Chapter 16
sixteen
Kas goes for a swim.
The symposium was one week away, and things were going better than Kas expected.
The scholar who’d taken up residence in his walls—and heart—didn’t seem too angry about the guard anymore.
And though she hadn’t brought it up, and he wasn’t willing to touch it with a ten-foot pole, she’d also seemingly forgiven him for sleepwalking into her blasted bed and kissing her awake.
It had been excessively reckless of him to tell her he was attracted to her, but he’d done it anyway. Then, her response? That bolstered him immensely, though he did feel bad for springing the question on her in her half-asleep state.
“Yes,” she’d said. Yes, Nesrina was attracted to him, too. He’d thanked the gods every morning, every afternoon, and every evening since.
As far as Kas was concerned, based on his confession and her response, the two of them were as good as courting.
That determination was precisely why he decided to tag along on one of her lessons with the twins, visibly this time.
He had no reason to hold back on studying her or studying their magic. It was time to go all in.
“Uncle Kas!” Della screeched when he joined them in the clearing.
“Are you going to learn with us?” Ataht beamed.
“Yes, are you?” Nesrina chimed in.
He grinned. “That was my intent, yes. I have free time these next few weeks.”
“Oh.”
He wasn’t sure if Miss Kiappa meant to voice that aloud. But she nodded at an empty stump, and he joined them.
As the lesson progressed, Kas didn’t learn much about their magic.
He did, however, collect an abundance of data on the scrunch of Nesrina’s nose, her flailing hands as she spoke, and the expressiveness in her eyes.
Her freckles were plentiful, more pronounced the longer summer progressed.
He caught something about hollow interiors that were not impacted by their power, but that was the sum total of his new knowledge on tishtafiran.
After their lesson, the twins begged him and their tutor to stay and swim for a while. Kas agreed immediately, though Nesrina refrained from responding. When she didn’t depart after the lesson, he took it as a good sign. Although, he couldn’t be sure if she was there for the children, or him.
Despite having spent time with two women before meeting Nesrina, and despite being twenty-six and well-educated on nearly every subject in the universe, Kas found he was lacking knowledge on matters of the heart.
Books could only take him so far, and he was oft reminded of something Hothan Tarisden once wrote to him in a letter: “You’ll learn far more at the helm than by reading books about boats. ”
Kas was fifteen when Nesrina’s father dropped that bit of advice on him, and it stuck with him ever since.
It was the impetus for his first rough semblance of a relationship with the banker’s daughter in Stormhill when he’d been a bit older.
He’d learned some, but not enough; and the feelings he’d had for that woman paled in comparison to what he felt toward Miss Kiappa.
The problem was, he had no idea how to handle those feelings.
For a while there, he’d convinced himself she was uninteresting .
. . half convinced, at least. Now, he settled for wishing she’d think of him the same way he thought of her, which was constantly and with far more detail than one might consider a friend.
He couldn’t force his wishes to become reality, so there was only one thing to do: try his damndest to befriend the befuddling and beautiful tutor. She wasn’t a book, she was a woman, and he needed . . . her.
Not long later, the twins’ nannies and a smattering of servants brought down swimming attire for the children, food, blankets, pillows, towels, and even a screen for them to change behind.
Kas didn’t bother with the screen; he sat down upon one of the large boulders by the stream to tug off his boots, coat, and shirt.
The children took turns changing, then made for their meal.
Typically, Kas would swim stark naked, as the gods intended.
Not today. Not around the twins. Around her on the other hand . . .
Nesrina tossed her floral dress up and over the screen, and he couldn’t help but wonder what she was wearing, or rather not wearing, beyond the barrier.
Shooting to his feet, he pivoted to face the brook, and stalked into the water, hiding the evidence of his wandering mind.
A minute later the children joined him, and as they waded in, he started splashing.
“Don’t mind me.” Kas laughed heartily. “I’m washing all that food off your faces!
Crumbs and sauces and jellies!” The twins shrieked, rushing out to join him.
He continued even as they ganged up on him to return the favor.
His arms were much longer and his hands bigger—it was an easy win. “It’s for your own good!”
With one twin in each arm he roared, standing and swinging them around, their floundering feet barely skimming the rolling water.
