Chapter 18 #2
“You are my partner, not my trophy,” he declared with haste.
“I’m your stolen priestess,” I countered. “There’s no getting away from that. But don’t worry. It’s because I’m your partner that I can enjoy being your trophy, too.”
Thanatos frowned. “I thought that you would find this dynamic to be equally frustrating now as it was in your mortal life.”
“The difference is that I love you,” I said with a laugh. “And you love me, and that gives us power. I’m beautiful and forbidden. Put me on your arm, and use me to sass your opposition. Surely there’s someone here you’d like to sass.” I raised my eyebrows enticingly.
He chuckled, and his blush deepened. “Hmm. I suppose that I could do.”
Before I could torment him any longer, there came another knock at the door, followed by the entrance of two young women who curtsied in front of us.
My handmaidens were elegant, one wrapped in a flowing orange chiton and the other in pale green.
The styles did not match, but I supposed the royal household would have been hard-pressed to find women who died in the same clothes.
They looked so ordinary and youthful that I imagined they went gently in their sleep. Who knew if it was true.
“Hi,” I said shyly, and then I nudged Thanatos one more time. “While I get fixed up, will you go back to the city for me? It sounded like Leon made it through his trial, but I need to be sure that my sisters are alright.”
His brow furrowed. We were tangled together so closely that I could feel the nervous acceleration of his pulse. “Must I leave you?” he complained. “I promise that nobody you care for has died.”
Of course he didn’t want to go. I stroked his face, unconcerned that we were being watched by the two patient souls.
“I know. You would have told me if they had. But what if they think that I’ve died?
They’re probably worried sick! And what if someone is injured?
Please, I won’t be at peace until I know. ”
Thanatos made a sound of discontent, but he still acquiesced. “Alright.” He kissed my forehead, then released me from his grip and stood up with me. “I will be back soon,” he stressed, and he glared in the direction of my attendants before slipping past them and out the door.
“Sorry,” I mumbled to the women when he had gone. “I was killed and resurrected earlier today, so he’ll probably be agitated for a while.”
“It is no bother, my lady,” said the woman in orange, despite looking absolutely petrified.
She glanced behind her to be certain that Thanatos was gone, and then stretched out her hand to me with renewed confidence.
When I accepted it, I had to fight an unexpected instinct to recoil. Her hand was unnaturally cold.
Recovering my composure, I allowed her to lead me around to the other side of the bed. There, on the same wall as the headboard, a doorway opened up to a private bathing room.
Inside the room, my handmaidens stripped my bloody clothes away, and the lady in orange hurried me into the central marble tub.
I sat, shivering, on its inlaid seat. The surrounding floor was marble, too—in fact, almost everything in here was, save for the towels, the wooden shelving that held the bathing products, and a utilitarian stone chair that stood in the back corner.
On the floor beyond my feet, a stone ring surrounded a circular recess that had been filled up with tinder.
“What’s your name?” I asked the woman next to me as she lifted my arm for examination. “I’m Cyrie.”
“Sara, my lady, though it means little any longer. And she is Abani.” She indicated toward her companion.
Abani nodded to me curtly and resumed her duty of tending the fire pit.
She had already ignited the wood, and a little yellow flame was peeking up from between the dark logs.
I meant, then, to inquire about the obvious issue of fire in a room without a chimney, but I swallowed my question again when I saw it grow.
Only the tips of the elongated flames remained yellow now, while the bulk of their bodies were a striking green-blue.
A ghostly fire; heat without smoke. When Abani was satisfied with its size, she slid a metal stand into place above the pit and hoisted a cauldron of tepid water over the top.
My handmaidens administered the bath once the water reached a pleasing temperature, with one woman pouring it over me using a smaller vessel while the other scrubbed me down with soaps.
This process was something I was at least used to, though I’d never been waited on and the water had never been warm.
I thought it might be polite to try making conversation, but my mental exhaustion took over.
I sat quietly while they rinsed off the evidence of my death.
When I was declared clean, I stepped out of the tub and dried myself off with the towel that was offered to me.
I began to roughly dry my hair with it, too, but Sara snatched it out of my hands and herded me instead toward the stone chair in the corner of the room.
She sat me down naked upon it and began to rub lotion into my skin.
Meanwhile, Abani applied a slick concoction to the unruly mess of my hair and attacked the tangles with her comb.
I sank into a silent reverie as they worked, until Sara finally put away the lotion and shuffled through a separate collection of alabaster vessels.
I deduced from their shape that I was to be anointed with aromatic oils.
But as she was about to remove the stopper from her selection, Sara stiffened abruptly and shrank away from the direction of the doorway.
In the following instant, Thanatos strode across the threshold, having returned to me from the realm of mortals. It was apparent that he’d taken a dip, too: his long hair was wet, and his shirt was missing. Gods have mercy. My cheeks heated when I caught myself staring.
“I will do that,” he said, and he flicked his wings unconsciously as he waved my attendants away. I blushed harder when they bowed low and shuffled hastily out the door.
Thanatos paid them no attention. He knelt before me and slid his hands up my bare thighs. “Your sisters are still afraid of me,” he reported brightly.
I chuckled and raised a brow at his good spirits. “And you find that hilarious, don’t you?” I accused. “You enjoy tormenting them!”
“It is amusing at the very least,” he acknowledged with a naughty grin.
“So they’re—hey, that tickles!” He’d retrieved the scented oil and was rubbing it into the backs of my knees. My legs jerked at his touch, and Thanatos made a chiding sound, as if sorely disappointed in my involuntary rebellion.
“So they’re alright?” I tried again, giggling. I focused on combating the impulse to kick until he finished with my legs and switched to my wrists.
“Your sisters are just fine,” he promised me, “though I cannot say the same for much of the city’s infrastructure. Anyhow, you can all discuss it tomorrow. I told them I would bring you to the garden in the evening.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you. I needed to be sure. Do you know anything about the rest of the city?”
“The militia suffered significant losses, and the lower district is in rough shape,” he reported. “However, I am told that most of the civilians survived the afternoon. The people will rebuild, given time.”