The Great Bears left us at a tall building covered in vines.

Now that we were here and safe, every ache, every tired muscle, every hunger pang multiplied. I dismounted carefully, holding onto the saddle for a moment to let my weight settle into my feet, and then I hurried over to help Balen with Ferryn.

“I can do it,” Ferryn mumbled, coming to. “I’m not a child.”

Balen slid off the horse, his hands remaining on Ferryn’s waist so he wouldn’t fall. Once Balen was down, the young Sydhr leaned into Balen who dragged him carefully off the horse.

Ferryn’s knees buckled. His head tipped back, his throat working as he tried to focus, but couldn’t. “What of Ixia? We must save her. We must...”

The wide doors to the building creaked open.

A priest glided down the three steps to meet us. I thought Balen was the tallest male I’d ever seen, but the priest towered over us. His long robes swirled around slippered feet and his hood framed a face with grayish brown skin, big, slanted green eyes, a small nose, and a long, thin mouth. His serene, elongated features stirred my memory.

He dipped his head to Balen. “The healers will take him now.”

Three healers appeared, coming around the priest. Ferryn protested their help, but one of the healers touched him, whispering something soothing and kind. Ferryn went limp. They took him easily from Balen and carried him into the building.

The priest’s attention fell to me. “Welcome daughter of Ariannon. You have grown.”

“Eburacon.” The name came unbidden from my lips and, with it, memories came flooding back.

Immediately, I knelt in respect to the High Priest of Dagda. I felt a light pressure on my shoulder as though he had placed his hand there and bid me to rise, but he hadn’t touched me. Such was the power of his mind.

He shifted his serene expression to Balen, bowing his head. “Welcome to Falias, Balen, Champion of Sydhr. Please, come. We have much to discuss. But first—” he cast a distasteful eye to our state— “let us see you bathed and fed.”

We followed him into the main hall of the building then down a long, narrow hallway. Everything was built slender and tall, like the priests themselves. Tall ceilings, tall doors, tall iron candle stands, which held tall candles... Their buildings were beautiful, made of varying kinds of wood, all polished, all carved with intricate scenes of nature and Dagda’s life. It was quiet too, the shuffle of our footsteps loud against the polished wooden floor.

Eburacon stopped near the end of the hallway. Two doors were on either side of us with another larger one at the end. “Your chambers will be here.” He indicated the two doors, but he stepped to the larger door. “First, you must bathe.”

He knocked. It opened to reveal two servants. “Jensine and Alsa will assist you. You must be cleansed and anointed to enter the main temple. Plus,” he added with a faint flash of humor, “you both smell.” He bowed curtly before leaving.

“Well, that was uncalled for,” I mumbled. He should try fleeing from battle with less than a change of clothes and days of travel ahead him and see how he smelled afterward.

“But true,” Balen said with a shrug.

I cast him a glare and he grinned at me. It was the first time in two days that I’d seen him smile and mean it. “Speak for yourself,” I said, lifting my chin and entering what was another long hallway, only this one went down into the earth.

“You’ve been here before?” Balen asked as we followed the servants.

“Aye. When I was a child with my mother. She raised me at her estate not far from here. But I was never permitted inside the buildings or the temple.” I met his gaze. “You?”

“I’ve been here many times, but never to the temple or the baths. We always stayed in the city.”

The air grew hot and damp. Torches burned in ornate brassieres on the wall, sending shafts of golden light upwards in long arcs. Sweat beaded on my forehead and back. Mint and herbs scented the air. The farther we went, the thicker the scent.

Jensine and Alsa opened a set of high double doors, and we stepped into a vaulted chamber over an underground spring. Large rocks made natural separations, creating large pools and smaller secluded ones. Steam floated up from the surface. Rooms had been carved into the rock walls and torches blazed everywhere. A priest exited one room and passed us, nodding serenely.

“This way,” Alsa said.

In a dressing chamber, Balen and I exchanged questioning looks. Surely they didn’t expect us to strip down and bathe together.

Balen’s eyebrow arched. He could tell exactly what I was thinking and a wide childish grin appeared, the transformation stealing my breath. I made a face and crossed my arms over my chest, trying to force my pulse back to normal as Alsa waved a hand to another room and said to Balen, “This way.”

Ha! I shot him a superior smirk as he was led from the room with a quick parting leer at me.

CHAPTER 11

Alone in the chamber with Jensine, I began to undress. “Please, this is my task,” she said with a hesitant smile.

