Beneath the Veil Read online

"I told you, my feelings for you haven't changed, no matter what clothes you wear. Don't you understand how it feels for me to look at the marks on your skin and know how much they hurt you? I wasn't able to protect you there, and I vowed I'd never let anything like that happen to you again. Just because we're in Elitan doesn't mean you can wander all over the place."

  "And just because we've fucked doesn't give you the right to treat me like you own me."

  His jaw tightened. "Is that all it was to you?"

  "Is that all it was to you?" I shot back, challenging.

  "You know better," he replied in a low voice.

  "I don't know anything." I pushed past him, went to the dresser and pulled out a shirt and tunic and pants. I dressed quickly, grateful to have something familiar to put on, even if it was too large.

  "Aeris –"

  "Maybe you'd be better off with Mara," I interrupted.

  I hated the grin that spread across his face. "Is that what all of this is about? Mara? You're jealous."

  "That's not what all of this is about. If you think it is, then you're an even more vainglorious cockswain than I ever thought."

  "You don't mean that."

  I forced my voice to remain calm, though inside I felt like crying. "All I know is that everything I ever believed about myself has been turned upside down. I don't know who I am anymore. I don't know what I'm supposed to do, or how to act, or who I'm supposed to love."

  "I can help you."

  "By treating me like a porcelain doll that will shatter if she's handled with too rough a hand? No, thank you."

  "Do you think it's any easier for me?" He asked angrily.

  I met his eyes. "Yes, I do. In Elitan, you have everything you ever wanted. You can be yourself. You can follow your heart. I think it is easier for you."

  He nodded, after a moment. "So, what do we do now?"

  "I'm going to ask Carinda for my own room. I think that's best, for now."

  It clearly wasn't the answer he expected or wanted. "If that's what you want."

  He had stiffened like a man who's been kicked in the balls, and my heart twisted. I went to the door but paused with my hand on the knob.

  "I want to know who I am, Lir. Not as Daelyn's fetchencarry, and not as your folly. I want to know who I am."

  He said nothing, and I took that as my cue to leave.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Elitan had no formal fight field, but I found the glass-enclosed garden a wonderful place to practice on my own. The warmth of the sun and the fragrance of the flowers could make me forget the winter outside, if not the winter in my heart. I trained hard every morning, perfecting moves I would soon have to teach others.

  In the afternoons I went to Carinda's library to learn of Elitan's history and how it connected with Alyria's, or I went to the palace gymnasium where Lir was once again teaching the Art. I knew my presence wasn't welcome there but couldn't seem to stay away. On the field, at least, we were once again student and master.

  The evenings I spent sometimes with Daelyn so Galya could have time to bathe and eat without worrying. Sometimes I spent the time with Carinda, Gerard, Lir and the other members of her security council, talking about how we were going to attack Alyria. Sometimes I caught Lir looking at me, his face a careful mask, his eyes blank. I avoided looking at him. I didn't like to see the face of the man I loved looking at me as though I didn't exist.

  The nights I spent alone in my bed. I had offers of company. It seemed I was something of an oddity in Elitan. Men wanted me because I wasn't like the other women. Women wanted me for the same reason. I refused all offers, no matter how persistent, until they began to dwindle.

  I carved out a place for myself. An existence, if not a life. I tried not to dwell overmuch on my happiness or unhappiness, as that no longer seemed to matter. Instead, I concentrated on the problem of going to war with Alyria.

  "We just don't have the numbers," I said at last, one evening when we all discussed endlessly the logistics of moving an army over the mountains without alerting Rosten's troops. "Even if we could get in unnoticed, what would we do when we got there?"

  "We need information." Carinda sipped from her mug of warmed wine and reached out to toy idly with Gerard's short hair.

  I watched them surreptitiously, still fascinated at the free and easy interplay between men and women. Carinda sighed and tapped her teeth with one long, shaped fingernail. Gerard filled her mug again. The smile she gave him was so full of warmth it made me look away.

  "Daelyn would have an idea of what to do." Lir spoke from his corner. It had been so long since I'd seen his smile I wasn't sure any longer if he had one.

  "Too bad Daelyn can't help us, then," I snapped.

  Carinda's gaze flickered from me to Lir. "Indeed. Would that my sister came out of her funk, but since it doesn't seem as though she's going to, we can't rely on her assistance. How are the forces coming along?"

  "Your men are eager to learn Alyrian variations on the Art. And some of your women, too." Lir's voice was cold. "Some have an innate talent we can use, Carinda. Others will be more useless in the fight than not."

  "How can you say that?" I retorted hotly. "Don't discount them just because they're female!"

  He fixed me with a solid glare. "Don't put words in my mouth."

  I turned to Carinda. "It's true a lot of them are still too timid with their weapons and with the positions. They're better at defense than offense, but can you blame them? They've spent their lives unable to do more than expect to be attacked without being able to defend themselves!"

  "Regrettable, but of no use to us in war." Lir helped himself to some of the wine and gestured to the queen. "Your soldiers are well fit and eager to battle. The women –"

  "Can be trained more," I finished and fixed him with a hot stare. "They can. They can do this. More importantly, they want to do this."

  "No woman will ever be as strong as a man," Lir replied with a casual shrug I knew he gave to set my teeth on edge. It worked. "No matter how much she trains. It's physical nature. It's just the way it is."

  Carinda looked back and forth again, her mouth quirked into a half-smile. "How interesting to see the dove go after the hawk, instead of the other way around."

  "Are you saying no woman can beat a man in a fair fight?" I challenged.

  "That's what I'm saying."

  "You know that's not true," I told him. "I've beaten men."

  "Against a man woozy with herb and worm, yes. Against soldiers already flustered from an attack, yes. But in a battle? One to one? I'm sorry, Aeris, you've got more skill than most students I've trained. And you're strong, I'll grant you that. But you've been training much longer than these women have, longer than we have time to give them. Even with that, when it comes to a one to one fight with a soldier trained for war, you'd lose."

  I shook my head. My heart twisted at his words, which I thought he spoke not from belief, but from desire to wound me. "I can beat you, one to one."

  He laughed in my face. Maybe his reaction stemmed from his own hurt feelings, but it could not have hurt me more had he spat in my face. "I'd like to see you try."

  "Is that a challenge?"

  I wanted him to say no. I wanted him to kiss me. I wanted to close my eyes and open them to his smile instead of his scowl, but I could have none of those things, and of my own doing.

  Again, he laughed, and again, my heart was stabbed like with a knife. "No challenge. I don't want to hurt you."

  "Don't you?" I asked quietly.

  "Oh, don't fight," Carinda said in a voice so much like Daelyn's it made me want to weep. "You two should be friends."

  I don't know if the queen knew what had passed between us. Her words, I'm sure, were meant to placate. Instead, they moved me to close in on him, to stand toe to toe, to challenge him again.

  "Now's your chance," I told him.

  Lir took a deep breath, his face serious. "Don't do this."

  "I can fight you, and