Jax crouched before her. Vhalla’s gaze rose from his boots to his face. The Western man squinted.
“Vhalla Yarl, the Windwalker.” Her name on the lips of a stranger made her uneasy, and Vhalla sat back onto her feet to assess him with equal interest. “I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t you.”
She laughed bitterly, remembering Elecia’s first unappreciative assessment of her months ago. “Sorry to disappoint.”
The man tilted his head. “You show up as if you materialize from the wind itself, to save the life of the crown prince whom you jumped off the side of the Pass in an attempt to save. You’re unassuming, you’re filthy, and you’re soaked in what I can only presume to be the blood of our enemies.” A grin slowly spread across Jax’s face, like that of a rabid beast. “Who said anything about being disappointed?”
THE WASHROOM IS back here.” Jax led her toward the upper part of the T Vhalla had seen from the outside.
She nodded and followed him mutely. In the wake of accepting her and Aldrik’s death, she was experiencing difficulty processing the concept of salvation. The hall perpendicular to the public area had one door at the end on the left side and two on either wall to Vhalla’s right with a fourth before her. The shoddy construction made it easy to tell that soldiers, not craftsman, had erected the building.
“Not really fitting for a lady, I know,” Jax chuckled. The bathroom was the bare essentials, and he quickly had a large wooden barrel filling with rainwater from a rooftop reservoir.
“I’m not a lady.” Vhalla shook her head. “This reminds me of home, actually.”
As a child, she’d bathed with her mother in a barrel not unlike the one she was faced with now. Thinking about her mother was odd. Vhalla wondered if the woman who had scolded her daughter for climbing too high in the trees and had sung lullabies would recognize the woman Vhalla had become. It was crushing how different Vhalla was from the last time she’d been home.
Jax leaned against the wall by the soaking barrel. “That’s not what Elecia wrote.”
“What isn’t?” She was jarred out of her thoughts.
“She said our Lord Ophain made you a Duchess of the West.” Jax folded his arms.
It took Vhalla too long to remember that Elecia was Lord Ophain’s granddaughter. Of course she would have found out. “A hollow title,” Vhalla laughed.
“And you’re quick to offend.” He stilled her amusement. “I take Western tradition quite seriously, and I will be the first to tell you I’m not alone.”
Vhalla remembered how Daniel had been elevated to lordship upon joining the Golden Guard. A fellow soldier would likely take such things seriously. “Sorry, I hadn’t meant—”
Jax roared with laughter. “You think I actually give a damn about those crusty old nobles? Reddening their cheeks and pretending their hair still grows in black?” All amusement fell from his face as suddenly as it appeared. “But seriously, some would take offense.”
Vhalla opened and closed her mouth, but words failed to form.
“Well, darling, I’d love to stay and join you, but I need to see those riders off. I’ll find you some fresher clothes on my way back.” Jax made for the door, stopping just in its frame. “You’ll be well enough alone?”
Vhalla brought her hands together, meeting the man’s eyes as he peered down at her over his shoulder. It was a serious question. There was something about his madness that called to her own.
“Yes,” Vhalla said with more confidence than she felt. “I’ll manage. Send the riders.”
Jax nodded, clearly understanding her priorities, and left. Vhalla turned to the steaming tub of water. Jax must be a Firebearer, she mused. He heated the water just as Larel had heated the streams and ponds they bathed along the march. Peeling off her clothes was like shedding the shroud of the other woman. For weeks Vhalla had worn the memory like a shield, Larel’s last gift: her name in the form of Serien Leral.
The water was just shy of scalding hot but Vhalla still shivered. She was alone. Larel and Sareem gone, Fritz far away, and her library with its window seat ... Vhalla’s eyes fluttered closed with the pang of nostalgia. She allowed herself the sweet agony of dreaming, of thinking of returning to the palace in the south. Of sitting with Aldrik once more in his rose garden. Of finding something that was different from all she had known but was still something she could call normal.
Two quick raps on the door was the only warning before it pushed open again. “I brought you clothes.”
“I’m not!” Vhalla pressed her naked body to the side of the barrel, trying to hide it in the curve of the wood.
“You’re as red as Western crimson.” Jax laughed at the color of her face. “What? If you have something I haven’t seen, then that would be a real treat.”