21
HARLOW
enry’s aura pulses frantically around us as he leads me down the stoneH staircase. He’s nervous.
I can’t tell if it’s because he wasn’t supposed to show me this well, if he was hoping to hold out on this secret for a more strategic reveal, or if this is the actual strategic reveal and he’s just trying to get me to tell him what’s wrong with me.
I’m disoriented without my sight, with my head still foggy from the aftereffects of the pain. Every muscle in my body is wound tight from bracing against the ache, and even though the worst of it is gone, the remnants hang on as a warning not to let my guard down.
Still, a wild glimmer of hope sparks inside me. If this well is closer to the source of whatever magic is imbued in the waters of our family well, maybe it will be more potent. It could finally fix what ails me.
A frightening thought sears through my mind. Maybe it will make me mad like my father and Able. Maybe it will make me worse.
My silk slipper slides on the steps, and Henry tightens his hold on me.
I’m graceless without my vision, too close to him and too off-kilter, and so angry at my body for being weak when I need it to be strong.
My heart beats frantically as the damp and fresh smell of water hits me. A faint trickling sound echoes through the stairwell.
Finally, we reach the bottom of the descent, and Henry stops me. He removes the blindfold, and I blink, trying to acclimate to the dim space.
Light emanates from the pool in front of me. Steam rises off the surface of the water, warping the reflections on the arched stone ceiling. On the far side of the room is a table with a carafe of water and a pile of linen towels.
It’s not as ornate as the Carrenwell Family Well. Instead of the fancy whitewashed stone of the well I grew up with, this room looks carved from the mountain itself. The dark granite walls glitter in the dancing sunstone light, but the dark color of the space seems to eat up the glow. The effect is a bit claustrophobic—like I’ve been let into a space too intimate for the newness of our acquaintance.
I stare at the water in disbelief. What does this well do?
For so long, I’d believed that the only wells in existence were the Family Well and the Blood Well. How could there have been another all this time without us knowing? I’d never been naive enough to believe my father knew everything, but he was nothing if not motivated by his own survival. There is no way he knows this exists and wouldn’t have at least attempted to explore it after the fort fell.
Henry watches me so intensely, it’s like he’s trying to see through my
skin to understand.
“How does this work?” I ask.
“Well, lovely. You simply get in the water and —”
I glower at him. “I know that part, you ass. I mean how do you get the water in here? Our well is always cold. The water flows through in a gentle current, but this is still.”
Henry walks around the pool to the far wall. He taps his hand on what looks like a long stone slide that forms a gutter into the pool.
“As you can tell, we’ve come down pretty far below ground level. The actual flow of the well is higher than this. It’s about twenty feet or so to the right of where we stand. There’s a valve here.” He places his hand on a knob I hadn’t seen before. “If I turn this, water will flow in. Cold as a glacier. Not pleasant at all. That’s why we use the sunstones. It should be nice and hot for you.”
“And when you’re finished—where does the runoff go?” I ask.
I don’t really expect him to answer. He’s already given me a valuable piece of information.
“You saw it in the armory. We typically only use the well once a week or so. The leftover water is repurposed to treat weapons and fortify our walls.”
“This seems like quite a journey for your people to go on to pay their
blood tithes. I assume you do them all on the same day instead of having daily rotations like we do in Lunameade,” I say.
Henry shakes his head. “We don’t do regular blood tithes. People only tithe if they choose to, once a year on Founder’s Day.”
I stare at him, dumbfounded. If they don’t tithe to the well, surely it affects the well’s magic—but I don’t want to say that and insult him when he’s offering me a way to heal.
He leans back against the wall and crosses his arms. “Now, have I satisfied your curiosity? Will you tell me what’s wrong? Maybe I can help if the well can’t.”
I shake my head. “No healer’s magic has worked.”
He frowns, but there’s a curious gleam in his dark eyes. “What is it?”
I step to the edge of the pool and stare down at my reflection. I don’t know what I expect. Even I have trouble understanding how something invisible can ail me so severely. It makes it feel less real, or at least like I shouldn’t bother anyone with it.
