Chapter 44 Of War and Hope #3
But he surprised me again. Instead of looming over me as he so often did, using his height to intimidate, he lowered himself to the stone floor beside the bath.
He sat there, one knee drawn up, his back against the sunken tub’s edge, looking strangely mortal despite the power I knew lurked beneath his skin.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked, unable to keep the suspicion, the ice, from my voice.
He glanced at me sideways, something flashing in the depths of his eyes. “Why is it that every time you open that pretty mouth it’s to say something biting?”
I scoffed, bitterness obvious in my tone. “Now you want me to keep quiet? After days of begging me to speak while you carved me open?” The memories rose unbidden—his voice coaxing, threatening, pleading for my screams, my words, any sound to prove he was breaking me.
A grin spread across his face then—predatory, familiar, a flash of the Valen I knew. “I do enjoy the sounds you make,” he said, his tone dropping to something darker, “even when you are defying me.”
I refused to look away, though every instinct screamed to retreat from that hungry gaze. “I’m sure you do.”
He suddenly reached for the small clay pot of soap that sat at the bath’s edge.
I lunged for it instinctively, water sloshing over the side, but he held it away from me, that wicked smile playing across his lips.
I glared at him, hating how easily he could provoke me, how transparent my reactions were to him.
“Give it back,” I demanded, all too aware of how childish my words were.
“Ask nicely,” he countered, holding the soap aloft like a prize.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I won’t beg you for soap,” I said flatly.
Something shifted in his expression then, the sharpness softening into something I couldn’t name. His eyes, usually hard as obsidian, seemed to warm. “I wasn’t asking for begging,” he said, his voice quieter. “May I help you?”
The abrupt change from teasing to warmth startled me so severely that I jerked backwards, my widened eyes flicking between his unusually soft gaze. No demands. No cruelty disguised as kindness. Just an offer that seemed, impossibly, genuine.
I narrowed my eyes again, suspicious of this unexpected gentleness. “Are you going to rip out my hair or something just as cruel?” The question was only half-jest. I wouldn’t put it past him to use even this moment of peace as another form of torment.
To my continued surprise, he chuckled. Not his usual savage laugh, but something almost real. “No.” Just that. No explanation, no justification.
I studied him for a long moment, trying to decipher this new version of Valen, this god playing at humility. Finally, I nodded once, a quick dip of my chin that could barely be called consent.
He dipped his fingers into the soap, the creamy substance smelling of lavender and vanilla. Then, with a hesitation I’d never seen in him before, he reached for my hair.
His touch was almost reverent as he worked the soap through the tangled strands, his fingers occasionally brushing against my scalp, my neck, the sensitive skin behind my ears. I fought the urge to lean into his touch, to close my eyes and surrender to the simple pleasure of being cared for.
It was a dangerous intimacy, more unsettling in its gentleness than his violence had ever been.
This was not the Blood King who had slaughtered my family, not the cruel god who had tortured me for weeks, not even the frustrated jailor succumbing to my provocations.
This was something else, someone else—a man washing blood from a woman’s hair with careful, steady hands.
I kept my eyes fixed on the water’s surface, watching as small islands of soap bubbles drifted across its pink-tinged expanse. I had the sudden urge to laugh again, but I swallowed my tongue, not willing to show him this new version of myself.
His hands continued their gentle work, and despite my resolve, I found my eyes drifting closed, my shoulders relaxing, my guard slipping. Just for a moment. Just this once.
With my vision darkened, I reached inward, searching for the silver threads that had become my companions since Death had claimed his second piece of my soul.
They appeared at my summons, shimmering against the blackness behind my eyelids, a web of possibilities and connections spreading outward from my center like the strands of an ethereal spider’s web.
Each filament pulsed with life and potential, beckoning me to follow its path into futures I could barely comprehend.
My eyes caught on our silver-crimson connection, watching how it stretched from the center of my chest and directly toward where Valen kneeled.
What did it mean that I was bound to him in this way?
Was it merely the bond of captor and captive, of husband and wife, or something deeper, more fundamental?
