My answer apparently sufficed, for Queen Brenica abruptly turned and indicated that I should follow her down to where Keryn and Tahra were looking bedraggled and skeptical. It’s on me to set an example. I followed our hostess back over the stone bridge with my head high, back straight, and heart in my throat.
She took us, and a crowd of around twenty Ansi women, down a path into another horseshoe-shaped canyon with a waterfall at the opposite end.
“Great, just what I was looking forward to,” Keryn grumbled. “A cold bath.”
“The water is warm,” one of our attendants said, smiling. “Hot springs.” She pointed to the top of the cliffs, hazed by a cloud of steam. The waterfall must cool to a comfortable temperature on the way down.
The Ansi dialect is to Auralian like North African or Canadian French is to Parisians—different, though still the same language. It takes concentration. Concentration is tiring, and I was already at my limit. I gritted my teeth and stripped my clothes off when indicated. Covering the essentials as best I could with both hands, I jumped into the water.
Anything to avoid seeing myself naked.
As promised, the warm water is a delight. Almost enough to make up for the fact that three women instantly grabbed me and started scrubbing. Back. Shoulders. Hair. While I usually enjoy physical contact more than I probably should, this was too much. As embarrassing as it was, I was so overwhelmed with trying to process who was touching what part of me that I had no extra energy to focus on my self-consciousness about my body—until they started with the hair removal, like Raina warned me. (Barely.)
“Is this strictly necessary?” I demanded. The women shrugged.
“If you want the paint to stick,” one said.
“The hair is itchy,” said the woman holding my knee angled against the rock. “We don’t have to take it all off, but the men like it better if you do.”
Men liked this? Would Lorcan? I’ll endureanyindignity if it finally gets me laid.
“Whatever you think is best,” I mumbled.
Keryn objected vociferously to the depilation process. Tahra’s silver hair apparently extended to below the waist, to the fascination of the women yanking it out at the roots. She endured this stoically in true Covari fashion.
I was red from head to toe by the time the women helped me out of the bathing pool, not only because of having every hair painfully plucked out from places I didn’t think I grew any. I cannot believe Raina put up with this treatment. What was she thinking, letting me walk into this situation without warning? She had almost a week to send word!
The herbal-scented creams they smoothed onto my skin were nice, though. Even Keryn rubbed their forearms appreciatively.
“That was an experience,” they commented.
“You liked it?” asked one of the Ansi women. I wish I knew them by name, but that will take more than a single afternoon. Right now, I’m doing my best to memorize their features.
“Parts of it,” Keryn answered, grinning. “Could do without being plucked like a duck.”
“It was an experience, wasn’t it?” I laughed. Now that it’s over, I can admit it wasn’t so bad. The Ansi are even less fussed about nudity than the Covari. I, however, remained deeply self-conscious.
The instant I was out of the pool, I draped a rough-woven towel around my torso.
“Why do you hide?” one woman asked, cocking her head.
I shrugged and turned away. My breasts aren’t as flat as they were a few weeks ago, and my stomach isn’t concave between my hip bones, but I’m not me.
Then again, my body has never felt like mine. This isn’t so different from the way my father used to stuff me into formal robes, or how I had to dress up for photographers and black-tie events in the outside world. I didn’t recognize myself in those images, either. Whatever is happening to me in the aftermath of my recovery is part of a long history of never feeling like I belong to myself.
“You should be painted before you dress,” a woman with stripes on her face and palm prints over her naked breasts stated. Apparently, this paint does not wash off. Fabulous.
“Clothes, please.”
Such as they are. The top was little more than two pieces of green dragonskin leather held in place by straps at the neck and around my back. The skirt was supposed to cover my ass, but since Tovian neglected to specify that I am quite a bit taller than Raina, it only does so when the side laces are loosened enough to ride low on my hips.
At least there’s a fur shrug to conceal my shoulders and sandals with a laced-up covering for my lower legs. If the skirt actually hit mid-thigh like it’s supposed to—as Tahra’s does—my lower body would be well-protected from stray branches and thorny undergrowth. I wouldn’t feel so obscenely naked.
“You look…” Tahra trailed off. Her silver hair had dried in a long braid down her back. Mine, after much discussion, was corralled into two thin braids from my temples to behind my ears and tied with tiny pieces of leather.
“Absurd?”
“Incredible.”
