Page 75 of Burning Crowns

‘And you weren’t being half as annoying as usual,’ he added, quickly. ‘I was coming to miss your irritating smugness.’

Wren splashed him. ‘Youare the smug one!’

‘Me?’ he said, drenching her back. ‘I was merely trying to match you.’

She laughed and he joined in, the sound echoing around them.

Alarik leaned back, looking up at the ceiling. ‘Tell me a story. You’re good at that.’

‘I used all my best stories on the way up here.’

‘That can’t be true. You’re bursting with stories.’

‘How do you know?’

He shrugged. ‘Because you’ve lived wildly. You weren’t raised as a princess. You were raised by the elements.’

‘And my grandmother,’ Wren reminded him.

‘Who was something of an element herself.’

Wren smiled. ‘Itwasa bit like growing up in a storm.’

‘Tell me more about the storm, Wren.’

So Wren did. For an hour or more, they sat side by side, letting the steam lick their skin clean as they talked about their childhoods. Alarik’s spent in the Fovarr Mountains, hunting, trekking, watching his father rule with an iron fist. Wren spoke of Ortha, of the cliffs that roughened her palms by the time she was five years old. He asked to see them and she held them up. On and on they went, trundling through the stories that made them who they were: guarded, clever, careful. The people who raised them. The people they had lost.

All the while, the water stayed clear around them, and yet in all these long months, Wren had never felt so far from the pain inside her. She began to hope that perhaps the healing bath was working. That even though they couldn’t see it, the curse was dissolving.

‘Now that you’ve told me about all the beasts that have tried to eat you over the years, tell me something nice,’ said Wren, after a while. ‘Such as where you managed to get thattinysliver of charm from.’

He wagged his finger at her. ‘Careful, witch. You’re in grave danger of being nice to me.’

She flicked water at him.

He slipped into another tale. Without meaning to, Wren leaned in to listen. ‘In the spring, when I was a boy, my mother and I would get up before sunrise to skate together.She used to twirl like a dancer across the lake. It was mesmerizing.’ He smiled at the memory. ‘I would try to match her only to fail miserably every time. I’ve never eaten so much ice.’ He raised his chin, drawing closer until Wren could see the thin white scar on the underside of his chin. ‘Of all my scars, this one is my favourite.’

‘What a thing to say,’ murmured Wren.

He looked at her, his lowered lashes casting a shadow along his cheeks. The moment stretched, silent, loaded, the steam so thick it felt as if it was pressing in on them.

Wren hinged backwards. ‘Banba always hated when I slept past sunrise,’ she said, breathless. ‘Once, she tried to spook me out of bed by pretending to be a ghoul. She wore this huge black cloak over her head and stuck giant branches down her sleeves to make her arms look far longer than they really were.’

Wren rose out of the water, sticking her hands above her head to try to convey the shape of the monster. ‘She stomped through the hut and kicked the door open until she filled up the doorway.’ She waved her hands about, mimicking what Banba had done. Alarik broke into laughter and Wren joined in, until tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘I’ve never screamed so much in my life. Thea came running. She thought I was being murdered.’

She slumped on to the edge of the bath, enjoying the cool air on her face. She didn’t realize how hot the water was until she was half out of it again.

Alarik stopped laughing. She looked down at him. His eyes fell, from her face, to the column of her neck, and then to her white chemise which was plastered to her chest. And completely see-through. ‘Wren,’ he said, the word hoarse.

Wren slinked back into the water. Now it was nowhere near as hot as her cheeks. Embarrassment roared in her ears. She had not come here for this. She had come to seek respite from the pain of the curse, and even though the water ran clear around her, it had been working. Hadn’t it?

Alarik swallowed hard. ‘We’re not here to do that again,’ he said, echoing her thoughts.

She rounded on him. ‘Dowhatagain?’

He lowered his chin, meeting her gaze. ‘Let’s not play this game.’

‘If you’re referring to the blizzard, that wasyourfault,’ she said.

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