Sunlight bathed them in summery warmth, its glow glinting off Della’s pale locks, making the crown of her head look like the moon itself.
Kas told her as much.
“Dad always tells Mum that about her hair,” she giggled, tilting her head back to beam up at him. Sun shone on her pale face, constricting her pupils to two tiny pinpricks.
“Your eyes have a bit of blue in them. Did you know that?”
She nodded. “They’re like my dad’s.”
“They’re lovely.” A central cerulean ring was surrounded by a wider swath of mossy green. Just like Nesrina. Maybe it was a tishtafir thing.
That was the moment Miss Kiappa unveiled herself, stepping from behind the dressing screen wearing a very lovely and very short bathing dress.
It was dusky purple, with cap sleeves and flouncy skirts that ended above her knee.
The frills of matching bloomers poked out beneath the hem.
She’d unbound her hair, and he couldn’t help but weave a gentle breeze through her waves.
Giving her head a little shake, she joined them in the stream.
Kas’s eyes were drawn to the shallow V at her neckline.
With his height, the dip in fabric provided a tantalizing view of the crease between her breasts.
It was a gloriously scandalous outfit, he’d be the first to admit.
Was it for him? He doubted it. But he was certainly enjoying the benefits of being present.
Still holding the twins around their waists, Kas splashed upstream to where a short dam of stacked boulders blocked the flow.
Beyond the small cascade, he’d built a good-sized swimming hole, dammed on either side, and deep in the center.
It was up to his eyes now that he was an adult.
A glance over his shoulder nearly resulted in a collision with Ataht, thrashing and shrieking in his left arm. Miss Kiappa wasn’t far behind.
Lifting one of his long legs, he stepped up and over the barrier and waded into the deeper, calm water. Then he shouted, “Brace yourselves, hellions!” and launched the twins.
A resounding splash stifled their shrieking protests. Free of that burden, he turned to face the approaching vixen.
She’d dipped herself, and her dress was now a stunning deep plum that clung to her curves in all the right ways.
He dropped to his knees, a combination of worship and necessity, and ensured he was adjusted correctly.
Then, he walked toward her, still kneeling, to extend a hand and help her over the stones.
“I love this area,” she commented, coming to stand beside him. In his current position, they were eye level, the water lapping softly around her hourglass hips.
Stifling a groan, he flopped back, dunking himself and clearing all his thoughts with a harsh burst of water up the nose.
“Did you build this?” She sank down, fluttering her hands and kicking languidly to stay afloat. Ripples broke the surface.
Across the pool, the twins clambered up the natural rock face on the east bank, preparing to jump where it was deepest.
“I did, with Hevva’s help.” He smiled at her, and little droplets of water beaded on his lashes, giving the world an ethereal haze.
“As children?” she asked, not waiting for his reply before she disappeared beneath the surface.
He waited for her to emerge and watched as she brought both hands to her face to roughly part her sopping hair. Gods, she was so beautiful. Temporarily overwhelmed, stuck in a state of muteness, Kas managed a nod.
“Did you use your magic?”
“Not mine. Hevva’s an ertcins.” He used the Old Tongue term for earthshaper, certain Nesrina would be familiar with it after reading Thanin’s piece, if she hadn’t known before.
Nes dipped her dainty chin before submerging herself until water rose above her nose. Little bubbles broke the surface, and she looked up at him like a frog.
“She helped to shape the swimming hole a little bit. But that was already here.” He gestured to the big boulder as the twins leapt, hand in hand, into the water.
“It was a project we chose to do by hand. Plus, Hevva wasn’t much older than those two when we started.
Her skills weren’t honed enough yet, and I was three. ”
She grinned. “Can you move stones with your magic, now?”
“Of course.” He demonstrated, lifting a medium-sized rock from the dam, and permitting a miniature waterfall to pop up, before he replaced the stone. Miss Kiappa was impressed, he was fairly certain. “What of your magic? Does a naughtbirin truly create from nothing?”
She laughed. “I thought tishtafir was the new word? I don’t know that anything can come from nothing, and we certainly don’t make whatever element we’re manipulating in nature—Thanin had that bit wrong. Our illusions, the shells we make, come from the natural chaos of the world.”