Chapter 25
I awaken to murky candlelight and the dance of water on stone. A worn, faded blanket is wrapped around my body, my head pillowed on a balled-up linen shirt. From my side, I push to sit up, my body protesting every movement, my mind remaining stubbornly blank for what feels like an eternity. Until I remember—the trek across the Sundered Lands, the wool of my gown’s skirts used to create cowls to protect us from the brutal Godwinds, the Lupa Nox carrying me in her arms all the while. I must have fallen asleep, cradled against the wolf’s chest.
I swallow at the thought and focus on my surroundings. The room around me is like nothing I’ve ever seen. A mosaic floor slopes down into a large, shimmering pool. The ceiling is domed, gray sun leaking through a single skylight at the very top. The rest of the space is all natural, rocky outcropping, though the edges are worn smooth, as if touched by thousands and thousands of hands. Lit candles, gowned in melted wax, cover the outcroppings like strange lichen.
Heat rises in tiny wisps of steam from the water—some kind of Blessing was performed here, I suppose, though I don’t feel the hum of Mysterium. Looking down, I see that I’m settled atop a flat, even plinth of rock raised a little off the ground. I try to pick up my legs to swing them over the side but end up just crying out from the pain of my wounds. I bite down on my lip to prevent further embarrassment, but it’s too late.
“Are you all right?” comes a voice.
My head snaps in the direction of the sound, and I find Nyatrix sitting at the far edge of the pool, bare feet dangling into the water. When I don’t manage an answer, she stands with lithe, predatory grace and begins to make her way toward me.
My throat closes as I realize the shirt beneath my head must be hers, as she is no longer wearing one, just a thin band across her slim, firm breasts, the rest of her exposed to my hungry eyes. A defined line runs down the center of her tattooed abdomen, her corded muscles standing out in the play of light and shadow. The floral inking across her body is perfectly symmetrical, the leaves and petals worshipping the long, hard length of her, all power and defiance. Her collarbones are sharp, sword-like things, her shoulders exquisite curves of muscle. She’s broken the Blessed shackles off somehow, and there’s something oddly intimate about seeing her bare wrists for the first time.
“Where are we?” I ask instead of answering the question, looking past her into the unlit corridors branching off of this chamber.
She frowns and walks closer, so close that I can smell asphodels. “Hot springs,” she replies, tilting her head in the direction of the steaming waters. “Would you like to bathe?”
I hesitate. I would, in fact, love absolutely nothing more. Sand seems to have found its way into every crevice of my body despite our best efforts. I can feel grains burrowed deep into my hair—even though I kept it covered—and my flail wounds are surely at risk of becoming infected.
“I can leave. Or if you need help, I’ll keep my eyes closed,” the knight offers. “For your modesty. If that matters to you.”
“It does matter to me,” I bite out even though I can barely keep my eyes away from where her pants cling to her hips, just below her muscled navel. “Have we made it to Liminalia, then?”
There is clear civilization here: the worn if beautiful mosaics, the layers of candle wax on the stones, the Blessing performed intentionally, even if I can’t sense it. But Nyatrix laughs—good-naturedly, in a way that doesn’t make me feel bad for having asked the question. Like for the first time in my life, I’m in on the joke.
“No, not even close,” she says, dragging one hand through her hair. The heavy, pin-straight lengths are loose, falling to her shoulders. She’s already bathed, I realize, and I try not to think about her bare body submerged in the pool only steps from where I slept. “We’re still in the Sundered Lands. Beneath them, technically.”
Silence stretches between us, broken only by the faint drip of water.
“Your back needs tending to,” she says as I look up from my hands to find her at the foot of the plinth I’m lying upon. “We can do it however you want, but it needs to be done.”
I hold her gaze, my mind tumbling. We are both women. She is functioning as a healer, tending to my body as flesh and nothing more. Modesty is only of importance if there is temptation.
And there is no temptation, I tell myself.
“Could you help me up?” I ask her.
Nyatrix nods and comes around to my side, asking what she should do—not simply lifting me into her arms as she sees fit, even though she’s strong enough for the task. After some careful maneuvering, I sit on the edge of the plinth, my legs dangling over the edge.
And then the Lupa Nox is, of all things, kneeling at my feet, unlacing my boots. She works in silence, her head bowed, the candlelight gleaming off her hair. Carefully, she tucks my stockings into my boots and puts them off to the side. Then, still on her knees, she looks up and meets my gaze.
