Chapter 18: Waters of Devotion
Silverwood Keep wasn’t a keep so much as a stubborn stone box clinging to a wooded hillside. Its walls were thick, but vines had cracked the mortar in a dozen places. The air inside was cold and still, smelling of dust and old hearth ashes. It felt less like a sanctuary and more like a forgotten tomb.
“Charming,” Freir remarked, kicking a collapsed stool out of his path. “My fondest childhood memories. The damp, mostly.”
“It’s defensible,” Kellen said, already moving from window to window, his gaze assessing sight lines and approaches. “One staircase. A single gate. Easy to watch.”
Jared didn’t comment. He’d gone pale during the final hour of the ride, a fine sheen of sweat on his brow despite the chill. He leaned heavily against the great stone fireplace, his breath coming a little too quick.
“You need to clean that wound,” Clara said. Her voice sounded too loud in the hollow room.
“It’s fine,” Jared grunted.
“It’s not. You’re getting feverish.” She turned to Freir. “You said there were hot springs here.”
“Downstairs. A natural grotto. My ancestors apparently enjoyed a scalding soak while pondering invasions.” Freir waved a dismissive hand. “It’ll be filthy.”
“Boiling water is boiling water,” Clara said, a note of her old, imperial practicality surfacing. “We need to clean his bandages. We need to clean him.”
Kellen glanced at Jared, then gave a short, sharp nod. “I’ll scout the perimeter. Secure what passes for a gate.” He looked at Freir. “You should check the upper rooms. Make sure we’re truly alone.”
It was an obvious maneuver to separate them. Freir’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t argue. The unspoken tension from the hunter’s blind still hung between them all, a fourth, invisible presence in the dusty keep.
“Don’t get lost,” Freir said, and headed for the crumbling stairwell.
Clara found the stairs leading down behind a warped wooden door. The air grew warmer, heavier, smelling of minerals and wet rock. At the bottom, a crude archway opened into a cavern.
It was breathtaking.
Moonlight filtered through cracks in the ancient ceiling high above, casting shifting, silver beams onto a pool of water that steamed and shimmered. The stone around it was smooth and dark, slick with emerald moss. The heat was immediate, a welcome embrace that loosened the knots in Clara’s shoulders she hadn’t even acknowledged.
Jared followed her down, his steps slower. He stood at the edge, gazing into the luminous water. “I can manage from here,” he said, but his voice lacked its usual conviction.
“You can’t reach it properly,” Clara said. She kept her tone clinical, detached. “You’ll tear the stitches. Sit on the ledge. I’ll do it.”
He hesitated, then sank down with a barely suppressed groan. Clara knelt beside him, the damp stone seeping through her trousers. She avoided his eyes, focusing on the knot of the makeshift bandage at his side. Her fingers trembled slightly as she worked it loose.
The wound was angry, the skin around the neat stitches red and swollen. It needed to be cleaned. Badly.
“You need to get in,” she said.
“Clara—”
“It’s not a suggestion.” She stood and turned her back, giving him a semblance of privacy. She heard the rustle of fabric, the heavy drop of his boots, then a long, pained hiss as he lowered himself into the hot water.
“Okay,” he breathed out after a moment. “Okay, that’s… good.”
She turned back. He was submerged to his chest, his head tipped back against the stone rim, eyes closed. The water swirled around him, cloudy for a moment from the journey’s grime. The powerful lines of his shoulders were etched in the soft, hazy light. He looked younger like this, stripped of his armor and title, just a man in pain.
Without overthinking it, she pulled off her own boots and outer tunic. She kept on the thin linen shirt and trousers, now stained and damp, and waded into the pool at a distance from him. The heat was incredible, soaking into her bones, washing away the chill of fear and the forest. She sank down until the water reached her shoulders, letting out a sigh she’d been holding for days.
She felt his gaze before she saw it.
When she looked over, his green eyes were open, fixed on her. They weren’t gentle now. They were dark, intense, tracking a droplet of water as it slid from the wet tendrils of her hair down the line of her neck, disappearing beneath the soaked fabric of her shirt.
The air in the grotto, already thick with steam, felt charged.
Clara made no move to cover herself. She just held his look, the water lapping silently between them. Her heart was a slow, heavy drum in her chest.
With a low sound that was part sigh, part groan, Jared pushed off from the wall. He moved through the water toward her, the movement causing slow, rippling waves. He stopped when he was close, the heat of his body palpable even through the scalding water.
“This is a bad idea,” he murmured, but his hands came up anyway, settling on her waist beneath the surface.
“Probably,” she whispered back.
