Chapter 16

CHAPTER16

Lore tried to keep the lighthearted nature of their conversation going while they made their way to the mouth of a cave. This one differed greatly from the one she and Goliath had stood at, waiting to go deep into the earth together. She remembered that one was a little muddy and old, surprising that it was even still open.

The opening that Mirin led them to was clean and gleaming with metal that held it open at the top. The brackets made the descent appear much safer than she ever expected.

All around the edges were pretty little embellishments. Runes for safety, a few carved deities that she assumed the dwarves worshiped. All depictions that were pretty and made with an artistic hand.

A small cart waited for them at the mouth of the cave, set up on rail systems that definitely wouldn’t carry all of them. Mirin seemed to hesitate when he caught her looking at the cart, but then he shook his head. “We don’t use those for travel, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Oh, thank goodness. She couldn’t get in that metal box and plummet into the darkness. Lore remembered what it looked like in those tunnels. She remembered the dark, and the echoes of creatures crawling along the walls.

Just imagining diving into those shadows made her heart race. She couldn’t do it, even if that was the only way to get into that home.

“Ah,” she replied, trying to hide her embarrassment at thinking they used them to travel. “Very good.”

“I can arrange for someone to bring something to help if you’re needing transportation.” Mirin rubbed the back of his neck, a nervous tick she thought, while looking up and down her body. “I thought you were fine, but I don’t know how to tell if an elf is injured.”

“I’m not injured,” she rushed to interrupt. “I’m fine, really. Thank you.”

Abraxas eyed her with a narrowed gaze, watching her for any signs of danger before they all started into the cave. He knew what it was like when she got overwhelmed and these days it was… well. Not safe for anyone else around her.

Lore had expected the cave to be the same as her previous visit. A massive hole with dirt floors and barely held up ceilings. A questionable entrance into a kingdom that was grand and massive. Instead, she was surprised yet again. Metal plates covered every inch of the ceiling. The floor was earth, but quickly turned into polished stone with carefully abraded surfaces where people were meant to walk.

Lights glimmered on the wall, some torches, but most orbs of magic that lit everything almost as bright as daylight. The glow from the polished stone reflected all the lights into a mirror effect that made it difficult to remember they were even underground.

“I’m bringing you right to the king first,” Mirin said. “He’s been waiting to see you, and I know that he’ll be excited to hear you’ve finally arrived. Hopefully, we can all settle in after that. If you don’t mind meeting my mum right off the bat, I think you could stay with us. She likes visitors, you see. She’s a bit odd of a woman, but she makes the best honey pies.”

Lore stopped listening to him after all that. She hadn’t expected to meet a king today, and knowing that she was going to do so while covered in sweat and bog water wasn’t exactly reassuring.

But she wanted to know why the dwarves were so interested in her, and why they had been waiting for her arrival for such a long time. They clearly had thought she would come to them first. But that made little sense at all. She’d never been friends with the dwarves, other than Goliath. And he’d been cast out of his family years ago.

So what had changed? Or, she supposed, what was she unaware of?

Her thoughts ran wild in her head until Mirin froze in the center of the tunnel. She could see light at the end of it, the main part of the dwarven home she supposed. Then he turned to look at her and his jaw dropped open.

“I forgot you’ve been traveling.” His eyes widened with horror as he took them all in. “No, this won’t do. You can’t see the king like this!”

Lore glanced down at her muddy clothing and bog water covered arms. “I was thinking the same thing myself, but then I assumed it was a matter of great importance that your king see me soon.”

“It is!” Mirin slapped his hands to his cheeks and groaned. “But if I bring in the Fallen Star looking like that, they’ll all question if you are who you say you are! You look terrible, miss. I don’t mean that as an insult, but you look like you’ve been rolling around with the pigs.”

The second part was definitely an insult. Crossing her arms, Lore glared down at him. “Then what do you propose, master dwarf?”

