A stern-faced, older woman with arms like weathered oak branches and a no-nonsense demeanor introduced by a junior clerk as Attendant Meara, took charge. Her gaze was sharp, taking in Gessa’s age and unconventional arrival with a flicker of that pervasive, unspoken curiosity Gessa was starting to realize would be her shadow here.
“You’re a wreck, child,” Meara stated, her voice less harsh than her expression suggested. “But alive. First, a bath. You’ll feel more human for it, and the Healers appreciate a clean patient.”
“A bath?” Gessa echoed, the word a near-reverent whisper. The thought of immersing herself in hot water, of scrubbingaway weeks of dirt, grime, and fear, was an almost unimaginable luxury. “Thank you, Attendant.”
As they walked down a long stone corridor, Meara gestured vaguely with her chin. “And mind where you step in the halls,” she said gruffly. “The instructors’ beasts have the run of the place. Annoy Master Flint’s badgers, and you’ll be visiting the Healer for more than a sprain.”
Meara stopped at a heavy oak door and shoved it open. A wall of wet heat immediately slammed into them, thick enough to taste. Gessa gasped as the humidity coated her face, the air heavy with moisture that instantly made her travel-stained clothes cling to her skin.
“This is the recruit bathhouse,” Meara said, her voice slightly muffled by the density of the air.
Inside, steam didn’t just billow; it rolled in opaque, suffocating waves, slicking the stone walls with condensation and turning the large, sunken tubs into vague, looming shadows. It was a tropical, drowning warmth that promised to melt the tension right out of Gessa’s bones.
“We don’t have many… irregularities… like yourself,” Meara continued, her tone matter-of-fact, offering no apology for the communal setting. “So there are no separate considerations. It’s quiet now; most are at mess. Find an empty tub. There’s soap. Here’s a towel and your recruit uniform. Seek me out in the quartermaster’s office when you’re decent. And try not to take all day.”
She placed a rough towel and a neatly folded bundle of grey recruit clothing on a bench slippery with moisture, and then departed.
Gessa hesitated at the threshold, peering into the steamy expanse. As Meara had said, it appeared deserted for the moment. A wave of apprehension warred with her desperate need for cleanliness. Choosing a tub in the furthest, mostshadowed corner, partially obscured by a thick cloud of steam that clung to a rough stone pillar, she stripped off her filthy Hillston clothes with a sigh of relief. She slid into the blessedly hot water, a groan of pure pleasure escaping her lips as the heat penetrated her aching muscles.
For long, blissful moments, she simply soaked, eyes closed, scrubbing her skin with the harsh soap until it was raw but clean, washing her mangled hair, watching the water around her turn a murky grey. It felt like shedding a layer of her desperate flight, a baptism into this new, uncertain life. This, at least, was a small mercy, a moment of pure, physical sensation divorced from fear.
She was luxuriating in the warmth, her head tilted back against the stone rim, a steady peace settling over her, when the outer door to the bathhouse creaked open, followed by the soft tread of boots on the stone floor. Gessa’s eyes snapped open, her heart instantly leaping.
Through a momentary parting in the swirling steam, he appeared, and a cold dread doused her brief serenity. Instructor Ky. He was moving toward the tubs on the opposite side of the room, already shrugging out of his dark tunic. She remembered Aris Thorne naming him and remembered his cynical dismissal of her in that cold cell. To see him now, here…
He was unaware of her, his movements economical as he shed his remaining clothes, his back to her. Gessa froze, sinking lower in her tub, praying the steam and shadows would conceal her. Her gaze, however, unwillingly traced the lines of his body as he turned to test the water of a nearby tub. He was handsome, as she’d noted even in her fear before.
His back was broad, tapering to a lean waist, the muscles of his shoulders and arms clearly defined from years of hard training, moving with a fluid power even in his weariness. His long, dark hair, unbound now, fell like a silken curtain around his shoulders as he bent. Objectively, he was a striking figureof a man, sculpted and strong. The thought, a purely detached observation of male beauty, came unbidden, and she crushed it instantly, shame and the chilling memory of Polan’s possessive appreciation making her recoil internally with a cold wave of self-disgust.
