"Are you all right?" Turlabon took her arm with surprising gentleness, "You seem overwhelmed."
"I've never been to a city before," she explained, still staring at the chaos of urbanity in worried awe, "In my village we don't even build above ground if we can help it. All these buildings... I expected something more like a forest."
"I apologize," he bowed his head, though his expression didn't change, "I should have anticipated this. I would have prepared a more pleasant transition for you."
"No, no, it isn't your fault!" Lily said quickly, touching his shoulder, "I was the one with unrealistic expectations. You've already done so much to make me comfortable."
He glanced at her hand and she withdrew it quickly, embarrassed. Casual touch was something of a taboo for Sahrians, or so she'd read. Parents might touch their young (depending on the species and their reproductive methods) but once old enough to begin being independent, they weren't expected to touch anyone until bonded to a life partner, and that only in private.
The taboo had been loosened somewhat in recent years, with Sahrians engaging in premarital pleasure seeking together more openly. But casual touch in the public of polite society was still considered indecent. He stared at her inscrutably as she blushed.
"This way, please," he said with unexpected gentleness a moment later, gesturing down the ramp from the ship, "An auto carriage is waiting for us."
Lily assumed that was a strange translation for car (they still had a few electric vehicles on Earth for transport) but the thing really was more like a carriage. A huge and elaborately decorated thing like an ornate music box, covered in flourishes and beautiful details.
It looked like something a princess would ride in and, wearing this gown, Lily couldn't help but feel that was what she was. She glanced at Turlabon with a secretive smile. She was marrying a handsome king after all.
The carriage had spindly automaton legs rather than wheels that picked their way carefully and smoothly over the uneven terrain of the city's streets. Lily could only assume such a mode of transportation had been developed to avoid crushing non-sentient plants in the street, but there were no plants in this city to crush. Not so much as a week growing in the sidewalk. Their absence confused her.
"Why aren't there any plants here?" she asked, Turlabon, who sat beside her in the auto carriage's comfortable velvet lined interior, "I mean wild ones. Not even in planters?"
"It is complicated," the man replied, "People do not like to be reminded of their roots these days. Instead of stewarding the nature that seeded us, we drive it out, and make ourselves the center of our own nature. Expensive cultivated flowers are still sold, but they have barely any scent and cannot sing. They let us control what we were and that makes us proud, I think."
Lily frowned, more confused by his answer than she had been to start with. He seemed unhappy with the situation.
"I liked the flowers you put in my room," Lily tried, "They were beautiful. I've never seen flowers except the samples in my lab and in pictures. To be surrounded by so many was incredible."
Turlabon stared at her, frowning slightly, his moss colored eyes narrowed.
"Why did you accept the proposal?" he asked, "You are lovely. And according to your paperwork, intelligent and well educated. Why are you choosing this?"
Lily looked away; suddenly worried she'd done something wrong. He didn't seem happy with her and she didn't understand why.
"My village needed the money." she explained, "A lot of the other girls tried things like this too, but none got offers as big as yours. That money is going to allow us to survive and keep working for a very long time. I wasn't sure; to be honest, even after I saw the offer I might have turned it down. But when I saw the photo..."
She looked down at her lap, embarrassed by her own flustered excitement.
"I thought maybe there was a chance I could make this work."
She looked up at him with a shy smile and his frown deepened.
"I cannot imagine doing such a thing for money," he said, and turned away from her. Lily felt her heart sink.
"You don't have anyone you care about that much?" Lily asked, wounded, "Someone you'd give up your whole life to take care of? The money is just a way for me to take care of them. That's all that matters."
He didn't turn back, but she saw his expression soften with consideration.
"I do have someone like that," he said, quiet and thoughtful, "Perhaps I can imagine it. But just because you would give your life for someone doesn't mean they would do it for you. The people you're doing this for, do they deserve your loyalty?"
He fixed her with a strange cool stare, but Lily met it easily, nodding.
"Absolutely," she confirmed, "They would do anything to help me. They begged me not to do this. I made the choice on my own, to help all of them."
A strange kind of sadness passed over his face and he looked away again.
"You are lucky person," he said, "I hope your village gets everything it needs."
He said little else the rest of the trip, though Lily tried a few times to start a conversation. Their strange spidery carriage skittered on through the streets, stepping over or around pedestrians and their auto carts, which trundled after them on clumsier, stiffer legs.
There were only a few other carriages, all of which moved aside to make room for Lily's. They moved towards the heart of the dense, looming city, which only grew more tangled around them.
The Sahrian architectural sense was something almost like art nouveau, but colder, the curling frescos tangled winter briars that knit the tall, narrow buildings together in otherwise impossible impenetrability. It was like moving through a dead thicket.
No life, only closed off dead branches, clinging to each other in a skeletal death grip, strangled and senseless. It made Lily uncomfortable, and she hoped the palace would be nicer.
The palace crouched like a toad in the chest cavity of the city's carcass, a sprawling and ungainly thing of rounded green cupolas. It seemed to Lily to resemble a nest of fungus, spiky and strange. At least it was more colorful, more alive than the city it sat in, draining the life from it like a parasitic spore.
