"Leave." Herin shooed everyone from the room. "Give me a moment with her. Tribeswoman to tribeswoman."
As everyone left, Herin grabbed Sayel. "I don't have to tell you that discretion in this matter would be best?"
His eyes widened in alarm as the two servants left, muttering to one another. "Yes, Omala. Of course." He raced from the room, calling after them.
K'lrsa was sure he was already too late. By dinner, the story of her refusal would be all over the palace.
And what would that mean for her chance to kill the Daliph?
Chapter 52
Herin slammed the door and turned on her. "Are you a fool?"
"No." K'lrsa sat on the stone bench under the windows, arms crossed against her chest.
"Do you want to die?"
"No. Of course not." K'lrsa answered without thinking, but it was true. She didn't want to die anymore. She would, if it meant killing the Daliph, but she didn't want it. Not now that she'd found Badru.
Herin stepped closer. "Do you want Badru to die?"
"No." What did he have to do with it?
Herin glared down at her. "Then obey your poradoma and keep your mouth shut. Wear what they tell you to wear. Do what they tell you to do. Don't show yourself to be the ignorant tribal savage you are."
"Tribal savage? What does that make you?" K'lrsa stood, trying to loom over the woman, but Herin was at least half a head taller than her.
"Someone who learned the rules of the game I was forced to play." Her eyes were flinty as she added, "I suggest you do the same."
K'lrsa stepped around her and grabbed another handful of grapes, munching on them as she paced the room. "I don't understand. What have I done that's so wrong?"
Herin rolled her neck and grimaced in pain. She lowered herself to a cushion and Garzel joined her. He loaded a flat disk of bread with spiced meat and greens and held it for Herin to take a bite. K'lrsa decided that if Herin could eat so could she and used bread to scoop a mouthful of eggs—so soft and creamy she sighed in bliss.
"Where to begin?" Herin took another bite of food. "Dorana belong to the Daliph."
"Yes, I understand that."
Herin frowned at her, reminding K'lrsa of her own mother when she was disappointed.
"No. You don't. They belong to him. They're his possessions. Their bodies are his. They can't do anything without his permission."
"Anything?"
"Anything."
K'lrsa peeled a nectarine, trying to think what that meant. She took a bite, relishing the juicy sweetness.
"The poradoma are a gift from the Daliph to his dorana. His way of giving her permission to eat and dress herself."
"Really?" K'lrsa laughed.
Herin nodded. "Dorana are a symbol of the Daliph's power and mastery over his world. They must only act as he wills them to."
"Then I don't want to be one."
"You have no choice. You were already a slave. As a slave, you have no say in who owns you or what they ask you to do. Now the Daliph has made you his dorana. You have no say in that either."
"How can that be?"
Garzel grunted at Herin, his words unintelligible. Herin nodded, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Let me start over. You were a woman of the tribes. A Rider?"
"Yes."
"Did you notice as you came here that women dress differently than the tribes? That they're treated differently?"
"Yes. How could I not notice?"
Herin nodded. "You saw, but did you understand what you saw?"
K'lrsa shoved another bite of food into her mouth. She'd never liked learning through discussion. She learned better through action, by doing. Hand her a bow and point to a target and she'd work all day every day until she hit it every time. But talk to her about ideas and concepts and she grew bored. Especially when she didn't understand.
"Women in the Daliphate are always covered. They're never allowed outside the home alone. They never ride horses."
"You rode a horse."
Herin waved the comment away. "Pzah. Listen, child. We don't have time for this. Those men are out in the hallway right now talking about you like a pack of magpies. Women here, unless they are slaves or whores, so far beneath notice that they aren't even considered women, don't ride, don't walk alone, don't display their skin, don't speak their minds, and don't have opinions or thoughts or ideas of their own."
K'lrsa opened her mouth to speak, but Herin gestured her to silence with the closed fist of the Riders.
