Beneath the Veil Read online

  Lir gave him a leg and left the room. Daelyn turned to me. "I'll need to change my clothes."

  I was already at the armoire. He balked at the footwear.

  "I thought, being around animals, you might not wish to wear anything you could ruin." I grabbed the shoes he threw at me. They'd been cobbled of heavy, tooled leather, with cord ties and thick but sturdy soles. "Animals make a lot of mess."

  "If you mean shite, Aeris, I'm well aware of the amount of feces I can expect while visiting my menagerie. Think you the Prince Regent of Alyria can not afford to replace a pair of beshited shoes?"

  "Of course you can. I just thought you might not want to." I looked down at my own practical footwear. "You could wear boots."

  I might have thought I'd slapped his face, so loud was his gasp. "Never! Mother's Milk, Aeris, how dare you! Boots are for riding and hunting, two occupations I thoroughly enjoy, but which I am not participating in at the moment. Boots? No."

  His affronted look made me laugh, I couldn't help it. To be so upset over a pair of shoes seemed ridiculous to me, yet somehow endearing. He raised one eyebrow at me.

  "How many changes of clothing have you ever had in your life?"

  I looked toward the small niche he'd given me for my own, and the wardrobe beside it. "Four, until I came here."

  "One for wash and one for wear, one for here," he pointed at the ground, "and one for there." To the ceiling.

  I nodded. "My uncle took me in as his ward when his brother died because he hadn't yet spawned sons of his own. When his own sons were born, he obviously gave them more than me."

  "In my employ, I expect you to always be impeccably attired. It is the duty of the male to provide color and beauty, is it not? To flaunt what the Prince from the Land Above gave us? Show off our balls?" Daelyn grabbed himself between the legs. "That is our purpose, isn't it, as men?"

  I thought he was jesting again, but his tone was serious. "I suppose so, my prince."

  He snorted. "It’s a foolish, foolish thing, fashion. And yet, I derive great pleasure from putting on fine clothes, from wearing cosmetics, from having my hair brushed and fixed. Imagine this, Aeris." His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "In other countries, the women are the purveyors of fashion."

  I thought of the books high on his shelf, and the posters circulating throughout the city. "Once, in Alyria, it was the same."

  "But that was a long time ago. Much has changed since then."

  "And not all for the better?" I avoided his eyes as I busied myself with hanging his discarded clothes. When I looked up, he was studying me.

  "I think we'll leave that question unanswered," Daelyn said. "For now."

  Chapter Nineteen

  Two days passed, and my hand healed enough to return to practice. I found a pair of brand new sword gloves in my wardrobe, and I took that to mean I had Daelyn's approval. I tried them on. They fit perfectly. Wearing them made me grin.

  "Go on," he told me over his breakfast tray. "I know you want to."

  "If you need me –"

  "Aeris." His voice stopped me from saying more. "If I need you, I know where you'll be. Now go. Lir gets angry if he's kept waiting. And I've got other things to occupy my time."

  I reached for his hand and kissed it. Daelyn made a soft noise of surprise, then laid his hand on my cheek. He stared at me for a long moment.

  "Lir is the best teacher you could ask for," he said at last. "I pray you'll never need to be as good as he. But you should at least have the chance to try."

  Confused at his words, I stepped back from his chair. "I'd like to be good at something."

  "Wouldn't we all?" came his enigmatic reply, and he dismissed me.

  My heart was light as I left his quarters and made my way to the fight field. The day had dawned bright, but chilly, with a stiff breeze that made me blink against it. For the first time since coming to the White Palace, I felt a sense of purpose and belonging. I was finding my place with Daelyn. I was learning a serviceable skill. I was...home.

  I passed the lad who worked in the armory and paused to help him push the rack of weapons through the gates of the courtyard. "Good morn, Ichabod. A fine, bright, day, isn't it?"

  The boy nodded and grinned. "Is you gonna beat master Lir again today? That was some kind of special, what you done."

  "I doubt I'll be able to." I shaded my eyes for a moment and caught sight of Lir. He'd stripped off his shirt and was doing a series of exercises in the middle of the field. "It would be difficult to surprise him the same way twice."

  "I think it's right hard to surprise him once," said Ichabod with a grin.

  I left the lad to set out the weapons, and I went to meet Lir. I didn't interrupt him, only watched. His skin already gleamed with sweat as he put his body through the various positions I recognized as the Art. There were more fashionable fight styles, but the Art was the oldest.

  I watched Lir move through the forms, and marveled to myself how movements so gentle and graceful could become so deadly. The Art is fluid and sweeping, with positions named after animals. The Standing Heron. The Crouching Dragon. The Leaping Cat. Every motion of his hands, his arms, his legs, brought a clear picture of the beast and its action, and every one was designed to provide offense or defense.

  He caught sight of me, but continued his motions until he'd finished the final set. He swiped a hand across his brow. His smile was like the sun, and I had to turn lest it blind me the same way.

  "Good morn," he greeted as he strode toward me. He gave a glance at the sun. "Daelyn got up early today."

  "And he let me join you." I smiled somewhat unwillingly, but couldn't hold it back. "He said...he hopes I never need to fight as well as you, but that you're the best teacher for me if I'm going to learn."

  "He's very fond of you."

  I stretched beside him. "I'm his fetchencarry."

  "He wouldn't have chosen you from the market if there wasn't something about you he liked." Lir took a short sword from the rack and held up its edge to the morning sun.

  I worked my muscles until they began to feel pleasantly warm. "Why are you being so nice to me?"

  He looked surprised. "What? Why by Sinder's Arrow should I not be nice to you?"

  I opened and closed my fingers to limber them. "You don't like me."

  "Is that what you think?" He laughed and tossed me the sword, which I caught neatly in my left hand. "I'm not so nice to Daelyn, and I love him."

  His admission made me bite my lip in embarrassment. "That's not my business."

  He gave me a narrow-eyed glance. "No, it's not. But I told you. And as for me being nice –" He grabbed his own sword and put me on point. "I'm about to stop."

  He lunged, and I countered. He was faster than I, still stiff from a night's sleep. He slashed again, and his blade swiped at my sleeve. We'd begun to dance.

  Lir had longer arms and a longer blade, but it was to my advantage because once I got inside his reach I could stay there and jab at him, and he had no recourse. Not with traditional sword methods, at least, which is all he'd taught me. With the Art, he had some other options.

  Without letting go of his blade, he countered one of my strikes with his free fist. It caught my wrist as I leaned in to jab him. My blade dropped from the sudden numbness in my fingers. Moments later, pain blossomed from the numbness. In that brief span of time, he'd taken my wrist and whirled me around until my back was against his chest and his blade nudged my throat.

  "Teach me that move." I swallowed and felt the sting of his steel on my skin.

  "The Art is a discipline, Aeris, not just a move." He released me. "It takes many, many hours of work and practice. Some men never master it."

  I put my fingers to the spot where his sword had nicked me. Blood painted my fingertips, and I drew them down the white sleeve of my shirt in three straight lines. "Teach me."

  "First, show me what you think you know."

  I could have been awkward and fumbling, with only m