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“Ohhh, good revenge. I won’t tell him.” She gave me a wicked grin.
I gave her a small smile in return. “Thank you. Are you guys together, or…” I trailed off, not wanting to come right out and ask if they were lovers.
“Nope.” She made a disgusted face. “I’m the bastard’s sister.”
Ah.
Siblings.
I’d always hoped for one. After I’d lost my family altogether and been locked up, I would’ve taken just about anything. Sibling, aunt, grandmother, second-cousin-twice-removed…
“Are fae really lax about nudity?” I asked.
Her eyes glittered with amusement. “Yup. Everyone’s seen everyone’s naked bits a thousand times over. They all look pretty much the same, so no one’s worried about it around here.”
That made the closet situation more understandable, I supposed.
Since I really did want to take a bath, I headed to the pool. The fae I’d seen so far were extremely muscular, so their naked bits wouldnotlook like mine. Even as a child, I’d never been particularly skinny or strong. I was decidedly average among humans.
And something told me that I’d never look like the fae, even if I worked hard at it.
“I’ll go find you something to wear. Oh, and there’s another human woman in the castle with one of the other kings; you can meet her when you don’t stink like my brother.”
Eisley left the room without waiting for my thanks, and I noticed the gleam of metal on the inside of her thigh, and the back of her arm.
Were thoseknives?
Her bonded esu remained for a moment as he studied me with narrowed eyes. He was just as tall as Death but built even thicker, which made him even more terrifying somehow.
I shivered as he turned around and left the room. The door swung shut behind him, apparently built to allow the esu to come and go as they wished.
“I don’t know whether to be nervous or excited about meeting another magical human,”I said to Bright as I stripped and then sat down on the ledge of the pool. It had been a long, long time since I last swam. Even as a child, I hadn’t been great at it. Something about deep water had always scared me a little.
“I’m sure it’ll be nice not to feel so alone,”Bright said, and then dove in the same way Death had. She swam around for a minute before climbing out and shaking off. My lips stretched in a grin as water splattered all over Kierden’s perfectly-clean floors.
The ache in the marking on my wrist had graduated to a dull throb, which I wasn’t a fan of, but I continued to ignore it. I didn’t know what was causing it, so there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
My thoughts churned a bit. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do while I’m here. I’d like to find a place to belong, where I can be useful and comfortable. Kierden only brought me so he doesn’t get killed before the eclipse, so what does that mean for me after the bond is gone?”I slipped into the water and found a simple seat below the surface. The temperature was a perfect neutral, and the seat was just deep enough that the top of the water rose a little above my chin.
“The fae still have to grow their food. Make a deal to take over as the farmer and you could live a very comfortable life here or in any of the other fae lands. Kierden’s kingdom is known to be the most welcoming as far as the fae go, so this one may be the best choice.”
“What if I want to go back to the humans?”I asked. As the words left my lips, I knew that wasn’t a possibility. I’d never forget what my own family had done to me, or how my town had starved me to feed and clothe themselves. I hoped they’d all rot without me, even though I knew it was a terrible hope to have.
But some awful feelings were reasonable ones.
“Then we’ll find a better town, or a large kingdom.”
“He only needs my magic, right?”I asked her.“Maybe I can leave before the eclipse as long as I stay bonded to him. I don’t really want to deal with his grumpiness for the next two and a half months.”
“If he was okay with that, he’d have left you in your town after starting the bond with you.”
I wished she wasn’t right.
When I found a bar of soap on a ledge near my face, I took it and used it to scrub myself clean. The throbbing in my wrist morphed into a sharp, stabbing pain.
There was nothing to be done about it though, so I did my best to ignore it as I surfaced and started to clean my hair.
After a few minutes, it grew so painful that I had to sit still and squeeze my eyes shut while I waited for it to pass.
