Page 16 of Stranger's Choice
He glanced back at her. “Then why worry about your veil?”
“The implication.” She reached out to the stack of carefully folded black clothes. She pinched the top piece and waved the sheer fabric in Sebin’s direction. “The fact that I would not have been left in your room, veilless, if I were still considered a wearer of the dark veil.”
The prince frowned. “I still don’t fully understand the veils, but are you saying you are deemed impure or something now?”
She laughed. Trust a foreigner to have such a strange concept for the meaning of the veils. Maybe she could use it to her advantage, but someone would undoubtedly set him straight before long. Her laughter died. Auraelie carefully donned her new veil. At least they had left her with a tunic and not the bodice—it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.
Sebin sighed. “Can you explain the veil, please?”
“It has nothing to do with purity. A woman can go back and forth between veils. It is a symbol of availability. A woman looking for a lover, or one who has a lover, wears the sheer veil. A woman not interested wears opaque.”
“But you don’t get to choose for yourself?”
“I am the Emperor’s Will.”
This time, Sebin’s frown was fierce rather than confused. “The choice should still be yours. And I don’t understand what I have to do with any of it.”
“If you didn’t want to be mixed up in all of this, you never should have told the Emperor that you were immune to my power.”
“As I already explained, I assumed he knew. You are the Emperor’s Will, after all.” Sebin crossed his arms.
Her outfit was rumpled and her tunic bloodstained, but she didn’t need to change into the other clothes. With her veil—her new veil—in place, she could leave. Technically, no one had given her any new orders yet, though she knew what the veil meant.
The prince didn’t stop her as she walked to the doorway to the outer chamber.
She shouldn’t answer the implied question in the prince’s final comment. She was the Emperor’s Will. To protect her people, she could be nothing else. But she was also a woman with a mind and will of her own, something she wanted Prince Sebin to understand. “Only when I have to be,” she said, before pushing through the beads and shuffling out of his room.
Sebin watched Auraeliego. She didn’t look too unsteady on her feet; he had no right to stop her from leaving his room. He wanted to haul her back and demand an explanation, though. She was mad at him for telling the Emperor about his charm—well, hisimmunity. She seemed to think her change in veil was directly related to that piece of information, but he could not understand why.
Her explanation about the veil hadn’t helped, either. What did his immunity have to do with her availability to lovers?
He couldn’t hold her hostage, though. The admission that she did not have a say in her choice of veil, when that choice reflected other, personal choices, made him angry and wary. He couldn’t forget the way she had demanded he not touch her, and then repeatedly flinched away from him. And he couldn’t stop picturing her lips, which were not as red as rubies, but a delicate pink, like orchids.
He had to stop. Given everything else he knew and suspected, he could not think such things.
Sebin rolled his shoulders. Now that Auraelie was awake, it was time to face the rest of the consequences from the afternoon’s excitement. He followed her out the door, though she had already disappeared around a corner, and made his way to the banquet hall. He wondered how different supper would be now that he had revealed one of his secrets.
Much to Sebin’s consternation, the most jarring difference of the evening was that he had no shadows. Auraelie was not attending him after the events of the afternoon, and he hadn’t even seen Tjalik since picking up the oracle and carrying her to his room.
He didn’t blame her for reacting poorly when she woke up alone in his room. No one had given him any other directions, however, and he hadn’t known where else to take her. The physician had said she needed rest, and he didn’t know where her bed was.
As for Tjalik, it was obvious Sebin didn’t need him as an interpreter anymore, but he still wanted to have a word with the man. Seeing the attacker killed right in front of him must have been too much. Five hells, if Sebin hadn’t been so focused on Auraelie, he also might have gone into shock over seeing that.
Sebin sat in his usual spot for the meal, relatively isolated from the rest of the Emperor’s guests. He’d have to see about joining the others more, now that he didn’t need the extra space for Tjalik and Auraelie. He chose his own foods for once and discovered he had guessed correctly. The delicious tidbits Auraelie had heaped on his plate had been some of the worst—and spiciest—food on offer. The seasoned meats, juicy fruits, and soft flatbreads were all beyond delicious.
Sebin took his time savoring his meal, observing everyone else in the banquet hall while he ate. When he couldn’t even contemplate another mouthful, he rose and made his way to where a group of musicians played for the court’s entertainment.
Sebin had discovered that dancing, as he was familiar with it, did not exist in Pynth. There were no balls. The courtiers preferred to watch others perform. Every night, the Emperor hosted various spectacles after supper. The entertainers often danced, but they were dances that required far more skill than the court dances of Moial. The dancers probably spent their whole lives training. There had also been acrobats, animal tamers, and musicians. There was always music of some sort, but when music was the entirety of the entertainment, it was on a whole different level.
Sebin had a hard time tearing his attention away from the sublime sound of the strange instruments—he had yet to hear any singing in Pynth. The other members of the audience, though, had no trouble talking over the performance.
“Prince Sebin,” said a voice off to his right.
Sebin turned and found Marsone making his way over. The man dipped his chin. “Dyela. This afternoon was startling, no? Why didn’t you say you could speak Imperial earlier?”
It took Sebin a moment longer than he would have liked to formulate a response. Of all that had happened that afternoon, Marsone wanted to talk about his facility with the language? “I had hoped to improve more and lower my odds of embarrassment.”
“I suppose embarrassment would be inconsequential when facing the Emperor’s bodyguard. I know the Emperor is possessive of his oracle, but after he had her attend you for so long, I’d think he would allow you to check if she was still alive. Though I guess he never had her don the light veil, even while she was attending you,dyela.”
