Chapter 17
The second day was easier.
Not easy. Her thighs still burned when she shifted in the saddle, and her lower back had developed a persistent ache that no amount of adjusting could fix. But her body had started to learn the rhythm of the horse's movement, and she found herself swaying with it instead of fighting against it.
Varek noticed. His arm around her waist loosened slightly, giving her room to move.
"You're learning," he said against her ear.
"I'm surviving."
His breath was warm on her neck when he laughed. A low sound, barely audible over the creak of leather and the clop of hooves on stone. She felt it more than heard it, a vibration through his chest into her spine.
The road climbed higher. The patches of snow grew larger, merging into sheets of white that covered the ground between the rocks. The air thinned until each breath felt like drinking cold water, sharp and clean and not quite enough.
The column moved in single file now, the road too narrow for anything else. Sheer rock rose on one side, a drop on the other that Mab refused to look at after the first glance. Varek's arm tightened around her waist when the path curved, holding her steady against the horse's careful steps.
"Don't look down," he said.
"I wasn't planning to."
By midday, the road had leveled out onto a high plateau. The wind still bit, but the ground was flat enough that the column could spread out again, horses walking three abreast. Mab's legs had lost all feeling somewhere in the last hour, which she was choosing to view as an improvement.
The stop for the midday meal was brief. Warriors dismounted, stamped feeling back into their feet, passed around strips of dried meat and hard bread. Mab ate without complaint this time. Her jaw had apparently surrendered to the inevitable.
Annie appeared at her elbow, cheeks red from the cold, a puppy tucked inside her cloak.
"Brownie's doing well," she reported. "But this one keeps trying to escape. Drogga says he's got wanderlust."
The puppy was one of the spotted ones, its eyes still sealed shut, its tiny body wriggling against Annie's chest with blind determination. Mab reached out and touched its head with one finger. The fur was impossibly soft.
"He'll settle once his eyes open," Mab said. "Right now the world is just smells and warmth. He's looking for more of both."
Annie looked down at the puppy with an expression of fierce concentration. "I'll keep him warm."
"I know you will."
The column moved on. The plateau gave way to another climb, gentler than the morning's but longer, the road switching back and forth across the face of a ridge. The sun was behind them now, casting their shadows long and strange across the snow.
The light was fading when the column crested the ridge and began the descent into a valley Mab hadn't known was coming.
She'd been dozing again, her head heavy against Varek's shoulder, when the change in the air woke her. Warmer. Wetter. A faint smell of minerals, like the water that came up from the deep well at the holding after a heavy rain.
She lifted her head.
The valley spread out below them, a bowl of green in the middle of all the white and gray.
Steam rose from pools scattered across the valley floor, curling into the cold air like breath.
The snow stopped in a ragged line halfway down the slope, giving way to moss and scrubby grass that shouldn't have been able to survive this high up.
"Hot springs," Varek said against her ear. "The mountain bleeds warm here."
The column picked its way down the slope, horses stepping carefully on the wet rocks where snowmelt and steam had made the footing treacherous. The air grew warmer with each switchback, until Mab found herself pushing back her hood and loosening the ties of her cloak.
By the time they reached the valley floor, she was almost comfortable.
Varek lifted her down from the saddle. Her legs protested less than yesterday, though they still wobbled when her feet hit the ground.
"We'll make camp here tonight," he said.
Mab looked around the valley. The steam rose from pools of varying sizes, some no bigger than a washtub, others large enough to swim in. The water in them ranged from clear to milky blue, and the rocks around their edges were stained with mineral deposits in shades of orange and white.
"Can we—" She stopped herself. The question felt too much like asking for something.
Varek's hand settled on the small of her back. "Can we what?"
"The pools." She kept her eyes on the steam rising from the nearest one. "Are they safe to go in?"
"Some of them. The blue ones run too hot. The clear ones are good for bathing." His thumb moved against her spine. "We'll go tonight, after the camp is settled."
The promise of hot water after two days on horseback was almost enough to make her weep.
Camp took shape more slowly here than it had the night before.