"And dorana, dorana are the most elite of all women. They do nothing for themselves. They say nothing. They think nothing. Nothing that the Daliph doesn't command them to do or think."
K'lrsa spit a grape seed into her hand. "That's ridiculous."
"That's the Daliphate." Herin leaned back, studying her. "If you'd prefer I can always sell you off to the Gilded Lily like Harley intended…"
Herin raised an eyebrow and waited for K'lrsa to respond.
For a moment, K'lrsa wondered if that life would be better than this one. Free to speak and move, to think. Yes, her body would be sold to any man willing to pay the coin. But her spirit would be free. Her mind would still be hers.
Wouldn't that be better than this life where she couldn't dress herself, feed herself, or, it seemed, speak for herself?
Herin rolled her eyes. "You would actually think about it, wouldn't you? I told you, child. It's too late. He's already chosen you." She stood. "You are a dorana. You can either learn how to be a proper one and someday leave this room. Or you can fight against your fate and slowly die here. Which do you choose?"
K'lrsa stood as well, glancing back at the pile of brightly covered fabrics piled on the bed. She had no choice if she wanted to succeed in killing the Daliph. "I'll learn. Show me what I need to do."
Herin nodded. "First, you must let the poradoma dress and feed you. And that," she sighed, "requires you to wear the meza."
"What are those?" K'lrsa didn't actually want to know, but she felt compelled to ask.
"The meza are the Daliph's symbol of his power over you. They show that you are subject to his will in all things. The meza, and the golden tiral, which you only have to wear for court appearances, mark you as a dorana."
K'lrsa crossed her arms. "Yes, but what are they?"
"You'll see. Just remember, you have no choice but to wear them." Herin glanced at the breakfast dishes and grimaced. There was no hiding that they'd eaten.
She walked to the door, opened it and gestured the poradoma back inside.
"Thank you, Omala." Sayel bowed to her before entering the room, Tarum and Morlen trailed along behind him.
Herin gestured to the center of the room. "K'lrsa, stand here. Sayel, let's begin with the meza."
Sayel bowed low before K'lrsa. "May I have your hand, my dorana?"
K'lrsa extended her hand to him and watched as Tarum opened a carved wooden box for Sayel's inspection. Inside were five woven silk tubes of different sizes. Sayel studied her hand, holding two of the tubes up to her fingers before choosing the second largest tube.
He fit one end of the tube over her thumb, the silk snug against her skin; he fit the other end of the tube over the first finger of her hand. When he was done her first finger and thumb formed a small circle joined together by the tube.
Holding her fingers like that was slightly uncomfortable after a time. K'lrsa flexed her thumb and finger, trying to straighten them.
The silk pulled taut, refusing to slide off her fingers, and cold metal pressed against the first joint of her thumb and finger. She gasped and started to pull harder.
"What is this? Get it off me."
"Stop it." Herin gripped her wrist, the bony ends of her fingers digging into K'lrsa's skin. "The meza will do you no harm as long as you remain calm. But the harder you pull, the deeper the blades will cut into your skin." She let go of K'lrsa's wrist and wiggled her fingers before K'lrsa's eyes. "Pull hard enough, they'll slice clean through."
K'lrsa trembled,
shaking uncontrollably. What kind of place was this?
As Sayel bound her other hand she fought back the tears, knowing she wouldn't even be allowed to wipe them away herself.
"And I wear these every day?"
"Every day, all day. From the moment your poradoma wake you to the moment they leave you for the night."
K'lrsa flexed her fingers slightly and felt the blades touch her skin once more. "Why do this? A woman can do nothing with these on."
"That's the point, girl. A dorana isn't meant to do anything. She's an ornament, there to look pretty and nothing else."
K'lrsa stared down at her bound hands and then over at the piles and piles of brightly-colored clothes on the bed.
She closed her eyes.
It didn't matter. None of it mattered as long as it took her closer to her goal. They could bind her how they wanted as long as she was eventually able to reach the Daliph and wrap her hands around his ugly, fat neck and watch his froggy eyes bulge out of his head until he died.
