More alive.
Almost like it is calling me.
Here.
Come here.
Come home.
I fix what little remains of my volition upon it, shut out every other possibility, and with a mental push from somewhere deep within, allow myself to be swept forward through the void. There is a rush of blinding white, a burst of nauseating speed, and then, with an abruptness that stupefies the senses, I am deposited out of the ephemeral plane and back into the real world. My bones reassemble, my tendons and sinews stitching back together in the space of a blink. Solid once more, I lurch forward out of the portal, landing hard on my hands and knees.
Bless the Goddess of Souls for not claiming mine this day.
For a few long seconds, I attempt to find my composure—dragging a series of tremulous breaths into my nose and out through my mouth, waiting for the nausea and disorientation to subside. Waiting for my scattered thoughts to sort themselves into something resembling normal cognition. When at last they do, I open my eyes to a luminous white floor of pure quartz. I blink at it several times, hoping it will shift into the solid, black-veined stone I expected to see. Hoping, gods,prayingthat my sight is deceiving me.
When several hard blinks do nothing to alter the smooth crystalline surface, I drag in a breath that is heavy with the intoxicating scent of jasmine, then force myself to look up.
Suspicion solidifies into reality.
Not Caeldera.
Not even close.
I am in a circular chamber, illuminated by flickering candlelight. Every surface is crafted from the same white mineral, from the walls to the ceiling columns to the expansive bathing pool that takes up half the floor. Moonlight suffuses the crystal, setting the entire space aglow. It is as if I’ve stepped inside an earthbound star.
The sunken tub is large enough to fit ten but, at present, contains a sole occupant—one who rises with breathtaking slowness from the steaming water, plants his hands on his naked hips, and stares down at me sprawled on his floor with unguarded amusement.
“If you were so desperate to see me in the nude, skylark, you merely had to ask. No need to sneak into my bathhouse in the middle of the night.”
Still sprawled on my hands and knees, I can only gape up at the King of Llyr. Water sluices down his muscular form, dripping from his dark head of hair, running off long, tanned limbs. It beads on his broad chest, where the dark whorls of his Remnant spiral outward across one well-defined pectoral. I watch several droplets descend past the mark, beyond the rippled indentations of his abdominal muscles to the line of hair that trails down toward his—
Skies.
My eyes jerk upward. Color sears my cheeks, hot as a flame.
“Soren!”
One dark brow arches. Otherwise, he moves not a muscle. “Yes?”
“You—You’re—” I scramble to my feet, heart pounding hard enough to bruise the inside of my chest cavity. “You’renaked,” I hiss, finally finding my voice.
“Mmm. I generally do not bathe fully clothed. Rather defeats the purpose.”
Staunchly refusing to look lower than his chin, I splutter, “That’s not what I—I did not mean—”
His other brow arches sardonically.
“Could youplease,” I force out firmly, “cover yourself with something?”
“Why? Is my nudity bothering you?”
My teeth clench. I turn my head so I am looking at the wall. In the flickering candlelight, the shadows dance across the quartz’s many facets like players on a stage.
“My, my.” He makes atsksound. “What a prude you are. I’d have thought after all those years of stitching wounds and soothing fevers, a bit of male flesh would not fluster you so.”
My head whips back around to glare at him—a mistake, for he is still standing tall in the bathwater, his manhood completely exposed. I clap a hand across my eyes.
“I am not a prude. I simply have no wish to witness such an unattractive form at this proximity.”