“At least it’s not a visible affliction. Thank the Divine for that. At least this beauty can be of use.” My mother’s words are seared into my mind. I wonder what she would say if she could see how messy my hair is in front of my husband-to-be.
This is a gift my parents have naturally—no Divine blessing required.
Their words are always with me; I can’t shake their disapproval even if I’ve shaken their observation for the moment.
“Are you homesick?” Henry asks, startling me from my thoughts.
I laugh. The question is so absurd to me. I have been waiting to escape that house for twenty-four years—ever since my magic showed up. Of course, living at the fort is more dangerous than being safe behind the fortified walls in Lunameade, but it’s also the most freedom I’ve ever had, and while the scrutiny is still substantial and drenched in loathing, no one here is scolding me for looking tired or messy.
Henry probably has no idea what that’s like; his parents are doting. They welcomed him at that dinner with true warmth, not the fake performance like my parents put on.
It’s hard for me to fathom that kind of nurturing. I’ve thrived in spite of my parents, not because of them. The roots of defiance dug down deep into my bones. I don’t want to be this way, but I don’t know anything else.
“No. I could not be less homesick. Why do you ask?”
“You seem to take every opportunity to make jabs at how wild it is here.”
I finally look up at him. “It is wild here.”
He waits for me to say more, but I can ice him out until he leaves.
I swallow and gesture to the glowing pool of water. “Thank you for bringing me here.”
It’s meant to be a dismissal, but he stays. The silence stretches.
I wait for him to leave, to realize that this is a line I won’t cross, even for my duty. Revealing this secret now could throw this whole agreement into peril.
Instead of retreating, he unbuttons his collar and then his sleeves, a hint of
defiance in his eyes.
“What are you doing?” I rasp.
“I’m bathing with my fiancée in my family’s well. Suppose she’s overcome by her pain and slips beneath the water. How would I live with myself if I wasn’t there to be of assistance?”
My skin heats as I glare at him. “And if she doesn’t wish to bathe with you?”
He waves a hand at the stairwell behind him. “Then she’s welcome to leave.”
I could. It would be easy to walk away and leave him here, but I want to know what this well does, and I’m afraid that if I don’t go in now, I’ll lose my nerve for good. Who knows if I’ll have another chance with such easy access to it?
I glance at the shimmering water. I’m afraid to even hope for healing. I’m surprised I can still feel any semblance of hope that I’ll find a cure for this peculiar pain that ails me. The episodes have been so debilitating for so long, and trying to hide it from my new in-laws so they don’t think me defective has been a chore. Right now, I’m too broken by the pain that pounds dully in my temples to pretend.
Henry tosses off his shirt, revealing a broad, muscled chest and abdomen.
But it’s not his physique that makes me gasp. His skin is a tapestry of vicious scars—most notably, jagged claw marks crisscross his chest, shiny and several shades lighter than his skin, and a bumpy white scar that looks like a dagger was slid between his left ribs.
Years of appearing unaffected are completely worthless now. I’m too stunned not to stare. I should look away. I wouldn’t want someone to stare at my scars like that, but the more I look, the more I see the violence of his
history scored into his skin.
As he turns to hang his shirt on a hook on the cavern wall, the light catches a short, neat scar over his jugular and what looks like two puncture wounds in his back that appear to be made by arrows.
The training for hunters that go beyond the fort walls is extensive and harrowing, but Henry looks like he’s survived so much more than my poison lips.
There are other, fainter scars over his forearms and shoulders—the marks of years of training—the same kind common on city guards back in Lunameade.
Henry clicks his tongue as he unbuttons his pants. “I know I’m handsome, Harlow, but if you don’t stop staring, I’m going to blush.”
Finally, I drag my gaze away and busy myself with the buttons on the back of my dress. I slip the straps off my shoulders, letting the silk land on the floor, a pool of red against the dark stone.
Henry pauses with his pants hanging low on his hips. He watches me bend to unfasten my garters. He swallows hard, eyes fixed on the stretch of skin above my stockings, and I know he’s remembering kissing me there the way I remember the sharp pinch of his teeth that chased each kiss. I slide the stocking down my right leg slower than I need to, enjoying this power I have over him. I do the same with the other stocking before standing tall and unclasping my bustier, letting it down my arms.
