Chapter 10: The Warm Pool

Liyan sat down on the stone floor next to him.

It was freezing.

"You've been here all day, and you're shaking."

"I am," Mingjue said, with some surprise. "It seems I do that now."

"Then listen. I'm going to ask one more time, straight. Not about the scales. About you."

"Ask."

"Are you in danger?"

The dragon looked at the wall for a long moment.

"Not from you," he said. "Not from anyone in this palace. And not in any way that would harm you or the village."

"That isn't what I asked."

"I know. It is the truth, and it is all I can give you. I cannot tell you the rest until the Double Ninth."

His hands were clenched on his knees.

"On that day I will tell you everything. All of it."

"You may be angry, and you may go, and I will not stop you."

"But I cannot say it before then, and I cannot say why."

"That's a month."

"Yes."

Liyan thought about a man who had sat on stone for a day with nothing in his hands but a bowl.

"Then I'll take the date," he said. "Everything, on the Double Ninth. And if you lied to me, I'll be very angry."

"I would deserve it."

"Get up. You're freezing, and I want a bath."

"A bath."

"You have a hot spring. Bo told me. Come on."

The grotto lay below the library, down a stair of wet black stone.

It was a round cave, hung with pale glowing moss, with a pool in the middle where the water steamed.

The air tasted of minerals and warm earth.

Liyan stood at the edge in his robe and found himself blushing.

Mingjue stood beside him, huge and awkward, hands hanging.

"I have never used it," he said. "I do not feel heat, or I did not."

"You feel it now."

Liyan reached up and undid the clasp at the dragon's collar.

Then the sash.

Then the sea-green outer robe, which he folded and set on a rock.

Mingjue held completely still.

Under the robe he wore the thin white undershirt, and Liyan drew that off too, over the silver hair, and let it fall.

His skin was warm under the steam.

The scales along his arms were dull and flaking, but his chest was smooth and flushed.

When Liyan flattened a hand there, it rose and fell too fast.

"Sit," Liyan said. "On the ledge."

Mingjue sat in the shallow water, steam rolling off his shoulders.

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