Hellfury

Chapter 23: Auri

Auri didn't know what she'd expected but it wasn't this. She didn't expect to see his shoulders relax and his eyes light up. She didn't expect to see the tiredness vanish and his lip quiver.
   'Will you let me explain myself? In case you want to murder me after?' he said and cleared his throat. 'Then I have spoken my mind, at least.'

Auri let go of his hand, rose from the water and wrapped herself up in the towel hanging off the rim of the tub. His eyes never left her face, not even when her thigh grazed his shoulder.
   'I know the water is dirtier than you, but please, get in,' she said and made for the bed. She knew what he felt for her. She had seen it in his eyes the moment he realized she would live.
   'Wait,' he said and his fingers wrapped around her wrist. Auri stopped in the middle of a step and turned to him.
   'What?'
   'Did I do this?' he folded the towel up to above her knees and his face fell. He looked at the bruises, and very slowly brushed over the inside of her knee with a thumb.

Auri swatted his hand away, knelt down to him and moved his face to hers.
   'You had to, you know you did. It doesn't hurt anymore. The herbs helped. I'd rather be a dependent and bruised hellbeast than a dead one.'

Cahir gave her a wan smile. He let go of the towel and rose. Auri stepped across her discarded clothing and sunk down on the soft mattress.

He stood with his back turned to her for a moment, contemplating. She had seen him through a blur days ago, hurriedly cleaning himself off in the stream while still watching her. He had hissed at the boiling water but kept scrubbing.
Now, he reached for the hem of his shirt and pulled. She had seen his bare chest plenty of times, she had dragged her fingers over his skin so many times. She had breathed him in, begged him to be real and fallen asleep in the crook of his neck. She had never seen his back.

She had never seen the way his muscles flexed when he moved his arms, and she had never seen the scars. Five healed, but deep jagged lines across his back. Across his spine. The last one ended a few inches above the lining of his pants-
   'They did torture you-'
   'I told you they did. For months.' he replied and let the shirt fall to the floor. 'They wanted answers, and they refused to listen to me when I told them I didn't know anything. I understood later that I did know, they just couldn't break through the barrier in my head.'

   'How did you escape?' Auri asked and followed his hands with her eyes. He turned to her when his fingers moved to his pants. He had seen her. Several times. Yet, he had held on to the shirt as Jaskier cut her, he had shielded her from him. Auri didn't look, and she almost didn't feel the heat growing in her lower stomach. Almost.
   'Yennefer,' he said and stepped into the tub. A shiver ran through him when his feet hit the water.
   'I can heat it for you?' she offered and rose.
   'It's fine. I don't mind,' he said and grabbed one of the clean strips of cloth from the stool. She watched him submerge it in the flower scented water and whirl it around with a finger.
   'Yennefer was meant to execute me to prove she wasn't a spy. To prove to the Brotherhood and the Northern kings that she didn't betray them. She chose to free me.'

He extended an arm and dragged the flimsy cloth over the wound she'd healed. To her surprise it looked fine. The holes from the teeth were still there, around his elbow. The infection had gone, as had the angry blistering skin.
   'When I failed the Emperor everything changed. I was forced to dig graves for the Scoia'tael. I was degraded, stripped of my rank and humiliated. Because I failed him. I was summoned to Cintra one day and I thought he'd kill me. I thought that the moment I stepped through the doors and walked across the polished floor he'd take my head-'
   'He wouldn't-' Auri said but stopped speaking when he waved a hand at her.
   'He asked for your head. He said that was what I had to do to regain his favor. He saved my life Auri, I couldn't refuse him. He took the starving boy from Vicovaro and saved him. He practically raised me, I-'
   'I know what he did for you, I understand why you think you owe him still,' Auri interrupted and crossed her arms. He didn't owe him shit. Not anymore. Not after all this.