Chapter Five - Evie #2
I expected the invisible shove back, the pull.
The way the room always corrected me when I tried to leave as the floor tilted toward the bed.
I’d tested it at least a million times, angry and shaking, stepping toward the curtain only to feel myself slide back as if the world had been greased in the wrong direction.
But when I moved this time, nothing resisted. There was no lurch. No tilt. No unseen hand.
I followed them out of my alcove like it was the most normal thing in the world. The marble beneath my bare feet felt level. Completely level. The curtain didn’t snap shut like a warning. It just… let me pass.
My pulse stumbled. I walked one step, then another, waiting for the correction that never came, for the floor to betray me as I entered the vast hallway. But it never did.
The Votaries led the way, hooves clicking softly ahead of me and behind me, and I realized with a slow, sick clarity that even if I was outside my room, this wasn’t freedom. It was an exchange of services, and there was going to be a cost I’d have to pay.
My throat closed. I told myself I didn’t care, that it didn’t mean anything, and I was fine. I could get through anything, like I always had. My mind had stepped back and folded its arms, watching, refusing to fully return to my body until it knew whether I was safe.
Still, I clutched my robe closed as they led me down the hall.
The bathing chamber was both beautiful and obscene. There was gold everywhere, gleaming under soft light, all polished surfaces and delicate fixtures shaped like flowers. Even the drains were gleaming. It was the kind of room that made you grateful, as if luxury were a kindness all its own.
Steam curled from the far shower. Hot water poured in a steady sheet from a golden rain shower head.
There was steam drifting across the marble.
The second I saw it all, something desperate in me lunged forward.
My skin prickled, every inch of me suddenly aware of the grime still clinging to me.
I wanted to scrub every inch of me until I vanished.
Instead, I followed the Votaries. They guided me to the water and untied the robe.
It slid off my shoulders and pooled at my feet.
I stood there, bare, the heat kissing my skin first. Shame flared up, fast and useless, as I tried to cover myself with my hands.
But then it dropped out of me just as quickly.
They stepped in with me, but strangely, their robes didn’t darken.
The water rolled off like it refused to touch them.
One moved behind me and began unbraiding my hair, fingers working with patient, methodical care.
The other lifted a glass bottle, uncapped it, and poured something onto her hands.
The scent bloomed through the steam, sweet and tart, like fruit just on the edge of ripening.
Warm hands sank into my hair and worked the soap through from my scalp to the ends of my hair in slow circles that tugged just enough to ground me and yet somehow pushed me farther away at the same time.
The second one came around in front of me, tipped another bottle over a cloth sponge, and raised my arm without asking.
The first strokes made me want to flinch, but I didn’t.
They scrubbed in practiced, thorough paths, down my arms, over my shoulders, across my back. The water cascaded down my chest and legs, rinsing away layers I hadn’t realized were there. Every motion was careful and impersonal as if I were simply another body to make ready.
But it felt so good, too good. Heat seeped into my bones, and the muscles I’d been clenching without noticing slowly unwound.
My eyes slipped shut, not from trust, but from overwhelm.
Their hands kept moving. The water kept falling.
The world narrowed to pressure, warmth, the rhythm of touch.
And I drifted as hot water poured over my scalp, fingers continued moving through my hair, slow and methodical.
The scent in the steam shifted, and for a moment, my body forgot where it was.
My mind went somewhere safer. First, it was the sound of the water.
Louder and then closer. It wasn’t quite echoing off gold and marble, but tile, ordinary tile.
I was braced against the wall, hands flat, forehead nearly touching the cool surface, letting the spray punish me because I didn’t know what else to do with myself.
“I couldn’t make it work,” I whispered, my voice breaking apart under the water. “I tried. I tried everything.”
The glass slid open. Cold air kissed my skin for a moment as another presence filled the space behind me, solid and real and unmistakable. Luc didn’t say anything at first. He just stepped in, clothes gone, the door sealing shut behind him as if the rest of the world could wait.
The water was too hot. I knew it was. I needed it that way. He reached past me and turned it down anyway.