He pulled her gently, and she let him, until she was settled across his thighs, her legs drifting to either side of his hips. The new position sent a jolt of awareness through her. She could feel the hard muscle of his legs, the firm plane of his stomach, the stark contrast of his skin against the rough wet linen of her clothes.
One of his large hands came up to cradle her jaw, his thumb stroking her cheekbone. “Let me worship you properly,” he said, his voice gravelly with something more than pain. “Just for a minute. Let me pretend.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He bent his head and pressed his mouth to the pulse beating frantically in her throat. It wasn’t a hungry kiss like Freir’s. It was reverent. A slow, burning brand.
His other hand slid from her waist, gliding up her spine with a possessive tenderness that made her shiver. It mapped the knobs of her vertebrae through the thin cloth, then traced the line of her shoulder, pushing the soaked sleeve down her arm. His lips followed the path his hand had taken, trailing fire along her collarbone, the slope of her shoulder.
Clara’s head fell back. The sensation was overwhelming. It was warmth and pressure and a focused attention she had never, ever received. It wasn’t taking. It was… offering.
But when his hand drifted lower, skimming the curve of her hip, dipping toward her thigh, a cold fist of memory clenched in her gut. The Emperor’s groping, drunken hands. The Crown Prince’s cruel pinches, his laughing threats whispered in the dark halls. A lifetime of assaults disguised as duty.
Her body locked. A small, strangled sound escaped her.
Jared froze instantly. His lips stilled against her skin. He didn’t pull away, but every muscle in the body holding her went perfectly still.
“No,” she breathed out, the word barely audible over the bubbling spring.
He lifted his head. His eyes searched hers, and what he saw there—the fear, the ghosts—made his own expression shift from desire to something like devastation. “Clara.”
“Not… not all the way,” she managed, forcing the words past the tightness in her throat. “I can’t. Not yet.”
He nodded once, a sharp, understanding movement. “Alright.” His hands, which had been exploring, settled into simple, steady holds on her waist and shoulder. Anchors. “Tell me what’s alright.”
The permission was its own kind of shock. She had never been given a choice. Her entire life had been a sequence of endured violations.
“Here,” she whispered, guiding his hand back to her waist, under her shirt, letting his palm flatten against the skin of her ribcage. The heat of his touch was dizzying. “And… here.” She tilted her head, offering her throat again.
He accepted the offering with a heartbreaking softness. His mouth returned to her neck, his kisses slow and undemanding. His hand stayed where she’d placed it, a warm, heavy weight over her frantic heart. His other hand came up to weave into her hair, not to control, but to cradle.
He was a fortress of stillness around her, letting her set the pace, the boundaries. She trembled, and he just held her tighter, his breath warm against her damp skin.
They stayed like that for long minutes, the steam coiling around them. Clara felt something brittle inside her begin to thaw. It was terrifying. It was the first real thing she’d felt in years.
A sudden, sharp crack echoed from somewhere above. A footstep on rotten floorboards.
Jared’s head snapped up, his body tensing, transforming in an instant from lover back to soldier. Clara scrambled off his lap, the water sloshing loudly.
“Just a settling timber,” Jared murmured, but his eyes were locked on the staircase entrance, all softness gone. “Or not.”
He stood up in one fluid motion, water streaming from him. He reached for his tunic, wincing as the movement pulled at his side. “We’re exposed here. Come on.”
Clara waded to the edge, her soaked clothes clinging and heavy. The moment was shattered, the fragile sanctuary broken. As she climbed out, the cold air of the cavern hitting her heated skin, she looked back at Jared. He was already dressed, his face a mask of grim vigilance, but he met her eyes and gave her one last, lingering look.
It held the echo of his worship, and a new, fierce promise of protection.
Footsteps, deliberate this time, sounded on the stairs. Not Freir’s light tread, or Kellen’s cautious one.
These were slow. Heavy. Unfamiliar.
Unfamiliar.
Jared moved, a blur of wet fabric and controlled violence. He shoved Clara behind him, placing his body between her and the stairwell, his own discomfort forgotten. His hand went to his hip for a sword that wasn’t there.
A man stood framed in the archway.
He was older, his face leathery and lined from a lifetime of weather. He wore patched hides and worn boots caked in dried mud. In his hands was a long, well-used hunting bow, the arrow nocked but not drawn. His expression wasn’t angry or menacing. It was pure, open-mouthed astonishment.
“Well,” the hunter said, his voice a dry rasp. He lowered the bow tip toward the floor. “You’re not ghosts. And you’re certainly not the game I was tracking.”
