Beneath the Veil

  "And what of Vermonte?"

  Daelyn closed his eyes briefly. "He's stiffening in some dark hallway right now, isn't he? I'd say let him rot there until someone finds him. 'Tis no more than he deserves, the bastard."

  I let a smile touch my lips. "Once he was your friend."

  "He was one of my lords. A member of my court. A companion. I tolerated his presence because sometimes it pleased me to do so. But he was never my friend."

  Daelyn crossed his arms over his chest and stared at me so long I blushed. I waited to hear more from him, but after a few moments of silence, he shrugged and left the privy chamber. I splashed some water on my face and rebraided my hair while I considered what I had said.

  When had I become so callous about murder?

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Vermonte's death caused a stir that lasted but a week or so before being replaced with news of much greater import. The Winter Revel. With the snow thick on the ground, it was time for Daelyn's annual party. Many men had begun planning their outfits only days after last season's event. An invitation, or lack of one, could make or break a man's social standing in the city.

  Daelyn had decided to cast this year as a Masquerade instead of a simple formal affair. The decision sent a new buzz throughout Alyria, this one about what sorts of costumes would be worn, the food and music that would be played, the reason for the Prince's change of tradition.

  Daelyn's reason was simple. He intended to assassinate Rosten at the Winter Revel. He was going to bring civil war to Alyria.

  "We've a short time until the Winter Revel." Daelyn looked around his court. I knew his look of boredom was feigned. His glance slid past Rosten, Adamantane and Simelbon without pause. "As you know, I've decided to give a prize for the best costume."

  "What's the prize, my lord?" Rosten took a sip from his wine and made sure everyone in the room had turned to look at him. "A ride on your oliphant?"

  Daelyn's smile seemed genuine enough. Perhaps it was. I'd learned his sense humor was unique. "Oh, goodness no. I can't tell you what the prize will be, but I can tell you this. The recipient of it will be written of in the history books."

  "Really." Rosten sat back and looked contemplative. "How so?"

  Daelyn wagged a finger at the Book Monster. "Ah, ah. Don't try to tempt me into giving away the secret just yet. You'll have to wait for it with all the others. Unless you plan to compete?"

  Daelyn left the question dangling in the air, and I saw clearly his cleverness in hooking Rosten's attention. Offer the greedy something they feel they can't live without, he had told me once. No matter how much they already have, they will always try for more.

  "You know I rarely attend such functions." Rosten settled in his chair with a smug grin. "Such frippery and foolery is not in my nature, my lord prince."

  "Pity." Daelyn shrugged as though he cared not in the least whether Rosten came to the revel. "For I would wager you, of all the lords in my court, would enjoy this prize most of all."

  Rosten's eyes gleamed, though he tried to hide his interest. "Now you intrigue me."

  " Good." Daelyn laughed. "Then I suggest you begin working on your costume."

  "And is there to be no hope at all of learning the prize?"

  Daelyn only grinned. "It's a secret, and a secret it will stay."

  "Then I'll have to be patient." Rosten's smile sent a chill down my spine. He got up from the table and made a leg toward Daelyn. "I beg your leave, my lord prince. I find the rigors of my recent activities taxing on these old bones."

  "You have it. Take better care of yourself. We'd hate to see you ruin yourself so early in your illustrious career."

  Rosten looked at Daelyn hard, perhaps to see if the prince mocked him. Daelyn had spoken the words with a straight face, however, and sincerity in his tone. Rosten nodded in response, and left the court.

  "'I find the rigors of my recent activities taxing,'" Daelyn said later, in the privacy of his chambers. "What a bastard. If I didn't want to stick the knife in him myself, I'd wish for him to keel over from his taxing activities this very eve!"

  The hairbrush in my hand paused on the downward stroke. I met his eyes in the mirror. "You plan to kill him yourself?"

  Daelyn's mouth pursed, and he toyed with some jewels strewn across the table in front of him. "By Sinder's Arrow, I would like to."

  "But you won't. The men of Alyria can't see you as Rosten's assassin, my prince. You'd never be able to hold them back. Everything we planned for would be ruined...."

  "Do you think I don't know that?" He twisted in his chair to look at me. "Think you to advise me on the ways of war, melon-seller?"

  "No, my prince." It hurt my tongue to bite it, but the alternative was to have an argument. "Of course not."

  He sniffed and turned back, then yanked the brush from me and waved me away. "You're bothering me. Go away."

  His words stung, no matter how hard I tried to pretend they didn't. I backed away with a silent nod and headed toward my niche. His next words stopped me.

  "I meant go away from me completely. Out of these rooms. I don't want to see you, or smell you, or hear you. I need to be alone, you dunce. Don't you understand that?"

  He was taunting to get a rise out of me. I'd learned better self-control than that. "As you wish, my prince."

