It was abandoned but still ornate, built completely out of white marble. They had entered from its highest peak—the rest was buried in ice, trapped in the forever winter that was Moon Isle. She followed Oro down floor by floor until they reached the top of a grand staircase.
The wide steps led down to what must have been the main floor once upon a time.
Now it was completely underwater.
Somehow, the furniture remained tethered; everything in the room below looked perfectly in place. Just ... submerged.
Oro began taking off his clothing.
Isla whirled to face him. “What are you doing?”
He glanced at her. “There are creatures in that water that won’t be easy to face. I don’t need to be weighed down or give them something to choke me with.” His cape was now discarded on the ground. His shirt soon joined it.
Isla stared, though everything in her mind told her not to. Oro looked remarkably like the marble statues on Moon Isle, his chest and arms muscled like a warrior, toned as sharply as a blade.
More than half of him had now been overcome by the bluish gray. He was part gold, part ice sculpture. She studied him, wondering if it hurt to lose one’s powers, to die slowly, inch by inch.
She looked for other reasons too.
Oro stared back at her, surprised. “I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of bodies before,” he said flatly.
Isla bristled. He hadn’t said it meanly, more matter-of-factly, and she supposed she couldn’t blame his assumption. AtrueWildling, even a powerless one, would have seen countless naked bodies. They were famed for their romantic conquests.
A fact—nothing more.
Isla swallowed. “Of course I have,” she said a bit too quickly.
Oro raised an eyebrow, sensing her lack of curse wasn’t the only thing that distinguished her from her people.
He took a step forward, still shirtless. Tilted his golden head at her. “Tell me, Wildling ... howmanypeople have you been with?”
Isla’s face flushed. She barely resisted the urge to slap him. “What kind of question is that?” she demanded. In her realm, love was forbidden. But intimacy was not shied away from. It wascelebrated.
He seemed to know it, and his expression became even more surprised. “A curious one.” He shrugged. “I’ve been with many women. It’s not something I deny.”
Isla sneered at him. “Well, that must have been a long time ago, judging by how uptight and insufferable you are.”
The sides of Oro’s mouth twitched. Amused. “That might be so. But you didn’t answer my question.”
“And I won’t,” she said, glaring at him. He grinned. Was he laughing at her?
For some reason, she was compelled to prove him wrong. To wipe the smirk off his wretched face. Without breaking Oro’s gaze, she unbuttoned her cape and let it fall to the floor. She slipped off her oversize shirt and pants until she was only in the clothes she wore beneath, over her underclothes. A tiny tank top that reached just above her navel and a pair of high-waisted, tight shorts that ended high on her thigh.
She wasn’t in her underwear, but only wearing scraps of fabric, she felt bare in front of him.
Oro stood very still.
She shrugged, trying her best to look carefree. “It’s just skin,” she said, her voice slightly breathless.
“Just skin,” he repeated, his mouth barely moving.
She walked past him, down the steps of the stairs. Until her feet splashed. Until the water reached her knees. She heard him slip off hispants, then socks, then shoes. She shivered, the cold biting every inch of exposed skin.
A moment later he was by her side, just in undershorts. This time, she looked away. A bit reluctantly.
“Water lilies grow here,” he said, not looking at her either. “The ones you pointed out in the mountain.” Isla remembered that day, which seemed realms away. “You said something like the heart might attach to their roots, correct?”
He glanced at her, and she simply nodded.
