I shook my head.“Norsern are always telling me it is warm.This is warm, that is warm, in my language there is a third thing…”Mira, stop speaking, I begged myself.“Notthisorthat,but third, and you do not have this word, but if you did, Norsern would say it is warm, too.But no… not for me.”
He grinned.“You do not trust.I understand.You are from the Land of Mud and Mist.I have known others from there.It will be warm for you.I choke on it.”
“Choke?”
“Ha.It means… I swear it is the truth; I will choke on the words before I take them back.”
It is not so important, but Fell was from a village in the mountains.He grew up more on land than sea, which was unusual for many Norsern as there were far more driftwood, sea villages than mountain ones.He spoke words the “dry way” and had a mild accent to many in the palace.The derogatory term for those like him wasthirsty.I’m letting you know this to explain away some of my confusion in his presence.Most of it was my own inability to perform basic human tasks with him anywhere near me, but a small portion can be blamed on his accent and dry choice of words.
“I swear it is warm,” he said, and I took a few steps toward the water’s edge, certain I was about to feel an icy chill and hear the laugh that comes from a Norsern when their prank has been successful.I knelt and hesitantly dipped my pointing finger into the water, pulling it out immediately.
“Ah!It’s as hot as a bath!”The Norsern didn’t bathe in hot water, so I hadn’t felt that pleasure since I’d been ill, and King Arik had ordered everything brought to me to be scalding hot.
Fell laughed.“No understand.”
In my surprise, I’d spoken Islish.“Hot,” I said.“Hot like cooking water.”
He swam on his back away from me with a taunting grin.“I told you.”
“How does it work?What is heating it?”
He laughed again.“The spring heats herself.Her name is Odae.She has… healing properties.She will tend to your scars if you wish.From before we met and… when we met.Your dress and the… capture.”
My hips and shoulders still had patches of fresh skin that were paler than the rest of me, but I considered the scabs healed already.And I certainly didn’t like him bringing the conversation to my body.I was pretending I didn’t have a body, that I had no skin or blood or bone, nothing that could feel physical sensation while in his vicinity.
“I will keep space between us, if this is your concern.I know the Mud and Mist laws are… stronger.You can wear your under-dress, and I can keep my eyes closed even.”
“You claim to know a lot about the Land of Mud and Mist,” I said, determined to change the subject.I would not be getting in the water with him, nor would I be taking offanylayers of clothing, regardless of how brutally taunted I was by the idea of being truly hot again.
“I do.”He grinned.“Do not forget, I am friends with Arik, and he speaks of it constantly.He is a little obsessed with it, I think.But also, I have known people from your country.And, if you remember, I have been there.”
I frowned, but it wasn’t a true frown.I was playing at being angry which was most unlike me.“I remember.”
He laughed.“The trees are very old there.They have lots of secrets I would wager.”
Am I smiling?Should I stop?
He swam one length of the hot pool and then back.
“I told a friend of mine about you,” he said.“She said you were a bear, and if I dreamed of a bear, it meant I was dreaming of you.”
It was a comment so outside of prescription that I had no guide for my response.My family’s sigil was a bear, which he couldn’t have known, making his words all the more eerie.“You do not know so much about my country as you claim.Where I am from, we do not dream or speak about dreaming.”
“Ah, but I do know that.I also know that the first thing mist-people do when they come north is talk about their dreams.Then they have lots of sex.Then they pray to our gods and mark their skin and wash their hair with lye that whitens it so no one will ever know where they came from.This is commonly known.”
“Well…” I wrapped my cloak tighter around me, holding my arms tight against my chest.“Iwill be going back home, so I will be doing none of those things.”Only I had.I’d told King Arik that I dreamt, that I remembered those dreams.
“I sense you are a very strong person,” Fell said.“If you say it is so, it will be, I think.”
It is so, I thought.
The wind tugged at the pine and spruce branches around us, pulling them toward the hot pool and swishing the needles above our heads.
“Ah, the trees are conspiring,” Fell said with a devilish look on his face.“We must be on guard.”
I raised my eyebrows.“There is no way?—”
“Odae also is… planning… she would have you drink hawthorn tea?—”
