Page 125 of Trial of Bronze and Blood
A gasp escapes from her mouth as Marcus dives through the air and plunges into the pool below. She peers over the edge as the blue-green water surges around him, engulfing his entire body. He swims beneath the surface of the water toward the shallow end before finally resurfacing.
Tossing his wet hair back and raising his hands in the air, he whoops. His voice echoes deeply along the rocks, his joy so infectious that laughter bubbles out of Dru. She rarely sees him truly happy—a deep fluttering fills her chest.
“Your turn,” Marcus yells, waving her on with his soaking wet tunic.
A challenge. A part of her wants to do the opposite, just to spite him. But she needs to let go of petty things when it comes to Marcus. To do as Ovi would’ve done: live each day like it’s her last.
And… she wants to spend what could be her last day on this earth with Marcus.
She pulls her tunic over her head, gripping it in her hand like Marcus did, and leaps off the edge.
The clear water comes at her fast—she barely has time to open her mouth and scream before her feet hit the surface. Her body plummets deep into the pool, the cold water coursing over her head. She doesn’t come up for air right away, allowing her body to float. A calming quiet consumes her, silencing her thoughts. She remains there for a moment to revel in it.
Once she begins to feel a slight pinch in her chest, she kicks her feet and rises to the surface. She throws her head back as she breaks through, flinging her heavy hair behind her.
The water dribbles down her face, refreshing after the run they took. In fact, she feels better than she has in years, perhaps as good as she did when she first took her oaths.How strange.
Catching her breath, she finds Marcus at the other end, near the shore. His tunic and belt have been laid out to dry on a flat rock, the sun barely reaching the rough edge of it. He stands knee-deep in the water, waiting for her. She has to work not to stare openly at his chest, at the way the muscles beneath his stomach carve inward.
“What’s so special about this place?” she asks, slowly kicking toward him until her sandaled feet find purchase on the rocky bottom.
He tucks his chin, shaking his head and biting the center of his bottom lip. Her heart skips inside her chest. “Was that view not enough?”
“Not enough for you to bring me all this way,” she argues.
He chuckles, running a hand through his dark, wet hair. “Well, you’ll have to be patient, won’t you?”
Water glistens on his torso as the sun breaches the pool, turning his skin gold.
You’ve been staring at him for too long, she tells herself and meets his gaze.
“Patient for what?”
“You’ve never been good at waiting—I shouldn’t have expected any different.” He cocks his head. “Come closer, and I’ll show you.”
She wades the rest of the way to him, heart hammering inside her chest. A slight smile curls his lips, his gaze open and inviting, and so unlike the Marcus she knew. The Marcus who trained her worked himself to the bone, keeping his head down and enjoying little else. Now it’s as if their roles have reversed.
Standing before him, she feels a little exposed only wearing a wrap around her chest and the small shorts she wore in the maze that Sabina had to wash the blood out of. He doesn’t say a word about it, even attempting to avert his gaze.
Instead, he grasps her shoulders and turns her around so she faces the half-dozen waterfalls. She tempers her intake of breath at the contact, his hands hot on her cold shoulders.
The water rushes down from the pool above, the mist obscuring the air around them. The rock formations on either side appear to float above the pool, carved out by the constant surge of water flowing beneath it. Bright green trees line the edges, a few of their long limbs reaching over the top of the falls.
He steps closer to her, his chest pressing against her back. She folds her arms loosely beneath her chest and clenches her hands into fists, fighting against the overwhelming need to turn around, her core clenching.
Bending down slightly, he murmurs into her ear. “Wait for the sun to hit the water.”
But she can barely see more than a few feet in front of her, so focused on Marcus’s proximity. She shivers at his nearness, his hands and chest warming her. The heat moves to her chest, then her stomach, and lower until it aches.
The moment the sun hits the water, though, she forgets about Marcus. Light green and blue crystals she didn’t notice before light up beneath the surface near the falls, sparkling as if they’ve captured the sunlight inside them.
“What are they?”
He hums into her ear, “Idocrase crystals.”
“How?” she breathes.
“It’s a phenomenon where the salt from the sea—pumped in by a natural tube stretching all the way to the ocean during high tide—has formed the crystals over hundreds of years. Durevolian legend tells of them healing people, of the sick and injured being brought to this pool and coming out new again.”
