Page 1 of A Game of Veils

Chapter One

Aurelia

The carriage has just crested the last low hill before the imperial capital when the spring breeze sours with the stink of rotting flesh.

Our driver exhales sharply and clucks at the horses to pick up the pace. My stomach knots.

The sight beyond the window can only be disturbing, but I need to face everything that lies ahead of me.

As I reach for the curtain, Cici makes a soft noise of protest where she’s sitting on the opposite bench. When I tug at the fabric regardless, she simply closes her eyes.

At first, the narrow view shows only scattered farmhouses amid golden fields beneath the clear blue sky.

Then a post comes into view next to the road.

A corpse dangles, limp feet hovering over the ground, a head with blood-caked hair sagging. What skin I can see is purpled and torn by the beaks and teeth of scavengers.

The largest gouge was clearly made by a sword. Someone carved open this man’s front from throat to groin to let his innards spill out in a gruesome display.

It’s a reminder from Emperor Tarquin of what happens to those he believes threaten his empire.

Whatever the man’s crimes, he wasn’t alone in them. More posts stand in a row with his, each holding a body ripped apart in the same way.

The one beside him wears the remains of a dress. His wife? After her, another in trousers, and finally?—

A form barely half the height of the others, tiny hands with mangled fingers, a crimson-splattered ribbon unraveling from pale hair.

I shut my own eyes then, clenching my hand against the urge to clamp it to my mouth. Willing down the surge of nausea that roils in my gut.

Cici won’t judge me for my horror, but I’ll be surrounded by those who will soon enough.

When I’m sure my arm won’t shake, I tap three fingers to my forehead, heart, and belly in acknowledgment of the nine godlen who watch over us. Those lesser gods are the only divine power we can appeal to.

I finish the gesture of the divinities with a clasp of my hand over my sternum, where my skin beneath the bodice of my dress is branded with the sigil of the one godlen I specifically dedicated myself to.

Elox, I think in a silent prayer, may their souls be at rest and let me bring healing to this place.

Whatever that family did, I can’t accept that a child deserved such brutal punishment.

The godlen of medicine and peace doesn’t respond, but then, I’ve never met anyone the gods have spoken to directly. That isn’t how they work.

A tendril of calm unfurls inside me as if in a gentle caress. My shoulders straighten in response.

I will not be shaken from my purpose.

When I open my eyes, the butchery beyond the window has passed behind us. The putrid stench is fading away.

Cici shoots me a tight smile, her sallow face looking slightly greenish. “His son could be different.”

I allow myself what might be my last fully honest comment before the imperial palace swallows me and my maid up. “Let’s hope so.”

Should a woman be happier than this on her way to her wedding? In some ways, I am pleased.

I’ve spent twenty-one years standing on the sidelines, watching my country suffocate under the empire’s thumb. Knowing it’s my older sister who’ll rule after our parents—as much as anyone in our family rules with the limited authority our conquerors allow us to keep—and that my primary value is in the loyalties my marriage can strengthen. All I could do was wait and find out what man I’d end up tied to.

For the first time, I’m contributing something to our kingdom, to my people. And it’s more than I ever could have dreamed possible.

Somehow my parents arranged a betrothal to the most powerful bachelor in the continent: the heir to the entire empire.

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