Luminous

5 - The Rainbow Lakes (1/2)

Having wheedled all the secrets they could from the ancient tree, their next step would be to share their findings with the Council of Nine. Coris was to travel to Aynor and deliver them in person, but first, they must collect the Graye sisters.

Agnesia and Persephia remained maids under Arinel's command, in their well-worn disguises of Haselle and Heloise. Although the secret of the Axel was no more, Baron Graye's motives remained a mystery. He could seek to either kill his Greeneye daughter and bury his tainted bloodline, or wield her as his new figurehead to manipulate Meya's cause for his own ends. As such, it was safest for the twins to continue hiding their existence.

Instead of having the Ladies Graye travel to the fortress and risk exposure, Arinel insisted they all spend a day at the Rainbow Lakes, where Agnes had spent the past months experimenting with the variety of hot springs to heal her burn scars, and smuggle the twins back on their journey home.

The Rainbow Lakes was a collection of ponds with steaming waters steeped in each of the colors of Freda's rainbow, tucked deep in the maple forest on the skirts of Neverend Heights. There was the Blood Lake, which was designated as red but was actually rust-colored, much to Meya's chagrin. The Sun Lake also didn't ameliorate her feelings of betrayal, as its mirror-still water simply reflected the bright yellow leaves of surrounding weeping willows in shimmering, paint-like daubs. Fortunately, the remaining three, the Emerald, Sapphire and Midnight Lakes, lived up to their names.

The Sapphire Lake was similar to the step-ponds of Jaise, with its snow-white lip and clear, sky-blue water, so Meya would've picked the Emerald Lake for her soak if she had her way. However, Agnes was to bathe in the coal-black, gurgling mud of the Midnight Lake for today's healing regimen. In Hadrian, men and women share bathhouses, but as this wasn't the case in Graye and Crosset, the girls left the Hadrian brothers to stew in their clan's color and headed for the black bog. Whereas Simon and Christopher made for the yellow lake.

Swathed in her silken bathrobe, Meya hugged her knees and watched glumly as Agnes and Persephia stripped bare and slipped under the mud with carefree ease. Being pregnant, she wasn't allowed to soak higher than her ankles, as the heat might harm her babies. Arinel joined Meya on the rim, dipping only her snowy feet into the mire.

Meya unwrapped her limbs and followed suit, sighing in bliss as she lay back on the warm stone and flexed her toes in the thick, soft mud. It embraced her veined, swollen feet like a gently bubbling, thirsty sponge, leeching the tire of pregnancy from them. Meanwhile, Persephia plied mud onto her sister's marred face, spreading it into a mask reminiscent of Jaise.

The Blood Lake was but a stone's throw away, separated from them only by a copse of maple in the fiery coat of fall. For all her scheming like a woman possessed to force the brothers together, Arinel kept glancing in their direction, so restless and distracted that nature's beauty and pampering were entirely wasted on her. Meya heaved a disgruntled sigh.

"I thought wise men say absence makes the heart grow fonder," she began. All three ladies turned around, but Meya honed in on Lady Crosset, her eyes narrowed. "You sure this winnae backfire?"

Arinel seemed to be fighting not to turn and peer through the trees again. She straightened her back and thrust her nose high, swinging her legs idly in a show of nonchalance.

"My wise men say distance festers resent and untreated wounds leave uglier scars," she quipped. "Yesterday was the culmination of two months of silence. Until they settle this like men, we're not leaving this fortress."

"Settle what, milady?" Meya shook her head with another sigh. She closed her eyes as her heart once again hammered the truth like a stake deep into her soul.  "'Tis gospel truth to everyone but him. I ain't worthy of Coris. Least, not after—"