Chapter 8
Chapter
Eight
Kai Silver Wolf slipped into the healing chamber and was immediately enveloped by the soothing scents of fresh water and woodsmoke. The earthy incense burned over occupied beds and filled the air while Quiet Rock females drifted between patients.
Kai's upbringing was a stark contrast to this room. She was raised for war—blade in hand, enemy at her feet. Then, years ago, she woke here to Fala’s face following a blow to the head and found there was more to the world than violence.
Despite her unwavering commitment to her warrior's path, she couldn’t ignore the allure of peace.
It was one Fala brought home with her every night.
“Fala is in the healing pool,” a Quiet Rock female said upon seeing her.
The elder had a sad, knowing look in her eyes. Earlier in the day, several Shadow Water younglings had dared each other to leap over a scalding steam vent. One was caught in an eruption and was immediately brought to the healing chamber, where she died under Fala’s care.
“Thank you,” Kai said.
Kai followed the familiar winding pathways through the mountain, the air growing warmer and muggier as she drew nearer to the natural springs.
She stepped in and out of pockets of firelight from the torches angled off the stone walls.
Several healers left the pool area, each drenched and swathed in wide lengths of drying cloths.
As she neared the carved stone archway, instead of firelight, bioluminescent fungi grew along the walls and illuminated the path.
Inside the chamber, a pool shimmered in a soft blue-green light, fed by the mountain’s natural streams. Smooth, flat stones surrounded the water, sharing space with the healing herbs and plants growing around its edges.
Despite the number of women inside, there was only the sound of trickling water and the quiet shuffle of footsteps.
Near the stone altars adorned with sacred symbols came the occasional soft hum of a healing chant.
Beyond that, in the furthest reaches of the cavern, were small alcoves and niches, each furnished with soft, moss-covered bedding—private spaces for meditation, rest, and recovery.
Kai paused beside a discarded bracelet on the ground made from simple beads.
Fala sat against the pool’s edge, far from everyone else, her eyes closed and body submerged to her chin.
The waters were meant to comfort as much as they were to heal.
Fala needed that tonight more than ever; Kai understood that.
But when had Fala stopped looking to Kai first to alleviate her pain?
Quietly, Kai stripped to her skin and lowered into the water beside her wife, sighing as the warm water embraced her tired muscles and leached the remaining bits of cold from her body.
“I heard what happened and came right down,” Kai said. “Are you all right?”
Fala shook her head, then belatedly opened her red-rimmed eyes. The khol smudging her lids tracked and blurred down her high cheekbones. “No.” She shifted into Kai’s open arms and rested her head on her shoulder.
“You did everything you could,” Kai said, examining Fala’s water-wrinkled fingers. “You always do.”
Fala left Kai’s arms and ran her hands over her wet hair as tears spilled over her lashes. “You didn’t see the fear in her eyes or how she struggled to breathe.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
Fala closed her eyes and released a shaky breath. “It isn’t the first time this has happened. It won’t be the last.”
They lived inside a mountain. Accidents were bound to happen. It was a sign of Fala’s humanity that she hadn’t yet started to accept it, and one of many reasons why Kai loved her.
Kai swam back to her wife and pulled her close. “You need a night away from it all. Let’s stay here for a while. With everyone attending the ceremony, we’ll have this entire room to ourselves.” She swept her palms down Fala’s naked waist, stopping at her hips. “No one will look for us here.”
Fala’s large brown eyes rolled back. “My grief isn’t a reason for you to avoid our calling.”
Kai flinched. “I didn’t say it was.”
“I’m not skipping the ceremony.”
Fala pushed free of Kai again, and Kai let her, following her with her eyes alone. The Eternal One had the last six nights to name their husband and hadn’t. The battle was won.
But was it?
“Fala, do you want a husband?”
Fala rose from the pool, water sluicing down her brown skin in a shower. “I’ve waited six nights for you to care what I want. Now you ask?”
The question landed like a strike to the face. Kai had been adept at making this her problem. Her decision. In all her anxiety and fear and selfish demands, she’d forgotten that her wife might also have an opinion.
Fala shook her head. “I don’t know what I want, Kai, but if the gods have a plan for us, who are we to tell them they’re wrong?”
