Unmasked (Rise of the Masks Book 1)

by Kaplan, EM

  She dropped his hand and moved back one step. "I'll return in a moment," she told him. Her promise to him, whether he knew it or not. Then she followed her father into the other chamber.

  Her mother, father, and Guyse faced her as she stood in the doorway. She closed it gently behind her, feeling the wood that had worn to smoothness over time. In a burst of nervousness, she suddenly sensed the moisture still trapped in the grain of the wood, the minute particles of agamite, still in those veins. It connected her to the entire house, its life, the people in it, and the land beneath it. The rush of sensation flooded through her, yet she withstood it calmly this time, as if the previous deluge of it had already carved its course through her and now she was a ready conduit. In the room outside, she felt Ott receive the rush of energy as well. He sat up straighter in his chair, tightened his fingers on the chair's arms, and inhaled deeply in surprise.

  Then it receded, and she turned to face her parents.

  "I expect you think this is rather sudden," she said. A bit of a weak opening, she admitted even to herself. Her parents remained emotionless outwardly, but to her surprise, the corners of Guyse's mouth quirked up in a smile. She glanced at him, took him in peripherally, his heavy brow, dark skin, and glittering black eyes that . . . flashed abruptly to blue, then black again. She blinked, and fought the urge to let her jaw drop open. It was not Guyse. It was Jenks. Or rather, Guyse was Jenks?

  She struggled to reconcile the shape-shifter and loner Jenks with the dark, scowling Guyse. Jenks had shifted into an old man for her while standing in the sitting room of his herb-filled cabin outside of the settlement. Jenks was Guyse, her parents' escort and guard? She wondered, now, how often he had loomed in the corners of her life, taking on the shape of one or another of the fixed people in her life. It would explain a great many unanswered questions in her mind.

  "Hmm, yes. Jenks," her father said. A strange quality that Mel did not understand entered his voice. She saw a twitch of her father's eye that none but those who were Mask-trained would have detected. Irritation? Jealousy? But whatever the case, it was absolute acknowledgment to her that Guyse was, in fact, Jenks.

  Guyse and Jenks were the same person.

  Mel's mother spoke suddenly, "Mel, there's a specific reason why your father would not give your . . . Ott an answer to his question. His request. It's not that we disapprove of the young man, nor is it any reflection or judgment on your behavior since you've returned from your time away from us." Mel frowned, struggling to comprehend. This was not the conversation she imagined having with them before she'd entered the room. She held her hands calmly in front of her body though doing so was a challenge. She had always been a fidgeter, which they knew. Guyse—no, Jenks—smiled again. Now that she had seen the blue eyes twinkling behind the black ones, she could imagine his face behind the scowling, rough façade.

  "You know this young man from your experiences at the Keep, I assume," her mother continued, cautiously. "Judging by your emotional response and the color of your skin." Mel nodded, curiously devoid of embarrassment for once. She couldn't have hid what she felt even if she'd tried. And she wasn't ashamed of it.

  "In fact," her father interjected, "We think your young man is a perfectly . . . suitable . . . partner for you, if you so desire each other."

  Why did her father chose his words so carefully. Suitable? Mel still wasn’t sure what she was suited for. Maybe now she would find her role. Perhaps it would have something to do with how she had cleansed Ott, how she had taken his pain. It was a healing of sorts. But now she had been relegated to the ranks of the healers that her father looked down on. She remembered that conversation she'd overheard between her mother and him at the settlement when they discussed what they thought her future might hold. Whether she might be like Jenks, who was a blood relation to her. Whether she might be just a healer out among common people outside of the settlement instead of full Masks like they were. And then she realized that she didn't care. Her whole world had been tipped on its ear. Dunked upside down into its baptismal stream, so to speak. And that black inky stream had been made of pain, Ott's pain. Suddenly, she could think of no better purpose for her life.

  She straightened her shoulders and faced her parents.

