Thane leaned forward and tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “Everyone will know we’re yours. Our scents mingle together.”
I sniffed his neck area and could smell his hearth and ember scent, and thought I detected a honey scent. I gestured for Malric. He obliged me and I inhaled, smelling his cedar and woodsmoke, and my honey and silver blossom scent. My omega settled, content that others would know they were mine.
We were quiet for a moment. The water shifted softly around me as I settled against Thane. Malric reached out and handed me another fig, and I ate it, but knew this bubble couldn’t last.
I looked at Malric.
“So,” I said. “What’s next?”
He didn’t answer immediately. That was answer enough.
“Malric.” I sat up slightly, the water moving with me. “Whatever you’re turning over in there, say it.”
He looked at me then. His jaw was set, which meant he had information he had been deciding how to present.
“Say it plainly,” Thane said. “We need the truth.”
“I went to the top of the tower while you were resting. Before the bath.” A pause. “The king is coming.”
The water was still warm. The tower was still quiet. Outside the narrow window above the basin, the light was the gray-white of morning, ordinary and unhurried.
“How many?” I said.
“Not his full army. Not a campaign force.” His eyes remained on us. “The king’s guard. A small, mobile unit. Fast and well-armed.” He paused. “He’s not coming to wage a war. He’s coming to retrieve something.”
“He’s coming for me,” I said.
“He’s coming for you,” Malric confirmed.
Thane stood and grabbed a towel, drying himself. The warmth in the bond had shifted into something with more edge to it, as if he was preparing for war.
“He’s got to go through us,” Thane said. “Have you heard from the rebellion?”
Malric held his gaze. “I received a pigeon this morning. They’re aware of the king’s movements, but they’re preparing for the big assault. They’ll try to send a smaller force, but can’t promise anything.”
“So, we’re on our own,” Thane stated flatly.
“What are our options?” I asked. I suppressed the spurt of fear. I wanted to confront my father, but we couldn’t win against the king’s guard.
He stood up and moved to the window, looking out at the angle of light. “We could run. Use the time before he arrives to move through the Wyrdwood toward the rebellion’s nearest position. If we move fast and he doesn’t know we’ve left, we might have a chance.” He stopped. “Honestly, we’re probably toolate for that. He’s too close for us to escape, assuming the tower even lets us go.”
“And if we stay?”
He turned from the window. “The tower has done more than I expected it to do. The portal block, the cold, repelling whatever he pushed through the other night.” He looked at me directly. “But I don’t know if it can hold against a physical assault. Against armed men with battering equipment and a king who has years of knowledge about this tower’s construction.” A pause. “I’m not certain it can protect us. Not indefinitely.”
The water had not cooled.
I sat in the basin my mother had built for me, in the tower my mother had built for me, with the two men my mother had built the tower to find, and I thought about my father’s voice. All the versions of it. The gentle version, explaining why I couldn’t leave. The careful version, explaining how I’d killed my mother. The smooth version, handing me a lie and watching me swallow it, and adjusting the dosage for next time.
I thought about the circle on the dining room floor. Years of meals eaten over a magical drain.
I thought about my mother in a small stone room, leaving a piece of herself in a memory spell for a daughter she wouldn’t get to raise, knowing what was coming and standing in the way of it anyway.
I stood up.
Water sluiced off me. I stepped out of the basin and took the linen from the rail, wrapped it around myself and looked at them both, one and then the other.
“No running,” I said.