Kai’s stomach sank to the rock bottom of the pool, and she felt too heavy to follow her wife from the pool. Fala was never harsh. The fact that she was now… Kai had gone too far. She just wished she knew what to say.
Standing, she faced Fala, who already had a drying towel knotted around her body and her clothes clenched in one hand. She started away from the pool without so much as a glance back.
“Fala, please—”
“I’ll see you at home.”
There were a thousand things she could’ve said. Not one would’ve reached her.
Kai stood alone in the pool. The warm water clung like sweat now, thick, stifling. The corridor beyond swallowed her wife whole and left no ripple behind.
“I’ll see you at home,” Kai muttered to herself.
“You will.”
The voice came from the steam—low, calm, masculine. And far too close. Kai twisted sharply, instincts on edge.
She found him deep within the warm mist of a somewhat distant alcove, half-submerged in the water, arms spread across the stone embankment.
His face was tilted back, eyes shut. The water lapped gently around him, revealing little else but the slope of his bare shoulders, the corded muscle of his arms, and the way his chest rose and fell just above the surface.
His long brown hair was knotted atop his head, damp strands clinging to the sides like he'd barely bothered to tame them.
The presence of a male here wasn’t unusual—these waters were open to all. Her error had been in not noting him earlier.
“What did you say?” she asked.
“You didn’t sound so sure that you’d see her at home. I was only saying that you will. It’s clear she loves you. A bad day has a way of disguising one’s real intentions.”
He raised his head and opened his eyes. He didn’t leer.
His expression was almost meditative, eyes half-lidded.
And there, on his forehead, were two crescents, back-to-back.
Fifth Clan. Rising Moon had one of the most labor-intensive jobs in the mountain, and came here often to rest their tired muscles.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”
“You didn’t,” she said, lowering back into the water. “I just didn’t know anyone was listening.”
“It’s quiet in here,” he noted with a nod at the chamber, and at least two dozen more females about. “It’s unlikely your voices carried much farther than me, but they did.”
Heat filled her cheeks. All it took was one wandering tongue—just one—and the whole mountain would be dissecting her grief by morning.
“My apologies,” she said, “if we disturbed you.”
He smiled faintly, and for a brief moment she—
Kai had found males handsome before. She was hardly blind. Finding them attractive was never the problem.
“To be honest…” He scratched the back of his neck, suddenly sheepish. “It helped.”
“Which part? When I failed to comfort my wife? Or the part where she reminded me how terrible I am at it?”
“When you were vulnerable about the ceremony.” He sat forward and scrubbed water over his face, then sighed. “Not knowing if your life is about to change… Sometimes I wish I could be more like your wife; she seems ready.”
Kai didn’t know how to respond to that. She hadn’t asked. Not once. Fala had every right to be angry with her.
The male rose then, slow and powerful, water sluicing off his tall, lean, muscular body.
Kai didn’t look away fast enough, and she cursed under her breath. A warrior should never be distracted by a beautiful man, naked or not. And why was she surprised? No one entered the sacred waters dressed.
But gods, he was beautiful. And distracting.
Outside the pool, he wrapped a drying cloth around his waist. “Maybe we’ll see each other again at the ceremony, and if we’re honored by the gods, we can toast to each other’s happiness.”
Kai turned in the water and folded her arms across the stone, watching him tread wetly for the exit. “Will you feel honored, though?”
He paused at the threshold to the corridor, and a single shoulder came up. His chin lowered. “If she’s half the female you or Fala are, I won’t have a choice.”
Kai startled and came out of the water several inches. “You know who we are?”
He glanced around. “I’m no stranger to the healing pools. She’s hard to miss. And you…” He glanced over his shoulder, and his next words were quiet, secret. “Everyone knows who you are, Kai Silver Wolf.”
Then he was gone.
She didn’t know if she was hoping to see him again…or hoping she wouldn’t.
And she never even got his name.
Kai approached Stoneheart Hall, the great central chamber in the heart of the mountain, half a step behind Fala. Her wife’s back hadn’t softened in the last hour, and any words Kai summoned to break the tension died in her mouth and tasted like ash.
Fala passed beneath the centuries-old stone archway with the clan symbols etched into the black rock. Twenty symbols, eleven lost forever to war. Kai could only imagine the heat and chaos when all twenty clans had gathered with the central fire pit ablaze.