Chapter 6: Cold Water

"Tomorrow is too far," I said, and my teeth were chattering from the heat. "Take me somewhere cold."

He didn't argue.

He lifted me and carried me down through the keep, past guards who studiously looked at the ceiling.

The spiral stair beyond them was cut into the rock.

The air got wetter and cooler with every turn.

At the bottom was a cave with a spring in it, black water under a dome of stone.

A few candles burned in iron cups along the wall.

"The old kings bathed here before the Moot," he said. "It stays cold all year."

He set me on my feet at the edge.

The fever was a living thing in me, and my hands were already pulling at my dress.

"I'm not asking you for the mark," I said. "I'm asking you for this."

"Elsie, I said no promise."

"You did. And I'm saying yes to the rest of your terms and no to the idea that I can't tell what I want."

I pushed his shirt off his shoulders.

"I can tell," I said. "Right now I want you in that water."

His breath went out of him.

We went in together.

The cold took my breath, and it was glorious, and the burn hissed and fell back to a deep ache between my legs.

He stood waist-deep with the water running off his chest, and the candlelight carved him out of the dark.

I put both hands flat on his stomach and pushed him back against the rock.

"Stay."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"Good."

I slid under the water, took him in my hand, and he swore.

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