Her hands stop. She considers the question, bites her lip, and begins combing with such intense interest in the comb that she might as well be doing brain surgery. “You are not… aware of the… process. Of Kerz mating?” she asks in a very quiet, wary voice.
“That’s what I’m asking about,” I tell her.
She looks at me in the mirror nervously. Then she smiles. “Kerz mate with many partners,” she says, a hint of excitement in her voice. “You are special, a bride of the general. You will mate with only the strongest soldiers, those with the strongestkryth.” She grins sheepishly. “You are lucky.”
I stare at my reflection, and her. She is no longer grinning, and she doesn’t look back at me.
“What iskryth?” I ask.
Now she looks up again. “This is the… hmm, there is no word, it’s like a force, blood.” She holds out her forearm and touches her yellow markings. “This iskryth. Mine is weak, but you have seen the general, yes?” She smiles wryly. “Or the Kapsuk. They say he has the strongestkrythof any Kerz alive.” She smiles again as she resumes combing. “You are lucky,” she repeats.
My mouth is hanging open again. “You mean…? I thought I was supposed to marry the general…”
She nods. “You are,” she says.
“But I’m going to…?”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I can’t believe what I’m hearing, and I can’t believe what I’m feeling. Just the mention of the Kapsuk, the Kerz who has spanked me and touched me so intimately, is making my abdomen cool with desire, and my pussy is getting wet.
But this is insane. This is… utterly wrong, not what I signed up for…
And yet, what can I do about it?
Nothing. I have, as he pointed out, no control.
I stare into the mirror as Trasmea combs my hair and twists some it into strange shapes that she pins all over my head. I barely pay any attention to it. It’s some weird stuff, I realize, when I finally tune back in to the present moment.
Again, whatever. I turn my head side to side and try to figure out how she’s done these elaborate braids, but I can’t, and my hair is really the least of my worries.
“You like it?” she asks, smiling.
“It’s… I’m sure, very beautiful,” I say, and then feel bad.
But Trasmea is undeterred by this. She delights in the part of my sentence she liked, and disregards the rest. “It’s the most popular style among Kerz women,” she assures me.
“Huh,” I say. “Why don’t you wear your hair that way?”
Her face changes suddenly, and I’m met with a gaze that is at once serious and astounded. “This is only forZa’aka.”
“Za’aka?” I repeat.
“Like you. Married to Kerz of great standing… these are… there is no translation. Like the general.”
“Soldiers?” I offer.
She shrugs. “Like soldiers, but rich soldiers.” She adjusts a few things in my hair. “It’s like: ‘Kerz who take that which they want.’ But a title.”
“Oh,” I say cheerfully. “Gangsters.”
“I don’t know this word,” she tells me.
I weigh whether or not to tell her that this was largely a joke, but the more I think about it, the more I think my interpretation might be closer to the truth than her lengthy phrase. So I leave it.
She adds a few potions and colors to my face. She seems to want to highlight my freckles, which is a first for me. I don’t know if it’s something I should be happy about, or dismayed by. She turns my lips red with a liquid that she paints on with a strange brush, and as she does this, she laughs. “Do you know that there is a rumor among thehyka’ar, the hands, that you have blue lips? And green lips? And yellow lips? It’s so funny, I’m sad to tell them the truth.”
Fiona’s lipstick.
This is funny, but I have a hard time laughing as I stare back at my face in the mirror. She’s done a magnificent job; I look very attractive.
