Page 10 of The Veil of Hollow Gods

"Why is the water glowing?" I asked before testing the temperature with a toe.

"Magic," she says with a devilish grin. "There’s a control pad inlaid into the ground. You can adjust the heat, currents, and bubbles to your liking. The system will automatically adjust the cleansers, chemical exfoliants, and oils to your skin’s needs, so there’s no need for harsh scrubbing.

Just lie back and let the pool soak away your sins. "

I don’t know what half of what she just said means, but I step forward, dropping the blanket.

Soak away my sins. If only she knew.

"I can keep you company, if you like."

"Thanks, but I’m not getting naked in front of anyone any time soon."

Sinea laughs in a way that lets me know how wrong she thinks I am. Fortunately, she doesn’t say more on that matter.

I look over my shoulder to make certain I’m not in Sinea’s sight line, then slip the shift over my head. As I approach the pool, a small outcropping of blue-black stones rises from the ground, growing several feet until it reaches the height of my hip.

The control pad.

It’s not marked with letters or sigils, but images stamped into the face with a smooth surface above each image.

A fire for heat. Swirling wind for current, and bubbles for bubbles. Easy enough.

I dip a toe in and decide the water is the perfect temperature to boil my innards, so I tap on the smooth portion above the fire stamp.

"Bathing pool temperature rising from thirty-two degrees centigrade to thirty-five degrees centigrade." The voice is feminine and strangely even.

"By the bleeding dark! Who in the nine vestiges is talking to me!?"

Sinea lets out a cruel chuckle. "I told you I’d keep you company if you wanted."

"Woman, I swear to on the Shadowed Veil, if you don’t tell me who spoke this instant…"

"Relax," she says, ducking into the wardrobe and entering the bathing suite. "The control panel is just acknowledging you gave it new orders, that’s all."

"By talking to me?"

Sinea nods as if it’s the most plausible thing in the world for inanimate objects to speak.

"Well, it’s doing a shit job. I wanted it cooler, not warmer."

"Then press here," she points to the smooth part below the stamped symbol. She presses it and a second later, the same soft, feminine voice acknowledges the action.

"Lowering bathing pool temperature from thirty-five degrees centigrade to thirty degrees centigrade."

"There, try that out. "

"Shouldn’t I give it a moment to?—"

Sinea shakes her head. "We’re not heating your bath over a fire here. This is the marriage of magic and technology. The temperature changes the moment you ask for it."

I dip the toes of my other foot in the swirling pool and find the water perfectly tepid.

A new outcropping of stone juts from the bottom of the pool, forming itself into a railing. I grasp it and walk down the gentle slope.

"I forget you Tiriana ladies like your pools barely over freezing."

"It’s what we’re used to," I say and wade to the farthest end of the pool. I find a ledge to sit on and let the water, bubbles, and magic do its job.

"If you put your hair under, the pool will formulate the right cleansers for that too."

"Umm…"

"Hair washing in a frozen land without magic is probably more horrific than I can imagine, I’m sure. But there’s nothing to worry about here. The system will cleanse and moisturize your hair so that it dries quickly and is lovely."

Sinea seems genuine.

"You’re sure?"

She nods. "Positive. Look at my mane."

I don’t comment on her tangle of bouncy curls and dip my locks under. The water is cool on my scalp, and I have to take several deep breaths to remind myself that I won’t freeze the moment I get out of the pool.

Jets of cool water act like fingers and massage my head and neck.

"Try floating on your back. You’ll enjoy it more," Sinea says, and I do as she suggests.

The jets multiply, spraying delightful streams into my shoulders and back, down the back of my legs and even on the soles of my feet.

I breathe out a curse and let myself enjoy it.

After the jets work out every knot and bit of stress my muscles hold, I ask Sinea how long I need to stay in to make sure I’m clean.

"Oh, you’ve been clean for some time now."

I frown at her and get out, wrapping myself in the fluffy and somehow warm towel she waves into existence.

"Thank you." I lift an oversized corner to squeeze water from my hair—but my hair is already dry.

Bone dry.

Like it never held water at all.

"I told you," Sinea says, and I run a hand through the silky waves I didn’t know I had.

"You’ll need a cut to freshen those poor ends, but it’s quite pretty."

I follow her to the mirror over the black basin at the far wall.

"Dama’s holy hand." I touch my cheek. The skin on my collarbone. "I look so…"

"Refreshed? Clean? Youthful?"

I nod. All of it.

"It’s amazing what a proper bath and a full belly will do to you Tiriana potentials. Admire yourself for as long as you need to. I’ll be waiting in your room when you’re ready to get dressed."

I take her up on the offer and stare at the person in the mirror, utterly transformed. Then I have the strangest thought.

Vella should be here. She should be enjoying this, not me.

I shake my head, dislodging the odd, half-reasoned thought .

Vella should surely not be here.

But she should have what this feels like—an easier life. Just like Mother. Just like everyone in Tiriana.

If this is how the rest of the world lives…

That beast in me taps a single claw against my chest, and I get the strangest sense that it’s smiling at me.

I give myself one last look and leave the bathing chamber.

"If I want to have a bath without you…" I let the question go unsaid.

"You’ll learn how to work the aetherglass soon enough. But first, let’s get your Maiden uniform on." She holds up more flowing dark fabric than seems reasonable for a single person.

"Is all that for me?"

Sinea nods. "First time is tricky, so I’ll help. But after that, you’ll be expected to dress on your own. You’re not allowed out of your room without all parts of your uniform in place, understood?"

I nod, and Sinea helps me into a pair of ridiculous undergarments. The seat is but a scrap of fabric, covering nothing at all. The front covers more but not nearly enough.

"Remember, you don’t need to dress for warmth anymore."

