Grunting, she dragged a hand to her mouth, hooking the pad of her thumb behind her two front teeth and flicked it outward, again and again and again. She uttered the same words between each bite.
“Odi te!” she spat, the sound bouncing off the ceramic walls before her hand slunk back into the water, her other arm limp as she panted. She clutched her side, chewing down on her lip, her one visible eye straining shut.
I did not speak Esioul’s tongue, the words unfamiliar and strange, but I was surprised to find they ignited something within me all the same.
“Odi te,” I echoed, copying the syllables as best as I could. Bringing my thumb to my mouth, I slotted it behind my teeth, pushing outward in a mimicry of her gesture to the Blood God, knowing whatever it meant, He deserved to hear it…even if it would bring another tower down upon our heads. It was another strangeness, to know somewhere, deep down, that it might not touch me, regardless.
“Odi te,” she repeated, slowly this time, sounding out the letters.
“Odi te.” The words sat more comfortably on my tongue now, the shape of them easier to taste.
Her dark eye opened, crinkled in a smile, and she nodded. My gaze dipped to her chest, masked by her hair, and the way it heaved, the shake of her lungs rattling her small frame with the effort it took her to breathe.
“Meanfuck you,” she revealed, lowering her head to catch my eyes. “Andcess odia ocumeans stop fucking me with eyes,Helikri.”
“I wasn’t—” I started, but she spun in the water, giving me her back.
Cheeks red, I reached for the bottle the Butcher had thrown at me, intent on using whatever remained of the half-a-turn to scrub myself raw of everything that had happened: the blood, the dust, the ash, hisspit.
Lathering the soap in one hand, I worked it into the tangle of my roots, jasmine and myrrh drowning the spoil lacing the water. I held my breath, wondering which was worse: to stink of death or a druid’s sheets. Working it down my long strands, I used the excess to coat the rest of my body, cleaning myself as thoroughly as I could before dunking my head under, my hair turning from the powdery, soft grey of the ash to its familiar shade of wet slate.
A hiss had my back straightening, eyes trained on the smaller bath where Esioul wrestled with her selected glass bottle, muttering under her breath and shaking it like a babe’s rattle. She winced, face scrunched as she reached for her hair, but her hand, slick with suds, would not rise above her shoulders. My heart splintered a little more, if hearts could do such a thing, widening the cavern. Her ribs were most likely to blame, probably fractured or broken. I stared down at myself, nakedness hidden beneath the waterline.
To the pits with it.
Resisting the urge to cover myself, I left the large thermae, intent on Esioul’s smaller bath. Big enough for three, maybe four, I plopped into the water and reached for her soap, which she’d abandoned on the mosaiced ledge.
“Here, let me,” I offered, motioning to her hair.
A strangled sound escaped her throat, and she swiped at the bottle, trying to reclaim it.
“You’re hurt,” I said, pointing to her ribs. “I can help.”
Her single eye dragged over the length of me, and I almost sank beneath the water, the pull to cover myself as heavy as the new truths bouldering my limbs.
“Think I told you before,” she gritted, attempting to retrieve the bottle again, though her movements were slower, pained. “I do not needhelp.”
“And I told you, you have it, anyway.” I offered what I hoped was a small smile, extending my hand.
She eyed it like I’d presented her the Sanctifying Needle instead. “You see what help did to me last time?” Glancing down at herself, she parted her hair, dragging it away to reveal her broken, bruised body.
I hung my head, tracking her gaze, ready to crawl back to the main pool and turn away from it. From her. From everything that had happened in the last few turns. But somehow, I stayed, and I looked. I looked at it all.
“But,” she started, and my head lifted. “I hear what you said to druid of bones.” Her voice lost its edge, morphing to a whisper. “I saw when you make tree gopoof.” Her fingers opened, wiggling like Demetri and I used to when we would pretend to cast spells over the stewing pot.
A laugh bubbled up from my depths, crisp as a breeze among the heaviness of the steam. “I do not know why the tree wentpoof,” I admitted, copying her wriggling with my fingers not smothered in soap. “But it certainly was not I.”
She hummed, eye locked on the stitch of my palm. “Gods are restless, and they are wanting.”
“Blood, I suppose.” I glanced at the statue, the mass of Him leering over us. “Always blood. It is what He demands.”
Her tongue clicked. “NotHim. The others.”
“Others? As in, the Other?” The voice, or voices, in my dream circled through my mind, crows and nightingales, squawking and cooing,“You must come, you must come.”
“Just others.” My eyes refocused, landing upon her pinched brow and her one good eye roaming me anew. This time it was less assessing, more curious, as if were an odd, small trinket and she the broker, unsure of its value.
With a final glance, aimed at the centre of my chest, she turned, wading through the water to press her hips to the pool’s ledge. I waited, unsure whether to leave and return to the other.
