Chapter 22 Truth Laid Bare
Truth Laid Bare
The wind tore through the ridge with enough bite to lift canvas, flapping through camp like a restless spirit. With the sun now gone, the biting cold tore its merciless fangs into the landscape. The wind was its accomplice—just as cruel, just as ruthless.
In the heart of the Kelvasari camp, parchment snapped and fluttered beneath callused hands.
Resh stood with Thessia over a sprawl of maps, the wind catching the edges and trying to lift them skyward.
She pressed one gloved hand down, her other pointing toward the gorge path leading toward Stonewake.
“If we circle east by dawn, we avoid the marshland entirely. My Blades can cut a forward trail,” she said, her braid swaying over one shoulder like a whip. Fur lined the seams of her armor now, a thick cloak snapping behind her.
“We’ll need the higher ridge for visibility,” Resh replied, eyes tracing the path. “Too many ambush points down there.”
“Agreed.” Thessia gave a short nod. “You still think like a predator.”
Before he could respond, Zarrek appeared at his side.
“Oi. Resh.”
He didn’t look up from the map. “What?”
Zarrek didn’t lower his voice. “Look. Even I have limits. You told me to watch over her—not hover while she undressed and started bathing.”
Resh blinked. Then turned.
Thessia, still leaning over the map, quirked a brow. “Oh?”
Zarrek gestured vaguely toward the tent cluster behind them. “Never mind the clumsy casting. She nearly shucked off her shift in front of me. Said she wanted to ‘cook in peace.’ I told her maybe she should wait until you got back. She told me I should wait until my hairline returned.”
Thessia let out a short bark of laughter.
Zarrek scratched his bald head, already half-turned away. “She’s yours, Resh. You can explain what nudity means.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched. “She’s not—”
Zarrek didn’t even turn around. “I’m not dying over bathwater.”
A low whistle cut the tension like a blade. Thessia tilted her head, arms folded. “You ready to surrender yet, Shadeslayer?”
Resh turned a slow, burning glare on her.
She countered it with a delighted grin. “Oh, don’t scowl at me. That ribbon in your hair is all the proof any of us need.”
Resh exhaled. “How long ago, Zar?”
“Half hour?” Zarrek guessed. “Maybe more.”
“She cast,” Resh muttered. “She’s barely recovered—”
“She won’t shatter, you know,” Thessia said, amusement curling in her voice. “But if she does set the Commander’s tent ablaze, I suppose we’ll see whether the famed Shadeslayer can smother fire with devotion alone.”
“Thess,” Resh snapped.
She smiled, slow and razor-edged. “Go on, then. The maps will wait. Disrobed little moonbeams, it seems, will not.”
As he turned to leave, she caught Zarrek by the arm and murmured loudly enough for Resh to hear, “Why didn’t you just call me? I would’ve gladly kept her company during her bath.”
Resh froze mid-step and leveled her with another withering glare over his shoulder.
“Because you would’ve jumped in with her instead of stopping her.”
Thessia grinned, utterly unrepentant. “Only if she asked in the same sweet voice she uses with you.”
Resh reached the Commander’s tent in long, fast strides.
He’d seen the steam rising from it when he crested the hill, but he wasn’t prepared for what he saw when he peeled open the tent flap to go inside.
The steam hit him like a brick wall. He narrowed his eyes and waved his hand in front of him to keep it out of his eyes.
The air inside was dense, fragrant, stifling. Maps, books, and scrolls curled from the moisture. It clung to his face, his armor, his skin. Beneath it, a dozen scents vied for dominance.
Moonbark. Fireroot. Wild fennel. Caliana root?
He hadn’t drawn any of these oils from storage. They should have been locked in inventory for trade, still under his seal.
The first thing he noticed was the silence. The water didn’t slosh. The tent poles didn’t creak. The steam didn’t hiss—it just hung.
His eyes adjusted—and then he saw her.
There.
In the tub.
Her body folded into the curve of it, one arm draped over the edge, fingers just brushing the floor. Her skin was flushed from the heat, hair floating like spun starlight around her shoulders.
And she was still.
So still.
His heart dropped.
He didn’t think—just moved.
He knelt beside the tub, one hand hovering over the water. It was hot, but not scalding. Carefully balanced. Controlled.
His gaze swept to the nearby basin, and sure enough, a single candle, snapped at the base and embedded with a mana sigil, flickered against a heating rune etched into the floor.
She cast all this.
Not her strange magic. Not instinct.
A true, structured spell.
Her first, as far as he knew.
His hand hesitated as it hovered over her shoulder, then slowly lowered. His palm met her damp skin.
“Auryn,” he whispered.
Nothing.
His other hand reached for her wrist, light enough to feel her pulse.