Finally, he meets my gaze and grins, sliding his pants down as I shimmy out of my lace underwear. I stand in front of my husband-to-be, naked, trying not to let my eyes stray any lower than his chest, even as I feel his unapologetic predatory perusal.
He makes a low sound like a hum, then steps into the pool. He might have been ready to fuck someone else the other night, but it’s clear I have his full attention now.
There’s a ledge a few feet down that he uses to slowly lower himself into the steaming pool.
Staring down at the water, I try to summon the courage to step in. What if it hurts me? What if these waters are like the ones at home and they’re only carrying me on a current toward madness?
The longer I stand here, the more questions I’ll raise in his mind.
I force myself to walk toward the water, silently praying to any of the Divine who will listen to let this be a well that will heal me and not drive me
toward madness. Praying that this secret holy water that appears to be even closer to the source won’t be the thing to prove once and for all just how broken my body is.
I pause with my foot hovering over the water. I hate myself for that one second of weakness. I cannot afford to be weak here.
Breathing in deeply, I step down onto the ledge. The hot water feels amazing on my aching calves. My whole body has been clenched in pain for so long. Perhaps, at the very least, the heat will help ease the tension.
Henry takes my hand and helps me down.
The water comes to just below my breasts, so I sink lower, holding my breath—I don’t know why. It’s not as if the relief is instantaneous at home. It usually takes at least fifteen minutes of soaking. I typically stay in longer.
Questions bounce around my brain. What if being closer to the source means the madness comes on faster? What if it makes the pain worse? What if Henry sees?
I swish my hands along the surface of the water as if I can shake the rogue thoughts free. Henry watches me from the far side of the pool. We’re separated by ten feet of aqua water, but he still feels too close. His aura is stretched wide, pulsing slowly and steadily. He’s calm and comfortable in
here.
“How often do you soak?” I ask.
He shrugs noncommittally. “After every hunt beyond the walls.”
Mentally, I calculate how often that is from the book he gave me on the basics of life in the fort. Several times a week, hunter parties, made up of the calmest and best-trained people of Mountain Haven, venture beyond the fort walls to hunt game. It’s dangerous work, though not as dangerous in daylight.
“You work in shifts, right?”
He nods. “It works out to be two to three times per week, depending on how many people are healthy and able to go out. I try to go a little more often for appearances.”
“Always a slave to appearances, aren’t we?” I sigh. “How do you usually feel after? I’ve only ever been in the Family Well and the Blood Well.”
Henry looks down at the water. “It’s usually subtle at first—just a feeling of being refreshed. It’s not until I’m climbing out and walking back up to my room that I notice how much less stiff and tired my body feels.”
We fall into a heavy silence, and I use the time to look around the space.
It’s not very large, and there’s only the one way in and out. I should probably
be more nervous about that than I am. At least Gaven knows I’m down here.
If I don’t come back out, he’ll know who to blame and where to find the
body.
“Why the ice?” Henry asks.
The question startles me out of my daze.
“Excuse me?”
“While you were in meditation.”
Think. Think. Make any excuse.
“Pain tithes.” It slips out, and I immediately regret it.
Henry’s dark eyebrows shoot up. “To which of the Divine?”
“Harvain, of course.”
“You pay pain tithes to your patron Divine by using ice?”
“Of course,” I say.
“To bless our marriage?”
I laugh. I’m so startled by the question that I can’t help it. There’s no way he would believe that. I have to give some kind of half-truth.
“I pay them to help me control my magic or—” I tip my head back and groan. “Or to take it away. I know that sounds ungrateful. Maybe it is, but I’ve never completely understood why I have this particular gift, and while I’ve found good use for it with my hobby, I’d love to be able to live a normal life without being afraid I might accidentally kill someone I care about.”
It’s partly true. The best lies always are. I used to wish for a cure to my cruel magic. But I stopped wishing when I stopped hoping for better and started making myself worse. If the men of Lunameade needed repercussions to behave, I would be the harbinger of consequences.
