Page 38 of Ember and Eclipse
The delicate wind moved across her skin, causing a full-body shiver and urging her into the hot spring. It became steadily deeper, and she moved until she was completely submerged from the neck down.
The water was a soothing balm to her aching and tight muscles. Though the point was to wash, it was incredibly satisfying to be warm and held in the way that only water was capable of. She closed her eyes, letting herself just be. How many more opportunities would she be given such a luxury?
Several minutes later, Devdan got in the water. When she finally opened her eyes, he was closer than she liked, but she suspected it was because it was the deepest part of the spring. He paid no mind to her, though, dunking under and coming back up to scrub at his face.
She turned her back to him. The water was hot, steam rising from it. And though she had been so cold that she thought she’d never be warm again just a few minutes before, now her flesh was blotchy red from the heat. It had even sunk so deep as to cure the coldness in her bones. And though she was hot, and far cleaner than she had been when she got in, she didn’t want to get out.
When she became drowsy from the heat, she made her way back toward the shallows. It felt like giving something up as more and more of her body left the water’s embrace. The inexplicable feeling of loss intensified with every step.
“Stop,” Devdan commanded in a rough tone.
If only because of her own unexplainable feelings, she obeyed. She was halfway out of the water, her lower half still submerged. Looking over her shoulder at him, she found his focus on her back. She knew what he was seeing—a tableau of scars, skin etched and carved countless times over.
She lifted a shoulder. “What exactly were you expecting?”
When his piercing gaze flicked to hers, his expression was a tangle of complexities.
“What’s the matter, hunter? You didn’t realize that maybe the monsters were the ones that didn’t make it out of that chamber?”
He moved toward her, and she watched until half of his chest was visible, the water streaking over defined pecs before she looked away.
She stood her ground, though.Let him see.Nothing he could do or say would ever hurt her as much as the life she had lived in Romul. The things she had endured and survived, only to be dragged back there.
The water lapped against him until he was so close behind her that she could almost feel the whisper of his touch.
She tipped her head forward. “I wonder, if you weren’t off at war, would you have been a spectator in the room?” The question was too harsh, unfair, but she didn’t regret it.
When he said nothing, she turned partially to look at him.
Beaded water and trails of it running from his wet hair down his sculpted chest were magnified by beams of silver light. But it was his eyes, stormy with confusion and concern, that held her attention. They were, by far, the most expressive part about him.
“Explain,” he commanded.
“You don’t get to make demands of me. Not about this.”
He lifted a hand, reaching out.Almosttouching her. “Who did this to you?” His voice was softer, less of a demand, but no less gruff. “And why?”
No one had ever asked her before. Besides those who witnessed her being harmed, no one had even seen the scars. She let out a long breath. “Do you remember the assassination attempt on Princess Tishia?”
His brow creased. “Yes.”
“We often slept in the same bed, and that night was no different. I woke up just as the assassin plunged his dagger toward her heart. And I stopped it. With my magic. I had never had a magical incident up until that point, despite knowing that my father was a mage. Soon after, she became very ill. They suspected she’d been poisoned or cursed, and she was sent away with the Imperatoress for her health.
“But I was left behind.” Rel hadn’t even received a letter from Tishia after that. The princess went from the girl she’d met on the street by divine happenstance, who had begged the Imperatoress to save her, and who Rel had spent every day with for three years, to a stranger.
“The fact I was a witch seemed irrelevant for a while. The Imperator had me playing some strange role with the princess and his wife gone—I was suddenly sitting beside him at meals, going on walks with him, and so on.” She swallowed hard. “He became more like a father to me in that timeframe than ever before. But it was Asear who began showingromanticinterest in me. And I, a stupid girl who came from the streets and was playing pretend, fell in love with him. But it wasn’t long before the Maester started asking questions. Why don’t I use my magic? Who were my parents? Was I a spy? If not, then it would be only right, honorable even, to use my magic to defend Romul. The problem was I couldn’t call up my essence. I could barelyfeelit, like a tingle beneath my skin that was gone the moment I paid attention to it.
“The Maester was convinced that pain or shock was the key to unleashing my magic. At first, it was small things, a prick of the finger and the like. And then it became something else.Aboutsomething else. Asear was the only one who ever touched me, but plenty watched. Asear just had… an abnormal taste for violence. I displeased him in some illogical way? He would engrave his rage into my flesh. My magic wouldn’t respond the way they wanted it to? More carving. For celebration, punishment, arousal. And usually, this all took place with an audience.”
“Who else?” His voice seemed on the verge of breaking or turning into something else altogether.
She turned away. It was one thing for him to see the physical marks, but she was unwilling to let him see what the scars had done to her soul.
“I don’t know all their names. They wore the masks of his inner circle—anonymous viewers. But I know their eyes. Light blue eyes like the sky on a clear day. Hazel eyes with blonde brows. Almond-shaped brown eyes so dark they appear black.” There were over a dozen more and others who came and went over the years. But she remembered every single one. She shuddered, a shiver moving through her despite the hot water. “The hunter who died in the swamp was one of them.”
“You burned them. Why that night if it had been going on for years?”
“My magic, it just acted. It was out of my control. I was barely conscious from the pain, and the display had already gone on for hours. It reacted to protect me, I think. I don’t regret that it happened—that it killed them that day.”