“You must think me so weak,” I whisper before I realize the words are leaving my mouth. I look away, tucking my chin into my chest. For a moment, there is only silence, the blur of my tears, the golden light on green-black water.
A shadow consumes me, and when I look up, Nyatrix stands over me. “Weak,” she echoes, her head canted to one side. “That is the last thing I think of you, Ophelia.”
The way my name rolls off her tongue sends a flush racing across my chest.
What she says next does not help. “How much of your clothing can your modesty bear to have removed?” The corner of her mouth turns up dangerously, amusement simmering in her expression.
I feel my face redden. “Down to my shift and underthings,” I reply, mortified at the way my voice shakes. “You’ll be able to clean my wounds. I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Of course,” she murmurs, stepping closer to me, her hips brushing my knees. I curl one hand into a fist and try to think of anything else. “I’m going to undress you. You’re in no state to do it yourself. But if anything upsets you, tell me and I’ll stop.”
The playfulness is gone from Nyatrix’s expression now, her dark eyes little more than fathomless pools. When I realize she’s waiting for me to say something, I just press my lips together and nod. Then her fingers are upon me, unlacing the simple closures at the front of my work gown. I turn my head away, face burning.
Nyatrix slides the gown from my shoulders, exposing my underthings. Undyed linen bands around my waist, the stiff fabric reinforced with dried reeds. Beneath it, I wear a simple buttoned shift, the back surely marred with blood. I hear her breath catch and I look up to find her standing stock-still.
“Oh,” I say, realizing she might not know much about corsetry. “It looks complicated. But if you could just undo the front laces, please, then it comes off almost like a belt.” I would do it myself, but there’s no question I need both hands to hold myself up on the edge of the plinth.
A long moment passes, only the drip of water and the faint cries of the Godwinds above us. “My apologies,” Nyatrix finally says with a long, low exhalation. “Your modesty is important to you, and . . . I am having very immodest thoughts. Give me a moment.”
Confusion sweeps over me before anything else as I glance down at my body, examining the corset I made with my own hands and the rough-cut linen shift, which lacks any of the daring cuts or lace trimmings I’m told will fill my wedding trousseau. There is little here meant to tantalize—just a well-fitted foundation to support my heavy bust and protect my back during work.
And then I understand, all at once, that this thunderstorm of a woman who terrifies me and excites me beyond measure is saying she, too, feels the current between us. My blood throbs, pulsing against my veins until all my skin is afire.
“That is a sin,” I tell her in an unsteady voice, even though it is the very last thing I want to say, even though every word burns my tongue as it leaves my mouth. “One of the most terrible sins a woman can commit, to feel attraction to her own kind instead of a husband, with whom she can create new life for the Church.” I should ask her not to tempt me. I should beg her to at least leave me the fractured pieces of my purity, since she’s taken everything else.
I do not.
“Well,” the Lupa Nox breathes as her hands return to me, beginning to unlace my corset. “I regret to inform you, little dove, that I am entirely composed of sin and death.”
My voice is a dry croak at the back of my throat. I clamp my jaw shut, lest I beg her to show me the depths of her sin, to permit me to show her mine, to plumb the fathoms of each other’s wounds and see if there is some kind of strangled salvation down there amid the blood and the viscera.
Shame overtakes me, a reflex as natural as anything, and I close my eyes. My breath runs ragged in my chest. “And I am a foundling of the Church of the Host,” I tell her, the words rote, sour in my mouth, “a soon-to-be Lady of the House Amadeus. Do not tempt me with sin.”
“The Host,” Nyatrix echoes as she pulls my corset away from my body. She’s so close that I smell asphodels again, that I can see the pulse fluttering in her throat as her gaze drapes across my collarbones, my bust, then the soft hills of my stomach. “Are you still trying to convert me, Lady Ophelia?” Her tone is arched, teasing, and the absurdity of it draws a laugh from my mouth.
“Is such a thing even possible?” I ask, slowly meeting her gaze.
Amusement dances in Nyatrix’s eyes, and she smiles. It’s so beautiful I worry it might break me, that smile.
One of her powerful shoulders shrugs to her ear. “Seems unlikely. Though if anyone could, it’d be you.”
