Chapter 19
The next morning, I wake to a cool, damp cloth pressed against my forehead. My skin tingles beneath it while a fever burns deep within my bones. My refusal to rot something living is demanding its cost.
By evening, I’m delirious, trembling and drenched in sweat. Only my Godbeast’s stream of colorful curses keeps me tethered to consciousness as he begs me, in vain, to decay anything he can find.
But I refuse, unable to bear the thought of taking an innocent life. Despite the agony coursing through me, a frail, stubborn pride endures, keeping me defiant.
Time dissolves into a blur. Hours slip through my fingers. Heat seeps into my marrow, only to vanish, leaving a bone-deep chill.
The magic inside me changes too. Once, it was a quiet coil beneath my sternum like a sleeping serpent, but now it grows vast and consuming.
I drift in and out of awareness when something happens.
A weight presses against me, solid and real, dragging me back from the dark.
My limbs tangle in something warm and hard, and panic surges through me.
For a disoriented moment, I think I’m bound in chains, trapped and helpless until my senses clear, and the truth strikes me. It isn’t chains at all.
It’s him.
Kaelzar’s arms encircle me, firm yet protective, anchoring me to the world. Shocked, I scramble away so fast that pain lances through my side, making me moan.
“Please,” Kaelzar says quietly. “Stay calm.”
He lifts his hands in surrender, making no move to approach. My gaze flickers to the scars across his palms before sliding upward. He’s shirtless, the chains are unmoving.
My eyes catch on the sigil I noticed before: a circle of black fire bound in chains. The sight of it stirs unease in the pit of my stomach.
“You reopened your wounds last night,” he says, his tone even but edged with weariness as he leaves the bed.
“I had to stitch them again. You were thrashing in your sleep. I only held you to keep you from making it worse.” He reaches for the cup on the side of the bed and walks around to me with it.
I want to reply, but heat and exhaustion smother my words. My strength slips away, and I sink back into the bed.
Kaelzar moves closer, holding a cup to my lips. “Drink,” he murmurs. I obey, taking a few sips. “One more sip, for me.”
A weak smile flickers across my lips, unbidden, as a drop spills down my chin. My eyelids grow heavy, and I surrender to the darkness that follows.
When I wake again, night has already fallen. Silver light drifts through the open window. The faint scent of crushed herbs lingers in the air. I register a movement, the slow, rhythmic sway of being carried. A thin bedsheet clings to my skin, damp from sweat.
Kaelzar’s arms are firm beneath me. I don’t realize where he’s taking me until the dull gleam of water catches the light. The tub waits near the hearth.
He steps in first, the faint sound of rippling water echoing in the quiet. Then he draws me down with him, lowering me until my back rests against his chest, his arms holding me steady.
The water closes around me—cool, almost cold—and the contact steals the breath from my lungs. I gasp, arching instinctively, but his hands tighten just enough to keep me from slipping beneath the surface.
The shock cuts through the fever’s fog. Then slowly, as the coolness seeps into my skin, the shock of it fades. The heat draining from me feels almost physical, a slow unwinding of something that had gripped too tightly.
I breathe again, shallow at first, then steadier. The water ripples softly against my collarbones.
Kaelzar doesn’t speak. His breathing remains calm behind me, measured, as though willing me to follow its rhythm. The room settles into silence broken only by the faint crackle of the fire and the quiet lap of water.
Gradually, the haze begins to thin. My thoughts, once scattered and fever-bright, begin to find their shape. I can smell the metal tang of the tub, the faint salt of skin, the lingering smoke from the fire.
Then awareness returns, slowly and uncomfortably.
I realize how close we are: his bare chest solid against my back, his arm a weight across my ribs, his legs braced around me beneath the water.
I can feel the fabric over his legs through the water—trousers, I think distantly.
I am wrapped in a bedsheet, I realize, with only my undergarments beneath it.
The intimacy of it presses in, and my first impulse is to hide behind the remnants of fever.
For an instant, I even consider pretending I’m still delirious. It would be easier than this, than feeling every breath of his against my neck.
But the thought feels cowardly. I’m too tired to pretend, and too grateful for what he’s done to lie.
“I think,” I manage, my voice rough, “this might be the least dignified bath I’ve ever taken.”
His chest shakes with a quiet laugh, the sound a low vibration against my back. “Fortunately, I’m the only one here to see it.”
