Aiden tossed my clothes next to his and swam back to me.
I wrapped my arms around my body, trying to ease my shivering. “This is n-nothing like the bathhouse in Aquinon.”
Aiden drifted closer, small waves splashing against the seam of his smile. “I didn’t think I’d miss many things about Aquinon, but a heated bath is one of them.”
I dipped my head back and unbraided my hair. The river teased it apart. If only I had soap. At least the river would make it smell better than ash and sweat.
The stars glistened above me. The dark pine trees crowding the shore reached for them like furry fingers.
“The view is quite spectacular, though,” I murmured.
“The one I had in the bathhouse was just as beautiful.”
I lowered my chin to find him staring at me in a way that made my toes curl around the slippery rocks on the river bottom.
He’d looked at me the same way in The Hollow. Just before we ran for our tent.
But I couldn’t let him get to me. Or I might do something stupid like wrap my naked body around his and create a warmth of our own. But this time, I wouldn’t have the mead to blame for my recklessness.
Just loneliness. And desire.
He reached for me under the rippling water, his fingers brushing mine. Stroking my palm in a soft invitation. The river’s gentle current pushed me toward him as if it, too, wanted to give him what he wanted.
I slipped out of his reach, kicking my feet to give us some distance. “Is this the cold river Maz boasted about swimming in?”
“We’ve gone swimming in this river many times. But I’m sure he was talking about the times when the rivers of Dagriel freeze into ice so thick, many people can walk on them.”
My eyebrows arched. “That sounds incredible. And dangerous. And much too cold for me.”
Aiden chuckled. “It is. But of course, the Dags make a game out of it. They cut holes in the ice to fish but also to jump into, to see who can stay in the longest.”
I snorted. “That sounds like outright torture.”
“It’s not so bad if you get out, wrap yourself in furs, and run for the bonfire.”
“You’ve done it?”
“Of course.” Aiden shook his head with a smile. “But not after Maz stole my clothes and all the blankets, and I had to run back to camp naked.”
I laughed outright this time, my face tipped to the sky. “Oh gods, I would’ve kicked his ass off a mountain.”
“It wasn’t so bad after the icicles melted off my skin. Although I paid him back in kind.” Aiden swam up next to me and mimicked my position. “Late one night, after he passed out from much more mead than usual, I—along with his three lovelysisters—dragged him out of his lodge and threw him in an ice hole. He woke up with a roar so loud, Jek came running with his sword, thinking we were being attacked by a bear.”
My shoulders shook with laughter and shivers. I could picture everything in my mind. Their mischievous looks, Maz’s snoring, then his shouting.
A pang of sadness hit me at the thought that Davka wouldn’t be in their future stories.
That was one of the hardest parts about losing Mother—she wouldn’t be in my stories anymore. She wouldn’t get to share the rest of my life. All I had left were old memories that would continue to fade.
I rolled over and paddled through the water, trying to thaw the blood in my veins and the ice in my heart.
“You seem to swim just fine,” Aiden remarked, watching me with hooded eyes.
Cheeks burning, I stopped, wondering how much of my naked body he could see.
“The pool at the palace was large enough for me to get the idea,” I said. “And this river is much calmer than the sea outside Calimber.” I shuddered at the memory of those huge waves and that bottomless feeling beneath me.
Aiden stilled. I did, too, glancing over my shoulder in case he’d spotted someone. But no one was there.
