Chapter 11
ELEVEN
The edge of an overhanging boulder digs into my spine, right at the small of it.
The steam rises from the hot pool, mesmerising me with those smoky dances above what should be crystal blue waters, but since it’s so dark, and the nearest piked torch casts a fiery glow over the waters, it looks sort of otherworldly.
Dangerous.
The noises have all merged into one—the creaking of the carts up on the trail that some captives are sorting through, the huffs and growls of those hairless, creepy steeds up on the path, the laughter of the fae moving in and out of pools, the clinking of bottles being passed around.
The fae apparently find joy in the fun of the hot springs, something they might know from their own world.
But I don’t like it.
Their jovial laughter feels off.
I can’t quite put my finger on why it floods me with a distinct sort of nervousness that pings in my bones.
But I know I can’t relax with them, so I watch them all, from captives who wash in the river and apply that same brownish oil to their bodies to the ones who work, then the warriors who still soak in the waters to the ones who throw back gulps of dark liquid from the bottles.
I’m not alone in my mistrust of the light nature around camp.
The working captives who heave those massive plastic containers of water, laundry baskets and sacks of grain, their gazes are alert, swerving, troubled, and most wear the early sheen of sweat, but not from the hard labour.
I stick close to him, the cold one.
Boots planted on the smaller, softer rock down one level, like a staircase built by nature itself, he sits on the flattened boulder beside me—and no matter how close I edge towards him, scooting inch by inch, he doesn’t shove me away.
All the attention he’s spared me since he sat there is a lingering look, and I’ve closed a metre of distance in that time.
Now, his elbow grazes my arm as he passes off one of those dark purple bottles wrapped in leather for grip or insulation, maybe just decoration.
But a new grip closes around the leather of the bottle. The female takes it from him.
Now, her translucent hair is braided up the middle of her scalp into a ponytail at her crown, and it’s perfect. Not a strand out of place, not a tendril falling into her sharp features.
But no matter how she does her hair, it’s still just so fucking strange every time I look at her. I’ve seen pale hair before, blond and white and grey, bleached strands hanging on within an inch of their lives—but never have I seen such a translucent sheen before.
It’s amplified in the moody torchlight.
It’s the hue of an icicle growing on the ceiling of a cave.
It’s glass.
I watch as Glass brings the bottle to her white lips before she chugs back a hefty amount of what I can only guess is wine—just by the pungent, fruity stench of it but with that sour undertone of vinegar.
The bottle comes away from her now-stained lips. She throws a purplish grin at Samick, an answer to words he garbled in their language.
She passes it off to the fae beside her, that feral one whose teeth are lethally sharp.
Shark.
The moment I think it, the name I’ve assigned him, the pink of his eyes flitters over me for the shortest beat before he downs a few gulps of the drink, then passes it to the next.
This fae is a rainforest, rich greens and soil.
His dark hair ropes down his back in a braid that impresses me. A braid that I wouldn’t think a male could do himself.
But they all do it, I’ve noticed.
Those with longer hair work the strands into intricate braids of all sorts. His is a rope, one that starts from his hairline, then zigzags around his scalp before falling into a single piece that reaches down to the rock he’s hunched on.
The warmth of his skin has a certain lush bark hue to it, and the unnatural greens of his eyes are portals to rainforests.
Then all I see is warped, glittering purple as he throws his head back and his throat bobs with the gulps.
I watch the bobbing of his throat—the glisten of the oil he rubbed into his skin earlier. They all did, like some of the captives down by the river, they all kneaded that warm oil barrier onto their bodies.
But the cold one didn’t.
The frown I cut aside to him goes unnoticed.
He’s slightly angled away from me, speaking in low murmurs with Glass, though there’s still that edge of disinterest in him, a perpetual distance that he keeps even with his own kind.
I sink into my isolation—the tedium of it.
My back relaxes against the bite of the boulder, and I press my cheek into the curve of the other smooth rock.
The distant splashing of other pools carries on around us, with that dangerous sound of laughter like it’s edged with blades, but this group feels a touch calmer.
I’m quiet, watching their mouths move around words I don’t understand, watching the bottles pass between them, teeth flashing in grisly grins.
It goes on too long until a flicker of marble catches my attention.
