Page 72 of Keldori By Daybreak

Somewhere where volcanoes weren’t going to wipe out my grandma. Somewhere there were no Magicians trying to break through the fabric of reality.

But that’s exactly where I was, and while we had a tentative path forward, everything was falling apart.

I opened my eyes to stare at my reflection in the water, but I didn’t recognize the young woman who stared back. The water distorted my image a bit, sure, but the last couple of weeks had brought a new sallowness to my cheeks, accented by mirroring crescent cuts left by Orla’s goggles. I drew my hands from the water to rub across the cuts, half-expecting them to wash away. When I lowered my hands, however, the cuts remained, bleeding gently into the water I’d left on my face.

And my eyes…

I blinked, trying to figure out how to turn off the garish blue irises and black sclera. It had taken me months to figure out how to make anything other than a flail. What if it took me longer to figure out how to change my eyes back? What if I never did?

“We’re going to rest here a few days.” For a moment, I thought Ciarán was speaking to me in my head, but when he came around the corner at the base of the stairway, I recoiled against the stone at my back. “It was Iseult’s decision. She says we’ll travel faster if we’re better rested, if that’s alright.”

“What are you doing?” I hissed.

“Taking a bath? Same as you.”

“I came down here to be alone.”

“It’s just me.” His breathy laugh echoed through the chamber, bouncing off the hot water and the barrel arches of the low ceiling. “Besides, you’re never alone as long as we’re tethered.”

While I knew Ciarán was now a mainstay in my mind, the idea that he was there even during my most vulnerable moments of the day had never occurred to me. The bath was suddenly too hot, and I felt my cheeks flush.

“Have you looked—”

“No!” Ciarán blanched and deflated, reminding me too much of the scared boy in the memory I’d intruded upon. “You know what? It’s fine. You bathe first. I’ll guard the hall and take a turn when you’re done.”

I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes. Communal baths were normal in Skalterra. I’d found that out several weeks ago. It was only weird if I made it weird, and he was right. Very little privacy existed between us.

Besides. The water was cloudy. I couldn’t even see myself past the surface.

“The thought of you lurking on the stairs is somehow worse. Just take your bath. I’ll be fine.”

“Wren, really, I’ll come back later if you’re uncomfortable.”

“You threw up in my mouth. I think we’ve reached the communal bathing point in our friendship.”

“Friendship?” Ciarán’s grin disappeared behind the folds of his tunic as he pulled it off over his head. The shirt fell to the stone floor with a soft rustle. “You told me we weren’t friends.”

“I was friends with Liam, so I guess I’m kind of friends with you by extension.”

The glow of his eyes caught the edges of his smirk through the steam, and I looked away as his hands moved to his belt.

“Were you really friends?” he asked.

“Yes.” I couldn’t tell if he was making implications about Gams forcing the friendship upon us, or if he somehow knew the way my feelings for Liam had shifted in those final few days with him. Whichever it was, I didn’t want to know.

Ciarán’s trousers, and whatever else he’d taken off with them, fell heavier than his shirt had, landing with the metallic clink of belt buckle against stone. The water rippled as he slid into the basin.

I folded my arms over my chest for extra protection, but I didn’t feel as nervous as I thought I would now that he was in the water.

“So the Grimguards have rules against falling in love with Saergrims, but bathing together is fine?” I forced levity into my tone.

“We are free to fall in love with anyone we like. It’s acting on those feelings that’s forbidden should the object of our affections happen to be a Saergrim.” Ripples played across the surface of the bath as Ciarán sank into the water to my left. “And it’s just a bath. Everyone takes baths.”

I nodded, watching the stone wall rather than look his way.

“When Sorcha was healing my ribs in the kitchen, you just about passed out when you saw my shirt halfway off,” I said. “But this doesn’t bother you?”

“Like I said, everyone takes baths. Besides, you’re completely covered.”