Of Thorns and Beauty by Elle Madison
Chapter Forty-Two
Khijhana lets out a high-pitched sound and scrambles across the cave, startling us both. Einar pushes himself up, further away from me, already looking in her direction.
Before I can wonder what my chalyx is doing, a faraway voice reaches my ears.
"Your Majesty!" A panicked voice is calling for him, over and over again.
It’s his guard.
"Gunnar," the king confirms. He squeezes his eyes shut, something between regret and aggravation passing across his features. I almost smile at the mirror of my own thoughts, but I am in too much shock from what I have almost done willingly, assaulted all at once by memories of the last time a man claimed that much and even more of me.
I shiver, a different sort of cold settling into my bones as the embers of my desire have morphed into something more like revulsion now.
I barely register when the king throws his cape around me to cover me, pulling on his own clothes and calling back out to the man. He walks toward the mouth of the cave, Khijhana at his side, calling back and forth with Gunnar.
I wish I had something more than this cloak to cover me, but my own clothes are still damp, and I am in no hurry to revisit my hypothermia.
Einar walks back toward me, stopping a few feet away to pull on his boots.
"I'm going to meet him outside." He pauses, and I can sense that he’s assessing me.
I nod, not quite meeting his gaze. He kneels down and cups my cheek in his enormous hand.
"Are you all right, Zaina?" His voice is quiet with concern.
"Yes. Just getting a bit cold again." And I do feel cold, just not in the way that he thinks.
I try for a smile, but it doesn't meet my eyes. I can tell he doesn't quite buy it, but he doesn't push me, either.
"Of course. I'll be right back." He presses his lips to my head before turning to leave.
I wrap his cloak tighter around myself and allow Khijha to comfort me as I test the feel of the water on my toes.
Forcing down the panic that comes, I remind myself of how different this pool was from the icy lake that tried to end me.
Images of people being lowered to their watery graves in cages intended to make them suffer as long as possible come to mind. I want to vomit, but I force myself to keep my foot in the warm spring anyway.
I need to do this.
The water is warm, and luminescent somehow. If I ignore my aversion, it is pretty. In a haunting sort of way. The sound of boots slapping against the cave floor startle me, and I jerk my foot out.
Khijha’s ears flit and she cocks her head to the side in the opposite direction before she gets up and goes to inspect whatever is back there.
“Zola and Gideon found Gunnar, and he followed my tracks here.”
“Gideon is alright?” I interrupt him, realizing with everything that happened I hadn’t even given my hestrinn a second thought.
“He’s fine. Gunnar said they won’t come any closer than the tree line, so he’s going back to grab our satchels. I have a spare set of clothes in mine that we could make work for you, for now.”
A pale imitation of a smile tugs at my lips, both at the image of me trying to make Einar’s clothes fit and at relief for my hestrinn.
“Because we are so similar in size?” I glance up at him.
He gives me a tentative smile in return.
“I packed some spares as well, though,” I tell him.
“Perfect.”
We sit there in silence, both unsure of what else to say to the other. In the wake of what happened between us, any conversation feels strained and awkward now.
When Gunnar approaches with our things, I’m relieved for the chance to do anything other than think.
Einar blocks my body from view while he speaks with Gunnar, even though I’m wrapped in his cloak. The sounds of their voices fade as it strikes me that his clothes aren’t frozen icicles as mine are, a fact I should’ve noted earlier.
We hadn’t discussed what happened or how he found me, but this whole time, I had thought he was the one who pulled me from the lake.
I run fingers over the small cuts in my shoulder where some of the most searing pain had been felt. Two puncture wounds are on one side of my collarbone, and two matching ones are on the other.
The sound of Khijha’s purring drifts from around the corner of the cave. Immediately, I remember the four gleaming metallic canines that she possesses, and I’m awestruck, if not confused. I rub my fingers over the puncture wounds, shaking my head in disbelief.
They are smaller than they should be, and already scabbing over. Maybe the springs really are healing. It would hardly be the strangest thing I’ve seen in Jokith.
Einar has dug my clothes out of my satchel, and he hands them to me as he and Gunnar turn away to give me a modicum of privacy to dress.
My body has been on enough display for one day, so I decide to take it a step further and travel around the corner where I know my chalyx is waiting. It doesn’t take me long to don the new trousers, tunic, and boots. Then, I wrangle my tangled hair into a braid.
Despite hearing Khijha’s purrs, she isn’t in this corridor. I follow her sound further down and tentatively turn the corner, my path lit by the strange glowing water of the hot springs, when a warm gust of air comes wafting toward me.
Even more curious how a breeze made its way this far into the caves, I continue on. The purrs are growing louder as I turn another corner, and I am about to open my mouth to call for my chalyx when I come face to face with a different mythical creature.
It’s the dragon.