by Megan Hart
My clothes must have stunned him as much as they had everyone else, because he stared at me for a long time without moving toward me. His gaze took me in from the top of my head to the tips of my velvet slippers peeking out from beneath my skirts. Despite myself, I looked for a sign he was pleased by what he saw. I couldn't read his expression. He didn't look enticed, as Madame Zillah had promised. I imagined a flash of disappointment in his eyes, and bit down on my lip hard enough to make my eyes water. It was one thing to appear a fool in front of the court of Elitan. Quite another to look that way in front of Lir.
At last he took a step toward me but was blocked by a quartet of men who appeared to be asking him some complicated question about swordsmanship. Lir gave me another look before bending his head to their discussion. I stood, uncertain of what to do next.
"He'll be there all night, if I know him," said a soft female voice from beside me.
I hadn't noticed the woman Mara gliding up next to me like a swan on still water. She simpered and cast a coquettish look in Lir's direction. I turned to face her.
"Your pardon?" My words were more slurred than I'd expected them to be.
She gave me a look of studied innocence. "Ah, I'd forgotten you know him well too. Then you know that he'll spend most of his time discussing fighting with those gentleman until Her Majesty calls everyone into the music room to listen to her niece Fortuna play the pianoforte. Then he'll either fall asleep listening or trying to convince someone to..." She giggled, her gloved hand over her mouth in a false attempt to hold in the laughter. "To provide him some other amusement."
I tightened my jaw. "Your pardon, my lord, but it's never been my pleasure to attend a function like this with Lord Akean before."
She blinked, her mouth spread into a smile she no longer tried to hide. I'd addressed her with the right level of respect but the wrong title. I wasn't used to using the word lady in any context.
"Surely you jest," she said at last with a wrinkle of her nose. "I am the least mannish woman in here. I believe that honor would go to you, Mistress Delaya."
She emphasized my title, which was as incorrect as the one I'd given her. She looked down at my gown and raised her eyebrows. "What a charming ensemble you've put together. Tell me something, Mistress. Do you piss standing up like a man, too? And do you take it in your back hole, like I've heard the men of Alyria do?"
The venom in her words was coated with sugar but fatally poisonous nonetheless. I swallowed. She couldn't know anything about me, and I wasn't about to give her the pleasure.
She gave a pretty pout. "No answer? Rat got your tongue? Pity. I'd heard you were quite bright, and attractive too. Too bad that's wrong on both accounts."
I took a step back. I didn't ask her who had been telling tales about me, as it didn't matter and I didn't care. I looked again at Lir, but he was still immersed in his conversation.
She gripped my elbow suddenly and fiercely. Her nails dug into my skin through the material of my sleeve, but the grasp was covered by the fall of lace covering her hand. She squeezed, harder, until pain shot up my arm. "I've had him before, and I'll have him again. He might have taken pity on you because of your ordeal, but that's over now. You're in Elitan, not Alyria, in case you hadn't noticed, and most men fuck women here. Find yourself a woman who's not so particular and go back to being the man you obviously still are. I intend to have Lir Akean for my own!"
Her grip was easy to throw off. It was even easier to twist her offending hand around her back and force her face down into a puddle of silk and lace on the floor. I didn't have to drop and place my knee between her shoulders to keep her down...but it felt blessedly wonderful to do so.
She flailed but couldn't move. Her scream, thin and desperate, rose from beneath the layers of clothing between us. I'd moved so silently I don't think anyone in the room would have even noticed me taking her down, had she not screamed, but unlike a man who would have taken his defeat with dignity, Mara squealed and squirmed like a kitten plucked from its mother's teat.
"What happened?"
"Did she fall?"
"Is she ill?"
The lords and ladies flocked to us immediately. I got up, but left Mara to struggle to her feet on her own. She stood, her face flushed and her cosmetic smeared, and her gown in complete disarray. I laughed even though my stomach swam sickly from the drink and conflict, and she turned on me with a shriek.
"She...she struck me down!" Her cry echoed through the crowded room and brought an even greater crowd to gawk. She shook her finger her face going even darker red with rage. "That monster hit me! A lady! Without provocation!"
All eyes turned to me, and I felt my own cheeks heating. Worst of all, I saw Lir looking at me, then at Mara. I stepped away, ashamed I had fought such an unworthy opponent. There was no pride in taking down a defenseless foe.
I heard murmurs of concern all around me, and I stepped further back. I only wanted to escape the crowd before I lost my stomach, or began to cry. Mara wasn't content to let me slip away. She advanced on me. Maybe she gathered courage from the crowd. More probable she underestimated me.
She slapped my cheek so hard my entire body twisted and dipped to the side. By the time I turned myself upright, I was already focusing the Art and moving toward her. I grabbed both her hands, which had been upraised to slap at me again. I pulled them down so her body bent at the waist. Then I pulled them out, forced her body to turn, and I put her down again. This time I didn't pull the force of my hands, and she hit the floor without my arm beneath her chest to cushion the landing. This time, her scream was real.