“Who are you?” Jared demanded, his tone leaving no room for anything but an answer.
“Tomas. I lodge here sometimes when the deep woods are kind.” The hunter, Tomas, glanced between Jared’s defensive stance and Clara, peering from behind him, dripping and wide-eyed. “This place has been empty for years. His Highness Prince Freir never comes.”
“He’s here now,” Jared said, not relaxing an inch. “Upstairs.”
“Is he now.” Tomas didn’t sound impressed. He looked Jared over, eyes lingering on the dark, damp patch on his tunic where the wound seeped through. “You’ve got the look of Imperial Guard about you. Or what’s left of one. And you…” His gaze landed on Clara, thoughtful. “You don’t look like you’re built for forest living.”
More footsteps, rapid and light, descended the stairs. Freir appeared, a rusted dagger in his hand. He took in the scene: the armed hunter, the half-dressed, tense standoff. His amber eyes flickered with calculation, then he forced a casual smile that didn’t reach them.
“Tomas. You’re still alive.”
“Prince Freir.” Tomas gave a slow, shallow nod that was just shy of respectful. “My apologies. I heard water. Thought a spring had burst.”
“Just us, bursting in,” Freir said, his voice light. He leaned against the wall, but his grip on the dagger was tight. “We’re borrowing the place. You’re welcome to share the space, if you don’t mind the company.”
Tomas’s eyes narrowed slightly, assessing the offer. He looked at Jared’s wound again, then at Clara’s pale, shivering form. “You’re in trouble.”
“Aren’t we all,” Freir sighed, the feigned levity dropping. “The question is whether you care.”
For a long moment, the only sound was the soft, eternal bubble of the spring. Tomas finally shrugged, a slow movement of his shoulders. “Not my business. The woods are full of running things. Predators. Prey.” He un-nocked his arrow and slung the bow over his back. “I’ve a cot in the old gatehouse. I’ll be there. You won’t see me unless you need to.”
He turned to leave, then paused, looking back at Clara. “There’s a storeroom off the kitchen. Some old linens. Might find a dry dress. Better than catching your death.”
He left without another word, his footsteps fading back up the stone steps.
The tension in the grotto didn’t dissipate; it just changed shape.
“He knows,” Jared said, finally easing his stance. A flicker of pain crossed his features.
“Of course he knows,” Freir snapped, pushing off the wall. He raked a hand through his hair. “A wounded guard, a woman with palace skin, and me, all hiding in a ruin. He’s not a fool.” He looked at Clara, his gaze impersonal now, a strategist assessing a resource. “Get dry. The last thing we need is you feverish, too.”
Clara wrapped her arms around herself, the hunter’s eyes still feeling like a physical imprint. “Is he a danger?”
“Everyone’s a danger,” Freir said, turning to climb the stairs. “But he’s a practical one. If we don’t threaten his hide, he’ll likely ignore ours. For now.”
Jared waited until Freir was gone. He let out a long, shaky breath, the adrenaline clearly ebbing, leaving the pain in its wake. He looked at Clara. “You’re shivering.”
“I’m alright.”
“You’re not.” He stepped closer, ignoring his own condition. He picked up her discarded outer tunic, heavy with water, and draped it over her shoulders. It was a sodden, useless gesture. The kindness in it undid her a little. “Let’s find that storeroom.”
They found it. It smelled of mice and lavender, a forgotten sachet crumbling in a corner. On a shelf, wrapped in brittle oilcloth, was a simple wool dress, grey and unadorned. It was coarse against her skin, but it was dry.
When they returned to the main hall, Kellen was back. He stood by the cold hearth, listening as Freir spoke in a low, rapid tone, presumably about the hunter.
Kellen’s eyes found Clara in the dress, her hair dark and damp around her shoulders. His gaze was unreadable, but it tracked from her to Jared, noting their closeness. He said nothing.
Tomas kept his word. They heard no more from him. The keep felt less like a sanctuary than ever, its silence now shared with a stranger’s knowledge.
As the washed-out daylight began to fail, painting the high windows in shades of charcoal, the reality of their situation settled in. They were four fugitives and one accidental witness, holed up in a crumbling stone shell. Jared’s fever grew, a quiet, insistent heat radiating from him as he tried to rest by the feeble fire Kellen had managed to light.
Clara sat on a ragged blanket, watching the shadows deepen. Freir paced near the door, a restless predator. Kellen watched the window, his profile sharp against the dying light.
The hunter’s words echoed. Predators. Prey.
She didn’t know which they were anymore. But the running was over, for tonight. The walls here were real, and the world outside them was waiting.