The Veiled One

Chapter Eight : Books and wine pair well

As soon as I enter the dining room, I want to back out again. I shouldn't be doing this. I need to plan, to plot and scheme and figure out exactly how I'm going to kill this monster once and for all. But it's too late. She's seen me, and damn if her veil isn't twitching in a smile. So I paste a false smile onto my own face and seat myself across from her at the table made for twenty.

"You clean up nicely," The Veiled One says, eyeing me. I swallow hard. This needs to stop, and it needs to stop now. I have to put the brakes on her flirting. I've already taught her how to use a weapon. Do I need to make my own heart one of them?

"I guess. I mean, it's easier here than in the village. I don't have to go out to the creek if I want to bathe, and it's nice having my clothes come to me instead of the other way around."

The smile is gone. Well, good. It didn't belong on her face anyway.

"Most of my other husbands are grateful for the advantages of this life."

"Well, this life is shitty compared to my time in the capital."

It's a risk, insulting her hospitality like this, but it's the only thing I can think to say that will let her know she can't control me.

"I'm sorry you feel that way," she replies frostily. "I'll have to do better next year."

Next year. My stomach fills with dread, so much so that I'm not very hungry when the food arrives. But I fill a plate anyway, because if I don't, she'll know something's up, and then I might as well throw myself out a window to get it over with.

Dinner tonight is roast turkey with some sort of spicy sauce that I assume comes from the coast somewhere. They have access to ports that bring in better food, food that can't travel over land very far because it will spoil. Sometimes I wish Endor and I had fled there instead of this vast wasteland of useless acreage that separates our kingdom from the one that killed my parents.

"How is the food? Tasteless, compared to your capital meals?"

I decide that one insult is enough for now.

"No, no, it's delicious. Thank you."

The Eternal Bride makes a displeased noise, and I go back to eating. I'm safe for now, at least.

"Have you read anything interesting lately?" she tries again. I don't know why she's so desperate for conversation; she's going to try to kill me eventually, so why bother making me like her?

"Not really. The selection in my room is decent, but it's rather small."

"You ought to try the library."

"Where is that, exactly?"

"I'll have the lanterns light you a path."

We keep eating, each bite filling with more and more tension as the silence between us stays merely that: silence. After about twenty minutes, the Bride shoves away from the table.

"I hope you'll excuse me. I have some matters to attend to."

And then she storms off. It takes me a minute to realize that she was in her corporeal form tonight.

As soon as she's gone, I smack my face. I'm such an idiot. I could have killed her right then and there! She was unguarded, she'd warmed up to me, and she was physically here! Now I'll be lucky if she shows her face to me for weeks! Well. Metaphorically speaking, at least.

"Gods damn it," I hiss, laying my head down on the table.

I leave the dining room and retreat to my bedroom. If I'm going to be doing something, it may as well be plotting to kill the Veiled One like I came to this castle to do in the first place. I pull out a sheet of paper and my quill, and I hover the pen above the paper.