It was there.
Faint. Slow.
But there.
He exhaled shakily, dropping his forehead to the rim of the tub for half a second, just long enough to pull himself back from the edge of panic.
I can’t deny it. I was afraid. For a moment, she looked so still, just like before.
Her chest was moving.
A breath. Then another.
But also—
The black veins.
Still there.
No longer stretching in wild, spidery chaos. But not gone either. Faded dark lines swirling beneath her skin like ink bleeding through parchment, concentrated just beneath her collarbone and trailing like frost toward her ribs.
“Why didn’t you just call for me?” he whispered. “You know I’m here.”
He reached into the water, supporting her back, her shoulders, guiding her upright inch by inch.
She groaned.
A little sigh of protest.
“So warm…”
He exhaled hard. A half-laugh, half-relieved sound that cracked through the quiet. Everything in his chest collapsed and rebuilt in the space of a heartbeat.
Not Depleted. Just sleeping. Just tired.
“You can’t fall asleep in the bath, starlight.” His voice was strained.
He pressed a kiss—tender, desperate—to her crown.
“I should scold you,” he whispered.
Later.
When he regained some measure of control.
He slid an arm beneath her shoulders, careful not to jostle her. The water sloshed—her head rested against his chest, silver hair clinging to her collarbones like ribbons. She murmured something against his skin. Soft. Unformed.
He reached for a towel. Dried her with gentle motions; not rushed, not hesitant. Just there. Fully, wholly present. When done, he nestled her closer. Her cheek pressed to his chest. Her breath warmed the hollow beneath his throat.
He carried her to the cot. Sat with her in his lap.
She’s yours, Resh. Zarrek’s voice echoed in his thoughts.
He shook his head.
Not mine to be kept. Or contained. But how do I protect her without caging her?
“Kailorien?”
Her voice was quiet. Soft. Still half-asleep.
“I’m here,” he murmured, pressing his lips to her temple.
The softest inhale, followed by another muffled groan as her body shifted within the towel. She blinked like she was surfacing from the bottom of a lake. Her eyes found his, still hazy, still struggling to focus. But she smiled. A curl of soft lips that made something deep inside him snap.
“I must have fallen asleep,” she mumbled into his tunic, shifting her cheek against him. “Just…resting my eyes. The water was so warm.”
“Auryn,” he began, but she interrupted him with a yawn.
“You said I could bathe.”
“I didn’t say you could fall asleep in the bath,” he replied. “And casting when you just woke up days ago. Are you trying to undo everything you’ve healed?”
She wiggled in protest. “I was cooking.”
He blinked. “What?”
“I just wanted to cook by myself.”
“Cook?”
“That’s what bathing feels like,” she murmured. “Cooking in broth.”
Kailorien stared down at her, entirely undone. “You think you were…cooking?”
“I’m small. The water’s warm. I was definitely simmering.”
He dragged a hand over his face, fighting a helpless smile. “Void help me…”
“Kailorien, put me down. You took me out too early. I still want to relax.” She wriggled free of his arms.
“Auryn, wait—”
Too late.
She rose from his lap in a sweep of movement that sent the damp towel slipping to the floor.
Resh went still.
Steam swirled around her, catching on the curve of her shoulder, the dip of her waist. She stood in the midst of it—shameless. Newly sculpted from heat and breath and soft silver light. She stretched, arms rising overhead, hair clinging in silver strands to the soft plane of her back.
He tried not to look.
Failed utterly.
His gaze dragged, helpless, scorching, down the gentle flare of her hips. The swell of her breasts—small, perfect, kissed by droplets tracing down her ribs. His hands held them once. He remembered how well they fit his palms.
She turned.
Bent.
He saw the sweep of her thighs, the delicate line where her spine curved into shadow—
“Kailorien.”
His name. Amused. Scolding.
He blinked hard, snapped from reverie as she turned and clutched the towel to her front. Her cheeks were flushed, eyes half lidded.
“If you look at me that way,” she murmured, not quite meeting his gaze, “I’ll start to shake again.”
His throat closed. He dragged his eyes to the ceiling.
“You’re standing unclothed in front of me.”
She frowned, baffled. “And? You’ve seen me without clothes before…that one night…”
He searched for a gentle way to explain. How beautiful she was. How tempting. How he lost all sense when she stood in front of him like this—then stopped. Looked into her eyes. Marveled at the way she was untouched, unspoiled, by the world.
“People generally do not walk around naked in front of others.”
“You’re not others,” she stated simply. “You’re Kailorien.”
He frowned. “Zarrek said you nearly removed your clothes in front of him.”
She raised her chin. “He was meddling. I told him to leave. He just didn’t move quickly enough.”