Dax Lahn

Residence of the Dax, Korwahn

KORWAHK, THE SOUTHLANDS

“We have to cross the Green Sea,” Circe, his beloved Dahksahna, was informing him.

“We will not be crossing the Green Sea,” he returned.

“We really should cross the Green Sea,” Queen Cora of the country of Hawkvale in The Northlands mumbled.

Lahn heard a deep sigh and turned his eyes to King Noctorno, Cora’s husband, Lahn’s friend, who was standing, leaning his shoulders against the wall and looking what Lahn felt.

Beleaguered.

The sun shining through the windows, they were in what Circe called their “family room.”

None of them had taken a cushion on the floor. All of them were standing.

Mostly because their conversation was annoying, and it was clear the women did not intend to give in.

Which made their conversation all the more annoying.

“I’m having visions, Lahn,” Circe told him something she’d told him a number of times before, once the tremors of the earth started a few months ago, getting stronger each time.

Though Circe had told him she’d felt them even before, when he had not.

However, he did not hold magic, and his wife did.

“We are not crossing the Green Sea,” he reiterated, staring directly into the eyes of his queen.

“I have a bad feeling, Tor,” Cora said to her husband.

“You have mentioned that, my love,” Tor muttered, and when Lahn looked his way, he saw Tor spear his wife with a glance. “Repeatedly.”

“Well?” Cora threw up both her hands.

“I thought bringing you down here for a visit with our friends would take your mind off things,” Tor returned. “Apparently, it has not.”

“Did you feel the quake this morning?” she demanded.

Tor had. They all had.

It meant nothing.

Or Lahn hoped to his Tiger god it meant nothing.

“And anyway, you didn’t come down here just so I could hang with Circe,” Cora continued, using the kind of vernacular Lahn’s queen did, something none of the women from that other world had lost, even after the years slid by where they remained where they were meant to be.

In this world with the men who loved them.

“You came to trade Valerian steel for Korwahkian jewels,” Cora finished.

“There was also that,” Tor muttered, his lips twitching.

“Lahn,” Circe said quietly, and his gaze went to his wife.

Not a single measure of beauty had she lost in all these years.

In truth, his golden queen was more beautiful today than she’d ever been.

And tomorrow, as he knew from experience, she’d be even more beautiful.

“Circe,” he said quietly as well, “that voyage is treacherous, and we will not be taking it. I am sorry, kah rahna fauna, I simply cannot allow either of us to risk it.”

“But—” she tried.

“No.”

“You can’t—”

He took a chance, one that rarely to never worked, and stated resolutely, “I have spoken.”