I could see his line of thinking, yet I didn’t want it to give in. “Five.”
“Once those get wet, they will weigh you down like a bag of stones. You’ll sink straight to the bottom of the pool.” He gentled his voice. “I know how Necromancers are about touch. I realize this is hard for you. Believe me, if I saw any other way to do this, I would. Trust me. You need to see what’s beyond that wall. This is about far more than the Tsar setting magick wards.”
Meaning it’s about my Sisters.
Any concerns about bare skin and swimming disappeared. I turned around and offered Rowan my back. “Pull open these ties for me, will you?”
“Thank you, Elea.” Rowan began loosening the ribbons that wove down my back. Every brush of his fingers sent waves of awareness through me. Soon the dress was loose enough.
I shimmied out of what ended up being a rather large pile of fabric. “Ready.”
Rowan didn’t say anything. He looked almost as frozen as Philippe had back in the forest. I was starting to wonder if he’d been placed under a spell too, when I noticed his heated gaze was moving up and down my body. I should feel embarrassed, yet I didn’t. All those years of being taught that touch was a Necromancer’s enemy seemed to vanish. I moved closer to Rowan. “I said, we should get ready.”
Rowan nodded slowly, the heat still strong in his eyes. He wore only short cotton under-trousers. Ropes of muscle outlined his upper thighs. For my part, I had nothing on except for my pantalets and a thin cotton shirt. Suddenly, it became hard to breathe.
Bit by bit, Rowan looped the rope across my back, his fingers brushing over my bare skin. It made me shiver, and not from the cold. Rowan finished by knotting the cord around my chest. “Does that feel secure?”
“Yes.” My voice came out low and husky. “How do we—” I gestured between us.
“We get into the water, and then I’ll tie you against my back.”
“Understood.” The air between us became charged with its own kind of energy. Still, I needed to focus on stopping the Tsar and finding my people, not on whatever strange thing was happening between Rowan and me. I took the rest of the rope in my hand and stepped off into the water. A shock of cold liquid hit me. I gasped.
Rowan glided into the pool and stopped before me. With a few swift movements, he strapped me on. The cold water helped freeze out the sensation of my partly bare chest against his back. Not enough, though.
“Wrap your arms and legs around me.” His voice was commanding, and I liked that too. Gods-damn it.
I did as he asked. My calves rubbed against the firm planes of muscle on his stomach. I looped my arms tightly around his neck and fought the urge to nuzzle him. “How’s this?”
“Good.” If my closeness affected him, Rowan didn’t show it anymore. “Three deep breaths and we go under, all right?”
My skin broke out in goose bumps. How exactly did I end up tied to a man I hardly knew and about to dive into a heavy current?
Because of the Tsar, that’s how.
I tightened my hold. If I was going to die, it wouldn’t be by drowning on Rowan’s back. “I’m ready.”
“One… Two… Three.”
Together, Rowan and I plunged under the water. The current seemed to yank us in a dozen directions at once. Coils of rope dug into my skin. We began spiraling downward, caught in the pull of the whirlpool. Somehow, Rowan broke free from the current and swam into a side passageway carved into the rock. The rough walls scratched my skin and pulled at my hair. I couldn’t have cared less. We were free.
The pressure in my ears lessened as we headed toward the surface again. Every inch of my body ached to breathe. I bit my lips together, forcing them to stay shut.
Not much longer now.
Finally, we broke through the surface of the water. I greedily sucked in breath after breath as Rowan untied me and set me onto the stony ground. Within a few seconds, he found a candle and flint and lit them up. The illumination seemed impossibly bright after such total darkness.
I found myself in a small cave with three archways that led off into the shadows. My home Cloister was built on caves, so I knew a bit about the first two passages. They were uneven and naturally made. The third one was something else entirely. I shucked off Rowan’s ropes and walked up to the perfect arch. It was carved with runes of power and lined with gemstones.
A gateway.
I knew about these. Necromancers built them to connect allied Cloisters or Monasteries. They were hard to build, exhausting to maintain, and required a lot of magick to make them work. Still, few Necromancers developed enough skill for a transport spell. For those mages, this was the only alternative.
“We had a gateway in my old Cloister. Nothing as large as this one. Where does it go?” Usually, a gateway had at least three destinations.