"Sure, but I don’t see how covering my snatch in little more than thread and mesh accomplishes anything at all."

Sinea stares at me a moment. "It’s to conjure the right mindset."

The right mindset… What is that supposed to mean?

The next layer is little more than a shift. It’s black like midnight and clings to parts of my body I wish it wouldn’t, brushing just over mid-thigh. It pulls tight at my middle and across my breasts, though the fabric there isn’t as thin and at least obscures my nipples somewhat.

"You can’t expect me to wear this in public."

Sinea laughs. "This is just the first layer." She steps behind me and holds out more fabric. "Slide this on," she whispers.

I put my arms in, and she adjusts the fabric before pulling me in front of the wardrobe aetherglass, now transformed to a mirror.

"Sinea! This isn’t any better!"

The garment clasps at my throat and floats down around my arms and body like a cloak.

The sleeves are billowy but thin enough to still see through, just like the rest of the fabric.

My legs are still bare, and the cloak does nothing to hide how tight the dress beneath it is. "I was more covered in the bath towel!"

Hiding under layers of wool and cotton was how I’d learned to live.

Practical for the cold, yes, but also for keeping attention away.

When my body betrayed me, turning into a woman’s, with curves and breasts where there had been none, overnight, it was easier to disappear in fabric than to face what that meant.

Mother warned me about it, in her usual matter-of-fact way. But even her steady words couldn’t prepare me for the weight of being seen—really seen. The shift in their eyes. The way they lingered. The way I understood, all at once, why they hunted us.

I yank on the hemline, trying to cover skin I’ve never allowed to be revealed.

Sinea bats my hand away. All this silken, transparent fabric is like a second betrayal.

Lighter than air but still pressing heavy against me, unrelenting, as if demanding me to breathe through it.

To exist in it. Every stitch demanding: Look at me .

"Yes. The bath towel covered you more, but that was for drying," she says in a dark, placating singsong. "This"—she fluffs and flounces the fabric—"is to get you in the right state of mind."

I keep my face neutral, breathing steady, hiding all the outfit has truly accomplished. "You’ve said that twice now. What are you trying to say, exactly?"

She stares at me in the mirror and lifts the hood of the cloak over my head. The fabric, thin as breath, falls like a whisper from my crown to the bridge of my nose, draping my lips in shadow. Dark enough to obscure my face, sheer enough to see through. The effect is extraordinary.

I could be anyone under here. The thought doesn’t calm me entirely, but that weight, the baleful promise of eyes devouring me, shifts a single breath in a new direction.

"Am I meant to keep this on at all times?" My voice is steadier than I expect, as though the cloak lends me confidence.

Because under this hood, I’m still just as exposed, but the vulnerability is different. Controlled.

"There. Now you see, don’t you?" Sinea nods. "And yes. Unless you’re in the company of only potential Maidens or myself, keep your face hidden. Now, let’s get your slippers and make haste. The others are waiting."

"Others?" I ask as she bends to put a pair of black silken slippers on my feet.

"You’re going to meet the other potentials."

I tug on the flimsy fabric that inches up my thighs with every step, newfound confidence slipping away as the hemline threatens to expose the ridiculous undergarment I’m wearing.

Sinea explains that the potentials’ bedchambers are in the deepest part of the keep, and we have to trek through what seems like miles of obsidian hallways to get to wherever we’re going.

"This is Obsidian Hall, where you and the rest of the potentials from Shadowfell will be presented to the demon kings and their wardens," she says as we pass an enormous set of carved double doors.

They’re like the door to my room, carved from the stone itself, but far grander, with shimmering silvery veins running through the rocks and runes that glitter in the low light.

"Presented? Like merchandise?"

Sinea glances at me, brow furrowed. "You really know nothing about this, do you?"

"I’ve already told you that, and you refuse to tell me anything more, so what do you suppose we do about that?"

She shrugs. "Well, it’s pointless to tell you too much too soon. Especially when it’s not likely you’ll make it past the first trial, anyway."

A hot ember burns in my chest, and I’m about to argue that if she told me, I’d have a better chance of surviving, but we already had that conversation. I’m not particularly fond of wasting my breath. Still, I can’t help but get a small jab in.

"Knowledge is power, you know?" That’s what Mother instilled in me from the very start.

"Maybe. But sometimes the more you know, the more you realize what can go wrong. Trust me, right now, what you don’t know is your greatest weapon."

We remain silent until Sinea pulls me into an alcove I didn’t notice.

"What— "

She clamps her hand around my mouth, eyes widening.

My pulse kicks hard against my ribs. What or who are we hiding from? Guards? A demon king? Did she take us somewhere we weren’t supposed to be?

"Stay silent," she whispers. "You’re here to observe, nothing more. Nod if you understand."

I nod and give her a scathing look. If she had told me that before, she wouldn’t have had to scare me. Though, I’m certain Sinea derives a certain amount of pleasure at keeping me anxious and guessing.

She taps on the wall several times in a pattern I’d need to hear a few more times to repeat, and a door appears in the black stone wall.

Not a door.

It’s glass.

No, not glass.

It occurs to me as a swirly cloud of greenish mist rolls over the surface. I’m on the other side of aetherglass, watching a group of potentials.

My jaw drops, and I turn to stare at Sinea, but she grabs my jaw and points my face back to the room beyond the glass…to the nude women in a communal bath.

"Do you think you’re ready?" a dark-haired woman says to the woman floating in front of her. Another woman, a blonde, has her face buried in the floating woman’s?—

"What the bleeding dark is happening?" I whisper-yell to Sinea.

She gives me a stern look but deigns to answer. "They’re pleasuring the newest potential to make sure she’s adequately prepared for the first trial."

The woman’s back arches, and a soft moan whispers by her lips. She turns her head, and just then, I swear she looks right at me.