I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, content to soak.
Larana also seemed to enjoy the silence, and we both just let the warm water soothe us.
I heard movement in the water and opened my eyes to slits. Larana was making her way over to the other end. She was swimming through the water, her strokes clean and strong. She was going to wash her hair.
I closed my eyes again. I was peaceful here, my mind did not wander to all the things it usually did, and I breathed in the moist, warm air of the baths.
“Hey.”
My body was shaking. I opened my eyes and looked up at Larana.
“You fell asleep,” she told me. “Go wash your hair, it’s almost time to leave.”
Shaking my head to wake up, I did as instructed. The liquid soap had a richer scent than the air, and it was so thick and creamy that I had to wash my hair twice.
When I was done, Larana was already wrapped in her towel and held out mine to me, along with my cloak. As I took it from her, I felt for the familiar weight, pleased that it was still there. I had fallen asleep and left my cloak unattended, which could have been a costly mistake.
Once we were dressed, our hair bound in a braid, we left the baths and hurried back to the inn before the cold made our wet hair even colder.
We were sharing a room tonight, the men in their own one. Larana went to theirs to tell them we were back, and by the time she came back, I was curled up on my bed.
“I’m so relaxed,” I told her sleepily.
She unbraided her hair and urged me to do the same. “It’s the scent of the bath and the shampoo. It’s meant to relax you.” I watched her brush her hair. “Brush your hair, Amarya. It’ll become all tangled like that.”
“It’s fine.” My eyes closed, and I slept straight through the night.
We leftthe inn the following morning. I was still so lethargic that I never even bothered to braid my hair, and I walked down to breakfast with it loose around my shoulders.
Baxley and Nicco paused their conversation for a moment, and then Baxley picked it up again.
Larana looked up as I approached and grinned. “You look as sleepy as a kitten,” she crowed gleefully.
I rubbed my eyes as I took a seat. “I’m so…whatis in that water?”
Nicco took a drink of his coffee. “Lilacs and honey blossom from the smell of you.”
“I smell bad?”
Baxley grinned and ate his food. “You smell alotbetter.” He looked at my hair. “You also look very young with your hair down. I thought you were older.”
I pushed my hair off my face. “I’m twenty-three summers,” I assured him. “An old maid. Well past marrying age.”
They each stared at me with varying signs of disbelief.
“What?” I asked them, feeling self-conscious.
“Who said you were a maid at twenty-three summers?” Larana asked me.
“My father said I was an old maid at nineteen. That’s why he wasn’t sad when I packed up and left.”
“You’re a trailfinder because you are unmarried?” Baxley asked me.
I nodded as I reached for a roll. “I turned down my third proposal. I had no interest in marriage, and my father said I was of no use to him, so he kept my dowry, for what it was worth, and told me to go find my own way.” I took a bite of the roll. “My brothers had taught me some skills. Tracking, fighting, hunting. I taught the rest myself.”
Larana looked at Nicco before speaking again. “In Darysia, the women of the court aren’t presented for marriage until their eighteenth summer.”
I gaped at her. “Eighteen! That is not the way we do it. Most women at eighteen have had their first child and a second on the way.” I took another bite. “At least we have the right of refusal. I heard not every kingdom gives that right to the daughter.”