She flexed her fingers and felt the blades of the meza kiss her flesh.
A reminder.
A reminder that the Daliphate must be destroyed. Not just for her father, but for all the women it bound, the women hidden behind long black robes, forbidden to speak or act for themselves.
If she failed, a woman of the tribes might one day find herself bound like this, glad to be honored by the Daliph's attention. Or the corruption might spread to the tribes until women were considered lesser, unequal, their bodies something to be hidden, their voices silenced.
K'lrsa shuddered at the thought.
She wouldn't let that happen. No matter what, she would destroy the Daliphate and everything it represented.
Chapter 53
After they'd fastened the meza to each of her hands, they dressed her.
First came a full-length bright yellow silken dress. It was softer than anything she'd ever touched and had twenty small pearl buttons on each arm, running between her wrist and elbow. Morlen carefully buttoned each one as Sayel pulled the ties on the back of the dress tight.
K'lrsa wanted to comment on how ridiculous it was to design an outfit that required three grown men to put on, but one look at Herin's stony face silenced her.
Next came the first overdress; red with half-sleeves and a split skirt that showed glimpses of the yellow dress beneath. Tarum fastened the series of tiny hooks in the front, his hands drifting towards where they weren't needed and didn't belong.
K'lrsa glared at him, but he never met her eyes, his head bowed as his hands wandered—as if she wouldn't notice what he was doing as long as he didn't look at her.
She didn't like him. Didn't trust him. Something in the way he looked at her and touched her was different from Morlen and Sayel. A perversion of the role of a poradom.
On top of the red dress they placed a blue top with cap sleeves and eyelets all over that allowed glimpses of the red dress beneath. This one fastened in the back with fifty small golden buttons so delicate that it took a special tool to fasten them.
K'lrsa wanted to laugh it was all so ridiculous, but she kept her expression neutral; Herin's presence in the corner reminded her what was at stake.
If she could survive this farce, she could see the Daliph and kill him.
This was just a distraction. An obstacle to be overcome. A diversion sent by the Trickster.
It was nothing.
What they made her wear didn't change who she was.
Finally, they wrapped her waist ten times with a brilliant green sash woven through with thread of gold.
Sayel stepped back with a soft smile and nodded to himself.
"Now for your hair and makeup." He led her over to the small table with the mirror and the foul-smelling jars. It was only ten paces away, but K'lrsa almost tripped three times on the way there.
She wondered how she'd manage to kill the Daliph when she couldn't even walk. (Or smooth back the stray piece of hair tickling her nose.)
"Allow me." Sayel smoothed the hair away from her face, his touch gentle, like a father tending his small child.
K'lrsa wanted to flinch away, but she reminded herself that this was his duty. His role was to tend her. It wasn't his fault that the whole thing was twisted and wrong.
As she stood in front of the mirror, Morlen braided her hair into an ornate headpiece that wrapped around her head like a crown, strips of colored cloth woven through.
Sayel opened the various jars on the small table, humming to himself as he worked. He painted her cheeks, lips, and eyes with the contents of the various jars, occasionally stopping to exclaim in surprise things like, "Oh, wonderful. Look at how the ochre emphasizes her eyes."
The odors made her nauseous, but she fought against the urge to turn away and run to the open window for a quick breath of air.
She closed her eyes and entered a light version of the warrior's Core. Anything to not experience what they were doing to her.
When he was done, Sayel led her over to the large mirror in the bathing area. He stood behind her, resting his hands on her shoulders and smiled at their reflection in the mirror.
"You are the most beautiful dorana the Daliph has ever chosen."
K'lrsa didn't even recognize herself in the painted doll in the mirror. Her eyes looked twice the size they normally did, highlighted in bright colors. Her lips were bright red and wet like red meat.
She couldn't stop staring at herself, horrified and mesmerized.