Then Ky stepped toward his chosen tub, and she saw it clearly: the brutally scarred landscape of his left leg, a puckered, angry roadmap of old violence from thigh to ankle. He moved with that slight limp she’d noted before, but it was more evident now, a hitch in his otherwise powerful grace. He lowered himself into the hot water with a deep, shuddering groan of relief, the sound raw and intensely personal in the quiet, steamy room. His head fell back against the rim, eyes closing, his face, for a moment, losing some of its harshness in unguarded weariness.
Gessa knew she had to leave. Now. Before he sensed her, before he opened his eyes. Moving with excruciating slowness, like a forest creature scenting danger, she began to ease herself up, careful not to make a single ripple. The steam, blessedly, was thick around her alcove. Her towel and clean uniform lay on the bench just outside it, a horrifyingly long distance away. Every instinct screamed at her to bolt, but she forced herself into a stealthy, slow ascent, her gaze darting to him. His eyes were still closed.
Her feet found the slick stone floor. One silent step. Another. She was almost to the bench, her fingers outstretched, a silent prayer on her lips?—
Ky’s head turned slightly. His eyes opened, slowly, as if drawn by some infinitesimal disturbance in the steam, and they met hers.
For a shattering second, neither of them moved. Gessa was frozen, half-crouched, exposed, water sluicing from her naked skin. His blue eyes, no longer weary but piercing and shockingly intense, widened before his gaze dropped, sweeping down herbody in a swift, hot, encompassing appraisal, then instantly back to her face.
No words were spoken. The air crackled with a raw, stunned awareness—an energy far more disconcerting than her magic. A brief, intense moment of heat seared through Gessa’s panic and humiliation. Then, as if breaking a spell, Gessa snatched her towel and the bundle of her uniform, clutching them to her chest. Without a backward glance, she turned and fled through the door, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird, the image of his gaze, that fleeting moment of shared, naked vulnerability, burning into her mind.
Clean, but trembling with a storm of emotions—shame, fear, and that inexplicable, unwelcome flicker of heat—she fled into the small, cooler ante-room where the recruits left their boots. There, hidden in the shadows, she scrambled into the grey uniform Meara had provided.
The fit was awkward at best. The wool breeches were cut for the straight, narrow frame of a young man; they clung tight across her hips but gaped at the waist, forcing her to cinch the drawstring hard to keep them up. The tunic was boxy and stiff, the shoulders drooping slightly and the sleeves falling past her knuckles. It hid her shape completely, leaving her looking less like a soldier and more like a rough sketch of one.
Clutching her bundle of dirty Hillston clothes and her survival bag, she made her way to the quartermaster’s office. Attendant Meara looked up from a ledger, her sharp eyes taking in the ill-fitting uniform with a critical grunt.
“Hmph. Shoulders are dropping and the waist is bunching,” Meara noted, coming around the desk to tug at the excess fabric of the tunic. “Men are built like planks; you aren’t. We’ll have the tailor take in the seams and let out the hips tonight, or you’ll chafe yourself raw on a march.”
She held out a hand. “Give me your travel clothes. I’ll have them cleaned and mended, if they’re salvageable. You can keep them in your chest once you’re settled.”
Gessa handed over the filthy garments, relieved to be rid of the mud of the road. Meara then turned her attention to the survival bag. She unpacked it on the desk, checking the small knife, the flint, and opening the pouches of herbs.
“Willow bark, dried comfrey... decent quality,” Meara muttered, sniffing a packet with a surprisingly knowledgeable air. “Good. You’ll need them. The Healer has supplies, but a recruit who can patch her own scrapes saves everyone time.”
She repacked the bag efficiently and handed it back. “Right then. You’re decent. Come along. Mistress Salvehand is waiting to look at that ankle.”
“Go through to the back,” Meara instructed, pointing to a curtained alcove. “Pria will sort the fit. She has a way with lost causes.”
