He left the bed, prowling towards his breastplate. Unhooking it, he clamped the metal over his middle, tightening the leather straps on each side with practised ease.
“Come,” he repeated, raising his helm while I stayed pinned to the headboard. He clicked two fingers and pointed at the floor by his boot, the stone polished smooth by countless heavy steps. The knowledge that Demetri had survived was enough to stop me from hurling a cushion at his loathsome, metal face.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
His hand came to his veil, scrunching the mesh as he tilted his forehead into his fingers. “When we leave my chambers, you will ask no more questions. Not a single, godsdamned one. Do you understand?”
I nodded, swallowing another.
“I am taking you to the baths,” he said, unlatching the bolts on the iron door with unnecessary violence, each one clanking free with a bang. “You reek of death.”
Chapter twenty-two
Ashara
The Thermae
And the Blood God, seeing how the druids spoke true and pure of heart, promised to not again curse the ground any more forman’s sake, as long as Thromarra heeded their words. -8:20–21 - The Book of Dendralis
I followed the swish of the Butcher’s cloak into the templum’s labyrinth, spiralling down through narrow stone passages, corridors, and turnpikes upon turnpikes, all lined with slitted windows and guttering sconces. With each turn, the cool evening air bit deeper, raising gooseflesh along my skin. Crossing my arms, I rubbed the linen over my shoulders, hoping to elicit some warmth.
Down and down again we went. Below lay the place where it had happened, where the laurels had become rock, then pebbles, thendust. My stomach twisted at the memory of the hammers, at the rumble of bones and skulls mulched to nothing. I saw again the acorn-laurel’s head—hewn from her body and smiling up from the roots. The Butcher’s helm rotated, the mesh fixed on the sound from my middle, and I lifted my chin, cradling my abdomen.
“We’re nearly there,” he revealed from over his pauldron.
My lips parted.
“No. Questions.”
I closed them.
Cold or no, sweat still beaded my brow and my palms grew slick. I pressed them into my skirts, wary of the grime and ash brushing the newly sewn cut. We neared the end of the long, narrow walkway, and a wall loomed ahead, its bricks weeping, heavy droplets running down their faces to puddle on the floor. The air was warm and humid, a relief from the cold, if it weren’t so sticky. The fibres of my dress soaked through, turning the dusting of ash to paste. I swiped a finger through it, gathering a gritty, grainy pile on its tip, remembering its taste: bitter smoke, rich earth, burnt bark.
Metal clinked as the Butcher reached overhead. I smeared the grey sludge onto one of the last clean patches of my bodice, by my right hip, just as a tear rolled down his cuirass, his iron misted with condensation, as if I had breathed on it.
The lone sconce he’d grasped—its wooden holder darkened with damp—did little to dry the air. He pulled it, the flame lurching forwards, and with aclick, the wall gave way, rock groaning and grinding as it swung inward.
With a steadying breath, I stepped over its threshold, attempting to peer around the bulk of his armour, twiddling the buttons on my sleeves. A wall of heat enveloped my skin, the hot air banishing the tinge of mould, enriched with the scent of olive oil, warmed terracotta, and the saltiness of wet skin.
“A thermae?” I asked before slapping two fingers to my lips. It was feasible that the templum possessed its own; after all, Dendra had many underground baths where the waters ran hot.
“Warmed through the hand of the Blood God,” Capriche had told us.
Ignoring my outburst, the Butcher’s boots clipped forward, already half-way into the chamber and nearing the bronze bowl in its centre, alive with fire. Elevated on a podium, its flames wafted the scent of burning rosemary from its heated core. Smaller bowls lined the walls, perched on thin metal rods, bathing the room in a warm, steady glow. Lungs singeing, I drew in the fumes, savouring the burn—a reminder with each stolen boon that I still drew breath, that Ilived,despite it all.
My slippers shuffled across the mosaic, smearing a trail of brown and grey against their glossy, slick surface. Like the atrium, small tiles lined the floor and walls, each fragment slotting neatly into the next to form a sweeping mural of the Promethean Alps. Garnet Mountain rose tallest of all, its snow-capped peak stretching high enough to invade the ceiling, curving overhead as though it might come crashing down uponus. I craned my neck, grateful to be free of the rod, and wondered if I’d ever look upon the real one again, or whether I’d have to make do with its render. Whether this would be my lot.
“A few turns is everything, darling, when you have so little left.”
Vivid red tiles spilled down its slope, a scar marking the path of the first blood plague, crimson rivulets bleeding into the floor at the mountain’s base.
“The archway to the right leads to the bath. Go that way.” The Butcher’s deep timbre made my neck snap downward, gaze levelled on his helm instead of the mountain overhead.
“I’ll have a sister bring you a change of clothes and leave them in the preparation chamber. Deposit your dress on the floor—” He paused, as if to check I was still wearing one. “They’ll burn it; you have no need for it now. Keep your hand out of the water.”
I pinched the buttons. My mouth parted, readying to ask—
“Insolent, foolish woman,” he chastised, voice low, striding to where I stood and closing the gap between us. His helm shifted almost imperceptibly, gliding from one door to the next—real doors, unlike the hidden threshold we’d entered through. “I said no questions. No. Questions. No as in none, nought,zero, and questions, as in those irksome muddle of syllables that spill from your lips despite my repeated instructions to keep them firmly inside.”
