Chapter 19
Kiera
I never thought I’d see Aiden naked again.
And—Holy Four, help me—I wasn’t entirely upset that I was wrong.
His broad shoulders, swirled with scars and ink, beckoned me. The muscles that rippled down his back and thighs taunted me. And gods, his ass. I remembered how it felt in my hands as he—
I tore my gaze away, swallowing hard, just as Aiden turned. Thankfully, he held his discarded clothes and boots over his manhood. But every other bit of sculpted perfection was on display. No amount of dirt or blood or bandages could disguise his beauty.
However, his smirk certainly made it easier to ignore.
“Nothing you haven’t seen—and touched—already, princess.”
My hands balled into fists. His humiliation of me on the steps wasn’t enough? “Stop calling me that.”
“Why? Isn’t that what you are?”
“No,” I bit out. “My father disinherited me the moment I became Renwell’s apprentice. I have no lawful claim to the throne anymore. Not that he did, either,” I added bitterly.
Aiden’s dark eyebrows drew together. “You gave up your crown . . . to train under Renwell.”
Did he think Renwell had manipulated me into being his apprentice? That I still wanted that? He must think me weak. Little soldier.
“I trained under Renwell because I wanted to keep my family safe,” I snapped. “Giving up the throne was an added gift.”
Surprise smoothed Aiden’s expression.
I stepped closer, remembering why I’d stomped after him. Before his nakedness and name-calling had gotten under my skin.
“I only offered to go back to Renwell, to give him what he wants, because that would be the quickest way to get what we want. Renwell dead.”
Aiden’s voice grew softer. “That’s exactly what he’ll expect, and there’s no telling what he’d do to keep that from happening.”
He brushed a stray hair away from my sticky, aching cheek. His warmth and scent of leather and sweat embraced me.
So much bare skin. So near.
My heart pounded.
“He did that to you, didn’t he?” Aiden murmured.
I nodded, unable to speak.
“Every moment, I wish my arrow had gone through his gods-damned heart, not his shoulder. Then we would both be free.”
Free of him? Or each other?
“You don’t trust me, do you?” I tilted my face to gaze directly into his eyes. “That’s why you don’t want me to go to Renwell. You think I’ll betray you again.”
His gaze roamed from my cheek to my mouth to my eyes. “Maybe not at first. But he’s convinced you to do it before.”
When he’d let Korvin torture Maz until I admitted when Aiden’s attack would happen. But I’d fed Renwell much more information than that.
“I thought you were my enemy,” I whispered. “By the time I realized you weren’t, it was too late.”
Aiden bent closer. Gods, his mouth was nearly on top of mine. My body betrayed me, my lips parting.
“Was it all a lie?” he whispered, brushing each word over my lips. “Was it all to maintain your cover? To make me trust you?”
A shiver rattled down my spine. My skin felt too warm, but not warm enough. An ache trembled in the pit of my stomach.
He wanted to know a truth I was scared to give. It was something he could use against me. Just like Renwell used all of my little weaknesses to bend me to his will.
But I didn’t want to be afraid anymore.
“No,” I said, the word quiet but as unyielding as sunstone.
“I lied about who I was and what I wanted. But I defended Ruru and tried to save Maz because my heart needed to. As for you . . .” My voice shook.
I licked my lips—making Aiden’s eyes flare—and continued.
“Our time in The Hollow . . . that was the most truthful I’d been in years. ”
Aiden closed his eyes as if my words had struck him. A slow, heavy breath eased from his lips.
Sadness pierced my heart. Not for the first time today, but differently.
I had told him I would be a light for him. Someone he could trust. And I’d betrayed him so thoroughly, he believed the most intimate moment of my life had been an act on my part.
Gods damn it, I was right. We didn’t just break each other’s trust. We shattered it. Nothing can fix this.
“Swim with me.”
I blinked at him. “Excuse me?”
A playfulness I hadn’t seen in weeks teased his shadowed mouth. “I find myself in desperate need of a swim in icy water. Join me. Or go back and wait for a boat.”
My jaw dropped as he turned and sauntered into the water, his clothes thrown over one shoulder.
He flashed a grin at me when the water reached his waist.
“You know I don’t swim very well!” I called out to him.
“You won’t have to,” he called back. He waded across the river and tossed his clothes on the other bank. Then he dove underwater, headed for me.
