideways, tears stinging, and drew a sharp breath, thrusting the longing away. Xanir stepped into the shade of the doorway.