Heat simmers in my chest, blood pounding so loudly in my ears that I barely hear her when she asks if she can lift my legs to slide my gown off. I manage a nod, appreciating that she wants to avoid pulling anything over my head considering the state of my back. The next few moments thankfully pass in silence, and then, thanks to Nyatrix and my cane, I’m standing.
“Ready?” she asks.
I nod and take a tentative step forward, then another. The strength it requires to walk to the water’s edge, even while leaning on the knight’s powerful form, is more than I think I have. Each step brings me insurmountable pain, like the flail is freshly biting into me. I bite back a sob, squeezing my eyes shut, though my shoulders shake with telltale tremors.
I shuffle another step forward, and she matches my movements effortlessly. We do not speak as we approach the edge of the water, where Nyatrix pauses, stepping out of her linen trousers. She tosses them onto the shore, and I avert my hungry gaze from her slim hips and muscular thighs, barely covered by her underthings.
“We got lucky,” she says as we wade farther into the water. The heat pulls a sigh from my lips. “The woolens from your skirt worked as drying cloths after I shook the sand out. I found a small tin of supplies, but my actual cache is hidden another three- or four-bells-long walk into the Sundered Lands.”
“Walk?” I ask, raising my gaze to hers, even though it’s safer to look away, to not speak at all. “You have wings now, don’t you?”
“The wings are a new marvel, Ophelia,” she replies in that low, husky tone, the flat of her palm skimming my waist. “Haven’t played with them long enough to know what makes them tick.”
For some reason, her statement makes my face burn. I duck my head, watching the candlelight dance on the water as we wade deeper, until the pool’s surface is at my waist. “Thanks for helping me undress,” I hazard, not looking at her.
“The pleasure is mine,” Nyatrix replies, the words slinking over my shoulder like a wolf. A tender shiver dances down my spine, and heat erupts in my belly. “Besides, freeing a lady of her dress is well within my skill set.”
A dangerous sort of thrill flits through my chest, striking away some of the shame, even though I can’t manage a reply. She reaches for the top of a large stone, where a shard of pottery holds a half-used cake of white soap. Nyatrix guides me to the side of the pool, so I can lean against the rocks as she washes my wounds. I thank the Saintess that I don’t have to look her in the eye as she unbuttons the back of my shift.
“I’m going to be as gentle as I can. Just tell me to stop if it hurts,” Nyatrix says softly. She pauses, the water lapping around my waist. “Well, I suppose that’s inevitable. Let me know if it’s too much, I mean.”
I nod, focusing on holding myself up. For a moment, I glance over my shoulder to find Nyatrix carefully cupping water in one hand and using it to rinse my skin. The steaming water provides both pain and relief at once. I nearly cry out as she begins to gently pull the thin linen away from my skin, rinsing repeatedly to ensure the fabric won’t stick to my wounds.
I admit there is a perverse and endless bliss to it all—to being touched by a woman who looks at other women the same way I do. It’s so intense that I almost forget the pain. I almost forget I’ve lost everything. But then it comes rushing in, sorrow thrashing at my insides.
“Would you take me back?” I find myself asking, my voice so small and weak. “If I asked, would you take me back to Lumendei?”
The knight’s hands go still on my skin, though I can feel the heat of her, brighter even than the springs. Her sharp intake of breath is impossibly loud.
“Do you truly want to return?” she asks me, her tone even, measured, though there is a bite to it, like a growl building at the back of a wolf’s throat.
I close my eyes, sending tears streaming down my face. “Would you take me?”
She holds steady. I don’t know why I think she wouldn’t; she is the Lupa Nox, the Death-Bringer, the World-Eater.
“Do you want to go?” she repeats.
In the end, I don’t answer her, and she doesn’t push me. She cleans my back in silence, producing a metal tin—the supplies she stumbled upon, I presume—and working in a salve. She says something about tearing off the bottom part of my shift so she can make bandages, but I barely hear her.
Would I go? Just a few bells ago, my answer would’ve been simple, instantaneous. Of course. In what world would I ever consider being alone with the murderer of my people amidst the perils of the Sundered Lands instead of safe within the walls of my sacred city?
But it seems I have crossed into another world, journeyed past the veil, slipped through the other side of the rain. Because as I stand undressed in a way only my betrothed should ever see, my linen shift gone translucent with the moisture, the Lupa Nox herself with her hands upon my bare skin, I feel something I never thought I would in such wild, unholy circumstances.
Safe .