Page 28 of On Burning Paths

“I’ll be over here,” I say, noting that even as they’re dropping their clothes, they keep their weapons at the ready.

“Be at the ready,” Thorian says, his eyes lingering on me. Whether it’s from concern or interest, I’m not sure. But I do know that I need to get away from the sight of them before I do something hasty.

Like running my hand down the length of Thorian’s torso, or picturing Fenric pressed against me, or finding out if Talon is cold to the touch, as they often say vampires are. From our moment in the garden when he tasted the blood on my fingertip, I remember him being warm, but maybe he’s only warm in my memories.

Once in my little area, I force myself to disrobe, repeating to myself that it's worth the brief indecency to be clean. Up until the night I left to come after Lyra, I'd never dressed or undressed anywhere but my own room, and never in the presence of anyone but another woman.

So it feels completely deviant to strip down naked in the sand.

I gather my clothes and wade in, scrubbing them against themselves as best I can, working at the worst of the swamp and storm until the water running off them runs clearer. Then I wade back out and lay them over the nearest rocks and branches where the sun can reach them, smoothing them flat before turning back to the water.

Reluctantly, I leave my dagger near the rest of our belongings and slip back in.

It's absolute bliss. I unbraid my hair and tip my head back so it drifts in the water around me. I don't have soap, but I run my hands over every inch of my skin to dislodge the sweat and grime, work my fingers into my scalp until my hair feels as close to clean as I can manage without it.

I long for the days of tipping my head back over the tub while my mother or Hilda worked lavender soap into the strands. When bathing was an every-other-day occurrence, and I'd emerge from the bathroom smelling of flowers and tinctures, feeling both clean and hydrated.

But even with that gilded past in mind, this still feels impossibly good. I still feel good when I finally force myself out of the water and back onto the small strip of sand, checking my clothes to see how they're drying. I'm halfway through pulling them back on when I hear something move, almost imperceptibly, in the trees on the far side of my little beach.

I hold my shirt to my chest, looking up just in time to see Magnus step out of the trees and onto the sand.

My heart seizes. A scream catches in my throat. Every instinct I have fires at once, and my eyes cut immediately to my dagger, sitting near where my clothes had been just three feet away. Too far. Possibly too far. I run the calculation in a single panicked breath and force myself not to bolt, because bolting is worse. Bolting means my back is to him, and if he's going to kill me I am not going to make it easy.

I don't breathe. I can’t breathe.

He doesn't raise his hands.

The silence stretches for a moment that feels considerably longer than it is, and gradually, incrementally, I take him in. He doesn't look as put together as he did the last time we met. His beard, perfectly groomed to a point before in the style of the warlocks, is now scruffy and slightly unkempt. The purple robes are stained and dirty. Whatever the Trials have done to the rest of us, they appear to have changed him as well.

He looks almost tired.

I don't let go of my shirt. I don't reach for the dagger. I just watch him, every muscle in my body coiled and waiting.

“Don’t scream,” he says, raising his hand, eyes locking on mine. “I just want to talk.”

I can feel his magic like smoke in the air, can sense it working around me. It’s dark and full of malice. His palms begin to glow with the stuff, and maybe if I didn’t have my own magic, I wouldn’t notice. I get the sense that he’s trying to conceal it from me, that maybe he even cast some sort of stealth spell to hide the casting.

For another, it might have worked.

The way he looks at me is not just malevolent. It’s coveting. In an instant, I’m reminded of Shaw and his men, the threat of taking something from me that I would never, ever offer.

Rather than believing him, or asking what he wants to talk about, or wasting a single second actually thinking that this man might want to talk to me, I open my mouth and let out the most blood-curdling scream I can manage.

Thorian and Talon are there in an instant, bursting through the foliage half-dressed, their weapons at the ready. Fenric follows a moment later, and Magnus turns, trying to run in the sand and stumbling once before he hits the tree line and disappears.

The demi-god and vampire follow, while Fenric comes to my side, placing a warm hand on my shoulder.

“What happened?” he asks, glancing at the trees where the three men disappeared. “Did he try to hurt you?”

I look up and meet his eyes, and say nothing about having felt his magic before he'd taken a single step toward me. Saying so would mean explaining how I knew, and explaining how I knew would mean telling Fenric something I'm not ready to tell him yet.

“He didn't touch me, but he definitely planned to hurt me,” I manage, because it’s true, just not everything.

Fenric’s eyes flick down for a moment, and he seems to register that I’m not actually dressed, only holding my shirt up to my chest to cover myself. Clearing his throat, he turns away, scrubbing his hand over the back of his neck.

“Go on,” he says. “You should dress. We have no idea if his teammates are nearby, too.”

I shudder at the thought, and as I finish pulling on my leathers and strapping the dagger around my waist, I close my eyes and reach for any trace of magic beyond what Magnus was casting before.