  "In fact," her father was saying. "I cannot give my approval of your union with Mattieus Ottick . . . with Ott," he amended more gently and with more care than she remembered him ever applying to any words, "because, as it is, while it is true that I'm your known father, I am not your blood father. Jenks is."

  Part 5

  Oppose

  Chapter 44

  Harro found himself in the tent city with the woman again. She wasn't like any of his past females. For one thing, she was much younger than the others, much younger than he was. Her skin was firm, soft, and unmarked other than the faint webbed marks from bearing children. She was different. This was the third time he'd come to her in as many days. He realized she could easily become a regular woman for him. If he were honest with himself, he might as well admit she already was.

  He liked the feel of her small body under his fingers, on her hips where she liked him to rest his hands. And he knew he satisfied her in a way that was wholly new to her. He could see it in her face. There was surprise, astonishment, and trust, like he saw in the body language of horses that he'd tamed. People weren't that much different from animals, himself included. He had already grown accustomed to the way her skin and hair smelled, her own unique scent—apart from the smells from her balms, her salves, and what she did to earn a wage. Her scent was all over the tent and on his skin after he left her; it had become something that he craved, something that he could think about when he was other places, something that was fixed in his mind.

  In her tent, he ran a hand over her arm, pushing her sorrel-colored hair forward over her shoulder. The back of her neck was pale and smooth like the rest of her. He ran his fingers over it, and she let her head fall forward. She let him touch the vulnerable and delicate bones of her spine. He explored gently, still caught up by the newness of her. She was letting him stay longer, too. He could only think it was bad for her trade, letting him take up time when she could be seeing others to earn her coins. He thought about it without jealousy. He made no claims of ownership and knew only that when they were in her tent with the flap down, they belonged to each other. Apart, she was herself, and he was himself.

  He still paid her; his money still defined their relationship. They didn't speak much—just brief words of greeting when he arrived, though he saw something in her eyes light up when she saw him. The light might not have showed in his own eyes—his was a darker, grimmer nature, more hidden from the eyes of others—but he knew his actions spoke for him. He couldn't help that. He thought she was beautiful. He thought a lot of things were beautiful—the open sky, clouds around the moon, and most animals. She had a quality about her that was just like one of the animals which he used to tend. Not like the people he dealt with in the big house. Not like people in the marketplace. Not like the other people in the tent city. He didn't know how she could have lived the life she had and still have that innocent, open quality about her. It was a quality she could take with her into a long future and die a smooth-faced old woman. She was special.

  He put a hand on her shoulder, dwarfing it with his large palm as he gently pushed her onto her back. She met his gaze with her sharp gray eyes, big cat-like eyes heavy with color like a snow storm that hadn't arrived yet. He could almost smell the crispness in the air, feel it sting the inside of his nostrils. Her eyes moved constantly, over his face, his beard, to his mouth. He stroked her hair with his hand, watching her eyelids relax, her blinks become longer and slower. He stopped stroking her hair and instead, smoothed his hand over her face, encouraging her to close her eyes completely. She complied and kept her eyes shut, but her arms reached up and her hands clasped around his neck drawing him closer.

  Their mouths touched for the first time. Very softly, very gently
. When he drew back, her eyes flashed open. That same intensely astonished expression flashed across her face. If he had a heart for humans buried somewhere in his thick chest, she might have broken it with that look.

  "Have you never been kissed?" he asked gruffly.

  A flicker of confusion and wonder crossed her face then. He guessed the answer was no when she said nothing. She was breathing hard, like she might break. Or panic and flee. He backed off her mouth then, and stroked her red-brown hair until she was easy and calm again. He made no other move. He figured she had as many thoughts in her head as he did. Although the gray was starting to weave on his chin where he often touched his beard when he was trying to think, she'd seen her fair share of things to age her mind well beyond her numbered years. Of that, he was sure.