I glanced around nervously. No one in sight. And I really didn’t want to wait for the mourners. Perhaps that was selfish of me, but I wanted a respite from the heavy grief.
Trying not to think too much about it, I slid off my boots and socks.
Aiden resurfaced close to me. He raked back his wet hair, water cascading over his muscled torso.
“Don’t look,” I commanded.
He pressed his lips together, no doubt thinking of how I’d already gotten a few eyefuls of him. And he knew my body, perhaps even more intimately than I knew his. But he turned around without complaint.
My fingers trembled as I undid my pants and shirt. I’d found Mother’s knife before the funeral and tucked it in Nikella’s saddlebag for safekeeping.
I was unarmed for the first time in a long time.
I hesitated before also removing my breast band and underwear. I’d hate to hunt down dry ones after this.
Clutching everything to my chest, I slowly tiptoed into the water that seemed to attack my skin with a thousand icy needles.
“F-Fucking Four, that’s cold,” I squealed.
“You’ll warm up,” Aiden said, his back still turned, his eyes on the stars.
“L-Liar.”
His deep chuckle actually did warm me a bit, but in a place the water didn’t reach.
My skin tightened as I waded deeper and deeper. The frigid river took my breath away. I tried to keep my clothes out of the water, but it was now up to my chest.
The heavy paste Nikella had put on the cut across my back softened and loosened, but I didn’t care. The cold water dulled any pain the paste uncovered.
I drew even with Aiden, who glanced down at me. Then farther down.
His jaw tightened. “Allow me.” He stole my clothes and waded to the other side.
I frowned and looked down. Oh.
Even though the water covered them, my breasts were still visible, like little moons in the river. And my nipples were as hard as arrow tips.
Biting my lip, I sank into the water.
Aiden tossed my clothes next to his and swam back to me.
I wrapped my arms around my body, trying to ease my shivering. “This is n-nothing like the bathhouse in Aquinon.”
Aiden drifted closer, small waves splashing against the seam of his smile. “I didn’t think I’d miss many things about Aquinon, but a heated bath is one of them.”
I dipped my head back and unbraided my hair. The river teased it apart. If only I had soap. At least the river would make it smell better than ash and sweat.
The stars glistened above me. The dark pine trees crowding the shore reached for them like furry fingers.
“The view is quite spectacular, though,” I murmured.
“The one I had in the bathhouse was just as beautiful.”
I lowered my chin to find him staring at me in a way that made my toes curl around the slippery rocks on the river bottom.
He’d looked at me the same way in The Hollow. Just before we ran for our tent.
But I couldn’t let him get to me. Or I might do something stupid like wrap my naked body around his and create a warmth of our own. But this time, I wouldn’t have the mead to blame for my recklessness.
Just loneliness. And desire.
He reached for me under the rippling water, his fingers brushing mine. Stroking my palm in a soft invitation. The river’s gentle current pushed me toward him as if it, too, wanted to give him what he wanted.
I slipped out of his reach, kicking my feet to give us some distance. “Is this the cold river Maz boasted about swimming in?”
“We’ve gone swimming in this river many times. But I’m sure he was talking about the times when the rivers of Dagriel freeze into ice so thick, many people can walk on them.”
My eyebrows arched. “That sounds incredible. And dangerous. And much too cold for me.”
Aiden chuckled. “It is. But of course, the Dags make a game out of it. They cut holes in the ice to fish but also to jump into, to see who can stay in the longest.”
I snorted. “That sounds like outright torture.”
“It’s not so bad if you get out, wrap yourself in furs, and run for the bonfire.”
“You’ve done it?”
“Of course.” Aiden shook his head with a smile. “But not after Maz stole my clothes and all the blankets, and I had to run back to camp naked.”
I laughed outright this time, my face tipped to the sky. “Oh gods, I would’ve kicked his ass off a mountain.”
“It wasn’t so bad after the icicles melted off my skin.
Although I paid him back in kind.” Aiden swam up next to me and mimicked my position.
“Late one night, after he passed out from much more mead than usual, I—along with his three lovely sisters—dragged him out of his lodge and threw him in an ice hole. He woke up with a roar so loud, Jek came running with his sword, thinking we were being attacked by a bear.”
My shoulders shook with laughter and shivers. I could picture everything in my mind. Their mischievous looks, Maz’s snoring, then his shouting.
A pang of sadness hit me at the thought that Davka wouldn’t be in their future stories.
