Page 74 of Keldori By Daybreak

“Do you want me to help?” I blurted.

Ciarán opened one eye to frown at me through the steam. “Right now?”

“I mean, I did throw a spear at your head. It’s the least I could do.”

Ciarán closed his eyes again and a nervous grimace played across his face. “I wouldn’t turn down a bit of healing magick, but if you’re uncomfortable—”

“It’s fine. You’re my Grimguard, and I don’t want you dying for me.”

“So you’d do the same for Sabrina?”

“She’s not a Grimguard anymore, remember? But sure. When a rotsbane rips her open, I’ll take a bath with her next.”

Ciarán’s smirk was short-lived, sliding from his face almost as soon as it played across his lips. I slid down the stone bench to get closer, careful not to disturb the surface of the water too much.

I reminded myself that co-ed communal baths were very normal and not at all weird here in Skalterra, and then instead focused on the shapes the steam was forming in the air so that Ciarán wouldn’t accidentally overhear my thoughts. I extended my hand beneath the water, keeping him at arm’s length with my eyes resolutely forward.

While the heat of the water soothed, the heat that surged in my hand turned my nerves electric. My fingers found the increasingly familiar ridges of Ciarán’s ribs and muscles, and I opened the channel between us that let his pain become mine so I could better find all the remaining cracks in his bones and tears in his flesh.

I suppressed a gasp at the fresh agony and pressed my hand into him. He shivered under the touch and then relaxed, letting his head tilt back once again.

I listened to him breathing through his nose, and caught myself mentally tracing the line of his brow down the bridge of his nose to the shape of his lips and the cut of his chin. From this angle, with his eyes closed, he really did look so much like Liam.

“Answer my question. I demand it,” I finally said. “What lies do you hear me tell myself in my head?”

“That we’re friends, for one.”

“We are. Liam—”

“Liam isn’t me.”

“He could be.”

Ciarán’s brow knit. “He can’t. He’s not real. And we aren’t friends because you can’t stand me.”

“That’s not—”

“It’s true. You don’t have to apologize. You’ve seen my Nightmare form. You already know I can’t stand me either.”

My stomach dipped. I had indeed noticed the stark contrast between Ciarán and Liam and how each difference highlighted something Ciarán wished he could change about himself.

“Jokes on you, Grimguard. I couldn’t stand Liam either, so maybe you are more like your ideal self than you think.”

He laughed again. “That doesn’t say much. You can’t stand anyone.”

“Fine. Then tell me exactly how you’re different from Liam.”

“He was blond.”

“That doesn’t count.”

Ciarán opened an eye to smirk at me. “Fine. He was decent.”

“You have your moments too.”

“No, you don’t get it, Blue.” He closed his eye and resettled against the stone. “Liam died for you. But me? I would do so much worse.”

“You say Liam died for me, but that was you. You died for me.”