His eyes darted around them before he muttered, “Nothing to be done about it. I’ll just have to fight the others off. No one is presenting you to himself other than me, that’s for certain. Follow me, you three. We’ve got a bathing house to clear out.”

They abruptly changed directions, and Lore had to assume this was a good thing. She could use a good bath, so could her two companions, and... she just wanted to feel clean again. It had been a while, and the salt grit in her hair was still there from a week ago.

Abraxas placed his hand on the small of her back as steam filled the tunnel around them. “I think our guide has lost his head.”

“And just a few moments ago, he’d suggested we were the ones to have done so.”

“Should we point it out?”

Lore glanced at the young man, who had leaned into an adjoining tunnel and started shouting. “No. Let’s let him have his moment.”

Amused, she watched as three dwarves exited the tunnel he’d shouted into. A few of the dwarves had robes on, and one of them was wrapped in nothing but a towel. They all glared at Mirin, who seemed all too smug for having kicked them out. Until they turned around and saw her. Then their jaws hung open and their eyes widened in shock, as though they couldn’t believe who was right in front of them.

Lore gave them a little wave, after which all three of the young men turned bright red and skittered away. They ran like hounds nipped at their heels, and she could only assume that meant they were racing off to tell whoever they could that they had seen the Fallen Star.

What a name.

She much preferred the others, and that was saying something. Lore didn’t like any of the names she’d been given, other than her namesake from her mother. That was it. The more people who called her just Lore, the better.

Mirin bowed low, one arm held out to his side. “For you, Lady of Starlight. The baths are just around the corner. There are plenty of towels and soaps should you wish to use them. Of course, if it is not up to your standards, then please don’t hesitate to ask for something else. I can go fetch you whatever you need.”

Lore glanced down at her clothes before wryly grinning at him. “If I am to be clean, I’m afraid these will need to be washed as well.”

His eyes nearly bugged out of his head. She wondered if that reaction was because he’d forgotten, or because he was imagining her without clothes on. She liked to think it was the latter, only because the young man really did seem rather innocent.

He cleared his throat and nodded. “Right. You all need clothes. I don’t think we have anything big enough for him. But you two, I can probably find something that’ll work.”

She felt Abraxas roll his eyes. Her dragon growled, “I will be fine in the clothes I arrived in.”

“Good.” Mirin took a step away from them and backed into Beauty. He whirled with an apology already blurting past his lips. “Sorry. Beauty. Right, you need to get clean as well. And then clothing. And I’ll try to find some soap that is satisfactory. Perhaps you would like food as well before meeting the king? Shall I—”

Beauty sighed and rolled her eyes up to the ceiling. “I’ll go with him. Just leave some water clean for me, will you?”

Lore had to bite her lip, so she didn’t burst out laughing yet again. She nodded gravely at Beauty. “I will trust my fashion to you, Beauty. Make sure I look good for meeting their king.”

If she said any more, she was afraid Mirin might faint. The dwarf hustled Beauty away with his hand on her lower back as he muttered about making haste, and if anyone tried to claim the Fallen Star while he was gone, he would have their beard.

Rolling her eyes, Lore turned back to the tunnel that would lead them to the baths and sighed. “Do you think it’s really a bath down there? Or are we about to be ambushed by dwarves who have been waiting to meet me for years?”

“Only one way to find out.” Abraxas held out his hand for her to take, and Lore didn’t hesitate. Anywhere he was, she would go as well.

Together they walked down the tunnel and turned the bend to find themselves surrounded by natural hot springs. There appeared to be four of them. Each one with steam coiling up from the water and filling the air with a wet humidity that made her shirt stick to her chest.

Little glass vials lined the edges of these baths, each one likely filled with some kind of liquid soap that would clean the hair or the body. She could only hope one of them didn’t make her want to sneeze. Towels were kept in a glass cabinet wall at the end of the cavern, neatly rolled and stacked in little pyramids.

This was... lovely. She was surprised to find so many creature comforts here. The dwarves really knew how to live.