  His mind took him to his last conversation with Rob, who had asked him to stay at the house instead of going with the delegation to the mine. Harro wanted to be part of the escort as was his duty, but it would be best if their own bit of underhandedness, of sending the Masks to meet the trogs, went undiscovered as long as possible. If Rob were a usurper or a patricide, Harro would be proud to wear his colors. In all honesty, Harro couldn't be more proud of Rob if the man were his own son or if Rob were king-in-waiting. But Col Rob wasn't a king, and there would be no upstart to his throne. Just death waiting at the door to do his job and move on to battle the next old man . . .

  But it was giving too much of an upper hand to Rob's father if Harro left on horseback with the Masks. Col Rob might be withering in his nightgown, but he was no fool and was not to be treated with anything but wariness. He was like a snake, lying coiled, ready to spring. Just as venomous, too. Harro knew how to wait patiently, as was the way of all people in this eternal winter climate, and the best way of doing so was to keep busy. So instead, Harro had taken his idle hands elsewhere, to be employed otherwise, running over the skin of this small woman in her tent.

  With a grunt, Harro sat up. When he reached for his shirt, he was stayed by her hand on his arm.

  "Once more?" she said sitting up behind him.

  When he turned to her, she cautiously offered her face up to him. He leaned and gently pressed his mouth on hers. Soft lips, lax and pliant, not firm, not demanding, not at all skilled on her part. Just a gentle press of flesh against flesh. She tasted like fresh bread and warm soup. Herbs and young skin. Then he pulled away and tugged his shirt fully over his head till it dropped across him. He reached for his boots, dragging them across the tent floor, his legs splayed out across the blankets on the floor where he and she had lain side by side. He could feel her eyes on him, drifting across his shoulders. His money lay in a scattered pile on her table.

  As he stood to heave his thick coat across his shoulders, she dropped her eyes finally and gathered her cloak around herself to brace for the cold that would come when he opened the tent flap. He patted his pockets. Clasped his buckles. Pulled his hood over his head. Fastened his gloves. Patted his coat pockets again. He wanted to leave her with something other than his coins. Finding nothing in his pockets the third time searching, he put his hand on the tent flap to draw it back. Then paused.

  "What do they call you?" he asked.

  Her head came up sharply, and her gray eyes met his. "Treyna."

  He nodded, watching her. Then he pushed back the tent flap and left, exposing her to the resulting blast of chilly air.

  Chapter 45

  Jenny was trying to be irritated at once again being left behind by her brother; she should have felt more upset, but honestly she was too busy. Somehow, she had collected three more children in addition to her own three. Plus it was impossible to be irritated when she was so blessedly happy. Waking up next to a lovely, warm body could do that to a person.

  Actually, it was her warm body in Rob’s bed, but that was splitting hairs. Her clothes were in his dressing room. Her brush was on the table by his mirror. She'd shared a bed before with that other man who had called himself her husband, but their bed was never a source of the infinite peace that Jenny had felt on waking this morning. Stretching her arms out, unfurling her spine, and arching down to the souls of her feet, feeling the indescribable rush of emotion on seeing Rob's face, and watching him watch her while she woke was an entirely new experience for her. She had pushed back her mass of matted morning hair, unembarrassed, and had laid her head back on her pillow, for once not worrying about her boys. Her children were in the room across the hall with the others being attended to by Mallie, a trusted young housemaid.

  "Do you mind that we can't have children?" Jenny had finally asked Rob that morning. He knew how the birth of her youngest boy had damaged her so that she couldn't bear any more. She would never carry his child—she would have wanted to if he wanted it. She cringed, realizing belatedly that there was no good answer to the question she'd asked.

  But he had given her a soft smile and said, "What's wrong with the ones we have now?"