The carriage came to a stop in front of the great copper-green gates and Lily's escort stepped out first, reaching up to help her down. She supposed it hadn't really sunk in until this moment how like a fairy tale this was.
She took his hand and stepped down out of the gilded carriage, looking up at the magnificent palace that would become her home (and it was magnificent, even if it was strange) and she thought how lucky she was, a human girl from the backwater of Earth marrying a king of one of the most powerful planets in the galaxy. She squeezed Turlabon's hand in excitement and he gave a look that was almost pitying.
He led her inside where she could hear music playing somewhere, but he didn't take her towards it. Instead he led her to a pair of high double doors embellished with golden vines. He unlocked it with a small electronic key from around his neck.
"This is the Garden of a Thousand Flowers," he explained, "Here is where you will live, with all the king's wives and concubines."
Before Lily had time to express her shock at that, the doors swung open and she was faced with a vast room. It must have been the very center of the palace. Its domed roof glittered with thick-bubbled glass panes, giving the entire place the feeling of a greenhouse.
It was full of the first greenery Lily had seen anywhere in the city or palace, flowerbeds overflowing with huge blossoms in every color imaginable. And among the flowers were dozens of women. Most of them were floraform, but a few were mammalian or cetacean species. Lily was the only human. The women stood as Lily entered, moving towards her. Lily heard the doors closing and turned to see her escort shutting them.
"They will prepare you for the ceremony," he said, "I will see you there, my queen."
Lily, too frozen by uncertainty to move, watched the door close between them.
"Your name."
L
ily turned quickly to see several of the floraform women had moved quite close. A woman whose dainty face perched among the bunched scarlet petals of a rose in full bloom stood the closest.
"Your name, little one," the woman repeated, "I don't believe humans have fallen so far that they don't speak anymore, have they? Or did I learn your language for nothing?"
Her Tlingit was flawless, if a bit formal, and Lily was momentarily stunned to hear her native tongue.
"Lily," she replied, "My name is Lily. I wasn't told the king had other wives."
"I'm sure you weren't told many things," the rose woman replied, "I would tell you my name, but you would only butcher it. You lack the pheromone glands to produce the proper chemical accents. But I took the liberty of researching botanical life on your planet and chose names for us that will be easier for you to comprehend. I'm told floral names are in fashion right now anyway. I am Cabbage Rose."
She gave an odd little dip of a curtsey that pushed her petals towards Lily, sending a waft of floral sent in her direction.
"I was Turlabon's first wife," Cabbage Rose explained, "Before he began collecting. This is Dogwood, his second, and Aster, his third. You will get to know all of us, I'm sure. You will be his twenty fifth."
"Twenty five..." Lily's head swam and her knees threatened to give out. Dogwood caught her in strong, pale branches and guided her to a bench to sit.
"Turlabon has reigned more than one hundred years," Rose shook her head as she and Dogwood sat to other side of Lily, patting her hands, "Did you really think you would be his first acquisition? Even aside from his twenty-four wives, he has double that in concubines.
He gathers women of the highest caliber and breeding to take his name, but any that catch his fancy may be added to his collection. Among Turlabon's wives are represented all the oldest and most powerful families of Sahria and beyond. You may be slightly out of place here at first, but rest assured, we will refine you in a woman worthy of bearing the king's heir."
"Why..." Lily was still dazed, trying to absorb all of this, "If he has so many, why not with one of you...?"
Rose scoffed, her petals bristling.
"Among floraform, reproduction can only commence among the enthusiastically consenting," Rose explained, "It's true of many plant species on your own planet as well. Reproducing is incredibly costly to the fruiting body. If the plant is in ideal circumstances where it sees no need to reproduce, it won't, and will live longer as a result. I have lived nearly all of Turlabon's hundred-year reign because I, like all the wives, refuse to give him children.
Even the concubines, who would give him children if they could just to escape his wrath, cannot force their bodies to ignore the fear in their hearts. Among floraform, you cannot impregnate the unwilling. He would have made us slaves for our refusal if not for the influence of our families and his own pride. He wants an heir of only the highest quality and unimpeachable legitimacy. He will accept nothing less."
"So then," Lily's head felt in a fog, still struggling with the shock of realizing she was not Turlabon's only wife, "The reason he wanted me..."
"Human hybrids are considered the peak of genetic perfection right now," Rose shrugged, "Which soothes his vanity enough to overlook the fact that you aren't high born. More importantly, a human can still be impregnated, whether they want to be or not."
Lily felt a cold chill at that which she tried to ignore.
"But why have you refused him?" she asked, still trying to figure this out, "What's wrong with him?"
Rose frowned and Dogwood stared at Lily like she'd grown a second head. Aster looked away as though embarrassed.
"Haven't you seen him?" Dogwood blurted out, "And he's cruel! A greedy, violent monster. He doesn't care about anyone or anything but-"
"Hush, Dogwood," Rose said, thorns glinting under her leaves, "I will not tolerate our king being spoken of in this way. Our unwillingness is shame enough. We should not sully our tongues with disloyal speech. Besides, we have a wedding to prepare for, now that the girl understands the situation."