“Come,” Abraxas said, his voice low and appreciative of what they’d been given. “Let’s distract ourselves for a few moments. Shall we?”

“We don’t know when another dwarf will walk into the room. Do we want to give them an eyeful?”

He arched a dark brow. “I’m sure they’d appreciate seeing everything they could of you, but seeing my bare ass would scar them for the rest of their lives.”

“Probably, but we’ll never know unless we try.” She smiled at him, although the expression felt a little fragile. “I know you aren’t suggesting we do anything untoward.”

“No, I am not.” His fingers ghosted at the edge of her shirt, gently drawing it up and over her head. “I’m suggesting that you let me undress you, and then we will both get into that water where I will make sure you are taken care of. We’ve come a long way, Lore, and you haven’t gotten a moment to breathe. I’d like to give you that moment.”

She didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded wonderful right about now.

Lore lifted her arms over her head, letting him draw her shirt over her head and then discard it onto the ground. He gave the same treatment to her pants. His hands skimmed down her pale thighs, gently drawing the fabric away until she stood naked before him.

Abraxas pressed a kiss to her belly before he made quick work of his own clothes. And then, like the gentleman he was, he swept her up into his arms. Legs dangling over his forearm, her arm around his neck, Lore had never felt so small.

He waded into the water with her in his grip, a soft smile on his face as he sank them into the heat. And oh, it felt divine.

Humming low, she let him hold her while the rest of her body floated. “When was the last time we had a hot bath?”

She watched his features as he thought about it, but they both already knew the answer. They couldn’t remember. She certainly hadn’t had one in a very long time, and maybe she’d gotten one when she first came back from the dead? That would seem about right.

“I think my last one might have been after the battle,” he mused, walking them a little deeper and moving her in a circle.

Her legs swished in the water, her head pillowed on his shoulder as he carefully held her. “I think mine was after I came back. But then, when would we have had a hot bath?”

“There are hot springs on Dracomaquia.”

“Are there?”

“Somewhere.” His voice warbled as though he was trying hard not to laugh. “I suppose we could try them out to see what they are like when we return.”

If they returned. She didn’t want to ruin this moment, though. Instead, she moaned and nodded. “I hope so. This feels far too good to ever give up permanently.”

Abraxas released her to float on her own and then made his way to the edge of the pool. He took his time opening bottles, smelling them and making a face when he didn’t like the scent. Finally, he picked one and swam back to her side.

“Come here,” he said, his hands on her shoulders as he steadied her. “Let me help.”

She sank underneath the warm water to wet her hair and then came back up hissing. It was almost too warm for her to stay under the water that long. But then his hands slid into her hair, gently parting any tangles he came across and the lovely smell of lemon surrounded them. He worked the soap into her strands. And he didn’t rush.

Abraxas rarely rushed anything, not even this. Lore sank back against him, her head tilted back and the water taking her weight. He massaged her scalp as though they had all the time in the world. Then he drew the bubbles down over her shoulders, lifted her arms out of the water to make sure those were scrubbed, and gently continued through her entire body.

At some point, he settled her on the stones next to the edge, a natural seat that let her recline with her head against the warm rocks. He even paid attention to her feet, which ached from days of walking. He dug his thumbs into the arches until she happily sighed and wanted to kiss him. Just to taste him on her lips for a little while longer.

He glanced up at her and smiled. “How are you feeling, my queen?”

“Like a queen,” she replied with a soft smile.

“Good. You should feel like that every day of your life. And I want you to go into this meeting with the dwarven king, remembering that you are just as important as him. Just as powerful and just as influential. You are a queen, my love. To me and to so many others.”

Tears burning in her eyes, she pulled close and captured his lips with her own. “You slay me, dragon.”

“Isn’t someone supposed to do that to me?” He wiped a wet strand of hair from her eyes and tucked it behind her ear. “No fear, Lore. You are so beyond that feeling now.”

And kissing him made her feel like he might just be right.