I wasn’t sure I’d ever become accustomed to being waited upon. I dropped my hands from the tie at my waist, allowing her to untie the sash and then pull the dirty tunic over my head. The thin blouse underneath came next, and I stood there bare to the waist in the warm chamber, holding my hands over my breasts.

“It’s rare that we have visitors here,” she said in a soft steady voice. “Your servants don’t undress you?”

I shook my head as she stepped closer and reached out to my waist. Her fingers undid the laces to my leggings, brushing against the bare skin just below my navel. “I have no servants. I am one,” I said, my voice choked.

I wanted to perish right then and there. My cheeks burned and grew hotter as she tugged my leggings down, exposing all of me, waiting for me to step out of them.

Once I did, she set to work unbraiding my hair.

She sighed. “Your hair is so different. So many shades of red and orange… It’s really rather pretty.”

“Thank you.”

“Come,” she said after my hair was undone.

We moved into another room where Jensine selected a sheer, filmy gown, and pulled it over my head. “Most prefer to go without, but I believe you would prefer a covering, no?”

“Aye, I would, thank you.”

It wasn’t exactly a covering in my mind. It was so thin that once wet, I might as well be naked anyway. She smiled at me. “We celebrate the form as all Danaans do. You don’t bathe like this in your city?”

“We do.” I lifted my hair from the neck of the gown and let it fall over the material. I didn’t bother explaining that I bathed with Lidi and the other servants of my house.

“Good, come this way.”

She led me into the cavern.

“I’ll wait in the dressing room to anoint you when you’re finished. Please take your time in Dagda’s waters for they are healing and rejuvenate the mind and body.”

I thanked her and then stepped across the warm rock to the water’s edge. I glanced over my shoulder to see her retreating into the dressing chamber.

I put one toe in the hot water and sighed.

I inched my way in, the gown billowing around me until I had to press it into the water to weigh the material down.

Herbs and mint sprigs bobbed on the surface, and floating trays with lit scented candles made the chamber relaxing just as Jensine had said. I waded in until the water reached my breasts, then I pushed off the rocky bottom to swim.

The weightless feeling was a welcome relief after the hard journey on horseback. I rolled onto my back, letting my arms float in a wide arc.

Placed in baskets around the area, were sponges and soaps. And more servants who I guessed would gladly give me a good washing if I asked. As I swam around a large outcropping of rocks, I saw a naked priest prone on his stomach as a servant rubbed oil into his skin.

I went still.

Apparently, males and females bathed together.

Quietly, I swam back the way I’d come not wanting to be seen. I spied a basket and hurried to it, hoping to wash quickly and then run back to the dressing chamber, but as I swam around the rock, I choked on a startled gasp of part air, part water.

Balen strode naked to the pool’s edge and waded in until the water closed over his shoulders.

Power in his build. Grace in his movements. Darkness in his aura.

My heart pounded wildly. I couldn’t seem to move, shocked just as much by my reaction as by the sight of him. It was undeniable, the flood of attraction I felt, an attraction that had been building all this time.

I had two choices. Swim back to the naked priest, or face Balen.

The priest was much safer. I turned to go, but I’d waited too long. A splash of water hit me in the back of the head. I whipped around to see Balen, treading water in front of me, chin deep and grinning like a damned fool. His black hair glistened in the candlelight, his brows like two slashes of devilry, and his smile rugged and beautiful.

“You find this amusing?” I asked, annoyed at the restless energy surging through me.

“Aye. Highly.” He stopped treading and stood on the bottom, rising a bit higher, the water reaching his chest. “Your people don’t bathe like this?”

“Of course they do. We servants don’t have such luxury. Just a small tub by a kitchen fire.” A tray of scented candles floated by, and I directed it in front of me. As a barrier it was pathetic, but it was something at least.

He studied me, those amber eyes taking on a thoughtful glint. “You have never lain with a male, have you?”

I groaned, utterly humiliated. I wanted to sink under the water and never come up.

“There’s no shame in it. You are well of age. Beyond it, in fact.”

With every word, my anger mounted. “I know that.”

“No male servants or guards then?”

I let out a pent up breath and rolled my eyes to the vaulted rock ceiling. “Who would have me, Balen?”

He’d seen how I was treated in Murias. How most Danaans regarded me. No need to explain it further and doing so was just an exercise in pity.