“I’m aware,” I said.
She settled against me, her hand finding mine in the furs and threading her fingers through. Her breathing slowed, a diminishing warmth, as she succumbed to sleep in the bond, her peace achieved with the receding fever.
I stayed awake a while longer.
The bond connected them both—Aveline slept soundly and Thane gradually followed her into slumber.
Yet, this was what I had been afraid of.
I understood now that being afraid of it had been the most expensive mistake of my life, and that I had still arrived here, and that was enough. Tomorrow was soon enough to deal with the consequences.
I closed my eyes.
Chapter Eighteen
AVELINE
The water was the perfect temperature. Not too hot. Not too cold. Just right.
It was always the right temperature. The tower attended to this as it attended to everything, but today I was grateful, as every part of me was sore and dirty. I sank up to my shoulders and let the heat of it work into muscles that had spent three days doing things muscles were not typically called upon to do, and the sound that came out of me was not dignified.
“That bad?” Thane asked.
“Don’t. Don’t comment.”
He suppressed a smile and handed me the cup of water instead.
I drank it without argument, which said more about my current state than anything else could have. I was past the point of being stubborn. Every muscle from my shoulders to my knees had opinions, and all of them were complaints, and the bath was the first thing in days that had addressed this directly, and I was going to stay in it until the water cooled. Though, since the tower would not let the water cool, I was going to stay in it indefinitely.
Malric sat on the low bench beside the basin quietly. He had cleaned and dressed while I had rested, leaving me withThane after my heat broke. I was still adjusting to having two presences inside of me—the additional layer of information, the way I could feel their emotions—and something was bothering Malric. I could feel the tension through the bond, never mind see the way he was stiff and silent on the bench. Thane, beside me in the bath, was quiet but was a warm and comforting presence, like home, while Malric was my shield. Thane clearly knew something was bothering Malric by the way he kept glancing over, but I filed it and let the bath continue its work on my protesting body.
“Eat,” Thane said, and held out a piece of bread with soft cheese on it.
I ate it. He looked slightly startled by the lack of resistance, and I couldn’t blame him. I’d been difficult about food for the past few days, and I probably owed him an apology, but I was too sore and too hungry to bother with the ceremony of it. He loaded another piece, and I took that too.
Malric handed me a fig without looking at me. I ate it and felt a warm flicker through the bond, an acknowledgment, before he went back to his wall.
“You both look terrible,” I said.
“Thank you,” Thane said.
“I meant it constructively.” I looked between them. Several days of broken sleep and heat cycles had left marks. They both had lost weight from not eating and expending a lot of energy. They had tiny bruises around their necks and torso where I had tried to bite them. And their eyes had dark circles from lack of sleep. But they were mine and looked incredible. If only Malric would tell me what was bothering him.
I finished the bread. Accepted more water. Leaned my head back against the stone rim of the basin and looked at the ceiling, and cataloged the state of myself.
Sore everywhere. Hungry as if I couldn’t get enough, yet I couldn’t handle a lot of food at once. Tired in my bones. And underneath all of that, in the place where the fear and the grief and the years of lies had been living, I felt clean again. Not healed. Not resolved. But cleared, the way a storm clears, and the air afterward is different.
The bonds sat in my chest like a second heartbeat—two of them, distinct and warm and real.
I pressed my fingers to the mark on my neck and Malric’s attention sharpened.
“Does it hurt?” he asked.
“No.” It was tender the way any healing thing was tender. “Do I get to mark you?”
He gave a slight smile. “You could try, but your teeth aren’t made to cut through our skin.”
I pouted. I wanted my mark on them so everyone knew they were mine, too. It wasn’t fair.
