Leaf returned with fur-covered cots. “You may rest here tonight. As our guests, all needs will be provided for.”
“When may I speak to the Wolfmother?” Yethyr asked.
“You will get your audience in due time. Wolves cannot be rushed.”
Yethyr railed at the delay. I could taste his hope. All this time, he had been planning a desperate scheme using a tiny party. If there was even a chance that he could get divine wolves on his side against the Datrean council…he practically salivated at the thought.
He forced himself to be patient
“Alright.” He relaxed his fists. “What can we do in the meantime?”
“If you’re taking recommendations, how about a bath?” She wrinkled her nose. “Your scent is putrid.”
Was it? Yethyr didn’t notice. Neither did I, but of course I didn't. I had been forged during a gruesome siege. The smell of death was all I had ever known.
It was clear it was something Leaf thought they ought to be embarrassed by, but the Brinn Prince just stared at her without shame.
“Do you have water warm enough for a bath?”
“Of course. We have hot springs.” She frowned at Wes’s hooded shape. “I’m not sure it will do that thing any good. Is that really a walking skeleton?”
“Tell her that I would prefer to stay here anyway,” Wes said sullenly.
“Wesed will stay here,” Yethyr turned toward the skeleton. “Besides, I have a task for you.”
“My prince?”
Yethyr handed him a fur bundle that sang of powerful stonesong only I could hear. They both knew it held the remains of the shattered red obsidian mirror that Kvelir and Tular betrayed their parties for. “Can you try to put this back together? I want to know what it does.”
Wes took the wrapped mirror warily. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Yethyr returned his gaze to Leaf. “Lead the way.”
She guided them through the city. “So you see, here in the main garden, we carve songs of warmth into the earth to keep the soil from freezing. The wolves hunt for us, but it would not be enough if not for the carrots.”
Yethyr was predictably fascinated. “Is it firesong or stonesong?”
Leaf smiled. “The Datreans asked the same. Their curiosity was satisfied when I said those who hear the voice of the mountain are the ones tasked with maintaining the garden.”
“Stonesong then.”
“That is the Datrean word for it.”
“Do you have firesongs?”
“We don’t, but the Feero clan does. They live on the flaming mountain, and it speaks to them in the voices of fire and of earth and of iron.”
“But not wind and water?”
“No. That is the mountain’s gift to the Lethonese alone. We of the Letho are the wolves’ chosen people. The Feero turned their back on Maethe and her Snarling Fang long ago.”
Yethyr hummed. “That makes them easy prey for the Datreans. It is firesingers, stonesingers, and steelsingers that would have the most to gain from Datrea’s songcraft. They have little to teach your people by comparison.”
“They don’t know much about sky and snow, that is true,” Leaf agreed, “but their stonework is remarkable. The tunnel you took to reach here is centuries old. How it was done is lost. The Datreans know how, though. They know how to burrow to the heart of the mountain!”
“But the Wolfmother doesn’t approve?”
“She calls the very suggestion blasphemy.”
“What about songs of death?” Yethyr asked lightly.
Leaf shuddered. “We do not do such things. It is forbidden. Such songs lead all to Hell.”
Yethyr kept his face carefully blank. “I see.”
He was spared from continuing that conversation. They had reached the mouth of a cave.
Within was a sprawling system of caverns, filled with steaming pools and naked bodies.
It reminded me of Datrean public baths. I had never been to one myself, of course, but Zunad had drowned a rival in one, and those memories swam about within me.
These hot springs, as Leaf had called them, lacked the intricate mosaics that had characterized those grand city bathhouses, but the vaulted stone ceilings dripping with stalactites sparkled with their own sort of beauty.
Yethyr winced at the crowds of people filling the pools. “Do you have any non-communal hot springs?”
Leaf laughed at him. “Are you people shy? Not even the Datreans were shy.”
I was not sure what they were talking about, but I could feel Jaetheiri silently panicking.
“We are not Datreans,” Yethyr snapped. “We don’t disrobe in public.”
Leaf cocked her head. “What about them?”
Nisari was already taking her armor off cheerfully, utterly unconcerned by the crowd of onlookers that was gathering about her.