The valley floor was uneven, pocked with pools and slick patches where the mineral water had left deposits on the rocks.
Warriors spread out, testing the ground before pitching tents, finding the spots where the earth was solid enough to hold a stake.
Mab helped where she could. Gathering deadfall from the scrubby trees that grew along the valley's edges. Hauling water from one of the clear streams that fed the pools. Her body moved through the tasks automatically, grateful for something to do.
Grald found her near the stream, her arms full of branches.
"We found some wild onions on the slope. Need someone who knows what to do with them."
Mab nodded. "Who's on rotation tonight?"
"Tormund and Skarn." Grald jerked his chin toward the fire, where two warriors were arguing over a haunch of venison. "Tormund thinks salt fixes everything. Skarn thinks fire fixes everything. Between them, they've ruined more meat than anyone else in the company."
Mab watched Skarn jab a finger at the haunch while Tormund shook his head with the weary patience of someone who had heard this argument a hundred times before.
"And you thought I could help?"
"I thought you could stop them from serving us charcoal for dinner."
Mab waded into the argument with the wild onions as her excuse, and within an hour had talked Tormund down from his salt obsession and convinced Skarn that low heat and patience would do more for the venison than flames ever could.
The meal that emerged wasn't perfect, but it was better than charcoal.
Warriors ate with the same noisy appreciation they'd shown the night before, and Mab found herself sitting on Varek's lap again, her bowl warm in her hands, the ache in her legs almost forgotten.
When the bowls were cleared and the fires banked low, Varek's hand closed around her wrist.
"Come," he said. "I promised you the pools."
He led her to the tent first, ducking inside and emerging with a bundle tucked under one arm. Wool blankets, she thought, and something else she couldn't make out in the dim light. A cloth, maybe. A small pot of something.
"What's all that?"
"You'll see."
The path to the pools wound between rocks slick with mineral deposits, the ground glowing faintly orange and white in the moonlight. Steam rose around them as they walked, curling against Mab's cheeks, dampening the loose strands of hair that had escaped her braid.
Varek stopped at a pool set apart from the others, tucked into a curve of rock that blocked the wind.
The water was clear, steam rising from its surface in lazy spirals.
Flat stones surrounded it, worn smooth by years of use, and the mineral deposits here were pale, almost white, giving the whole space an otherworldly glow in the moonlight.
"This one," Varek said. He set the bundle down on one of the flat stones and turned to face her.
Mab looked at the water. At the steam. At the promise of heat seeping into muscles.
Then she looked back toward the camp. The fires were visible from here, small orange points in the darkness, and she could hear the low murmur of voices, the occasional bark of laughter. Not close. But not far either.
"Someone could see," she said.
"Let them." Varek's hands went to the ties of her cloak.
"Varek—"
"Anyone who comes this way will see my woman in my arms." The cloak fell away. His fingers moved to her dress. "And then they'll turn around and walk the other way, because they know better than to interrupt."
The dress pooled at her feet. The cold air hit her skin for one sharp moment before the steam wrapped around her, warm and wet.
"They've heard you," he said. "In the holding. The sounds you make when you come." His hands found her chemise, pulled it over her head, left her bare in the moonlight and the steam. "They know what I do to you. What you let me do."
Mab's skin prickled, and not from the cold. The thought of the warriors around the cookfire, hearing her through the walls of the lady's chamber, should have mortified her. Would have, three days ago. Now it sent a flush through her that had nothing to do with the steam.
"Into the water," Varek said.
She stepped down into the pool.
The heat closed around her ankles, her calves, her thighs as she descended the natural steps carved into the rock. By the time she was waist-deep, her muscles had already begun to unknot, the ache in her legs and back loosening like rope going slack.
She sank down until the water reached her shoulders and let out a sound she didn't mean to make. Low and long and raw with relief.
Behind her, she heard Varek undressing. The rustle of leather, the soft thud of boots on stone. She didn't turn to look. Just closed her eyes and let the heat seep into her bones.
The water rose when he entered. A wave of warmth against her back, and then his arms came around her waist, and she let herself melt against him.