Page 79 of Falling Princess

Auralia is at her harshest when she’s closest to the sky.

I laid out my thick prayer skin and knelt, tucking my feet under me in an attempt to warm feeling back into them. One of these years, the frostbite will be so bad I’ll have to have my toes amputated.

Legend has it that the goddess warms the waters for true believers—a real downside for nonbelievers like me. The modern, geological explanation, such as Bashir might supply, is that this area has a lot of volcanic activity. Here, liquid rock rises close enough to the surface to keep the water just above freezing. If you show up at the right time, maybe you get lucky and find the water closer to the temperature of a bathtub. If we were really lucky, this would be a hot spring. I’d pray all damn day if that were the case. Supposedly, my mother swam around in this pond for hours every summer. My grandmother always said this was her favorite ritual.

I have never experienced this phenomenon.

Maybe this place was once a hot spring; it sounds far more plausible to me than the legend does. It would make much more sense, if true, than generation after generation of princesses and queens coming all this way to freeze their tits off.

“All right, Auralia, I’m here. I’m doing the thing. Your faithful mortal vessel. A few degrees warmer would really help to focus the mind.”

When I got no response—as expected—I got up and tiptoed gingerly into the water, shivering and muttering to myself, “Cold, cold,cold.Yikes. You really don’t want to hear lengthy prayers, do you? No problem, I can keep it short.”

The water’s freezing teeth sank into my flesh. By the time my skirt was sodden to the knee, my teeth were chattering so hard I could barely recite the prayer aloud. It’s like the water was eating me alive, biting my flesh inch by inch. The sensitive place between my legs shriveled in horror at the assault. I lost feeling in my feet. Frost nipped at my ribcage. It stung the underside of my breasts. I mumbled the prayer as fast as I could, in one long cloudy exhale, resenting Her with every syllable.

At the end, to delay the worst part of this horrid misadventure a few moments longer, I added two lines:Please, deliver Auralia from the Skía and those who would harm Your people. Please, watch over my knight protector. I might not believe in You, but he does, and I’ve grown fond of him. I wouldn’t want to lose him.

I stepped off the lowest ledge, plunging deep.

I really, really hate this part.

Frigid water closes over my head. My dress weighs me down like it’s made of lead, not linen. I kicked and came up sputtering, casting about for the steps and scrambling back onto them. I crawled inelegantly upward until I could stand, clutching my shoulders and shivering hard enough to break bones. My skin stuck to the rock until a cascade of water from my clothes and hair released it.

I stumbled blindly up the path, eyelashes frozen into tiny spikes that distorted my vision. My hair froze in long dark gold spikes that lashed my cheeks and shoulders. I haven’t been able to feel my feet below the ankle since going into the pool.

Gods in garters, this ritual is fucking misery.

I smelled the fire before I saw the plume of smoke and stumbled in that direction on feet that might as well have belonged to a Sentinel, for all I could sense them. Lorcan stood with his back to me, facing the blaze, until he turned and his eyes widened.

“Fuck.”

A blanket hit my shoulders. My skin is so scoured with the cold that the impact hurts. I yelped. It smelled like a horse, but it was a barrier between me and the chill air. I couldn’t summon enough energy to complain.

I couldn’t speak.

Lorcan scooped me into his arms. His body burned hot, even through layers of clothing. I cowered against him with all the dignity of a newborn babe. Not that I know anything about babies, other than they’re intimidatingly fragile.

“Can you feel your feet?”

“N-n-n-no.”

To my dismay, Lorcan set me on the cold ground with nothing but the horse blanket and two layers of soaked linen to cushion my butt. I could sense him fumbling to get my sandals off, but it was like watching him remove someone else’s shoes. He pointed my feet toward the fire. The heat sent stabbing pinpricks into the soles of my feet. I was shaking too hard to really move, but I tried to angle away.

“Hang on, Princess.”

“Hurts.”

“Frostbite will do that.” Grimly, he eased my skirt up over my knees. “I promise I won’t look. I need you to let go of the blanket so I can get the dress off.”

“But I’ll be naked.” It sounds more likebuh-I’ll-benekd, only with more chattering. My ears burned. It’s not from embarrassment, though I felt that acutely, too.

“Would you prefer to die?”

“Sometimes.”

I’ve never admitted that to anyone, and his reaction is why.

Lorcan took my chin in his hand. I viewed his scowl through a crown of spiked lashes. His eyes were twin blue pools of blazing anger. “Not funny.”

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