  Without even taking a cloak, I left his rooms and went to the fight field. It would be night soon, and the field was bitterly cold, but I had the heat of my anger and distress to keep me warm. I grabbed two swords from the rack in the weapons room and swung them both as I moved along the frozen ground.

  Lir had had the pages clean the snow away from the grass, but it was still cold. Every step crunched. Ice gleamed in low spots where the snow had melted and refrozen. The footing was hazardous here, which was why Lir had taken the lads in his charge to working out in the gymnasium instead of outside.

  I put my weapons on the splintery wooden table and moved quickly through the poses of the Art. With my blood flowing, I became warm enough to work up a sweat. I moved faster, seeking to put Daelyn's cruel words from my mind. He didn't mean them. He did. He hated me. He loved me. I didn't care...but I did.

  I went from Coiled Serpent to Diving Hawk too fast, and my feet slid out from under me. I caught myself before I could fall all the way to the ground, but going to one knee was little better. With the leg of my trousers torn and dirty, I muttered a curse and got back to my feet.

  "Nice recovery."

  I looked to see Lir, bundled in clothing far more appropriate to this weather than mine. "You shouldn't sneak up on people."

  He laughed. "I didn't sneak. I must have called your name a quartet of times, Aeris. You simply didn't hear me."

  I swiped a hand across my forehead. "I plead your mercy. I was distracted."

  "Don't plead for me. I can see that. What's the matter?"

  "Nothing." I shook my head and kept pushing myself through the series of basic positions I'd learned first. I didn't want to get cold again. "I'm fine."

  "You don't look fine. You look pissed."

  I glared at him before softening a little. "It's Daelyn."

  "Ah. Say no more. I've often come out here for the very same reason. Here." He tossed me one of the swords and took up the other. "Go at it."

  "I was on my way to my chambers when I saw you." He tossed the words out casually, but as though I should make something of them. "I hadn't made any plans for this eve."

  "No?" I lunged, and he twisted away from me. "I'd planned to stay by the fire and drink some wine while I read a book. Instead, I was kicked out of Daelyn's chambers for daring to speak truthfully to him."

  We danced together as our blades flashed. "You must understand something, Aeris. Dae is under a lot of pressure recently. If his temper is short, that's why."

  I grunted, parried and thrust. He blocked it and made me twist to avoid one of his blows. "That's an excuse."

  "A good one..." he leaped toward me and I fell back
. "...don't you think?"

  "No!"

  "When you first came here you'd have been beating yourself with a wooden spoon for daring to think such a thing, much less saying it."

  "I was a fool when I first came here."

  "You think you're any less a fool now?"

  I let my sword drop as his whooshed past me. The force of Lir's blow carried him past me, and he turned, surprise stamped on his face. He lowered his weapon.

  "Aeris?"

  "Neither of you know anything about me at all." I spoke through clenched jaws. "You think you do. But you don't. You treat me like a child, or a pet, or a plaything, and I'm not."

  At the last his brows lifted. "I don't think any such thing, lad."

  "You dismiss me out of hand. You and him both." I spat on the ground and slashed at him so quickly I tore the edge of his full sleeve. "You laugh at me. Both of you do."

  His voice was full of surprise when he replied. "You can't really believe that, can you?"

  I slashed, harder. It was proof of how my words had affected him that I was able to knock the weapon from his hand and send it flying high enough in the air for me to reach out and catch it before it hit the ground. Now I held a sword in each hand.

  I made to return his blade to him, but Lir stopped me. "Wait." He took his own sword from his scabbard and motioned to me. "Let me see you try with two."

  "Fight with two swords at the same time?" The idea was intriguing and far from impossible. "Don't try to change the subject."

  "I've learned something about you. There's no changing your mind. No matter what I say or do, you're going to be bull-headed stubborn about it, and do what you like regardless. If you really think I hold you in so little regard as to make mockery of you, then I'm not going to try and change your thoughts. However, you stand there with two weapons, and I with one. I'm very interested to see if you can best me with that advantage."

  "You're challenging me?"

  "I am." Lir swished his blade through the frigid air. "Have at me, lad. If you can."

  Wielding two weapons was not as difficult as I might have imagined, not when I already had the use of both my hands. What I found most distracting was using both weapons in tandem, one after the other, to the best advantage of both. It didn't take me long to back Lir up against the wooden table, my blades at his throat.

  "Ha!"

  He didn't laugh. In the next moment he moved so fast I could have blinked and missed it. He had a dagger to my side. The point pricked me and I felt a spot of warmth before he withdrew it.

  "Be careful about getting so close to your enemy," he said as I moved back. "Other than that, you've done well."

  "Thank you."

  "And see?" He pointed to his mouth. "Nary a smile nor a laugh from me."

  Now that I was standing still, my body began to cool. Shivers swept over me. "I'll always remain a youth to you. I've grown up these past months. I'm not...I'm not a lad any more."