That was one of the hardest parts about losing Mother—she wouldn’t be in my stories anymore. She wouldn’t get to share the rest of my life. All I had left were old memories that would continue to fade.
I rolled over and paddled through the water, trying to thaw the blood in my veins and the ice in my heart.
“You seem to swim just fine,” Aiden remarked, watching me with hooded eyes.
Cheeks burning, I stopped, wondering how much of my naked body he could see.
“The pool at the palace was large enough for me to get the idea,” I said. “And this river is much calmer than the sea outside Calimber.” I shuddered at the memory of those huge waves and that bottomless feeling beneath me.
Aiden stilled. I did, too, glancing over my shoulder in case he’d spotted someone. But no one was there.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Calimber,” he said in a strangled voice. “I’d bet all the gold in Rellmira that Renwell’s forging his sunstone weapons and armor in Calimber.”
I swallowed, tasting river water and salt.
It made sense. There were no forges in the Den or the palace. The only forges in Aquinon churned out steel or bronze armor and weapons. Sometimes Father had imported what he needed for his soldiers from Keldiket.
Besides, if Renwell had been hiding his new sunstone armor and weapons from Father, Calimber would’ve been the perfect place to do it. He’d hidden warships there, after all.
“Your sister didn’t mention a forge or anything else about the mine?” Aiden asked, his voice urgent.
I shook my head. “Just that her soldier lover had been moved away from there. And that there was a lot of secrecy around it, much like Nikella and Lord Garyth found when they sniffed around Calimber.”
Aiden frowned. “I thought that was because of the warships, but perhaps there was more.”
“Logs!” I blurted out. “Nikella told Lord Garyth that my father was excessively logging out of Twaryn and sending it to Calimber. For what, they didn’t know. But perhaps Renwell needed the extra wood to feed a forge, as well as to build warships.”
Something like admiration flickered in Aiden’s eyes. “It’s possible. I won’t know for certain unless I see for myself.”
My body grew impossibly colder. “You want to spy on Calimber? Where the High General is camped? Where those terrible ships are?”
Aiden’s face hardened with grim determination. He looked like he had when he’d spoken of his plans to assassinate Father. Like a man who had to do the impossible, and he was the only one who could do it.
“Renwell needs to be stopped before something like this”—he gestured at the distant village—“happens again. And if he’s using Calimber to create indestructible weapons and armor and more of those warships, then that’s where I need to go.”
“I’m coming with you,” I announced, trying to hide the tremble in my jaw.
I expected him to forbid me, as he had with my suggestion to go to Renwell. But I hadn’t asked. I was merely letting him know.
He clearly wasn’t pleased, judging by his tightened brow. “Why?”
I glanced toward the trees that hid the burning part of the mountain from view.
Maz’s words from last night came back to me.
“I haven’t given my all yet. Therefore, I haven’t given enough.
Renwell was able to commit so many crimes partially because I couldn’t see him for what he was.
” I peeked at Aiden from under my eyelashes.
He was still scowling. “I set out to protect my family, but also Rellmira, and I haven’t done either.
So I’m trying to do what I should’ve done from the beginning. ”
Aiden tilted his head to the side, studying me. “It’s strange sometimes to see my thoughts reflected in someone else’s mind.”
I took a step back.
He spoke of his regrets, his guilt. I remembered what he’d said about Mother vowing to help him in whatever way she could. And those plans had taken her away from us.
“I’m not doing this for you,” I said, more harshly than I meant to. “Not because of my mother’s vow, and not because I owe you. I’m doing this for me. For Everett and Delysia. For Rellmira.”
The words floated between us like the flecks of snow that had started to fall, kissing the river.
“I understand,” Aiden said softly. His drying hair curled over his brow, and he looked almost . . . sad. Defeated.
My body was shivering uncontrollably, and my teeth chattered, despite my attempt to look stern.
He jerked his chin to the shore. “Get your clothes, Kiera. Wrap your hair in a blanket if you can, or you’ll catch a fever.” He turned his back to me without waiting for a reply.
I hesitated, part of me wanting to take back what I said, to assure him I would ally with him against Renwell. That he didn’t need to worry about my loyalty on that front. But I had no assurances on my loyalty to him.
We would just have to trust each other enough to win a war.
Impossible, I thought as I sloshed toward my clothes, snow prickling against my skin.
Yet I knew with my whole heart that Aiden wouldn’t turn around until I was gone.