Chapter Thirty. The Veil Is Dropped.
Thirty
The Veil Is Dropped.
Something wakes me.
The thudding sound comes again as I lift my head, and my sluggish brain can’t place the disruption, even as it provides an instant awareness of where I am. As I look to the door through my blue veil, the darkness is so dense, it’s a tangible solid.
“Merc?”
Except I know he’s not here. I can sense his absence, even as I plumb the void for the shadows of his broad chest and his long legs.
I’m alone. In the wasteland of the burned village.
Fear hits me like a physical blow, and I paddle at the floor with my feet and hands to stand up. “Merc.”
My body is stiff and unbalanced, and when I’m finally vertical, the shivering that rattles my teeth and my limbs is a reminder of just how far the temperature continued to drop.
I rub my upper arms to generate warmth as my eyes trace the doorjambs.
Wan gray moonlight seeps in through cracks in the planks. Dawn isn’t even close—
He’s out with demons.
Merc heard something outside and was ambushed when he went to check on the sound.
An internal roaring knocks out my sense of hearing, and as I begin to choke on panic, that thin covering over my face thickens into a sodden woolen blanket.
Batting at the fold that falls from the turban, I open my mouth to get more air in, and when that doesn’t help, I have a sudden paranoia that the water was contaminated and I’ve been poisoned.
With shaking hands, I tear the veil off my head, and yank in some deep, unrestricted breaths.
My head begins to spin, and as I throw out a hand, I catch my balance on the ash-dusted wall.
The air is instantly filled with fine particles, and it turns out that makeshift face cover offered my nose and throat a kind of protection.
Coughing, I feel like I have to run. Run fast and far. Where am I going, though?
And what awaits me if I leave this abandoned house—
Abruptly, I frown.
Wait … am I dreaming? Is this real? I glance around again, noting the horse in the corner—and brace for the chestnut to turn toward me with its eyes glowing red from an evil possession.
Even though the steed does no such thing, I think of the old wives in the village, who always warned that however frightening the dark of night can be, it’s nothing compared to the dangers of the dream world.
There, the demons are not alive so they can’t be killed when they come out of the shadows—
“Merc, where are you,” I beg the silence.
Unable to stay where I am, terrified of what I’ll find outside, I start for the door, the toes of my slipper shoes hitting objects that rattle as I kick them out of my way. I don’t care about the noise. I want something to come at me, so at least I can stop worrying about when it will—
The door swings open, and lunar light streams in, blinding me.
I gasp. Or wait … someone else does.
“Merc?”
By the width of those shoulders and the scent of cedar soap, I know it’s him. Except he just stands there in the jambs, his one hand on the door’s handle, his other raised with that broadsword in his grip.
“Where have you been?” I say hoarsely, my breath coming out in clouds that pass through the moonbeams.
The tip of the broadsword slowly lowers. Then he continues to stay where he is, staring at me, even though he should shut the door.
Not that that flimsy wood can protect us from much.
“Are you all right?” I take another step forward, kicking something else that clangs. “Are you injured? What happen—”
He wrenches around, ducking his head and putting his free hand out to stop me. “Your veil.”
“What?”
“Veil! Your veil.”
I stop in confusion, and that’s when I hear the thud for a third time. It turns out to just be the horse, stamping a hoof as he repositions himself in the corner. That’s what woke me up.
And in a similar way, the sound brings me fully to my senses.
With a squeak, I reach up to my head. The length of fabric that I draped over my face is back on the floorboards where I ripped the thing off.
“Did you put it back,” Merc demands in a rough voice. “Can I turn around.”
My eyes return to the heft of him. His torso is twisted about on his hips, the leather surcoat stretched tight across his shoulders, his thighs thick with leashed power. In the moonlight, his black hair gleams in shades of navy blue and brilliant silver.
Hide.
Suddenly, I feel as though I’m back in the water of the moat, my body flailing and weightless, my lungs burning with suffocation: For all my life, I’ve listened to the voice in my head, I’ve heeded the warning. I have … behaved.
But now I’m here, in the night. In this burned-out village.
In danger from whence I came, facing only danger to which I go.
