Beneath the Veil Read online

  Another set of lighted lines showed we'd reached a doorway. Daelyn didn't pause, just pulled at a niche set into the wood and the door opened. He ducked through. I hesitated long enough to make Lir poke my back to get me moving, but I waited a moment longer even than that.

  I suspected something shocking lay within the room before me. Exactly what, I couldn't be sure, but I knew it had to be illegal and dangerous enough to make a prince seek it through a hidden passage. The trouble was, I couldn't envision anything so corrupt that the Prince Regent of Alyria would have to hide his participation in it.

  My mind had danced with visions of witchcraft, sorcery, black-market slave trading. What I saw instead made the floor seem to fall out beneath me as I stepped through the door. I stopped, stunned into immobility. I heard a ringing in my ears and sparks fluttered in my vision; I'd forgotten, for a moment, to breathe.

  I'd never seen so many women in one place. They draped themselves on stone benches around a warm, bubbling pool, and knelt on giant cushions in front of low tables piled high with delicacies. They lingered in doorways leading to rooms I couldn't see and leaned on stone walls hung with embroidered tapestries.

  They were young, most of them, with slim, firm bodies and laughing, shining faces. I could see this because none of them wore a kedalya. In fact, most of them wore nothing at all.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I was completely unprepared for the sight of so many women unclothed...and so many men making love to them. I stumbled forward, not certain where to cast my eyes, and managed to trip over my own feet. I made a bumbling fool of myself, but I didn't fall. Everyone turned to look at me. Conversation ceased, then began again, the flutter and stutter of it like the sound of lambs bleating in a springtime field.

  Women's voices, raised in normal tones, not hushed and deferential. Laughing. Teasing. Flirting.

  "Have a drink. It might cool down the fire in your ears."

  I refused the tankard. "I'm not thirsty."

  His gaze sharpened. "I'm only trying to be nice –"

  "You're mocking me." The words blurted out, but I felt better for having said them.

  He looked to where Daelyn had already cast off his fur and was turning around to the ooh's and ahh's of admiration. When he looked back to me, his mouth had thinned in anger. "I'm not mocking you. You looked like you might faint. I thought you might like something to drink."

  I shook my head. "No."

  He shrugged, then downed the liquid in a few quick gulps. He held out the empty tankard, and a woman appeared to take it. I was used to women anticipating men's needs, but not like this. She simpered and held up her cheek for a kiss, which, to my surprise, Lir gladly gave. When she turned to take away his empty tankard, he palmed her naked buttocks and made her giggle.

  "You act like you've never seen a naked woman before," he said.

  "Sinder's Arrow, no!" Again, my mouth spoke before my mind could restrain it.

  He ran a hand over his chin. "Daelyn thought you sympathetic to women, else he'd not have had you join us tonight."

  "I don't think women deserve to be treated like animals," I said with as much dignity as I could manage. "But making love to one is different."

  "I wasn't suggesting anything," Lir said. "Daelyn wanted you to come. You're here. How you choose to spend your evening is of no consequence to me."

  With that, he left me. I stood, lost, in the center of a room filled with naked and near-naked people. Daelyn might have thought he was doing me a favor, but at that moment I would gladly have crawled under one of the large floor cushions and hid my face forever.

  "Aeris, come, let me introduce you to some people." Daelyn appeared, his cheeks flushed and his lipstick already a smeared mess.

  He linked his arm through mine and showed me off as his new fetchencarry. The men nodded at me without much interest, then turned back to the women draped on their laps. Daelyn tutted and pulled me toward a knot of women stretched out on warm benches heated by coal braziers beneath.

  He turned me to face him, and stared seriously into my eyes. "You know what would happen if this were discovered. I don't need to tell you of the danger."

  I wanted to ask him why he sought it, when he could have had any man in any of the provinces, but I held my tongue. "I understand, my prince."

  He shook his head. "I don't think you do. There is a war beginning in Alyria. It's my hope it will not be a bloody one, but in war one can never tell."

  "A war?" I was alarmed.

  He dismissed me in his casual way. "Posters and pamphlets are nothing. There is more –"

  Before he could continue, a young woman clad in a diaphanous nightrail sidled up to him and slid her hand along his waist. "I was hoping you'd come tonight."

  "I was hoping I'd come tonight, too," Daelyn replied with a laugh at his own pun. Without another glance at me, he was off. "Find something to amuse yourself, Aeris."

  Amuse myself? I was overwhelmed. I figured we were in a bathhouse, the only place in Alyria men were forbidden to go. It looked little different from the men's bathing houses but for the line of hooks along one wall holding a row of brown and black kedalyas, indistinguishable from one to the next.

  I found a place to sit, alone, in a corner. The air in the room was heavy with warmth and moisture, but despite the casual nudity of nearly everyone else in the room, I did not dare even loosen my collar. Sweat beaded on my brow and dripped down the sides of my face, and it trickled down my spine to pool unpleasantly in the crack of my buttocks.

  My stomach clenched with nervousness for a while, but nobody bothered me. I watched the men and women talking and laughing as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Couples paired off and left and came back later with rosy cheeks and satisfied smiles.

  I grew brave enough to help myself to some food and drink, though I let the small rolled cigarettes alone. I'd never acquired a taste for herb, which was supposed to expand one's consciousness. It only made me sleepy.

  "My name's Galya. What's yours?"

  The young woman had sleek, cropped curls as dark as midnight, and merry brown eyes. Her teeth were white and evenly spaced inside parted ruby lips, and her skin was the color of tea. She held out her hand to me, and I took it without thinking. Her fingers were warm and calloused.

  "I'm Aeris."

  She smiled. "You're with Dae, yes?"

  Her casual address of the Prince Regent took me aback. "I'm his fetchencarry."

  She nodded and squeezed my fingers. "He sent me over here to take care of you."

  "Oh, but I –" my protests cut off when she slid onto my lap.

  I held her awkwardly. Her breasts pushed against my chest, and her skin was warm and soft beneath my palms. Galya touched my nose with the tip of her finger.

  "This is your first time?"

  I nodded, uncertain of what to do. My head spun at the scent of her, the feel of her, the sight of her face. If I passed her on the street I would never have known the curve of her smile.

  "With a woman?"

  I nodded again and felt heat paint my face.

  "With anyone?"

  Another nod and more heat.

  She didn't laugh at me. Instead, she lifted my chin until I met her gaze. "I will take good care of you."

  "No, I –"

  She silenced me with a kiss. Her tongue slipped delicately between my lips. Startled, my hands clenched on her hips hard enough to make her squirm. She pulled away and looked puzzled.

  "Please," I said, breathless. "I'm not...I don't..."

  Galya blinked and spoke in a flat tone. "You don't like women."

  I shook my head. "You wouldn't understand."

  She tilted her head to look at me curiously. "You're afraid?"

  I pushed her gently until she got up from my lap, and I stood. My heart was thudding so hard I was certain she could hear it. I swallowed, uncertain what to say. Her kiss had sent liquid fire shooting through my veins. My body responded...but my mind was b