The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure - By Storm Constantine Page 0,129

Thiede had chosen well. Pellaz had dignity and respect for others. He would never lose his temper and end up yelling regrettable things in meetings like Ashmael often did. He had to meet new hara endlessly, as representatives from various tribes showed up in Immanion, wanting to be part of Thiede’s new world, and determined to be treated with the esteem they thought they deserved. Pellaz was always courteous to them and gave the appearance of being interested in everything they had to say. His generosity of spirit seemed limitless. In his place, Seel would have lost patience many times. As time went on, Pellaz inevitably became somewhat imperious, but his positive aspects more than outweighed his autocratic manner. The Tigron could not be a grovelling fool. He had to stand tall and proud. And he did.

Occasionally, Pellaz would mention Flick, in a cautious way, and say that perhaps he should look for him. ‘Don’t you wonder where and how he is?’ he asked Seel. ‘We are here, living a privileged life, and Flick should be also. He was a good friend to me at the beginning. He helped me through inception, and we don’t even know if he’s still alive.’

‘Let it go,’ Seel advised. ‘You knew a lot of hara before, Pell. You can’t look up every old friend. You are Tigron.’ Another thing Seel had kept from Pellaz was that Flick had left Saltrock to look for the Cevarro family.

‘Don’t you care about him any more?’

‘Of course I do, but sometimes, you know, you just have to walk away. It was over between him and me a long time ago. We weren’t that close, not really. Flick just grew up, I guess. He moved on.’ Seel didn’t mention that he believed Flick would have no desire to see him again. He still harboured guilt about the way he’d treated Flick in the past.

Eventually, Pellaz let the matter drop, but Seel knew he was rather puzzled by Seel’s apparent lack of concern.

A difficult time arose some months after Pell’s coronation when a har named Caeru Meveny turned up in Immanion, claiming to be the hostling of the Tigron’s son. Thiede, who had been looking out for a consort for Pellaz, leapt on this glad coincidence with the zeal of a famished tiger. While Pellaz was still reeling from the shock of Caeru’s arrival, he found himself bonded in blood to this virtual stranger, who should – in Pell’s words – have remained as nothing more than a one night stand, doomed to be forgotten. Pellaz was furious, because Thiede tricked him into taking Caeru as consort. Seel could not quite understand what had possessed Pellaz to create a pearl with a har he’d barely known, but Pell’s excuse was that he hadn’t realised how easy it would be for him to do it. It had happened very shortly after Pellaz had left Thiede’s ice palace, in a town en route to Immanion.

Now, in an almost indecently short space of time, Caeru had been installed as Tigrina of Immanion. Although Seel wasn’t that impressed by him, and Pellaz would quite happily have wrung his neck, the populace swiftly took him to their hearts. As Thiede pointed out, Caeru was perfect for the job. He had once been a singer in a band. He looked good, was an excellent performer in public and knew how to win over crowds. Pellaz, however, simply regarded him as an adventurer who had effectively stolen a place that was reserved – at least in Pell’s heart – for Cal. Seel had never seen Pellaz be hostile to a har before, nor could have imagined he was capable of it. He had always appeared to like every har he met, so the strength of his feelings, and the uncharacteristic behaviour they inspired, were shocking. His biased but eloquent opinions had a strong effect on Seel, who privately wondered whether his own antipathy towards the new Tigrina was also encouraged by the fact he had white gold hair like Cal’s.

Seel comforted and supported Pellaz through the first gruelling months of his bloodbond with Caeru, and it was as exhausting for Seel as it was the Tigron himself. Public appearances were horrific. Caeru was a strange mixture of heart-broken grief and calculating manipulativeness. He was either a besotted wretch or very clever, because Seel never saw him do anything but try to please Pellaz and win him over. Hara noticed this. They witnessed Pell’s steely distant demeanour and