I got off her immediately and moved away. The crowd parted around me like I had the plague. I guess to them, I did. I didn't bother looking for Lir, and I didn't wait to see what damage had been done by the floor to Mara's smooth skin and formerly unbent nose. I left the parlor, and I left the palace, and I ran until I found the street outside.
Chapter Forty-Nine
It didn't escape my attention that I'd been doing a lot of running. The cold air outside did wonders for my hot cheeks, though, and cleared my head. I slowed to a walk after several blocks and looked around. The area around Elitan's palace wasn't much like Regent's Square in Alyria. Instead of poetry houses and merchant stores, the buildings were smaller and interspersed with empty plots of land. These were cottages and some larger houses, surrounded by land that in the springtime would probably be planted with produce and flowers. Some shops stood here and there, their windows dark now, but this seemed more a residential district.
I paused at the gate of one small house made of stone, with a thatched roof. Flickering firelight lit the windows. Without thinking, I moved to peer in the window. Three women sat in front of a blazing fire. A table held the remains of a meal. Two small boys and a bigger girl played with a spinning top on the floor near the women, and a fourth woman entered the room with a bundle in her arms as I watched. She took a seat in the rocking chair and lifted her baby to her breast. The sight of it, the mother nursing her child, knocked the breath from me with its poignant beauty. Here in Elitan, these women didn't have to fear for their daughters.
One of the children looked up and pointed at the window, an expression of surprise on his small face. I moved back, aware I'd been spying on them. I'd been seen. As I moved toward the street, the door opened and one of the women called out:
"Mistress? Are you well?"
They had opened the door to a stranger. I marveled at the trust they had. I was even more surprised by her next words.
"Master Delaya? Is that you?"
She'd addressed me as master, despite my shorn head and women's clothes. I looked at her. "I am Aeris Delaya."
She let out a gasp and flew through the cold night to greet me. "Your face and eyes, I thought I knew them, but the rest...come in! You must come in!"
She took my hands and pulled me inside the warmth of her house. The children goggled. The other women rose to their feet, their expressions welcoming.<
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"You don't know us, do you?" said the one who'd brought me inside. She urged me to sit by the fire and began to chafe my frozen hands.
"You helped get us out of Alyria, my..." she paused and looked over my clothes, then finished the sentence with wonder in her tone. "My lady."
They all took their seats again. I sipped the tea they gave me. I looked at them, each one, then at the children who'd gone back to their game.
"You helped us escape Alyria. Some of us, anyway, though the others were helped as well." The first one nodded vigorously. "I'm Iylia, and that's Taltey, Narnya, Felissa, Merriny." She pointed to the one nursing the babe. "And the children."
I looked around the cottage. "You all live together, here?"
Ilyia smiled. "Her Majesty gave us this house to live in. She's given us jobs to do. Jobs we get paid to do, my l--lady." She laughed. "Forgive me for laughing, but –"
I looked down at the gown, ruined now by slush and mud. "Don't apologize. I'm a sorry sight."
Felissa shook her head. "Oh, no. That's a lovely dress." She looked down at her own gown, a lovely dark blue, simple but flattering. "Truth to tell, I never thought a piece of material could make me feel so good."
"Why, when a piece of cloth could make you feel so bad?" Taltey plucked at her own skirt, then looked up at me. "We burned our follyblankets when we got here. Thanks to you, we'll never have to hide our faces again."
I shook my head. The tea and warm fire had chased away the last of my liquor-fuzziness. "I can't take all the credit. You have others to thank, too."
Narnya lifted one of the boys onto her lap and kissed him until he squirmed to get down. "'Twas your bravery that helped us get here."
"And now we know the truth, we can see you were even braver than we thought." Ilyia leaned forward to touch my skirt for a moment. "You risked a lot. I would have been far too afraid to try and live as a man."
"I didn't make that choice for myself," I told her. "My mother did. It wasn't a matter of bravery. Just survival."
Narnya looked at the girl playing at her feet and tears glinted in her eyes. "I didn't want my daughter to have to put on the follyblanket and be taken from me. I'm glad we came here."
"I'm glad I could help." I stretched and yawned. "I wish we could have brought everyone."
"Not everyone would have wanted to come. There were lots who were too afraid to leave, or who loved the men of their house too much to leave." This came from Merriny in the corner. Her voice caught. "I miss the man of my house. He didn't treat me badly. He kept me warm and fed and clothed. He never beat me. I didn't have to worry about anything in Alyria. I knew he would care for my children, boys or girls. Now I worry, what will happen to Persila if something happens to me? If I get sick, or die, who will take care of my baby?"
Taltey went to her and put an arm around her shoulders. "You're not going to get sick or die."
