Page 61 of The Prince's Mage

Aimilia eventually dragged Marcella into a kitchen and immediately was greeted by some of the kitchen girls. They chattered for a moment in their language and within a few seconds, one of them was handing Aimilia a basket and Aimilia was grabbing Marcella and dragging her back out.

At Marcella’s incredulous look, Aimilia hefted the basket up and huffed, “What? Not always evil.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Marcella said.

Aimilia was an interesting woman. It was a strange thing. How she seemed practically born to be a princess. Whether she was the spiteful, vicious girl who would rip anything in her way apart or the charming girl who could talk anyone into doing things her way, Marcella didn’t know.

She reminded Marcella a little bit of Hypatia. But in the privacy of her mind where only Asentai would ever know, she admitted she liked Aimilia better.

Aimilia led them out to an empty courtyard, not a training one thankfully. If Marcella never ate Inimicus dirt again, it would be too soon.

They ate quietly in the morning sunlight. Well, Marcella ate. Aimilia studied her.

Halfway through the meal, Marcella lowered her bread and asked, “What are you doing?”

Aimilia gestured to all of her and said, “Planning fix.”

Marcella just rolled her eyes and went back to her breakfast.

Once she was finished, Aimilia didn’t waste a second before grabbing Marcella and dragging her around again, saying, “Time important. Go before other women. Vicious creatures they are without their clothes.”

What?

Marcella was positive Aimilia had chosen the wrong word, but she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what she’d meant instead.

The next time they stepped out of the palace and into a courtyard, there was a freestanding building on the other side. She’d never seen it before, but when she opened her mouth to ask what it was and what they were doing, she was already being pulled inside it.

It was… a mostly empty room with a few shelves with towels, wash cloths, and bottles of oils and soaps. Aimilia set the basket down and pulled out what Marcella hadn’t even seen in it before—two plain, clean chitons—and set them on a shelf before grabbing a towel and some of the bottles. She looked over her shoulder at Marcella and said, “Come. Not bathe where you from?”

That’s what this was?

Marcella was a solider. She bathed with a washbasin and scrap of cloth in her room like she had been ever since arriving in Areator, or if she was particularly bad, she went down to the stream with the other clan women of a lesser status. Important clan women like Hypatia had a tub filled with heated water.

They did not have whole buildings set aside for the task.

Marcella started to move toward the shelves when Aimilia just unclasped her chiton and pulled it off. Marcella immediately turned her head.

Marcella had never enjoyed the strange, vulnerable feeling it was to bathe in the stream with the other clan women, and those women she’d known her entire life and a few of them she could name the great-grandparent they had in common, but this—

Aimilia muttered under her breath before switching back to Marcella’s language. “Oh. You—Your people are little better than savage and yet this bothers you? Just—clothes off and go to right. See nothing. But not optional. Disaster.”

Marcella let out some kind of affirmation as she kept her eyes closed and facing away from Aimilia. She wrapped her arms around her stomach as she listened to Aimilia’s footsteps fade away.

Aimilia was noble, so lowering herself to bathe in the same space as Marcella was disconcerting enough, but—

Marcella opened her eyes and started untying the knots holding her sleeves together, biting her lip as she could see faint scars running along her vitae paths. Marcella herself had never let herself truly take stock of the visible reminder of her time on the table, much less let anyone else see it. Especially not the girl who was supposed to be the one Gavril chose.

And Marcella didn’t let herself take stock today. With shaking hands she shoved her peplos aside, grabbed a towel and some of the soaps and oils and hurried after Aimilia, draping the towel around herself to hide as much of her skin as possible even if it would ruin the true pristine cleanliness of the linen.

When she found the room Aimilia was in, a pool low into the ground with water, Aimilia was already in it, her towel and bottles behind her and eyes closed. Marcella hurried to set her things on the edge and slipped into the water, going all the way up to her neck, soaking her curls and letting them fan out to help hide her as well as the water in the dim lighting.

Once she was situated, Aimilia cracked an eye open and immediately huffed at her and set to work, grabbing her bottle and starting to scrub her hair. She paused to gesture to Marcella’s curls and said, “No idea. Do what you can. I will fix what it dries to be.”

Marcella immediately sagged a little in relief when Aimilia either did not notice the scars or did not care in the wake of her inability to deal with curly clan hair. Aimilia’s was as straight as a pin.

Marcella dipped her hair into the water and scrubbed it and her skin with the soaps, getting off sweat and dirt. The water was also blessedly warm the way she’d always imagined Hypatia’s bathing water was but would never truly know since she was used to freezing creeks or tepid basins.

As Aimilia wrung out her hair, she spoke softly for the first time that morning, “Thank you.”

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