I turned and let out a protest. “Luc—”
“No,” he said quietly, and somehow it wasn’t a fight.
His hands cupped my face, thumbs brushing tears I hadn’t felt fall, and when he said my name, it wasn’t sharp or urgent. It was grounding like he was calling me back into my body instead of pulling me out of it.
“Evie, look at me.”
I did. He didn’t look like someone trying to fix me. He looked like someone who already knew I wasn’t broken.
“You are not ‘just’ anything,” he said, voice rough and sure. “Not to me.”
I leaned into his chest when he pulled me close, fingers clutching at his skin like I was afraid he might disappear if I didn’t hold on hard enough.
My sobs broke loose then, loud and ugly, and he let them.
He wrapped me up like it was the easiest thing in the world, like holding me together was something he’d always known how to do.
“We’ll get there,” he murmured into my wet hair. “I swear it.”
The water shut off. Silence fell, thick and intimate, steam clinging to us both.
He wrapped a towel around me, warm and heavy, drying me with care that felt almost reverent.
When he sat behind me on the bed and began to work my hair free with his fingers, I let myself melt back into him, every knot easing under his patience.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered, and I believed him.
A hand tugged gently at my arm. The scent shifted again. Sharper. Too clean.
The memory thinned as the tile shifted to marble.
Luc’s strong arms became hands that weren’t his.
Water still poured over me, and I kept my eyes closed.
For as long as I could, I stayed with him, with the way he’d held me like I wasn’t something to prepare.
With the safety I pretended still existed somewhere.
But then, the present pushed back in, and I didn’t fight it.
They placed me in another fresh robe and led me back to my alcove, and at first, I thought nothing was wrong.
The curtain breathed open the way it always did.
The light fell the same way. But the second my eyes adjusted, my stomach dropped.
The room had changed. The dress was gone.
The bed was freshly made, linens pulled tight and perfect, the fabric catching the light like it wanted to be admired.
Gold bedding. Not the soft white I’d been left with before.
This wasn’t incidental. It was deliberate. The kind of change meant to be noticed.
Dread coiled up inside me, sudden and sharp, like something waking from sleep.
They guided me to sit on the bed. One of the Votaries knelt and began rubbing oil into my skin, slow circles along my feet and legs.
The other worked behind me, a comb whispering through my hair, separating it into sections, beginning something intricate and ceremonial.
Their hands moved faster now. More focused.
Staging. That was the word that struck me. I wondered if they’d pose me for Him, if I’d finally end up on that raised dais with others. I shivered at the thought.
The Votary in front of me faltered. Just a fraction of a second, just enough for her breath to hitch before she masked it.
Her fingers slid from my shoulder to my wrist, oil slick between us, and that was when her thumb brushed the sigil.
Her eyes widened. She shot a glance sideways at the other, sharp and alarmed, and for the first time since they’d entered my room, I saw uncertainty ripple through them both.
Then, I felt it. The air thickened and warmed in that syrupy way, and the light shifted, leaning toward gold, toward reverence. The room seemed to draw itself straighter, as if bracing for whatever was to come.
Then— He was there. No announcement. No footfall. Just presence.
The curtain hadn’t even finished settling when the light deepened, when the air grew heavy with that terrible, affectionate warmth. I didn’t look at Him. I didn’t have to. Every nerve in my body already knew.
The Votaries froze, not in a panic, but with reverence. Their heads bowed, and their hands withdrew from my skin like they’d been burned.
“Enough,” He said softly. The word wasn’t a command. It was a kindness dressed up as one.
They stepped back at once, oil bowl lowered, comb stilled mid-braid. One of them hesitated, just for a heartbeat, eyes flicking to my wrist again, then to the mark on my neck before she glanced at my face, like she didn’t know which rule outranked the other anymore.
He noticed, and His attention slid over me, slow and appreciative, lingering on the gold at the bed, the sheen of oil on my skin, the careful work half-finished in my hair.
When He spoke again, His voice was warm with approval. “That is all.”
The Votaries withdrew without a sound this time, hooves barely whispering as they backed out, the curtain falling closed behind them like a held breath finally released.