"But if I do?" Merriny's voice rose. "I miss the man of my house, Taltey! I didn't hate him, like you did with Bordan."
"Would you want to go back?" Taltey asked with a frown. "In Alyria, your daughter might not be so lucky as you. She might get sent to a house where the men don't care for their women. Where they'd rather hit a woman than offer her their hand. Is that what you want for Persila?"
Merriny shook her head and pressed her lips to the baby's fuzzy head. "No. But I can't help it, can I? Missing him? It doesn't make me awful, does it?"
"No," I said. "It doesn't make you awful."
She nodded and held her child closer to her. "Not all the men were bad. Saying they all were wicked is as wrong as saying all of the women were sly and deceitful by nature. You weren't wicked!"
"She's also not a man," said Ilyia wryly. "Mother's Milk, Merriny. The Prince Regent himself was really a woman. Do you think if she'd truly been a he we would have gotten out of Alyria?"
I thought of Lir, and Penryn, Freet, Moravian, Gilder. All had been part of Daelyn's company. "Not all men in Alyria are bad. There are many who love their women. It's one strong, wicked man who has made it bad for everyone else."
"The Book Monster." Felissa shuddered. "May he find no place in the Land Above."
"But you're happy here?" I asked them. "You're safe?"
"Oh, yes," said Ilyia.
"Would you go back to Alyria if things were different?"
"I would," said Merriny. "If I could live there with the man of my house as I do here."
"Do you think that will ever happen?" scoffed Taltey.
I thought of what Carinda had told me about war. "That depends. Would you be willing to fight for it?"
Chapter Fifty
I spoke with those women far into the night, and others from the house next door who came when Taltey went to fetch them. Ten women altogether, and so many children I lost count. Some of them said they were afraid to fight, afraid to die and leave their children alone. Others were more willing to go to battle to give their daughters the life they deserved. We argued and lamented until dawn lit the windows, and I took my leave of them to make my way home.
Seeing Carinda's palace from the outside in the morning light made me see how much smaller than Alyria Elitan truly was. Two of her homes could have fit inside the White Palace. The streets were smaller, and the buildings. Everything was smaller. Which meant the army would be smaller, too.
I'd known that, but seeing it made all the difference. Rosten's forces were well-trained men, most of whom had been fighting since they could hold a sword. Even the least skilled man had the basic elements of the Art and weaponry. I didn't know much about the men of Elitan other than their numbers were far less than in Alyria, but I knew their women certainly couldn't fight.
Of course, neither could ours.
If Carinda really wanted me and Lir to start fight-training an army to invade Alyria, we'd have to find some women who could and would learn. We would need the numbers, and honestly, we'd need the motivation.
I kept turning fight patterns over and over in my mind as I made my way through the front doors of the palace. Unguarded, I noted, half-aware. There'd be guards at all the entrances to the White Palace, but not to the secret exits.
I continued to think about the forces we'd have to deal with, my mind awhirl with possibilities, as I found my way back to the rooms I'd been sharing with Lir. My entire body ached with exhaustion and from wounds not completely healed. My eyes were grainy and sore. I yawned widely as I opened the door and slipped inside.
"Where in the bloody Void were you?" Lir's voice boomed out from the shadows, and I jumped, startled.
He didn't allow me to speak before he swooped down and grabbed me by the arms. He berated me while he shook me until my head spun.
"Don't you know better than to disappear like that? I had no idea where you were! Anything could have happened to you! What were you thinking, Aeris?"
My teeth chattered from the force of his shaking. "Let go of me!"
He didn't. "What sort of display was that at the parlor social? Do you never think things through before you act? I despair of you ever learning to control yourself –"
I got out of his grip with a twist and a blow to the chin. He stumbled back, hand to his face, eyes narrowed. He grabbed for me again, but I knocked him away.
He looked at my raised hands and my fighting stance and frowned further. "Put your hands down."
"Not until you stop threatening me."
He sighed. "Your pardon. I didn't mean to threaten. But don't you know how mad it was for you to run away like that? Anything could have happened to you!"
I put my hands down. "I can take care of myself, Lir."
His face softened. "Of course you can."
I didn't imagine his patronizing tone. "You think that because I'm wearing skirts instead of a sword, I've become a helpless folly, don't you?"
His eyes flickered. "Of course not."
I went to the privy chamber, stripping off the hated dress as I went. "You do. I can see it in your face. You wan
t me to turn into a simpering twit."
"No, Aeris."
He'd followed me, but I ignored him as I washed my face and body with the cold water in the basin. It stung, but it gave me something to do with my hands to keep me from hitting him.
"I told you I didn't want anything to change."
"It hasn't."
I faced him, naked and uncaring any longer about hiding my flesh. I lifted my breasts, then touched the triangle of hair between my legs. "It has. Don't insult me with a lie."