“That makes sense, I suppose,” I said. “I—why are you looking at me like that?” I had turned back to look at him, and was startled to find him brooding.
Thanatos tried for a smile and brushed a loose tuft of hair out of my face. “I just…fuck. Please, let me care for you,” he pleaded softly.
His gaze swept over my body, and I realized why he despaired. I was wearing the same white dress I’d donned this morning, but now its front was glaringly shredded, and both it and my skin had been stained with my blood. Even though I was whole again, we both bore the marks of our ordeal. I understood his pain all too well. Echoes of his dreadful screaming were imprinted in the back of my mind.
“Okay.” I let him pull me against his chest and cradle me too tightly. He was right; the rest of the Underworld could wait for a while longer.
When he finally let me go, Thanatos led me back through the sliding door to his lounge and pulled an ornamental lever on the wall that I hadn’t noticed there before. Presumably it activated a bell in another area, sending for the castle’s servants.Servants. I had only heard rumors of such devices existing in the grandest chambers of Halieis’ high wing.
We moved back to his bedroom while we waited, and sat together on the edge of his bed. Thanatos held me just as obsessively as before, wrapping me up in both his arms and his wings. I sank contentedly into the affectionate tangle of limbs and feathers. After a short time, there came a knock at the door, and it opened just a crack. A middle-aged woman with short brown hair popped her head into the room, the edges of her manifestation blending into the realm surrounding.
“Laverna?” asked Thanatos when she caught his eye. “Please send for handmaidens for my…guest.”
“Very well,” said Laverna, and she disappeared out the door without another word.
“Yourguest?” I teased once she had gone.
“Ha. I would not have our story spread through the rumors of chattering souls. Leave them to wonder for now, until we are able to tell it ourselves.”
“Alright, then. But you know, sooner or later they’re going to figure out we’re boning.”
“I would think that to be obvious,” Thanatos retorted, his cheeks reddening. At that, my grin widened.
“Hey,we’regoing to be the drama around here for a little while,” I pointed out. “You think you’re going to make it?”
“I am used to the cautious staring, but for this I cannot claim to be in any way prepared.”
“Oh, just let them look,” I said cheerfully. “And show me off when they stare! I’ve had plenty of practice being a beautiful trophy.”
“You are my partner, not my trophy,” he declared with haste.
“I’m yourstolenpriestess,” I countered. “There’s no getting away from that. But don’t worry. It’s because I’m your partner that I can enjoy being your trophy, too.”
Thanatos frowned. “I thought that you would find this dynamic to be equally frustrating now as it was in your mortal life.”
“The difference is that I love you,” I said with a laugh. “And you love me, and that gives us power. I’m beautiful and forbidden. Put me on your arm, and use me to sass your opposition. Surely there’s someone here you’d like to sass.” I raised my eyebrows enticingly.
He chuckled, and his blush deepened. “Hmm. I supposethatI could do.”
Before I could torment him any longer, there came another knock at the door, followed by the entrance of two young women who curtsied in front of us. My handmaidens were elegant, one wrapped in a flowing orange chiton and the other in pale green. The styles did not match, but I supposed the royal household would have been hard-pressed to find women who died in the same clothes. They looked so ordinary and youthfulthat I imagined they went gently in their sleep. Who knew if it was true.
“Hi,” I said shyly, and then I nudged Thanatos one more time. “While I get fixed up, will you go back to the city for me? It sounded like Leon made it through his trial, but I need to be sure that my sisters are alright.”
His brow furrowed. We were tangled together so closely that I could feel the nervous acceleration of his pulse. “Must I leave you?” he complained. “I promise that nobody you care for has died.”
Of course he didn’t want to go. I stroked his face, unconcerned that we were being watched by the two patient souls. “I know. You would have told me if they had. But what if they think thatI’vedied? They’re probably worried sick! And what if someone is injured? Please, I won’t be at peace until I know.”
Thanatos made a sound of discontent, but he still acquiesced. “Alright.” He kissed my forehead, then released me from his grip and stood up with me. “I will be back soon,” he stressed, and he glared in the direction of my attendants before slipping past them and out the door.
“Sorry,” I mumbled to the women when he had gone. “I was killed and resurrected earlier today, so he’ll probably be agitated for a while.”
“It is no bother, my lady,” said the woman in orange, despite looking absolutely petrified. She glanced behind her to be certain that Thanatos was gone, and then stretched out her hand to me with renewed confidence. When I accepted it, I had to fight an unexpected instinct to recoil. Her hand was unnaturally cold.
Recovering my composure, I allowed her to lead me around to the other side of the bed. There, on the same wall as the headboard, a doorway opened up to a private bathing room.
Inside the room, my handmaidens stripped my bloody clothes away, and the lady in orange hurried me into the central marble tub. I sat, shivering, on its inlaid seat. The surrounding floor was marble, too—in fact, almost everything in here was, save for the towels, the wooden shelving that held the bathing products, and a utilitarian stone chair that stood in the back corner. On the floor beyond my feet, a stone ring surrounded a circular recess that had been filled up with tinder.
“What’s your name?” I asked the woman next to me as she lifted my arm for examination. “I’m Cyrie.”