Valen’s voice cut through my contemplation, murmured so softly I almost missed it beneath the gentle lapping of water. “I apologize for almost killing you. Again.”
The words were so unexpected, so alien coming from his lips, that I lost my grip on my threads. They faded, slipping back to whatever realm they occupied when I wasn’t observing them. I kept my eyes closed, not trusting myself to hide my shock if I looked at him.
“What did you say?” I asked, my voice deliberately confused, not able to resist the small defiance. “I couldn’t quite hear you.”
A growl rumbled from his chest, vibrating through his fingers where they still worked soap through my hair. “I said,” he repeated, each word bitten off with reluctance, “I apologize for almost killing you again.”
I opened my eyes then, turning my head slightly to catch a glimpse of his face. His jaw was tight, his eyes averted, as though the admission pained him physically. The God of Blood and Conquest, apologizing to me, the mortal he had tortured for weeks. It was almost laughable.
But I didn’t laugh. Instead, I offered him a slight, wicked smile. “My harbinger healed me again,” I said sweetly. “Even without another chain removed. Imagine that.”
His fingers paused briefly in my hair, and though his expression remained controlled, I could feel the tension radiating through his touch. It seemed he did not like being reminded of my neighbor, of the bargain he’d been forced to make, of the power the other god held even in chains.
“You shouldn’t trust him.” Valen’s fingers resumed their work, but with more purpose now, almost possessive in their movements. “Your ‘harbinger,’ as you’ve called him. You definitely shouldn’t speak to him. Or allow him to touch you. You do not understand who he truly is.”
I turned fully in the bath to face him, water sloshing over the sides as I moved. “And you do?”
“More than you could possibly imagine.” His fingers traced the line of my jaw, leaving trails of soap suds against my skin. “We share... history.”
“History,” I repeated flatly, unimpressed by his vague warning. “Like spending a couple decades in a cell beside each other?”
Valen’s hand stilled against my jaw, his thumb brushing away a droplet of water that had gathered at the corner of my mouth. Something dark and ancient flickered in his eyes—not anger, but pain so deep it seemed to reach back through millennia.
“Eons,” he corrected, his voice barely above a whisper. “We’ve known each other for eons, Mireille. Long before your father captured us. Long before mortals walked this earth and I can tell you with absolute certainty,” he paused, searching my eyes, “he is infinitely worse than me.”
I stared at him, water dripping from my hair onto my shoulders as I processed his words.
Infinitely worse? The god who had held my hand through the darkest hours, who had taken my pain into himself, who had spoken to me with such unexpected tenderness, worse than the one who had slaughtered my family and tortured me for weeks?
“That’s impossible,” I said, my voice flat with disbelief.
Valen’s laugh was soft and bitter, his thumb still tracing the curve of my cheek. “Is it? Tell me, Princess—when he heals you, what does he take in return?”
I hesitated, that hollow ache beneath my breastbone still fresh. “Pieces of my soul,” I admitted reluctantly.
“And you think that’s merely payment?” His hand moved to cup the back of my neck, fingers tangling in my wet hair. “Do you know what happens to mortals who lose too much of their soul, Mireille?”
I stared at him, the water beginning to cool against my skin. “No,” I whispered.
“They become unmade,” Valen said, his voice softening. “Not just dead, Mireille. Erased. The soul fragments and dissipates like mist under the morning sun. They cannot pass to the void. They cannot be reborn. They simply... cease to exist.”
I felt the blood in my veins turn to ice. My hand instinctively pressed against my chest, feeling for the hollow spaces where pieces of me were missing. I shook my head, unwilling to believe it. “But he’s saved me, twice, when you’ve nearly killed me.”
“Yes.” Something flashed across his face—regret, perhaps, or something deeper.
“At least if you had died from my... loss of control, you would have gone to the void. Your soul would have remained intact. Nearly whole.” He paused, his thumb brushing against the pulse point at my throat.
“I would never risk your soul, Mireille. Not in my anger. Not in my desire for revenge. I would never risk you being fully unmade.”
The sincerity in his voice startled me more than his words. There was no mockery there, no hidden cruelty—just a raw honesty that made my chest ache with confusion.