Eona - Alison Goodman [91]
I pulled back from the brush. Its white tip hung between us, pointed like her comment.
“How is that?” I finally asked, curiosity overwhelming my unease.
“To be so sacred that one cannot be touched. It builds both a hunger and a restraint.” The soft brush followed the shape of my mouth. “A conflict that is mirrored in his spirit.” She stopped painting, her face polite. “Or perhaps you disagree, my lady?”
For a searing moment, I felt Kygo’s hand around my wrist again and saw the strong line of his jaw as his head strained back, fighting for control. I drew in a breath, meeting Moon Orchid’s watchful gaze. “You know him well, then.”
A small shrug, and the brush swirled through the paint again. “Well enough to know that he has given you more than just a god’s protection with that ring.”
I opened my hand and we both looked down at the thick band. I knew it meant more—it had been in the touch of his hand and the soft urgency of his voice—but I still wanted to know what she thought he had given me.
There was no need for me to ask: Moon Orchid was a practiced reader of desire. She put down the brush, her dark eyes suddenly much older than the smooth beauty of her face.
“He has given you his blood, and the moment when he crossed into manhood,” she said, and pressed my fingers around the ring again. Her smile was as tight as my heart.
For a moment I felt victorious, as though I had won some silent battle between us. Then I looked down at her hand enclosing my own, and in my mind all I could see were those long, pale fingers moving slowly across Kygo’s sacred skin.
I had not even stepped into the arena.
After what seemed an age, Mama Momo circled me again, Dela by her side.
“You have done a beautiful job, my dear,” she said to Moon Orchid. “Do you not agree, Lady Dela?”
Dela smiled her agreement, although her face was troubled. She had joined us early in the preparations, like a moth drawn to the flame of femininity in the room. She had sat beside me as Moon Orchid finished painting my face, and I had watched her large-knuckled hands hover over the brushes and paint, her eyes judging the deft darkening of my lashes and reddening of my lips. I could almost feel the ache in her to shave off her stubble and paint back the contours of her true self.
“Are you all right?” I whispered, when Moon Orchid had stepped away for a moment.
Dela had put down the pot she was holding, her lip caught between her teeth. “Every day, Ryko sees me in this man’s garb. It is difficult enough for me, let alone him.”
I touched her arm. “It does not matter. He knows who you really are.”
“Then why do I see him withdrawing from me?” she asked.
“I don’t think it is you,” I had said grimly. “I think it is me.”
Across the room, Vida stared at her completed Safflower reflection in a large mirror that stood against the wall. She touched the glass, pulling back as her finger met the hard surface. I remembered my own shock at seeing the whole length of my body for the first time in the arena mirror; the sudden shift from living within flesh to viewing it, a collection of form and contour that was myself, but at the same time outside myself. Quickly, Vida averted her eyes from those in the precious glass; perhaps she did not want to see her spirit in its depths. She watched her reflected hand trace the curve of her waist. Her body was swathed in diaphanous blue cloth that in some places was only one layer thick, showing the sheen of oiled skin, and in others, three or four layers, hiding everything but shape. She frowned and stepped back, her cheeks flushed.
“It will be hard to fight in this,” she said. “It is very tight. And I cannot hide a weapon.”
“You would not get one past the guards anyway,” Momo said. “Come, Lady Eona.” She beckoned me over to the mirror. “See yourself transformed.”
I gathered the skirt of my pink and green gown and walked over to the mirror, both eager and afraid to see my reflection.
A fine-boned woman watched me warily from the smooth glass, her large eyes made larger