She wasn’t supposed to feel like this after intercourse. Usually, she was sated, happy, full of life. Not on the verge of sobbing.
“I need some air.” She rushed toward the exit, not even waiting for his answer. Throwing it open, a gust of cool night air greeted her. She passed through without another word, and slammed the door behind her.
38
Biyu probably shouldn’t have walkedas much as she did, but she couldn’t stop pacing around the village. She rounded the entire place twice. There were twenty-two homes in total, five places of business, an overgrown shrine of some long-forgotten being, and a few fenced areas full of dead animals—chickens, mostly. The place still reeked of death and rot, and vultures picked at the remaining bodies thejiangshihadn’t completely eviscerated and drained. Biyu avoided those streets; she didn’t like looking at the corpses.
She felt selfish for not even thinking of burying the dead like Nikator had thought to do. There were so many things that she didn’t know about. Like how she should have been the first to suggest staying and fighting off whatever beast had done such carnage—something Nikator had suggested when they first entered here. And now this; she hadn’t thought about the dead. Her thoughts had been to run away and ask the authorities to take care of the mess.
How selfish of her. How small-minded.
She was still a naïve, sheltered princess. Reading books and scrolls had done nothing to expand her practical knowledge, it seemed. She didn’t know much about the world.
Her mind traveled to a dark place of self-loathing, regret, and guilt. She kept picking apart her every action. Here, in the village, and further back.
She needed something to distract her mind. What did she used to do in the palace whenever she needed a chance to breathe, relax,think?
A bath. That’s what she needed.
Normally, Lin would come to her bedchambers and the swarm of maidservants would ready her evening bath for her, but there was no one to do such things now. She would have to figure it out herself. Even a simple task as this strained her mind. So much thinking was required beyond simplyasking.
At the palace, she simply asked for breakfast, and it was given to her. She asked for a bath, and it was readied. She asked for a new dress, and it was made for her.
Here, she had to scavenge for her food, cook it, taste it. She had to search for used, tattered dresses that belonged to a dead woman. She had to look for a tub and fill it with water. It changed her world view completely; yes, she had been a prisoner in the palace, but she’d been privileged at the same time. There likely wasn’t a prisoner out there who was treated better. But admitting that stung too much; it made everything she had gone through as a prisoner seem … justified. And she didn’t want to think like that.
Biyu found a wooden tub in one of the houses near the one they were staying at. It was small, with only enough room for her to sit cross-legged inside. She wouldn’t be able to stretch and lie down and relax. But it would have to do.
She went to the village well and yanked on the pulley, filled a pail with water, and carried it to the house. One after another. Her arms strained, sweat rolled off her forehead, and her back ached from the weight. But she kept it up. Her mind was already numb, so what did it matter if her body ached?
When she had filled the bath completely, she searched for new clothes to wear; her current dress was too soiled with blood, sweat, and grime. It didn’t take her long to find a poor woman’s dress folded away in a dresser. It was a faded green color, worn out and scratchy—so unlike her fine silk dresses—but it would do.
Biyu stripped out of her dress and let it pool at her ankles. She stepped out of the clothes and into the tub. The cold water jolted her and she shivered as she sank into it. Water cascaded over the rim, sloshing on the creaky wooden floors. She could have warmed the bathwater with her fire, but she preferred this discomfort. It kept her miserable.
She took the round ball of soap she had found and began lathering it over her body. She scrubbed, and scrubbed, but the hollowness in her chest only yawned wider with each swipe. Even the bath wasn’t relaxing her strained mind.
Nikator didn’t love her. He might have desired her—a weakness of the flesh—but he didn’twanther.
Whatever was between them had been expended in those fervent moments. He had used her body and taken his fill in order to forget her, in order to have one last taste before he barred himself from her completely. It wasn’t enough for her. She could never tire of him. And yethecould. Her heart stung at how coldly he’d treated her after such intimacy.
Could Nikator feel her messy emotions through the bond? He knew how to erect a barrier around his own mind to keep her out of it, but she knew no such skill. He likely could feel everything she could—her pain, her anguish, her sadness—but he didn’t come to comfort her or see her.
Maybe she wasn’t worth it.
In his mind, she was a cruel woman capable of so much harm. Capable of abandoning him.
She lathered the soap in her hair and washed her hair until it gleamed. Until all traces of him—the blood, his sweat, his touch—were washed off her flesh. Until she was simply Biyu.
The door rattled and she jerked upright. Maybe another creature had snuck inside the village, drawn by the bloodshed and carnage? Maybe?—
Nikator shoved the door open and it slammed against the wall. His breathing was labored, his skin a pallid color, and his expression twisted into a dark scowl. When his gaze landed on her, relief washed over him. So palpable it cinched her heart with unexpected warmth.
“Were you here this whole time?” He entered the home, hand pressed on the wall to steady himself. A strenuous sigh wrenched from his lungs. Tired—he looked so, so tired. As if he had been running around the whole village, frantically searching for her, his clothes sticking to his sweat-slicked body, his injuries weeping more scarlet on his fresh bandages. But that wasn’t possible.
Biyu blinked at him stupidly, then remembered herself. She frowned bitterly. “I wasn’t trying to run away, if that’s what you were thinking.”
He stilled, sharp eyes narrowing. “You could have, but you didn’t.”
“Did you check the stables first?”