Heat creeps into my cheeks despite the water’s chill. I let out a weary sigh. “Add it to the list of other humiliations you’ve had the privilege to witness and the good sense not to speak of,” I say.
“Your secrets are safe here,” he says, voice softened by amusement. “I don’t share what’s mine to keep.”
A grin breaks across my face, wide and foolish, and I’m absurdly grateful he isn’t looking at me when it happens.
The comfortable silence hums between us for a moment, then I lift my soaked, bandaged hands and flick water toward the edge of the tub, sending up a few careless splashes.
“Thank you for nursing me back to life,” I say.
I can almost hear him grinding his teeth, likely fighting the urge to remind me that none of this would have been necessary if I’d simply used my magic. After a long breath, he swallows whatever argument he’s holding back.
“You’re an insufferable patient,” he says instead, “but it’s been my pleasure. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to use my hands to help someone… instead of hurting them.”
Tenderness twists through me at his quiet admission. “You’re very good with your hands,” I say quickly, meaning to praise his healer skills.
The pause that follows hums with a strange energy. Then a low sound escapes him, half chuckle, half growl. “Oh, I know, Trouble,” he murmurs, leaning closer until his mouth grazes my ear, his voice dropping to a husky whisper. “But you still have no idea how good my hands can be.”
Heat curls low in my stomach, rising through me in slow, betraying waves. This time, it has nothing to do with fever. That single word—still—lingers, heavy with meaning I can’t quite untangle. Is it a joke, a promise?
A sudden, unfamiliar heat coils low in my body. The sensation is raw, electric, terrifying in its newness. I’ve never felt my body answer anyone this way, and the loss of control leaves me reeling, uncertain how to breathe, how to calm the wild rush beneath my skin.
I swallow, my pulse skittering. “I think I’ve cooled enough,” I blurt out as I begin to move away.
His arm around my waist tightens. “Let me help.” He rises first, moving with care so the water barely ripples. Beside the fire, an oversized robe waits draped over a chair. He lifts it and holds it open for me. “Can you stand?”
I nod, testing my balance before slowly, carefully pushing myself to my feet.
He turns his head aside to give me a measure of privacy as I climb out of the tub. The robe is plush and warm from the hearth, and I realize he must have thought ahead to place it there. The simple consideration pulls at my already racing heart. I do my best to ignore it.
Instead, I try to focus on the pain in my side. It has dulled to a throb, he must have added something to the water, an herbal remedy to ease the pain. But when I pull the robe closed around me, a wave of weakness sweeps through and the world tilts slightly.
I sway and he’s there, catching me against him.
My cheek finds the solid plane of his chest, as he scoops me up again.
The rhythm of his heart is steady and grounding against my ear.
I stop fighting the pull of fatigue and close my eyes, then let myself breathe him in, the clean scent of water, the warmth of skin and fabric.
He carries me back to the bed and settles me beneath the sheets.
When he reaches for my hands, his touch slows as he unwraps the soaked bandages with deliberate care.
His fingers are gentle as they brush my skin more times than necessary—or perhaps I imagine that.
I feel the feverish beat of my heart in response to his quiet focus as he cleans and rewraps each hand.
A brief touch to my forehead follows, a nod of approval, and then a cup of water pressed to my lips. I drink, the bitter taste of herbs blooming on my tongue.
“They’ll help you with a restful sleep so you won't open your wound again,” he says, and I manage a slurred murmur of thanks.
Drowsiness seeps through me like a warm current, smoothing the edges of thought.
The world softens, slipping further from reach, the feeling strangely—terrifyingly—familiar.
Suddenly, I don’t want to fall asleep, I want to say something.
I try to hold onto consciousness, to examine this familiar sensation because it means something, but it drifts away like sand through my fingers.
He drugged me. Mael drugged me.
The thought pierces the fog as I claw back to consciousness.
The sensation is unmistakable. That same slow, heavy warmth spreading through my limbs, the same languid haze that swallowed me that night.
I’d told myself it was stress, exhaustion, too much wine.
But after the herbs Kaelzar gave me last night, after feeling this again, I know better. It’s the same. Exactly the same.
My eyes snap open. “That conniving, venom-soaked bastard.” I snarl, my anger churns too violently to be swallowed.
A soft cough comes from beside me.