The cold warrior reaches down for my backpack, then grabs a fistful of the screechy material.
He drags it to settle between his boots, luring me to sit upright, to turn with his movement, twist around and watch as he tugs the zip undone.
The glance I throw at the faces around the misty pool is swift. None of them pay attention to the cold one going through my things. The bottle and shared gravelly words are more interesting to them.
Glass has turned fully to Shark now, and Rainforest has lured out small instrument from somewhere, sort of like a flute but not quite as thick or long.
He doesn’t play it yet; he just cleans it out.
I throw my attention back to the cold one as he rifles through my bag.
The first thing he tugs out is a glossy magazine.
The cover pages are scratched and torn at the corners, folded from being stuffed carelessly into the bag.
He smoothens it out.
The gleams of torchlight dance over the sharp features of a long-dead celebrity.
I didn’t know who she was until I read this magazine, her article, and all she talked about in the printed interview was her new television show and a small bit on how she likes to eat yoghurt—mixed in a bowl with skim milk, makes it extra watery, and dipping in one berry at a time, which I guess was supposed to be different and special, but it just curled my lips in annoyance.
The cold warrior turns over the magazine in his hands for a moment before, without a word, he tosses it aside.
It thumps to the rock nudged against his right boot, then he reaches into my backpack again.
This time, he lures out the thickness of a book. A bowed paperback, pages fanned from mishandling, with that old book smell trailing off of it, and a satisfying cracked spine.
He tosses it.
George Owell’s 1984 lands on the magazine with a thud. It slides an inch down, then settles against the edge of his boot.
I’ve read it a few times now, and each time I’m only marginally closer to understanding it. I get the premise. It’s the writing that gives me a headache.
Maybe my comprehension skills aren’t all that.
Maybe the language is just too dated for me.
Either way, I don’t feel done with it, and so the sullen look I spare on the book lingers—
And the warrior continues rooting through my stuff.
One after the other, he steals an item from my bag, considers it, then either tosses it to the rock on the right, or the rock on the left.
Two piles.
And with each addition, I’m less certain of what the piles mean.
His fingers dig into cardboard as he studies the words printed along a paracetamol box. The crinkle of foil packaging comes as he sifts out the meds, eyes them for the quickest moment, then tosses them to the right. He’s either letting me keep magazines and books or denying me basic painkillers.
I’d bet on the second one.
The look I aim at the right-side pile is brimmed with longing.
Wish I could pretend to be the sort of person who puts logic over wants, who is smart enough to long for the return of the painkillers—because I actually need those come time of the month.
But I’m selfish, or maybe it’s because I grew up in a time of instant gratification, but whatever the reason is, I want the magazine, I want the book, the felt tip pens he discards next.
The line of my mouth slants.
Then comes the faint rustle of soft plastic, and I watch as he tugs out a full packet of pads.
My brows lift before my gaze does.
The harsh crimson firelight dances over his features. It flickers over the deep metal hue of the chain-link armour, draped over his shoulders.
The pad of his thumb runs over the plastic packet, smoothing out the wrinkles to make out the text.
He takes a moment.
No warmth on his cheeks, nothing to heat the ice that lives in him. No realisation strikes him, no sign of understanding what he’s looking at, what the pads are for.
He considers them with that inherent coldness of his, then he makes a decision.
He sets them down on the left.
That pile nudges the toe of my own boot, wedged between us, and I eye it over, from the pads and the Milky Way to the fresh pair of thermal socks and insulated mug.
I don’t know why he would let me keep the mug or the nougat-chocolate heaven, but I can’t bank on the right pile because, you know, magazines.
My face is on the verge of crumpling under the weight of the confusion.
The backpack is soon softer, emptier, and he’s digging around the remnants at the bottom. He finds a pack of smokes—and I forgot those were in there.
The beige butts of the cigarettes are exposed from the torn packaging, but those aren’t the smokes I had in my jacket pocket.
I reach for the pocket now, the rustle of my gloved hand slipping along the edges of my waist.
That cuts his sharp gaze to me.
A gleam of swords that I freeze under.
His lashes narrow, only slightly, and against my palms I feel nothing. No inhaler, no curve of a lighter, no jagged edges that should come with the cigarette packet.
Pockets are empty.