Sam opened his eyes when he sensed movement. Rindu was standing in front of him. “I must discuss something with Dr. Walt. It should not take more than one half hour. Please meet me back here then.” With that, he padded off silently toward Dr. Walt’s tent.
Slowly releasing his breath, Sam stretched his neck from side to side and stood up. He would go and enjoy soaking his feet in the small stream. Rarely did he get time to just relax, so he would take advantage of it. Grabbing Ahimiro, he headed through the trees toward the stream.
Excited about his short break and imagining how good the water would feel swirling around his feet, he absently pushed through the last branches of the small bushes bordering the trees and stopped in his tracks.
Nalia was kneeling on the ground with water cupped in her hands halfway to her face, obviously intending to wash it. Turning as he came through the bush, she froze for a moment, eyes widening, hands frozen where they were.
Sam’s mind raced. She was not wearing her mask. He felt his face redden, like he had violated her privacy. He was sure his face reflected how he felt: apologetic, anxious, and excited all at once. Looking into her eyes, he was sure that she could see his dismay, but all he could see in her eyes was horror.
Her perfect, smooth skin shone in the late afternoon light. Her chestnut hair swirled around her head in a graceful dance that dazzled him. Off-handedly, he wondered how her hair stayed so beautiful being stuffed into the back of the full-head mask she constantly wore.
His eyes passed over her delicate neck, which appeared too soft for how strong he knew she was. Her chin curved beautifully into her reddening cheeks, which in turn blended with her soft, subtle cheek bones, defining her heart-shaped face.
Her eyes, almond-shaped and framed by perfect lashes and thin, expressive eyebrows, were opened wide, making their color vibrant, drawing him in. With the light reflecting off the water, he couldn’t tell if her eyes were a pale green or a subtle blue—he thought that they actually changed colors with the angle he viewed them—but he could see the streaks of lighter color radiating outward from the center like starbursts.
Her lips drew his eyes. They were compressed with her irritation, but even so they were full enough to be inviting without being too large. He wondered what it would be like to kiss them, and then realized with a shock what he had just thought. He really couldn’t be blamed, though. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Ever. In person or in pictures. She was a goddess.
The moment stretched on interminably. Sam could not tear his eyes away from her, though he knew that he should. Knowing that this may be the only time he would ever see her without her mask, he drunk in the sight of her, trying to memorize every little detail.
She reacted first. Scooping up her mask from where it lay next to her, she stretched it over her head, got up, and began walking quickly back toward camp, going wide of where Sam was standing, still motionless.
“Nalia! Wait!” he pleaded as he finally went into motion, running toward her. He didn’t think about what he was doing until he had already grabbed her arm.
She promptly twirled, applied a joint lock, threw him onto his back, and then calmly continued walking toward camp. Smart move, attacking a living weapon when she’s upset. You’re lucky she didn’t kill you.
Scrambling to his feet, he started after her again. “Nalia! Please, talk to me. Please.”
She stopped, shoulders slumped, and allowed him to catch up to her. “Sam, you have taken my honor from me. You have shamed me and I do not know what I can do to regain that honor. I would prefer it if you would leave me alone for now.”
Walking around to face her, he slowly—very slowly!—reached out and took her hand in his. “Nalia, I am so sorry. I didn’t know you were there. I was only going to the stream to soak my feet.”
“You were to be training with my father. Why are you not doing so?”
“He put my training off for a half an hour so he could discuss something with Dr. Walt. I’m sorry. I would never have trespassed on your privacy like that. It was purely accidental.”
She swiveled her masked face toward him, but to his surprise did not pull her hand away. “Are you content now? Did you look long enough to remember my horrid face? Do you feel that you have power over me now?”
Sam saw that she was on the verge of being hysterical, something he did not think possible with her. Pulling her hand toward him and cupping it in his, he spoke softly. “I am sorry, Nalia. I am sorry for invading your privacy. I am sorry that I stood there like a lout staring at you. I am sorry most of all that you feel embarrassed or insulted by my actions.” He caressed the back of her hand softly. He was surprised when she allowed him to continue.
“The thing is, Nalia, there were three reasons I froze and stared at you. The first is that I saw the horror in your eyes and knew that my mistake would affect you powerfully, and I didn’t know what to do about it. I panicked. The second is that when I saw you, I finally figured out something about this world that had been confusing me for quite a while. And the third. Well, the third is really an extension of the second thing.
“What I figured out was that, for some things, there are completely different standards on Gythe compared to Telani. The way people on your world and my world see things is not the same. Here, the accepted standards of beauty are much different. You see, the third reason I stared at you is that you are by far the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. If you were in my world, you would have dozens of men following you around constantly, even if just to be able to catch a glimpse of you.”
He locked his fingers in hers and reached up with his other hand, very slowly, and gently pulled her mask off. She stood there, shock painted across her face. Dropping the mask to the ground, he wiped a single tear from her cheek with his finger. Looking deeply into her eyes, he smiled. “Beautiful!” he told her, “absolutely beautiful.”