  If he guessed at what I was trying to say, he didn't acknowledge it. Instead, he shrugged. "Come on, then. Let's go inside. You look like you could use some wine and some warm clothes."

  We carried the swords back to the weapons room and left them in Ichabod's care. We stopped in the kitchen to grab a basket of fried fowl and biscuits, and a jug of ale. Then Lir took me back to his chambers.

  Though much smaller than Daelyn's, tonight I found them immensely more appealing. His folly had lit the fire and prepared the room for the evening with scented oil lamps and a tray of desserts. Lir rummaged in his drawers and pulled out a soft tunic and long trousers like the ones he wore, and told me to change in his privy chamber.

  The clothes smelled of him. As I slipped the tunic over my head, the soft fabric caressed me like the fingers of a lover. I shivered, though this time not from the chill. When I put his pants on, the waist too large and the legs too long, I imagined him wearing these before I had. My heart skipped and stuttered in my chest, and I splashed my face with chilly water to erase the sudden heat in my cheeks.

  "A bit overlarge for you, but not too bad." Lir had changed as well, into a looser shirt and pants, and soft slippers. His hair hung unbound around his shoulders, the ends a tangle from being too long braided.

  "Thanks for letting me wear them." I looked to his vanity table, far less elaborate than Daelyn's. I took up a brush. "Sit down."

  He lifted an eyebrow at me, but did as I asked. I ran the brush through the soft length of his dark hair. He winced at the tugging I gave at the ends, but said nothing. The whisper of the bristles filled the space between us and left no room for talking.

  His hair was like silk against my fingers, the back of my hand, the inside of my wrist. I wanted to tangle my body in it, to kiss it, to let it cover me. I did none of those things. I brushed and brushed instead, until it gleamed.

  I'd been forcing my attention to my task, so when I happened to look up and catch sight of Lir's eyes in the mirror, the heat in his eyes made me step back. Brush raised, I tried to look away, but he'd locked me into his gaze as quickly as a rabbit in a snare.

  "You look like I'm going to bite you." His voice was low. His gaze didn't move from mine.

  "No, my lord."

  That made him smile. "Aeris, you know you don't have to call me that any more."

  I had to call him that. Had to put the distance between us. The night we spent in Daelyn's bed rose all too clearly in my head. I couldn't use his name, else I'd be lost. I put the brush down on the small table so I wouldn't have to get close to him again.

  "I should go now. Daelyn might need me."

  "And if I need you?" He twisted in his chair to meet my eyes without even the small shield of a reflection between us. "What of that?"

  "I'm not your fetchencarry."

  Now Lir looked away. "I'm not talking about being my fetchencarry."

  His voice had dropped lower than his gaze, which made it easy for me to pretend I hadn't heard him. "I have to go. I'll send your clothes back."

  He didn't look up, but dismissed me with a wave. I backed away and reached the door, but though I put my hand on the knob, I couldn't force it to turn. My fingers bit into the cold metal. I didn't want to leave. I wanted to go to my knees in front of him, and let him do with me what he wished.

  Instead, I forced myself to open the door and pass through it without looking back.

  Chapter Forty

  Daelyn was already been abed when I returned to his chambers, and he rose uncharacteristically early. He made no mention of our disagreement the night before, but he did stare at me speculatively in the mirror while I brushed and braided his hair. When I had finished, he captured my hand as I put down the brush.

  "I was very tired last evening." It was the closest I'd ever heard to an apology from him.

  "Are you better-rested today, my prince?"

  He nodded and handed me a pot of cosmetic. "I believe I am. And you?"

  I'd spent a rather more fretful night, but I nodded. "Yes."

  "Good." He pursed his lips to allow me to spread the crimson lip paint on them. Then he turned back to the mirror to view the results. "Sinder's Balls, you've made me look like a whore."

  I couldn't help it; I laughed. His affronted tone had tickled my sense of humor in such an unexpected way, I lost control and guffawed until Daelyn twisted to face me with a frown.

  "What's so amusing?"

  "I plead your mercy. It's just that...you always wear this color lip paint. You don't look more like a whore today than you do any day."

  With a sniff he reached for a cloth and wiped his mouth. "Maybe that's true. But today I don't feel like a whore, and I don't want to look like one, either."

  He threw down the cloth. "The raising or lowering of my hand can decide if men will live or die, and I quake at the thought of dispatching one man only. One who deserves to die. Yet still the thought turns my stomach to stone."

  "You're not afraid of calling for his death. You're afraid of the consequences of it.
"

  He sighed deeply, then stood. I was struck again at how slight his build. I smoothed his braid over his shoulder and, acting on an impulse, I hugged him. For a moment he remained stiff in my arms, but after that he molded to me like he'd been born to my embrace.

  "Do you know how nice it is to have a friend?" His whispered words against my neck took me off guard. "A true friend? One I don't have to hide from?"