There's a beat, and the air feels thicker between us. The water ripples with his slight movement, lapping against the stone in gentle percussion.
“I've lived longer than you, Esme,” he says quietly. “I’ve seen empires rise from dust and turn back to it. I’ve seen destinies forged in fire and shattered by a single, stubborn heart...” His voice drops lower, almost resonating in the hollow of the cave. “I've seen what happens when you take something by force. It never lasts. Not really.” His eyes hold mine, steady. The gold in them dulls, suddenly seeming almost tired. Honest in a way that unsettles me more than anger would. “I’m done trying to break your walls. I’d rather you decide to lower them yourself, if you ever wanted to.”
“And what if I don't?” I ask. My voice is meant to be sharp, but it emerges threadbare instead. “What if I tell you to go to hell and let this trial finish me? What if I'd rather be a ghost than whatever it is you're trying to turn me into?”
He doesn't flinch. Not even a ripple disturbs the molten amber of his irises.
“I'm not trying to turn you into anything. You heard Helena's words. It's up to you whether you pay them any mind or not.”
The silence stretches between us, filled only by the whisper of the waterfall cascading down moss-slick stone. Steam rises inlazy tendrils, wreathing his broad shoulders. He has laid what is apparently his truth at my feet. And he waits, immovable as a mountain. He doesn't push, doesn't command. He just waits.Giving me the one thing no one else has… a space to decide?
I eye the water, its surface glimmering with an opalescent sheen that promises relief. My muscles ache with a bone-deep weariness that makes the hot pool look more and more irresistible. Slowly, my trembling fingers move to the buckle of my sword belt. The click of the metal releasing echoes unnaturally loud in the grotto, bouncing off the crystal-studded walls.
I let the belt slide from my hips, the weight of my blade thudding softly onto the damp stone with a metallic finality. Then come the leather straps of my armor, each buckle surrendering with a reluctant click. The bracers on my forearms—etched with the Salem family crest—leave pale impressions on my skin when I peel them away. It feels like each piece represents a layer of my identity being set aside, leaving me increasingly vulnerable. I realize my hands are shaking slightly as I pull the torn, blood-stiffened shirt over my head, the fabric crackling as it separates from half-dried wounds.
I stand there in the warm, damp air in nothing but my thin cotton under-layer clinging to my skin. Every mark on me is on display—a map of my failures. The gash in my side is still raw, a five-inch slash of angry red against my pale skin, its edges puckered and weeping. Bruises in various stages of healing darken my arms and ribs—violet-black where they're fresh, sickly yellow-green where they're fading. I feel too seen.
Dayn looks at me from across the steaming water. His eyes travel slowly from my face to my wounds, lingering on each mark with an expression that’s difficult to read. His gaze is heavy as molten gold, but there's no judgment in it. Just… focus.
I take a step toward the pool. Then another. When my toes reach the edge, the heat coming off the water makes my musclesache in anticipation. I lower myself in slowly, hissing as the heat hits the cut on my side—sharp at first, then easing.
The water wraps around me, thick and warm. It pulls some of the weight out of my body. My breathing slows without me meaning it to. I let my head tip back and close my eyes. For a moment, I don’t have to move. I don’t have to fight. I just… exist.
When I open my eyes, he's closer, his silhouette cutting through the rising steam. I didn't hear him move—not a ripple betrayed him. He stops an arm’s length away, close enough that I can feel his presence in the water as a current of warmth, a disturbance in the mineral-rich pool that has nothing to do with movement and everything to do with the unnatural heat his body radiates.
His eyes catch mine through the mist. “Let me,” he says quietly.
“What?” I whisper, throat dry despite the humidity pressing against my skin.
“Assist your wounds.” His fingers flex, the texture of his palms a quiet reminder of strength and experience.
I hesitate, then nod, once—the smallest surrender I can live with, a tilt of my chin barely disturbing the water lapping at my collarbone.
He crosses the pool with a sound like silk pulled through a ring. The heat he carries changes the temperature in concentriccircles around him; the surface shivers, steam feathering my skin. He doesn’t touch me at first. His hand hovers just above the torn flesh at my side, his palm a sun I want and don’t want.
“Easy,” he murmurs, and the word finds the place in me that is still braced for impact.
I hold myself very still.
Something flares between us—no blaze, just a thin thread of gold that seems to hum along the bond, a current he feeds so carefully I almost miss it. The water warms another degree. The pain sharpens, then unfurls, like a fist opening. He angles closer, his other hand sliding under the water to brace at the outside of my hip. The contact is solid, impersonal in its intention, intimate in its fact. My breath stutters anyway.
He exhales, slow, deliberate. The air that ghosts my skin smells faintly of hot metal and cedar, and where it brushes the wound, heat seeps deeper, precise as a needle. I feel the edges of the cut tighten, draw together—pressure, prickling, then a delicate, tugging ache.
He waits for each small shift of the mending, matching his breath to mine. When I grimace, his thumb flexes in the muscle at my hip—not possessive, not quite, just a steadying weight. His eyes are on my face the entire time, not the blood, not the bruises. Watching for retreat.
“More?” he asks.
I give a quiet nod, allowing the gate to open a fraction wider. Golden warmth wicks through the seam of pain, spreads under my skin in a slow tide. The gash stops screaming, dulling down to a low murmur. The water around us glows faintly, shot through with firefly filaments that curl and vanish against my skin.
He moves his hand at last—no rush, no lingering. His palm skims lower along my ribs, mapping the ugly purples blooming there. The heat he calls this time is duller, deeper, working into the meat of me. The bruise eases under it, the pressure bleeding away. He traces the line of my forearm where I blocked too many times with bone instead of blade. His knuckles graze the tender ridge once, then hover, heat pulsing a heartbeat at a time until the throb retreats.
When his hand lifts toward my left shoulder, instinct flares; I go rigid. That scar. The one I always tuck out of sight, the jagged reminder of my first clearblood kill at thirteen—the onewhere I didn't move fast enough, where I learned that hesitation costs blood. A Purifier lash caught me before I could dodge. It’s the mark that earned my grandmother's first truly disappointed frown and her firm words:“A Salem doesn’t show weakness.”
His fingertips stop a breath away… and he waits.
I shake my head. It’s an old one. Not trial-inflicted. I’m not sure why he thinks that he could even heal something gained outside this virtual reality.
He notices my flicker of confusion. “You’re right,” he mutters. “Best let old ghosts lie.”
