Flamecaster (Shattered Realms, #1)(64)

Ash waited a minute or two to make sure they were gone, then stripped off his filthy clothes and dropped them on the floor. Wearing only his amulet, he eased into the hot water gratefully, despite the stinging of the wound on his leg and all his bumps and bruises from the cellar. He sank down to his chin and soaked. Despite his best intentions, he promptly fell asleep.

When he awoke, he noticed to his chagrin that someone had been in and taken his clothes away. New clothes were laid across a chair. He decided he’d better finish up before anyone else intruded. First he washed his face again and rinsed his eyes before he got soap in the water. Then, using the soap and scrub brushes, he scrubbed himself from head to toe, cleaning out the wound on his leg as well as he could. It looked like a clean cut, and not too deep.

It was hard to get out of the water. Despite the fire on the hearth, the room was chilly. He climbed out and wrapped a towel around himself. As if by signal, the bathing girls burst back through the door, bringing warm towels to dry him off with. This time, Ash submitted. He was too tired to resist.

“You look much better, sir, without that layer of dirt,” the smaller girl said approvingly. She ran the tips of her fingers over the muscles on his chest, raising gooseflesh. “We don’t see many men who work with their backs for a living. It looks well on you. And you’ve a fine backside, too, if I may say so. It’s all muscles, not like them who sit all day.”

“He has a nice frontside, too,” the bigger girl said, elbowing the smaller one. “That’s a fancy neckpiece you got on,” she said, reaching for his amulet.

“Don’t touch that!” Ash yanked it out of reach.

“I wasn’t going to steal it,” the girl said, pouting a little.

“How did you cut your leg then?” the small girl asked. “Looks like a bad gash.”

“I don’t know how that happened,” Ash said.

They had a basket of fragrant lotions and ointments that they wanted to use on his burned face and the cut on his leg, but he refused. He thought of asking for his remedy bag from the stables, but then remembered that it was likely either burned up or lying somewhere in the maze of passages in the cellar.

The servants finally left him on his own to get dressed. The clothing that had been left for him consisted of smallclothes and a tunic and trousers in a soft, plain-woven fabric of a dark brown color, like bark. They were comfortable and fit as if they had been made to size. There were soft brown boots, also. He wondered what had happened to his old clothes, in case he was expected to give these back when his audience with the king was over.

He padded barefoot to the door and opened it a crack. The bathing girls were gone, but two blackbirds stood just outside. They both turned and looked at him, hands on the hilts of their swords. He closed the door and sighed. He sat down in one of the chairs by the fire, feeling trapped and helpless and half-sick and hungry and dead tired. It would take a while to recover from healing Hamon, and in the meantime he’d be close to helpless.

Well, sul’Han, he thought, you were hot to get into the palace, and here you are. Maybe when he had a little power on board, he could take advantage of it.

He lay down on the bed and was almost asleep again when he heard voices raised out in the hallway. This went on for a few minutes, some kind of argument, and then the door opened. It was Lila, still wearing the clothes she’d had on in the courtyard—a white blouse, black skirt, and deep blue overdress with a laced bodice.

Ash sat bolt upright and swung his legs over the side of the bed, suddenly wide-awake.

Lila put a finger to her lips, closed the door, waited a minute, and put her ear to it. Then she circled the room, poking behind draperies and tapestries and looking under the bed. She crossed the room and stood over him, hands on hips, and said, “Have you lost your mind, princeling? It wasn’t enough that assassins tried to murder you in your bed? I saved your ass, and this is the thanks I get? You turtle my wine and come straight here so they can have another go?”

One thing you had to say about Lila: she knew how to launch an offense.

Ash just looked at her and said nothing. He was no wordsmith, but experience had taught him that silence was often the winning hand where Lila was concerned.

“Well? What the hell are you doing here?” She held his gaze for a moment or two, as if that might get her a response, then began pacing back and forth next to the bed. “What were you thinking, using magic in the middle of the courtyard? I know you’re a rum healer, but you couldn’t let somebody else be the hero this one time?”

“If I had, Hamon would be dead,” Ash said evenly.

“That’s beside the point,” Lila said, likely because she knew it was true. “Nobody expects you to sacrifice yourself to save somebody else.”

“I’m the reason he got burned,” Ash said. “I had a certain obligation to fix him.”

Lila stopped pacing and swung around. “What are you talking about?”

“Never mind,” Ash said. The less information he divulged to Lila the better, until he figured out her game. “Why are you here? Aside from badgering me, I mean?”

“I’m supposed to ask you if there are any herbs or remedies you might need beyond the standard sort so I can be on the lookout for them.”

“I mean, why are you in Ardenscourt? Is this where you’ve been spending your summers? Cozying up to the king of Arden? You could’ve mentioned that the two of you were friends.”