“What?”
“Jason,” she gasped. “Cassius just saved us!”
This was news. “He did?”
“He mostly certainly did,” she said adamantly.
I coughed. “And how did he mange that?”
“Because I know where we are, and that’s all because of him.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes,” she said firmly, grabbing my hand and leading me deeper into the darkness and away from stairs that looked like they led up. “We’re actually out of the aula now; this area used to be a secret inlet, because during low tide, you could sail right in.”
“But not anymore?”
“No. When the sea water rose, the only way in and out became underwater caves.”
I followed her through a winding corridor, under a small arch, and the next step I took I sank into water up to my knees. It was ice cold, and I gasped as something touched my leg.
“Calm down,” she soothed me. “It’s only seaweed,”
“Sorry, my brain is running away with me. I thought it was a tentacle or something.”
“Get your mind out of the gutter. We’re not in a Hentai movie.”
“Oh, so funny, it would be terrible if you drowned.”
She laughed then and led me up onto dry land, and then back down into the water. Each arch had stone underneath, dry, firm ground. Each step off was into deeper and deeper water until we were swimming between them. On the last one, around the corner from where we started, we both leaned out, and on the far side of the water, we saw lights.
“Holy shit,” I whispered, holding her icy hand, both of us shaking hard. She was wearing only my tattered shirt, now clinging to her like a second skin. I had my dress pants and shoes on, nothing more. Both of us might turn into blocks of ice if we didn’t get warm soon. “There are actually people looking for us.”
“And maybe that’s the kings guard,” she threw out, her voice no longer hitching in worry, instead grounded and steady. “It’s possible.”
“It is,” I agreed, noting that neither of us moved. “But I’m thinking we’re still gonna go ahead and just go.”
“Hell yes,” she agreed, leading again, careful around the edge of the water, hugging the rocks. She explained that where we were now, there was a strong riptide swirling just beneath the surface. “If we get caught, we could be sucked down and won’t come back up until we’re miles out to sea. Drowning is not my idea of a good time.”
“Nothing about this has been good,” I reminded her, going slow, the path under our feet gone, only worn, slippery rock eroded over centuries.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, checking for handholds before she shifted her weight. “I can honestly say that a man that will follow you down to hell to save you is one I want to keep.”
“Awww,” I teased her.
“It’s very Orpheus of you.”
“I’d like to point out that Orpheus wasn’t exactly successful.”
“At least he wasn’t obnoxious.”
I snorted.
“Look.”
As we both finally came around the corner, I saw two carved stone statues of women. One of them had her hands clasped together as though she were praying, the other with her hands open, palms lifted as though in supplication. Both were beautifully sculpted, and not as in artifacts from the Bronze Age, but instead crafted by a master, more Michelangelo than megalithic. More importantly, the reason I could see both of them so clearly was that there was moonlight streaming from the top of the narrow flight of stairs that the two statues bookended.
There was a natural step in the water to the right that Nerilla had to stretch for but wasn’t as big an issue for me.
“The first time Cassius brought me here, we came down these steps and only went as far as the first arch before we came back.”
“I could see where coming to the bottom of these stairs could be romantic.”
“With the moon behind you flooding the stairs and this shimmering spot in the water… yes, it was.”
We stood there, just taking a moment to breathe. But then a gust of air came down the steps and nearly froze us to death.
“Fuck,” I groused, bending over to take off my shoes and socks. They were utterly ruined, only so much water Italian leather could take, but I brought them with me in case I had to put them back on, depending on what I was walking over. “Where does this come out?”
“Well, since I haven’t actually been down here in about three hundred years, give or take,” she said, shrugging and chuckling, as broken as I was at the moment. “In theory, in the king’s private grotto.”
“Let’s hope he hasn’t made any serious renovations.”
She crossed her fingers as we began up the stairs, her arms wrapped tight across her chest, shivering, my arm around her, tucking her against my side, both of us barefoot, freezing, scraped and bruised, but together, and that was the most important part.
Halfway up the sixth or seventh flight of stairs—I lost count after four—the wall to the left of me was gone and opened up into an atrium with an enormous hole in the roof, which was how the moonlight was getting in. It no longer had a Roman bath vibe and morphed into more a medieval castle. By then, I was probably blue, and Nerilla was shaking really hard. A quick check of my phone indicated I still had no service.
“I have a question,” I said slowly, finding it hard to focus my eyes for a moment until they cleared.
“Yes?”
“You said earlier that you didn’t want to drown, but can you?”
“You truly do have a rather endearing way of saying whatever pops into your head, Jason Thorpe,” she assured me, a fond look in her eyes. “To answer your question, I’m not nearly as strong as Varic or his father. Beyond beheading, I’m not certain if they can be killed. And while the rest of us nobles can heal far more damage than a human being, many, many things can kill me.”
“I find that whole thing fascinating.”
“It’s not something I normally think about,” she apprised me, “the dying part. Although right now I’m wondering how long freezing to death takes.”
“What would help you?” I asked her, checking my phone again and still having no bars. It wasn’t surprising, though, with how thick the stone walls were.
“Blood,” she told me, stumbling, kept from falling by my anchoring arm.
It was painful not to offer her my blood, but I was right back to how I felt when I was confused about Dae-Jung earlier. “I’m so sorry, but––”
“Oh, Jason, no,” she informed me. “Don’t be sorry. It would kill you to feed another, just as it would me, even now, after so long. My blood is for Cassius alone, just as yours is for Varic. There’s no changing that.”
But I still felt guilty, because I could help her, but I was making a conscious decision not to.
“And even if you could give me your blood,” she said, smiling at me, “I’m scared that it might run right to my heart and freeze it solid.”
“You’re saying what? I’m a lizard? Cold-blooded?” I teased her, allowing her to lighten our desperate mood.