  Now she knew why her brother looked completely healed, like he was a new man since he'd found Mel. This was how Rob made her feel. That was how Mel made her brother feel. And for that alone, for loving her brother so well, Jenny rejoiced in the fact that her brother had found Mel. It was hard not to smile just thinking about her. There was something about her . . . Jenny had felt a lightening of the tension that normally bound her when Mel had come into her kitchen and touched her hand. Nearly a head taller than Jenny and blond where Jenny was dark, yet soothing like a sister. The girl was a walking, talking dose of carrow, that root, when boiled, that eased the frantic workings of the mind. Jenny had tried tea made of it once or twice with some success but had realized soon after that she would have to administer it daily for the rest of her life in order to feel any lasting comfort. So, she had given it up. But this girl, Mel, had drained the anxiety right out of her. And it was still gone. Or maybe it was the effect of waking up in Rob's bed. Jenny would have to see how long the sense of ease lasted, she thought with a sly smile to herself.

  Now it was mid-morning, and Jenny was up to her elbows in soapy water.

  "Now, my sweet, tip your head back so you don't get the soap in your eyes. This soap can sting you if you're not careful," Jenny said to the littlest one brought in from the tent city, a boy who obeyed docilely yet had wide, inquisitive eyes. She and Mallie were taking turns at the wash tub trying to delouse the children who'd recently joined her boys. They’d had to shave the children's heads clean, even the middle one who was a girl, so all of the children looked like Jenny’s boys now, not an errant lock or curl among them. Rob had brought the new additions up to the house from the tent city. She wondered who the families were who had given them up, but Rob didn't elaborate. The three children were decently fed, although timid from exhaustion, and perhaps from untold horrors they’d seen or, Lutra protect them, experienced in their short lives.

  "She doesn't talk," the little boy in the tub said, pointing to his sister, who was clinging to the side of the tub watching both Jenny and her soaking brother intently.

  "Not a word?" Jenny said, with furrowed brow at him, which she carefully hid from the little girl.

  "Not a word," the little boy confirmed with a solemnity beyond his years. "She's my sister," he added.

  "Is she now?" Jenny said, turning to give the little girl a quick wink.

  "Yes, and he's my brother," the boy said pointing to the other one who had been brought in with them. She wasn't sure how they could be from the same family. They were clearly all very close in age, around five to six years old maybe, yet their coloring differed greatly.

  "Very good," Jenny pronounced, not knowing exactly what else to say. Yet, what she said seemed enough for the boy. Perhaps the children had been collected together, just as they were now thrown together and given into her and Mallie's care. They were clearly used to being with each other. She'd seen them sleep in a single bed, cuddled together like triplets. That was fine for now, especially with the turmoil of the camp, but as the little girl g
rew older, she'd certainly want—need—her privacy. One day, she’d wake up a young woman, and young women needed their privacy and the space to keep their thoughts to themselves. Jenny would make sure—.

  Jenny sat back on her heels suddenly, startled that she'd sent her thoughts so far ahead. She didn't know what the future held for these children. Yet, she was already envisioning a future in which they were hers. A bit foolish to bond with fosters so quickly. For all Jenny knew, their mothers could want them back when the weather turned warmer. When they had their homes back over there across Gasgun Lake. When the mines were being worked again. She didn't relish the thought of that heartache, but she couldn't force herself to deny them any affection, as temporary as it might be, as great as the cost might be to her in the long run. The mines would get up and running one day.

  At that thought, her heart quaked again, chest tightening. She thought of her brother and his new beloved crossing the snow with the Masks to try to meet with the trogs. She wasn't sure which was the hardest pill to swallow, that her brother was with the Masks, or that he would be facing the trogs, those beasts straight out of bad dreams. She hoped beyond hope that they would arrive at the mine entrance only to find it deserted, the trogs gone. Evaporated like ice turning to water vapor in spring. Like the memory of bitter cold, impossible to conjure in the middle of a warm summer day. Like . . . pah. She knew it wasn't going to be that easy. She, Jenny, had found a pocket of ease in her life, and she wished to stay in it as long as possible. And she wanted everyone she loved in it with her.