I’m done with the hiding.
“Sorrel, is your veil back in place?”
“Yes,” I whisper, as, for reasons that make no sense, I suddenly feel more calm than at any other time in my life.
Merc exhales a long, deep breath, and the tension in him eases as he uncoils and turns back around—
He freezes once more.
I can tell nothing of his expression, for the illumination that streams in from behind him turns him into a shadow, and blinds me where I stand.
“You lie,” he says in a voice so deep, it’s nearly inaudible.
There’s a long moment, and I have the distinct impression he’s giving me time to reconsider and re-cover. Keeping my eyes on his boots, I lift my chin, by way of answering.
Merc continues to stare at me as he reaches behind himself and shuts the door. The moonlight is cut off by inches, as if it’s a living thing and being slowly killed, and when the darkness consumes us both, I find myself shivering again.
But it’s not from the cold.
I’m ashamed.
I know how odd I look. I kept a shard of mirror in my nook beneath the stairs, and from time to time, I’d take a glance at myself, expecting something to change: Colorless, wavy hair, that I have never cut, not once, and keep pinned up in a knot at my nape.
Skin that is freckled. Features that are unremarkable.
Eyes that are such a pale gray, only the rim of them defines the iris.
Never have I seen anyone who resembles me.
Clearly, that’s the same for Merc, and as things remain silent between us, I regret revealing myself.
Did I honestly think that my attraction to him meant he’d feel the same as soon as he saw me?
As if there aren’t enough undercurrents in our awkwardly constructed partnership—
“Why.”
The word he speaks lingers between us like smoke in a cave.
“I don’t know,” I mumble.
“Yes, you do.”
His voice has a different tone than I’ve heard, and not just because it’s a full octave lower than usual. No, this is something else.
“At least now I know why you hide yourself.” There’s a long pause. “You are…”
When he stops there and clears his throat, I touch my face as if it’s someone else’s. The idea he thinks I’m ugly has me backing up, bending down … picking up the thin blue cloth from where it drifted into the soot.
“There’s no reason to put that back on.” His tone is brisk now, and I hear the weapons he wears on his body shifting in their metal holsters as he resettles on the floor against the door. “Besides, it’s dark as the inside of a hat in here. I see nothing.”
Before I can sit back down in my own spot, I go over to where the coats are hanging on pegs.
I know that the night will only grow colder as it goes on, so I take one of them off its wall secure.
The folds of wool smell like smoke, and there’s something that seems all wrong about putting on a stranger’s clothing.
But I have to get some sleep, and it certainly seems like winter as I lower myself back down and tuck my knees up to my chest.
Silence. So much … silence.
The weight on my shoulders reminds me of my cloaks, and I look at the length of cloth I’ve used to cover my face.
It’s thin as a wisp in my hand, and I marvel at how such a delicate thing can be so powerful.
Shame makes me want to drape myself in bolts of heavy fabric, but something deep within me rebels at that.
I’ve always felt as though I had to hide, and not just because of that voice in my head or all the things I’ve done in my village in secret.
There was another level to it, I’ve just never bothered to look into why—and I don’t have the answer for that now.
But I am clear that I’m done. I’m tired of suffocating under fabric, especially as we head off into a territory where no one knows me or what I can do.
And if Merc thinks I’m that hard to look at, then his eyes can go elsewhere.
Winding my arms around my steep-angled legs, I let the piece of turban fall back to the floor.
“Where did you go?” I ask.
“I do rounds to ensure our safety.” Now, his tone goes dry: “Such as it is. Go to sleep. We have about three more hours before the sun’s up, and we’d be wise to head off as soon as we can see properly. I’d like to enter the Badlands in broad daylight and we’re still hours away.”
There’s a determined exhale, and I don’t know whether it’s about continuing the journey before us, or him trying to follow his own order to sleep.
“Stop thinking,” he says.
“You cannot read my mind,” I snap. “And I’m not thinking of anything.”
A grunt comes back at me. “Sleep…”
There’s another word after that one, spoken so softly, it barely travels. Yet my ears in all their straining hear it well enough.
Woman, he calls me.