She sniffled and her mouth tightened to a thin line. “Are you telling me this truly, Sam? You are not just trying to make me feel better? You are not trying to keep me from breaking some of your bones for the shame you have heaped upon me?”
He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it. “Nalia, this is the truest thing I have ever spoken. You are the perfect example of beauty. If I could put together any features to make the perfect woman, she would turn out to be exactly you.”
A ghost of a smile crept its way onto her face. “Your world has some strange ideas, Sam.”
“I would agree with that in general, but not on this particular thing.” He stopped then, tilted his head.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Oh, it just occurred to me that you must think me tremendously ugly. If you thought Torim handsome, you must not think much of how I look. On my world, I may not be extremely handsome, but I’m at least ordinary-looking.”
She flushed. “Well, when you first joined us, I thought you rather plain, but not really ugly. As we trained and I got to know you, though, you have almost become attractive to me.”
“Almost.”
“No, I misspoke. With how tenderly you just comforted me, and with what I have observed of your personality, you are attractive to me. I do not put emphasis on physical beauty, as you might expect of one who is so ugly that I must hide my face to prevent my shame.”
Gently brushing her cheek with his finger, he looked into her eyes and smiled again. “To me you are an angel. Maybe you can remember that when you feel bad about how you look.” Kissing her hand quickly one more time, he released it and picked her mask up, handing it to her.
He watched her put it on, more carefully this time, curling her hair into a makeshift bun to stuff it into the mask. He observed every little movement as if it was a sensual dance, enjoying how she moved and enjoying all her features until they were, one by one, covered over again.
As they silently turned to go back to camp, he spoke up. “Promise me something?”
“What?”
“Let me
see your face again? I understand keeping the mask on in public, but please let me see you and look into your eyes every once in a while?”
He could see the mask tug around the edges from her smile. “Perhaps we can arrange that.” As they made it to the fire ring in the middle of camp, he could have sworn that her graceful, soundless steps had little inefficient bounces in them.
In the days following the revelation of Nalia’s face, Sam felt that his training was going well and that he was finally starting to progress as quickly as he knew he could. It was like a weight had been removed with the change in his interactions with Nalia. Though she still wore her mask when they were traveling, she often took it off when she was training with him.
This caused some slight issues at first. The day after he had seen her, she met him in a little clearing just off from the main camp area. When she took her mask off and attacked immediately, he botched his blocks and evasions and ended up lying face down on the ground, having somehow flown several feet from where he started. After a few more takedowns and some harder-than-necessary strikes to the body that he knew would leave bruises, he regained some semblance of control, but was still distracted.
He reveled in seeing her tight, half-hidden smile as she noticed his distraction. She was tough and strong and disciplined. She was a warrior through and through. But she was also a woman, and Sam figured that any woman, even any man, would get a little pleasure from knowing someone thought them attractive enough to be distracting.
He was glad that she enjoyed his attention, that she could have some joy at the fact that someone thought she was special. And to be honest, Sam enjoyed it that she enjoyed it. He had always loved the combat training with her—well, maybe not in those first few weeks where she beat him bloody all the time—but now it was even more of a pleasure.
The second day she trained without her mask, Dr. Walt and Rindu came out of Dr. Walt’s tent and saw Nalia sparring with Sam. Rindu’s slight frown was the same as a scathing accusation from anyone else, but it was Dr. Walt’s reaction that Sam thought was important.
Dr. Walt stopped in his tracks and stared. Shaking his head and rubbing his eyes, he looked again, and then walked over. “Nalia, my dear,’ he started, “I have not seen anything so beautiful since I was a young man. How is it that you have hidden your beauty behind that mask for so long and deprived the world of gazing upon such perfection?”
Rindu scowled at Dr. Walt. “That is not funny, to poke fun at my daughter and her unfortunate mix of features. Why would you say such cruel things to one who has become almost as a daughter to you?”
Dr. Walt’s eyes lit up with understanding. “No, no, Rindu. I’m being serious. In my world, Nalia would be a great beauty. I know that here the opinions on beauty are different, but please trust me when I say that your daughter could have her pick of any man in the world if she was in Telani. She is absolutely breathtaking!”
Rindu mumbled under his breath and walked off. Nalia smiled and simply said, “Thank you, Dr. Walt.”
Sam smiled at the confirmation of what he had told her. Now she had to believe him.
Chapter 33
Nalia stole another glance at Sam as they traveled through the trees surrounding them. The path they traveled, not quite so developed as to be called a road, wound around very large and very old trees and straight through meadow areas consisting only of grasses and low bushes. She enjoyed seeing the sunlight playing across his face as they transitioned from the darkened tree cover to the bright midday sun of the clearings.
When Sam began to turn his head to look in her direction, she looked away, not wanting him to see her looking at him. A few times during the day, he sensed her gaze and turned too quickly for her to look away. In those cases, he smiled that wide, joyful smile at her and waved. She waved back, thankful that her mask covered her rapidly heating face from the others.