Mandorias had not been so bold, but he was picking his way deeper into the caverns to examine a stalactite that had almost reached the floor. If he was bothered by the people in the pools, he didn't show it.
“I’m not going in there.” To my surprise, Kettir of all people pressed his back to the stone entryway with wide eyes and a red face. He seemed to be trying to look anywhere but the mass of naked bodies before him.
Leaf covered her mouth to suppress a giggle. “Have you truly never lied with someone before?”
Kettir didn't know Datrean, or at least, I didn't think he knew Datrean, but somehow, he had gone even more red-faced.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
“I’m not going in there either.” Yethyr scowled. “Nisari and Mandorias may do as they like, but I am a prince, and these are not acceptable conditions. There are security risks!”
I was perplexed. He wasn’t horrified by the hot spring due to fear. His feelings seemed more about dignity than anything else. Whatever his problem was, it had nothing to do with security risks.
Leaf’s black eyes glittered with the first hint of real fury. “You dare think we’d attack you?”
“I always think I'm about to be attacked,” Yethyr said curtly. “It is the way of my life. It has nothing to do with you.”
Leaf’s anger was replaced by understanding. “I see. Like an easily startled wolf?”
That comparison made Yethyr uncomfortable, but he could not find fault in it. “...yes.”
Leaf nodded. “In that case, I have just the place.”
She shooed Yethyr, Jaetheiri, and Kettir down a side tunnel that led to a fur curtain. She popped her head behind it. “Good. No one’s using it right now.” She looked back at them wryly. “This one’s usually for the ill, injured, or overly sensitive.”
Yethyr barely noticed that she was trying to call him ill, injured, and overly sensitive. He was driven by a rare and relentless protective urge that squashed any shame and offense that would have come.
“That’s perfect. Thank you.”
Leaf shrugged. “Have fun then.”
When she left them, Yethyr turned to Kettir. “You will stand guard. You may use the spring after us.”
Kettir looked painfully relieved. “That suits me perfectly, my prince.”
He took up position, as if he were guarding the tent again, and Jaetheiri and Yethyr pushed past the fur curtain.
The cave was small and the hot spring was even smaller, but they were alone and their relief was a near-tangible thing in the air.
“Thank you,” Jaetheiri whispered.
Yethyr looked at her, and only then did I see how pale her stony-faced expression truly was.
Oh. The Prince’s insistence on a private bath had been for her, not for him.
Yethyr was never going to admit that, though. “For what?” He said with deliberate obliviousness. “A prince needs his privacy.”
Jaetheiri smiled. “Of course.”
She approached the pool and tested the water with her fingers. She hummed appreciatively. “I’ll get in first and then slowly help you in.”
Yethyr nodded. “That sounds prudent.”
Jaethe carefully took off her armor, which made me realize that besides in dreams and memories, I had never seen her out of her armor. She disrobed rarely, and when she did, it was brief and out of everyone’s view.
Now I understood why.
Jaetheiri’s jagged scar across her face was not her only scar. In fact, her body appeared to have more scars than clean skin. The more she revealed, the more alarming it was.
The naked bodies among the selkies and in the public hot springs had given me a good idea of the general outline of the feminine form. There was a great deal of variation, but even I, naive as I was, knew certain things that were supposed to be there were absent. Like someone had taken a knife to her and cut off—
Yethyr felt my horror and turned away deliberately to strip me of the sight. “You have no right to look.” He hissed at me in his head.“You have no right to pity her,”
He ripped me from his belt, shoved me against the wall and let go of my hilt, blinding me to all but his fierce reproach pounding through our bond. I was more confused than offended at being so roughly cast aside.
Something…someone had done that to Jaetheiri. She was my sworn enemy and even I was moved at the thought of her torture. Why wasn’t he horrified? Why wasn’t he angry?
But no. There was no fury; there was no disgust. Even without sharing his sight, I knew he looked at Jaetheiri then. The warm, steady feeling he had whenever he looked at her was easy to recognize. Even with her terrifying scars in view, that warmth did not change at all.
I felt him turn his focus away from her without difficulty or awkwardness. He would not gawk. He would let no one gawk, least of all me.
