21. Harlow
HARLOW
H enry’s aura pulses frantically around us as he leads me down the stone staircase. He’s nervous.
I can’t tell if it’s because he wasn’t supposed to show me this well, if he was hoping to hold out on this secret for a more strategic reveal, or if this is the actual strategic reveal and he’s just trying to get me to tell him what’s wrong with me.
I’m disoriented without my sight, with my head still foggy from the aftereffects of the pain. Every muscle in my body is wound tight from bracing against the ache, and even though the worst of it is gone, the remnants hang on as a warning not to let my guard down.
Still, a wild glimmer of hope sparks inside me. If this well is closer to the source of whatever magic is imbued in the waters of our family well, maybe it will be more potent. It could finally fix what ails me.
A frightening thought sears through my mind. Maybe it will make me mad like my father and Able. Maybe it will make me worse.
My silk slipper slides on the steps, and Henry tightens his hold on me. I’m graceless without my vision, too close to him and too off-kilter, and so angry at my body for being weak when I need it to be strong.
My heart beats frantically as the damp and fresh smell of water hits me. A faint trickling sound echoes through the stairwell .
Finally, we reach the bottom of the descent, and Henry stops me. He removes the blindfold, and I blink, trying to acclimate to the dim space.
Light emanates from the pool in front of me. Steam rises off the surface of the water, warping the reflections on the arched stone ceiling. On the far side of the room is a table with a carafe of water and a pile of linen towels.
It’s not as ornate as the Carrenwell Family Well.
Instead of the fancy whitewashed stone of the well I grew up with, this room looks carved from the mountain itself.
The dark granite walls glitter in the dancing sunstone light, but the dark color of the space seems to eat up the glow.
The effect is a bit claustrophobic—like I’ve been let into a space too intimate for the newness of our acquaintance.
I stare at the water in disbelief. What does this well do?
For so long, I’d believed that the only wells in existence were the Family Well and the Blood Well.
How could there have been another all this time without us knowing?
I’d never been naive enough to believe my father knew everything, but he was nothing if not motivated by his own survival.
There is no way he knows this exists and wouldn’t have at least attempted to explore it after the fort fell.
Henry watches me so intensely, it’s like he’s trying to see through my skin to understand.
“How does this work?” I ask.
“Well, lovely. You simply get in the water and?—”
I glower at him. “I know that part, you ass. I mean how do you get the water in here? Our well is always cold. The water flows through in a gentle current, but this is still.”
Henry walks around the pool to the far wall. He taps his hand on what looks like a long stone slide that forms a gutter into the pool.
“As you can tell, we’ve come down pretty far below ground level.
The actual flow of the well is higher than this.
It’s about twenty feet or so to the right of where we stand.
There’s a valve here.” He places his hand on a knob I hadn’t seen before.
“If I turn this, water will flow in. Cold as a glacier. Not pleasant at all. That’s why we use the sunstones. It should be nice and hot for you.”
“And when you’re finished—where does the runoff go?” I ask.
I don’t really expect him to answer. He’s already given me a valuable piece of information .
“You saw it in the armory. We typically only use the well once a week or so. The leftover water is repurposed to treat weapons and fortify our walls.”
“This seems like quite a journey for your people to go on to pay their blood tithes. I assume you do them all on the same day instead of having daily rotations like we do in Lunameade,” I say.
Henry shakes his head. “We don’t do regular blood tithes. People only tithe if they choose to, once a year on Founder’s Day.”
I stare at him, dumbfounded. If they don’t tithe to the well, surely it affects the well’s magic—but I don’t want to say that and insult him when he’s offering me a way to heal.
He leans back against the wall and crosses his arms. “Now, have I satisfied your curiosity? Will you tell me what’s wrong? Maybe I can help if the well can’t.”
I shake my head. “No healer’s magic has worked.”
He frowns, but there’s a curious gleam in his dark eyes. “What is it?”
I step to the edge of the pool and stare down at my reflection. I don’t know what I expect. Even I have trouble understanding how something invisible can ail me so severely. It makes it feel less real, or at least like I shouldn’t bother anyone with it.
