Eona - Alison Goodman [72]
“Only sufficiently so,” Madina said, a smile at the edge of her eyes.
I did not have enough lightness in me to laugh, but I did manage a wry lift of my lips. “I am not very good with all of this,” I said gesturing at the gown. “I have no knowledge of beauty or style.” I looked down at my narrow chest. “Nor any pretensions of either.”
“That is not true, my lady,” she said. “It is said there are four seats of beauty.” She touched her hair, her eyes, her mouth, and her throat. “All of us have at least one. Many of us have two. Some have three, and only a handful have all four in true harmony. You, my lady, are blessed with three.”
Which three did she mean? My eyes, perhaps, and my mouth—I had all my teeth. But I could see no elegance of throat, and my hair was too thick and heavy.
I snorted. “I am no beauty.”
She tilted her head, but did not voice what was behind her pursed lips.
“What? Speak your mind,” I prompted.
“It is true that you do not have classic beauty, and yet you draw the eye. You have felt the power of it, yes?”
I felt my skin flush again, but this time with acknowledgment. I had seen Kygo’s gaze follow me, and I had sensed my strange hold on him within it.
Madina patted her dark hair, the intricate braids and twists streaked with gray. “But I think what burns at your core is another kind of power, my lady.”
I looked away. Could she see my desire for Kygo? No, it was impossible. Perhaps she referred to the red dragon. “What power is that?”
“Fearlessness.”
I frowned. Fearlessness wasn’t a power, was it? And I had certainly known fear.
She wrapped my hair in the towel again and squeezed water from its length.
“We could braid your hair into a low coil.” She wound a thick tress around her finger and pressed it against my nape. “It will suit the neckline of the gown.”
I was tempted to take advantage of Madina’s arts, but I could not walk into a military meeting wearing both a gown and a maiden’s braid. It was hard enough to be a female Dragoneye, let alone a female Naiso. In all truth, I knew I should reject the dress in favor of a tunic and trousers, but a smooth-tongued part of me insisted it would be churlish to refuse a gift from the wife of the camp leader.
“I will wear a Dragoneye double queue,” I said, pleased with the compromise. I separated the heavy weight of my wet hair into two hanks. “I will show you how to club it.”
Madina bowed. “As you wish, Lady Dragoneye.”
The sky was streaked with pink dawn light as I climbed a set of shallow steps with two resistance escorts. According to the more talkative of the pair, the small cave ahead had been readied as a strategy room for the emperor. The word had gone out, he said, for the section leaders to gather there at daybreak. Below us, the camp was already stirring. Children carried buckets of water from the stream that crossed the floor of the crater, and women stoked cooking fires. A group of men headed toward the passage we had entered less than four bells ago, their ropes and packs marking them as a search party.
A familiar figure came out to meet us: Ryko, his big body hunched, arms cradling his ribcage. He watched our approach without expression, but I knew the islander well enough to see the tension within him.
“I will take Lady Eona to His Majesty,” he said to my escort.
The two men quickly bowed and backed away. Ryko waited until they were out of earshot, then he bent close and said, “You must intercede on my behalf. Now.”
I pulled away, startled by the fury in his voice.
“About what?”
“His Majesty has forbidden me to join the search parties.”
“He must have a good reason.”
“I do not care about his reasons,” Ryko snapped. “I have to search for Lady Dela. Do you understand?”
“Ryko, you’re injured. And you don’t know the area. You’ll just slow the local men down.”
He glared at me. “Intercede. You owe me.”
“What do I owe you?” I said, my own anger rising. How many times did I have to apologize? “Did you want to die? Should I have left you