Oh, now he was looking at me. That complicated concoction of begrudging desire and fear-tinged awe was easy to recognize too. He was glaring at me, I was sure, chastising me although I could not understand why. My existence forced me to observe his entire life, even down to his thoughts. He knew that. He tolerated that. Why was this any different?
But somehow, when it was Jaetheiri, it was different.
Jaetheiri’s discomfort made ripples through our bond. “Stop staring at the sword and get over here.”
Yethyr left me leaning against the wall and joined Jaetheiri by the pool. Usually, it was Yethyr bubbling with a thousand emotions he could not control and Jaetheiri as cool as ice. Experiencing the reverse was eerie.
Disgust. Anger. Shame. With each layer of clothing she removed, Jaetheiri radiated a disorienting wrongness. This was not her body. It was wrong. It was broken. It was ruined.
She tried not to look. She tried not to think about it. She buried those thoughts deep where only I could hear. She buried them until all she felt was vicious satisfaction. Satisfaction? How could she feel satisfaction—ah.
Of course. I remembered her vow of vengeance within Ruzar’s memories.
Whoever had done this to her had clearly been punished for it so severely that just the thought of it gave Jaetheiri a flash of glee.
Demons below, Brinn were strange.
It was no wonder they had insisted on a private bath, away from all those curious black Lethonese eyes. I was used to their emotional nonsense and even I felt raw witnessing this. Being caught between Yethyr’s unflinching protectiveness and Jaetheiri’s molten feelings felt like being between the anvil and the hammer all over again.
By the time I reeled back from the contrast, I could hear Jaetheiri carefully helping Yethyr into the pool. Out of his armor, he couldn’t possibly swim, but thankfully, the water was low enough that they could both sit in the pool comfortably.
Jaetheiri let out a long sigh. “Ah. I needed this.”
Yethyr groaned wordlessly. The warm water was wonderful to his aching bones, not the complete release that I had once given him, but a reprieve nonetheless.
He didn't trust even that modicum of peace. It was only a few minutes in the bath before he grew restless.
“Relax, my prince,” Jaetheiri chided. “Who knows when we will get an indulgence like this again.”
I could feel Yethyr fidget. “Indulgences are a distraction.”
“So? You’re not a priest.”
Yethyr felt a pang of hurt so sharp it startled me. The hurt must have shown on his face because Jaetheiri rushed to say, “I mean, you’re not a priest of Maethe. Whatever austerity she demands certainly would not apply to your angel.”
Yethyr relaxed, suddenly amused. “You think so?”
“Definitely.”
Yethyr actually managed to relax after that. A quiet fell over them. Soon, all that could be heard were their slow breaths, the lap of warm water, and steam.
I let myself be lulled by the sounds. I needed to conserve my strength. Yethyr was going to try to consume me permanently as soon as he wasn’t occupied by the logistics of his party's survival. Another duel of wills could be as soon as tonight, and I would need every advantage. Relaxation did not come naturally to me. If I were being honest, I almost didn’t understand what the word meant, but I was willing to try.
I could relax if I wanted to. I would relax, any minute now.
“I know you can hear me,” someone beyond the fur curtain whispered.
I paused my musing. Did I hear that? Did Yethyr hear that? No, he was telling Jaetheiri a stupid joke that she was going to pretend she didn’t find funny. They both heard nothing. Then who was speaking? They could not possibly be talking to me—
“I do not know by what name to address you, but I refuse to call you a sword.” If I had a heart, it would have stopped. I was being addressed directly. In my startlement, I could not recognize the voice even though there was only one person it could be.
It was male and Brinn, and there was only one man who spoke unaccented Brinn beyond that fur curtain. There was only one man who stood guard beyond that curtain at all.
Ayathir
Ever since he had met Yethyr in the ruins of Datrea, he had pretended to be Kettir. He had pretended to know less than he did, to be less than he was.
Ayathir wasn’t pretending now.
Beyond that fur curtain was the voice of someone who shot only killing blows and somehow knew what I was.
And now he was talking directly to me.
I never thought *this* story would lead to a hot tub scene. The imagination really does work in mysterious ways. Thank you so much for reading! What did you think? I love comments and often respond to them. If you want to support me and read ahead, you know where to go.
**schedule** is 6 am PDT on Fridays. See you guys then!
Which would you prefer to decorate your public bath?