When I finally meet Henry’s dark blue eyes, he looks less skeptical but not entirely believing. That’s okay. He can be suspicious. It’s better than him knowing I’m defective. That could destroy this entire arrangement. I can’t afford that when I need this goodwill from my parents—when Aidia needs to get out of the cage of Lunameade before it suffocates her. For a moment, the wind is knocked out of me. I close my eyes and I can see nothing but her haunted eyes when she lay in bed with me the night before I left home.
The water stirs as he sits on the ledge next to me. “And the ice is for —”
I blink my eyes open. “Have you ever held your hand in ice water for a few minutes? It’s very painful.”
He hums. Not exactly an agreement, but it seems like enough to get him to stop pushing.
Generally, when I’m hunting in Lunameade, I don’t have to spend so much time talking, and I certainly don’t have to volunteer things about myself that are even partially true. I’m starting to realize how out of my element I am. Mercifully, my first husband had thought me nothing but pretty window dressing and didn’t care to hear me speak at all.
I’m only now realizing how different fake intimacy is from real intimacy.
When a man knows you already tried to kill him twice, he’s not inclined to believe casual flirting. I need to make him believe my interest the same way I need to let him think I’ve given up information I don’t want to.
I need to get him talking about something else. I clear my throat and nod at a neat scar on his throat. “That looks like it hurt, but it’s too clean to be from the Drained. How did you get it?”
He purses his full lips. “Going right for the throat. Why am I not surprised?”
“You have many curious scars. I could pick another,” I offer.
He bows his head and goes so still, I’m afraid to even breathe. When he looks back up at me, he looks entirely at war with himself.
“You don’t have to—” I say at the same time he says, “I hate talking about the day the fort fell.”
He runs a hand through his hair, the water flattening his waves and trickling down his temples. His eyes are far away. The candlelight bounces off the well’s surface, casting strange shadows over the planes of his face.
“No one here talks about it,” he says. “We don’t need to—or maybe we do and we just don’t know how to speak to that kind of terror.” He pauses and licks his lips. “I’m a fighter. Every man in Mountain Haven is raised to be a fighter. You chase. You hunt. But most of all, you protect. And that responsibility was even heavier for me. I was raised with a blade in my hand —to not fear the monsters in these woods that surround us, because to fear is to attract them. But it is one thing to go meet them where they are, and another entirely when they bring the fight to you. I have never felt fear like I felt that day.”
He takes a slow breath and looks at me. For the first time since we met, his face is absent of all its guardedness and there’s no hint of cunning in his eyes. He looks devastated. “You are wary of me and uncomfortable so far from Lunameade alone. I’ve done nothing to make you feel at home, and I could say I’m sorry, but we both know I wouldn’t mean it. You did try to kill me, after all. However, at some point we have to have a base level of trust
between us or this whole thing will fall apart.”
I lick my lips. “That’s fair.”
“I have no illusions. I know you have your own agenda, Harlow. No grown woman enters into something like this without good reason. But I’m telling you a secret and asking you not to share this information with anyone else.”
My mouth is dry. I shouldn’t feel so uncomfortable when I’m getting what I want, but I hate this version of him.
“The ring I was wearing in the city hides auras. It’s made with protection magic from Vardek. My sister’s creation. She was gifted with more protection than just holy fire. She also had a sort of boundary magic. My parents also wear them.”
That explains why I haven’t been able to see his parents’ auras. “But I can see yours now.”
“I don’t wear it around you because I imagine it’s unnerving when you’re used to seeing everyone’s auras. I only wore it in town when I didn’t want to be spotted by the rest of your family. But my parents always wear them because my mother has a blessing from Asher.”
His intense, dark eyes bore into me.
“She’s a resurrectionist.”
The words take the breath out of me. Resurrection—the rarest of magics.
While we had credible reason to believe that was the case, it’s another thing to hear it from Henry.
When I don’t say anything, he continues. “It’s a rare gift, but also a terribly draining one.”
He opens his mouth to say more, then closes it.
Finally, he turns on the ledge to face me head-on, and I can sense the weight of whatever he’s about to say.
“The day the wall fell, I wasn’t just wounded. I died. And my mother brought me back.”
