Riselda smiled softly, pushing the goblet into her hands. “I’ve some things to see to.”
The door clicked shut behind her, leaving Lux staring down into the cool mixture of deep red liquid. She should have asked exactly what it would do to her. Lux narrowed her eyes at it—until her ankle throbbed with an excruciating streak of heat up her calf.
She downed the contents in one swallow. Within so many heartbeats her bones began to tingle. Pins and needles prodded and poked, the sensation mounting in intensity as the pain remained unyielding.
“Ah! Devil’s own—” Without a care for the meticulous wrapping, she tore the thick bandages extending from her foot to her knee. Her skin crawled, but with the final toss of white fabric, the sensation dissipated. The pain ceased.
Lux breathed a sigh of relief that was caught as she took in the fading bruises, the evaporating swelling, and the painless twitch of her toes. Riselda hadn’t just taken away the pain. She’d healed the bones entirely.
Lux could only shake her head, staring at her foot as she moved the joint in a circular pattern. She huffed a laugh and fell back onto her pillows, then buried a wince as she remembered all she’d done to avoid Riselda’s questioning. Her dried hair crunched with grime beneath her.
It likely helped that she hadn’t been carried in, dripping an unknown black substance with a look of utter terror frozen upon her features in the dead of night. She couldn’t imagine an unquestioning Riselda then.
Chapter thirty-four
Lux soaked in anunoccupied corner of the bathhouse. Though it wasn’t so much unoccupied as she was avoided by most other women who entered. Furtive glances were followed by whispers and a quick swim to the opposite side of the warm pool as soon as the steam dissolved enough for Lux’s uninviting stare to seep through.
Only Ghadra’s elite had private baths, the mayor’s mansion included. Lux’s eyes had been so wide when she first sank within one as a child. It’d been huge, big enough for three grown people, and she had swum around like a fish for an hour.
Otherwise, usually in the early evening hours, the Light frequented this bathhouse. It was popular. A place for gossip and relaxation. And, for the first time, she wondered how the poor kept clean. For the Dark had no such luxury.
Lux studied the black strands of hair against one shoulder, thoroughly cleaned now with a floral-scented soap. Riselda’s potion hadn’t just healed her ankle; it’d lightened every bruiseand cured every ache. She ran a finger over her intact lips before resting her head against the side of the bath, reveling in the warmth a little longer.
“Did you see her?”
A ghost of a smile crept across Lux’s mouth. They never learned how easily sound traveled in places like this. They might as well have been speaking in her ear.
The group of three were about her age, maybe a little older, with bodies that hinted they’d never known hunger or pain. The mist blocked them from view again, and Lux closed her eyes.
“Morana’s husband died. They say she wouldn’t revive him. Sherefused. Even as Morana begged…on her knees.”
A round of gasps followed.
“No! Not Colden! He was so handsome. So attentive, too.”
A giggle erupted from the mist. “Yes.Attentive.I’d say he was a lot more than that with you!” More laughter followed, now amid splashes of water. The steam shifted again, and three pairs of eyes found her own.
“What a monster.”
Lux didn’t blink until they were blocked from view once more.
And when the steam moved the next time, three matching squeals filled the echoing chamber as a figure, cloaked in shadow, crouched at the pool’s edge directly behind them.
Green eyes glittered beneath black strands dripping over bared teeth.
Lux purred, “You’ve no idea.”
She’d left her hairlong, curling wet down her back. Lux’s cloak was a ruined mess that she’d discarded the night before, and so she possessed nothing to cover it with as she walked the winding streets leading away from the bathhouse.
The Festival of Light was in two days’ time. Lux hoped Morana didn’t think Colden’s death so important that she pushed the celebration aside. The town would surely riot.
She could only recall one death within the mayor’s family—one that remained so, anyway. She’d been a child, her brilliance but a pulsing hint of something in her chest, and the shops closed for days, shrouded in black in respect of the ancient aunt or some sort. At last, a wagon bedecked in flowers, ribbons, and bells, transported the swathed body into the awaiting trees.
Ghadra returned to normal after that, and it hadn’t happened since.
Morana’s reaction certainly wasn’t promising; if anything, Colden’s procession would be bigger, and Lux chuckled wickedly, wondering how many women would be left mourning the loss of his late-night visits as the death-cart ambled by. She bit her lip, but no trickle of remorse could find her. Rather, she stopped short. Her fists clenched, and she seethed over what played out before her.
Two boys. Two well-dressed boys of the Light. And one cornered child against a wall.
