Luís’s Reviews > Acacia: The War with the Mein > Status Update

With that, she moved away, leaving Mena standing as the procession passed around her. She felt a person beside her and knew it to be Melio when he slipped his hand into hers and asked if she was well. Mena was not sure how to respond. Watching Corinn's back as she receded, she realized that she had not fully acknowledged the world as it was now to be and who was to rule it. (...)

Corinn said that he would give him no trouble. He was secured. He was waiting. Nodding, Rialus turned and moved toward the passageway. "Yes," he said, barely audible, "this I can do, Princess, if it is what you wish." He walked short, hesitant steps, a man dazed by an act of fortune so complete he had never imagined it and doubted it yet.

When nobody responded, he raised his voice and shouted the command as loudly as possible. This time, they - and he - heard his voice.

He jerked his spyglass from the newcomers back to his army. The visual impact of this was all it took. He realized what it was. He only mulled it a moment. That was how long it took him to become as sure of it as if he had trained the beasts. He whispered it to Kelis, then lifted his voice to shout it to the others.

The two sat for a time after this, with nothing more to say now that they had shared what they both knew and had known all along. Hanish extended his hand and motioned for the pipe. Haleeven turned it and slipped it into his hands.

He nodded. He did understand. As she pointed out, she was not the empty beauty that he had imagined her to be. There was much behind her face that he'd not been aware of before. She was, he realized, something he'd never considered her to be. Dangerous. That's what she was. He did not know precisely how he could not imagine what power she wielded, yet he now believed she was not a woman to be crossed.

Then, the man moved toward him. He was fluid and strong in motion, like a Talayan runner—a warrior, after all, then. He wore a sword at his side, a gently curved blade, unlike anything Dariel had seen in Talay. But there was nothing aggressive in the man's motions. He walked with his chest exposed, arms held out to either side. (...)

"No," Mena said. "Not them ... I promised the goddess wouldn't take their second child."
Vaminee snapped his head toward her. "Foolish gift! That promise was not yours to make. Look these two in the face and see the results of your false pride."

"Believe what you like, lord. The truth remains what it is."
Meander drew a stool up close to the former Marah, smiling like a friend who arrived to share a drink. "Tell me more about it, then," he said. "When did you see the princess last?"

This was again open to the public and humourous enough to pass as a Numrek joke. Rialus felt a hand slap his back. He sat, smarting from the blow, as the beasts around him heaved with merriment. Once again, Rialus Neptos is the butt of other men's jokes. This could not go on. There had to be a way for him to better his life. There had to, had to, had to be away. He would find it or die trying. (...)