"Does she?" Dogwood asked, looking at Lily, who was staring at the ground in stunned confusion.
"She will," Rose said primly, and pulled Lily to her feet, "We have much to do."
Chapter Four
The next few hours were a whirl of activity that Lily mostly absorbed without thinking about. The flowers of Turlabon's garden passed Lily from hand to petaled hand, fussing over her dress, her hair, her makeup, all of which changed at least a dozen times she felt.
But the primary focus was on teaching her the script and rituals of the ceremony itself, running her through it like a trained dog through a series of tricks. Stand here, kneel at this moment, recite this paragraph, turn, sing, cry. Her reward for getting it right was to have her dress changed and then go through it again. Lily didn't complain.
Most of the brides couldn't speak her language anyway. They communicated with each other in a complicated mix of verbal language and precise scent accents. The same words spoken verbally could mean a hundred different things depending on what scents were used with them.
No amount of translation software would ever allow her to speak it fluently and she mourned the lost opportunity. Though it made her all the more grateful that Rose had chosen to learn one of the human languages, and taught it to a few of the other girls.
While the wives, all of them highbred flowers with the exception of a few off world exotic species Turlabon had collected as trophies, gossiped and fluttered about in excitement as they worked on preparing Lily, the concubines were more sedate.
They followed the orders of the wives, seeming more like servants than anything else. Most of them seemed almost solemn, perhaps thinking on how long Rose had lived as part of Turlabon's garden and wondering if, kept from the life shortening action of reproduction, they might also live another hundred years in the king's possession.
Lily was suddenly very glad for her precise contract. She wouldn't be trapped her forever like these girls.
"Oh this is exhausting," Rose sighed dramatically, looking at Lily in yet another dress, "She doesn't have any petals! How am I supposed to make this bald creature look acceptable for a royal wedding? I need tea. Delphinium! Tea! Orchid, go get that lavender gown with the frills. What do you mean which on?"
Rose stormed off after Orchid to find another dress while the others were distracted by Delphinium rolling in a complicated tea service, most of which Lily didn't dare try for fear of unknown allergens.
Instead, longing for a moment to herself to deal with all she'd learned in private, she pushed through the ferns while the other women's backs were turned and hurried away. If she could just get a few minutes to herself, that would be enough.
Once she had a little space between her and the others she slowed down, beginning to relax. She felt like her heart hadn't stopped racing since she arrived. It wasn't so bad, she told herself. She had known it was a mistake to indulge in thinking this was some fairy tale fantasy.
The beautiful room and being treated like a princess were just honey in a very common trap which she'd walked into knowingly. It was her own foolishness to get her hopes up like that. And this was a business deal! She could handle being one wife among many for the sake of the money her village needed. She was more worried about the other wives insisting he was cruel and greedy. Collecting this many partners, not out of love but out of desire for status, certainly didn't seem like the actions of a modest man.
But then, the wives also thought he was ugly, and she'd seen him and knew he was handsome to her eyes. They thought she was weird looking too after all. Their ideas of beauty were different than the human ideal. Maybe they were wrong about him being cruel too.
She hadn't seen any cruelty in those green eyes. Regardless of anything else, she needed to find a way to make this work. She could do this. She had to! But she could feel her resolve wavering anyway...
She pushed through another barrier of ferns and stopped
, caught by surprise, as she stumbled into a strange, shaded courtyard. The flowering trees in their elaborate planters had grown tall her, their branches blocking the sun from the glass ceiling, and beneath their shade was a circle picked out in elaborate mosaic, now weathered and grown over with soft green moss, starred with tiny white blossoms. And filling the wide circle were cages.
Elaborate filigreed domes like birdcages, each beautiful once but aged now. And inside every cage was a woman. Most of them dozed, and looked as though they had been doing so for a long time.
Dew spangled cobwebs clung to their petals and leaves like silver streamers tying them to their gilded prisons. Only a few of them were flowers, Lily realized. Perhaps two out of the dozen or so. The rest were lower but still respectable species.
Slender, graceful trees and curvaceous succulents, even a few herbs, small and hardy. The few that were flowers, Lily had a suspicion were weeds. Only one of the women looked up as Lily stumbled into their strange enclave, raising her head slowly.
She was beautiful, her face pointed and proud among the clusters of her symmetrical petals, which were dense and ruffled as skirts, a deep purple that was nearly black. A dahlia, Lily thought.
"Who are you?" the woman asked, narrowing her dark eyes, "Are you that new exotic bride they've all been twittering about?"
"You speak my language." Lily said in surprise, moving closer.
"Yes, well, Rose was passing around data pads full of the stuff," the woman said, gesturing dismissively with a slim, old fashioned data pad, "And I don't exactly have a lot to do in here."
"Do you have a name?" Lily asked.
"Not one you can pronounce," the woman scoffed, "You can choose one of those silly human ones Rose was assigning if you really like."
"May I call you Dahlia?" Lily asked, sitting down in front of the cage. Dahlia's petals and leaves had grown past the bars, overflowing like voluminous skirts. She shrugged.
"It's as good a name as any," the woman agreed, shrugging, "And you are?"
The Warrior's Proposal (Celestial Mates Book 7) Page 20