They played this game throughout the day, looking while trying to keep from being seen looking. The more she looked, the more she liked the way he looked. She supposed that her growing familiarity with him was affecting how she saw him. She only knew that to her, all the little details of his face were fascinating, from his flyaway dirty blonde hair to his strong jawline and the half-smile he often gave her that made her think he was a mischievous child.
She shook her head. What was she thinking? She had never felt like this before. But then again, she had never met anyone quite like him. She found herself wanting to be close to him, wanting to do things for him. It was maddening. She was Sapsyr, not some young girl with silly, fickle affection for a village boy. Who was he that he could affect her so? Who indeed.
She was confused. She felt so comfortable with him. Secure, like they could handle anything, meet any challenge. She had never needed another person for her to feel like that. She had always been sufficient by herself. Even her father, who was a solid, commanding presence, who was the very epitome of steadfastness and strength, did not make her feel as secure as Sam did. When she was with him, she felt like she was exactly where she was supposed to be. No matter where that happened to be. None of it made sense to her.
One thing she had to admit, though, was that he was progressing well in his training. At times, he was almost able to strike her, if she was even slightly distracted. Which she was, often. He would get that look on his face, jaw set in concentration, cool blue-gray eyes burning with intensity. He would be fully in the moment and fully in control of himself. And then he would glance at her and he would smile that lopsided half-smile of his and her own focus would shatter. That had happened several times, and he had taken advantage of it and almost bested her. It was fair, she decided, payback from the first day when she distracted him.
Because of that loss of focus—yes, only because of that—she most often did not wear her mask as she sparred with him now. When she smiled at him, it sometimes made him lose his concentration and then she would strike like a viper. Yes, it was a good way to train him not to be distracted and never to lose focus. It wasn’t that when his eyes met hers and his hard, intense gaze softened, she felt like she was wanted, like she was needed. No, Sapsyra warriors were not affected by petty things such as that. Surely not.
But she did like to look in his eyes. Especially when she was not wearing the mask so he could look directly back into her eyes. What she saw in the depths of those gray eyes with designs of green and yellow within them made her want to stop everything and just fall into them.
It was still a wonder to her that just the look of her naked face could distract him. It was hard to believe that his world had such a different definition of beauty. She could see it there, in his eyes, though. He did think she was beautiful. She did not know about such things, but sometimes that softness in his eyes, that little glint of light when he saw her, made her think he really cared for her. But that was ridiculous. She was a warrior. He could not see her as a woman, as one to heap affection upon. No, she must be mistaken. But still…
She shook her head again. What was wrong with her? She was on a quest to avenge her mother, to literally save the world from the most powerful man alive. She had no time for fancies and affections. She would meditate when they stopped for the night, regain her balance. She would put out of her mind him and the infinite depths of his eyes, and the feel of his hand (and his lips!) on her hand, and the way she liked to watch him move—more and more like a warrior every day—and the way he made her feel, and… Stop! she chastised herself.
She looked up just in time to see him looking at her. He smiled and waved, but his smile quickly melted away into concern as he noticed her body language. She glared at him through the mask and turned her head from him. How dare he tie her mind up in knots like this. It was unfair that he would have that kind of power over her.
She spent the rest of the day until they stopped studiously avoiding looking his way. She even succeeded, mostly. By the time they stopped, she was exhausted from it.
When it came time to train him, she
took her mask off and readied herself.
“Is something wrong?” he asked her, concern painted on his face.
“No. I am…it is…you should warm up. I will press you hard today. You deserve it for confusing me so.” She wished she could call that last part back. She had not intended it to come out to begin with.
“What? What did I do? What are you confused about?”
She squared her shoulders and faced him, matching his stance. “I cannot think around you. My head is filled with silly thoughts and I cannot seem to focus. Perhaps I am becoming ill.”
“Oh Nalia,” he said, stepping up to her and taking both of her hands. She hoped he didn’t feel that she was trembling slightly. Facing down a dozen trained warriors did not make her as nervous as she felt right now. “You confuse me, too. I don’t know if it would be better to run away from you or to hold you in my arms and kiss you. I know what I want to do...”
Embarrassed, he dropped her hands. “I mean, I’m confused, too. I think over these last weeks we have become friends. More, though, I want to be with you all the time. I can’t stop looking at you, even with your mask on, because I have memorized your face and can picture it even when you’re wearing the mask.
“But sometimes, you seem to be really irritated with me and you seem not to want me around. I don’t want to irritate you. Nothing makes me happier than being able to do something that makes you smile. So please, tell me what you want me to do so that we can ease this tension. I like it that when we don’t get caught up in all the confusion, we can just be together and be comfortable, whether we’re sparring or you’re training me or we’re just sitting there quietly. What can I do that will make it easier for you?”
She thought about it for a moment and decided she did not know. “Just be my friend, Sam, and my student, and we will figure out the rest. We both need to focus on the Gray Man and our quest now, with no distractions. I am sure we will find our balance. I am sorry for seeming irritated. I am irritated most of all with myself because I am confused and not in control of myself.”
Harmonic Magic Series Boxed Set Page 23