They'd obliterated her. Hidden who she was under layers of fabric and face paints.
She flexed her fingers, feeling the kiss of the meza against her flesh, reminding herself that somewhere beneath all those layers she was still there.
She was still K'lrsa dan V'na of the White Horse Tribe and she was still here to kill the Daliph.
That woman? The one in the mirror that she didn't even recognize?
She was an illusion.
K'lrsa struggled to cling to what she knew was real, but it was hard when what she saw was so different from the truth.
Chapter 54
It was a long, exhausting day. Sayel made her walk around the room over and over again. He wanted her to glide with every step, as if she were floating on air, but all she managed to do was trip and fall so many times that she suspected Tarum purposefully failed to catch her on the last attempt.
Sayel helped her to her feet. "It's okay, my dorana. You had no training, no way to know that one day you'd rise to such glory. The other dorana, they practice from the time they can walk, preparing for that day when the Daliph takes them as his own. You have much to learn."
She tried to picture an entire childhood spent learning how to walk as if she weren't touching the ground and failed.
When lunch arrived, she wasn't even capable of sitting on her own. Tarum and Morlen had to lower her to the cushions.
K'lrsa bit back a comment about how just a little bit of extra space here or there would make the outfit so much more practical. And she swallowed her disgust at having to eat from Tarum's fingers.
The food was delicious. More plentiful and diverse than anything she'd ever eaten on the plains. She had her choice of five kinds of cold meat and four types of cheese and nuts and olives and bread spiced with cloves and coriander. (She was quickly learning the words for all the various spices.)
It was a bounty unlike anything she'd known.
But all she really wanted was to sit at her mother's fire eating yet another bowl of hare and sour greens boiled over the fire. And to use her own cursed hands. That was far preferable to nibbling a delicious soft cheese from Tarum's fingers as he watched her intently.
Herin and Sayel spent the afternoon lecturing her on the proper way for a dorana to interact with strangers. They paused often to argue back and forth, adding more and more to the lecture as they realized how little she knew. A woman who grew up in the Daliphate would at least know the basics. Like how a woman must avoid all eye contact with a strange m
an by casting her eyes to the floor. The floor, not the ceiling, not straight ahead. The floor.
And how a woman must never initiate conversation with a man she didn't know.
And must never respond to a comment made by a man she didn't know unless he was an honored guest of the Daliph's. Even then, there were another ten rules about which men she could respond to with more than a demure comment about the Daliph and his glory.
By the time dinner arrived—a selection of meats floating in sauces, some sweet, some spicy—she could barely stand. She tried to refuse the spicy dishes, but Sayel insisted that she must learn to eat them. What if the Daliph wanted to feed her with his own hand? She couldn't refuse what he offered her, could she?
She also couldn't eat it and then make gasping noises and demand milk, either. That would look like she was rejecting his gifts and that was not acceptable.
(K'lrsa held back a comment about how maybe the Daliph should give his dorana gifts they actually wanted instead of torturing them with spicy foods and ridiculous amounts of clothing.)
Over and over she was told how she must learn proper decorum. Modesty.
She must be unassuming in all things, even choking down food she couldn't stand and didn't want to eat.
Over and over, K'lrsa reminded herself that she was doing this for a purpose.
Over and over she wondered what she'd been thinking on the day she ignored her father and set off to avenge him.
Finally, after what seemed like days, they undressed her and left her alone in her room, free of the meza and the many-layered costume of the dorana.
She'd promised herself she'd work through the hundred and five attacks, but she was too tired. Instead she curled up on the floor, wrapped in the blanket from the bed, not even bothering with the pillows, and fell asleep.
She found herself in the desert. Badru waited for her. He smiled when he saw her, and stood to throw his arms wide.
She ran to him, buried her face against his neck, and cried.
He flinched backward for a moment, surprised, but then he gathered her close in his arms and held her as she wept herself dry.
Rider's Revenge (The Rider's Revenge Trilogy Book 1) Page 18
