Falling Shadows (The Ellocea chronicles) [#Wattys2016]

Seventeen

Sending out Kahlil with a messenger party had felt silly to Zahni. He'd always imagined asking her to come to the palace himself and he hated the horrible feeling of waiting for them to return, them knowing all the while what his fate would be. It felt like an intrusion, he felt even more violated when they returned and he could tell by the sympathetic tilt of Kahlil's mouth what the answer had been. He'd tried to argue with his father that he could go and convince her but the Kahn had been unmovable. The pain her answer inflicted made him feel as if he'd lost a part of himself, like a chunk had been taken away from his heart whilst the rest of it slowly and painfully froze.

He hadn't moved from his position at the window for a good couple of hours, thinking over how they could have asked the wrong girl or misheard her. Disbelief was bubbling in his chest and before he could calm himself down he went to find Kahlil, not ready to give up hope. The middle aged man was standing in the throne room having a conversation with the Kahn, not wanting to address his father just yet Zahni decided to wait until he was finished and talk to him outside the room.

He leant against the wall and stared out the window at the winding river below. He was constantly being impressed by the design of the Palace how each window had its own view over the valley. From here he could see the far side of the valley and the looming silhouette of the mountains in the distance. He sat there long enough to watch the sun sink lower and lower, growing more orange the closer to the horizon it got, just as it was about to touch the faded purple of the distant land, he heard a set of footsteps behind him, Kahlil leaving the throne room. He scrambled off the window ledge and jogged to catch up with the striding man.

"Oh, good evening Zahni, what can I do for you?" He saw the look of tiredness in his warm eyes and noticed that the lines around them seemed to have become deeper in times of late. Zahni was pleased to hear that he had finally agreed to call him by his shortened name and not his full title, they'd had many arguments over the topic and this made Zahni slightly concerned as he wondered if Kahlil was only doing so to avoid an argument. Unsure about whether to bother the man he hesitated before speaking.

"Its... about the girl I met in the forest,"

"Ah," hoping he would carry on Zahni waited, but Kahlil didn't seem in the mood for doing much talking.

"I just need to know, what did she say exactly?"

"Well she didn't say that much on the matter to be honest, she seemed a bit speechless. It was her father talking at first but when we brought up the matter he seemed to go into shock or something, a weird grumbling sound coming from his throat," Kahlil's nose scrunched up in apparent unease at the memory, "it was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. Anyway, we thought we'd gone to the wrong house but then the girl appeared, although she's really more of a lady, Zahni." raising his eyebrows in mock scorn, Zahni smiled faintly, too eager to hear the rest to take part in jokes, "she came to the door and answered the questions, you had suggested. She answered them all correctly and matched your description of her so we could be sure that she was the one. Then her Father reappeared before she answered and made it perfectly clear that she wouldn't want to marry you," Zahni felt the flicker of hope catch light at Kahlil's words. "Why do you look like you just won at cards?"

"You just said she never answered...? "

"No I didn't-"

"Yes. You did. You said 'her father' answered." Kahn's face split into a huge grin and he could almost hear the groan come from Kahlil before he continued. "Then she never said no! Her Father may have but I wasn't asking him."

"Zahni!" all hints of playfulness gone from his tone. "You cannot take away a bride without her father's permission."

"No but I can wait." He replied with indignation.

"Wait for what?"

"For him to change his mind." A look of defiance masked Zahni's face.

"Zahni have you really thought about this? There are many things in this palace that need your attention and all of them seem slightly more important than a woman, is she really worth all of this?" Kahlil asked a hint of doubt in his eyes.

His words hit a chord a Zahni knew he was speaking sense but he just couldn't bring himself to try and deal with those matters when he could barely concentrate without thinking of her. He pushed down the slight feeling of doubt and knew he was doing the right thing.

"Definitely."