Bridging the Ancient ✓

Chapter 54

Renit drops the empty satchel onto his bed and slouches on the end, the wooden frame creaking and moaning in answer. He drags a hand through his hair, a tired prince that has long spent his dues working for his father and now he just wants a rest.

I give him the liberty of starting a hot bath and when I return to his chambers, he's already laying down with his legs draped over the side. Without question, I untie his boots and let them thud to the ground—followed by his socks that smell worse than anything in this room. He massages his closed eyes, fingers working their way up to his temples and then dragging back down his face.

"I'm exhausted," he grumbles.

"You're home now," I respond with ease. "The king doesn't have another mission for you so all you have left to do is relax and take a bath."

He looks down at me, where I stand against his knees, and frowns. We both stink, the smells of the journey from the capital all the way to Lona have taken a toll. Our clothes are worn, faded, torn in places, and smell like a mix of the ocean and a dry desert breeze. The finest soaps have not grazed our scalps or polished our skin so our hair is greased and our skin is drier than the desert we stomped through in search of an ancient crystal.

I can fix all of that with one bath. We can wash the remnants of what we went through these past weeks down the drain, never to be seen again. I find myself itching to change into something soft and dry and clean myself thoroughly—over and over again. Then we can see what it's like to live a life in this castle, a life where we don't hate each other.

"What do we do about Silas? What if he never goes back to the witch he was?" Renit mumbles. From the rasp in his voice, I can tell he's already falling asleep. I grab his hand, tugging him to a sitting position, and lead him towards the bathing room.

The tub is full, so I shut off the water and place Renit's soaps near the lip of the tub so he can reach them with ease. If he's so exhausted that he doesn't want to stand more than he has to, he won't want to reach for soaps that result in an effort to grab.

"We'll figure it out." I remove the belt that tightens the tunic he's wearing and let that drop to the floor. My mind isn't thinking about how far we can go with this, rather what Renit needs to feel whole again. "For now, just worry about settling in. We haven't been here for weeks and it'll take some adjustment for things to get back to normal."

Renit pulls the tunic over his head and tugs on the belt holding up his pants. The warmth of his breath grazes against my nose as he stops and raises his eyebrows. "If you're staying in here, then you might as well undress, too. I'm not bathing alone." He smirks, slowly leaning in, and I lean back with arms crossed over my chest.

"We both smell like the dead." Patting the center of his chest, I stand on my toes and kiss him gently. "If we bathe together, I have a feeling we'll still smell like the dead."

With a quick pout, Renit turns his attention to the full tub waiting for him. Steam rises from the surface of the water and a towel from the servants already hangs over the lip, waiting for proper use. Same as before, someone cleaned the entirety of his chambers before we arrived and the same can likely be said for mine.

"I'll see you later, then?" He asks.

"I'll see you when I get out of the tub, which will be after I've scrubbed myself to get rid of the Ducoria stench." I scrunch up my nose and Renit snickers.

"It'll take more than a bottle of soap to get rid of that."

Giving me one last chance to stay or leave, he tugs on his pants again. Without another word, forcing myself towards the door instead of climbing inside the porcelain tub with him, I shut the door behind me with the last thing I see being his powerful muscles lowering him into the tub; bottom half already covered.

Slightly disappointed, I pout and head towards my chambers across the hall. My legs are heavy so I drag my feet along Renit's rug, shoulders drooping with exhaustion. So many things have changed since the last time we've been here. The hole in my chest is repaired, on the mend from the loss of my parents and the feeling of never finding a home again—not in a castle like this.

But with Renit, the witch that started all this in the first place with the exception of his father, I think there is a home for me. It might not be a physical place, somewhere we can go to escape the bustle of the kingdom, but it's inside the prince himself. In his heart and in his power, the one I've become so bonded to over time.

The Grounding hasn't been necessary since the day everything changed in the courtyard, I can be thankful for that, but our powers still reach out towards each other. Mainly in my dreams, when ground mingles with storm and I can smell both, feel both, run my fingers over the coarse grain of our power until it turns into Renit and instead of the mix of our magic standing in front of me, the prince is there.

My desire for him was fueled by our powers, yes, but my care has turned into something more than that. I find myself wanting him, not his power, to be there for me at all times. I want to see him, not the storm, when I wake up in the morning. That's how I know my power isn't driving my heart in a certain direction just because it wants to feel bonded.

I want the prince outside of our powers.

I pull open the door to Renit's chambers, exposing the dark and empty hall beyond and my door on the other side. Except that's not the only thing there, Silas is standing in front of it all with his hand raised into a fist as if he was about to knock.

He wears a dark tunic, his hair is pulled back and away from his face, and those grey eyes are brighter than when I last saw them. "I guess I should have knocked a little sooner," he says, the crown prince's voice ringing out in a mocking tone.

I have nothing to say; the words are stuck past the lump in my throat, so instead of finding a way to share my gratitude with words, I throw my arm around his neck and hold tight. My heart flutters with joy, pure excitement, as the lost prince hugs me back just as tight.