“At least it’s not a visible affliction. Thank the Divine for that. At least this beauty can be of use.” My mother’s words are seared into my mind. I wonder what she would say if she could see how messy my hair is in front of my husband-to-be.
This is a gift my parents have naturally—no Divine blessing required. Their words are always with me; I can’t shake their disapproval even if I’ve shaken their observation for the moment.
“Are you homesick?” Henry asks, startling me from my thoughts.
I laugh. The question is so absurd to me.
I have been waiting to escape that house for twenty-four years—ever since my magic showed up.
Of course, living at the fort is more dangerous than being safe behind the fortified walls in Lunameade, but it’s also the most freedom I’ve ever had, and while the scrutiny is still substantial and drenched in loathing, no one here is scolding me for looking tired or messy.
Henry probably has no idea what that’s like; his parents are doting. They welcomed him at that dinner with true warmth, not the fake performance like my parents put on .
It’s hard for me to fathom that kind of nurturing. I’ve thrived in spite of my parents, not because of them. The roots of defiance dug down deep into my bones. I don’t want to be this way, but I don’t know anything else.
“No. I could not be less homesick. Why do you ask?”
“You seem to take every opportunity to make jabs at how wild it is here.”
I finally look up at him. “It is wild here.”
He waits for me to say more, but I can ice him out until he leaves.
I swallow and gesture to the glowing pool of water. “Thank you for bringing me here.”
It’s meant to be a dismissal, but he stays. The silence stretches.
I wait for him to leave, to realize that this is a line I won’t cross, even for my duty. Revealing this secret now could throw this whole agreement into peril.
Instead of retreating, he unbuttons his collar and then his sleeves, a hint of defiance in his eyes.
“What are you doing?” I rasp.
“I’m bathing with my fiancée in my family’s well. Suppose she’s overcome by her pain and slips beneath the water. How would I live with myself if I wasn’t there to be of assistance?”
My skin heats as I glare at him. “And if she doesn’t wish to bathe with you?”
He waves a hand at the stairwell behind him. “Then she’s welcome to leave.”
I could. It would be easy to walk away and leave him here, but I want to know what this well does, and I’m afraid that if I don’t go in now, I’ll lose my nerve for good. Who knows if I’ll have another chance with such easy access to it?
I glance at the shimmering water. I’m afraid to even hope for healing.
I’m surprised I can still feel any semblance of hope that I’ll find a cure for this peculiar pain that ails me.
The episodes have been so debilitating for so long, and trying to hide it from my new in-laws so they don’t think me defective has been a chore.
Right now, I’m too broken by the pain that pounds dully in my temples to pretend.
Henry tosses off his shirt, revealing a broad, muscled chest and abdomen.
But it’s not his physique that makes me gasp.
His skin is a tapestry of vicious scars—most notably, jagged claw marks crisscross his chest, shiny and several shades lighter than his skin, and a bumpy white scar that looks like a dagger was slid between his left ribs.
Years of appearing unaffected are completely worthless now. I’m too stunned not to stare. I should look away. I wouldn’t want someone to stare at my scars like that, but the more I look, the more I see the violence of his history scored into his skin.
As he turns to hang his shirt on a hook on the cavern wall, the light catches a short, neat scar over his jugular and what looks like two puncture wounds in his back that appear to be made by arrows.
The training for hunters that go beyond the fort walls is extensive and harrowing, but Henry looks like he’s survived so much more than my poison lips.
There are other, fainter scars over his forearms and shoulders—the marks of years of training—the same kind common on city guards back in Lunameade.
Henry clicks his tongue as he unbuttons his pants. “I know I’m handsome, Harlow, but if you don’t stop staring, I’m going to blush.”
Finally, I drag my gaze away and busy myself with the buttons on the back of my dress. I slip the straps off my shoulders, letting the silk land on the floor, a pool of red against the dark stone.
Henry pauses with his pants hanging low on his hips.
He watches me bend to unfasten my garters.
He swallows hard, eyes fixed on the stretch of skin above my stockings, and I know he’s remembering kissing me there the way I remember the sharp pinch of his teeth that chased each kiss.
I slide the stocking down my right leg slower than I need to, enjoying this power I have over him.
I do the same with the other stocking before standing tall and unclasping my bustier, letting it down my arms.