Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 137226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
I got to the second floor and whirled around to look at Solla, but she only had a quiet smile for me. “You must be exhausted from the journey,” she said as she took me down a wide hall, past tapestries and paintings of forests and waterfalls on the walls. “As much as you’d like to run away, I think you’d feel a lot better with a warm bath, a change of clothes, and something to eat, don’t you think?”
And even though I yearned to run away, the idea of a hot bath was too indulgent to resist. Besides, even if I had made it out the window, where would Lemi and I have gone? We’re in a new realm, in a new climate, with untold dangers that I have no experience with. Even if I could find my way back to the docks, which was doubtful, then what? Smuggle myself onto a ship and hope it’s going to Esland or the Midlands, where no one ever goes?
So I let her lead me into a large bathroom, where she gestured to a flush toilet in the corner and a large copper bathtub in the middle. “We have indoor plumbing, thanks to my younger brother,” she said. “If you turn the tap with the C, cold water comes out. If you turn the tap with the H, hot water comes out. There are bath salts and herbs and different soaps to choose from. Take your time. I’ll give you privacy and lay out some clothes for you in the room across the hall. They’ll be my clothes—I don’t think anyone would be too happy about you wearing my mother’s—and they’ll be too big on you but I’m sure you’ll make do.”
Then she looked at Lemi. “Would you like me to feed him? I assume beef would suffice?”
I told her he’d love that but I wanted him to stay with me. He wouldn’t go off with a stranger anyway, no matter how kind she was being.
And now she’s left, closing the door behind her. I quickly go after it and lock it to make sure no one will walk in on me in the nude. Then I lean against it and survey the room.
I let out a loud breath. My knees start to shake. The adrenaline of the journey is starting to wear off, like I’ve been holding on to a cliff for too long and my hands have finally let go. Part of me thinks I should just curl up in the bathtub as is and take a nap—it’s certainly big enough. But I remind myself that it can wait. I need to get through the rest of the day before I figure out what my options are.
“Well, Lemi,” I say to him, and his tail thumps against the rose quartz floor in response. “How about I take a bath, then you’ll take your turn?”
I swear his warm brown eyes narrow at me. He is not a fan of baths but he needs the Midlands volcanic stink and itchy salt of the voyage off him, not to mention the dried suen that’s been sun-baked into his coat.
I slowly walk around the room, taking it all in. I’m sure to the Kolbecks it’s just a bathroom, with the toilet in the corner half-hidden by a gauzy partition, the tub in the middle with wooden steps leading up to it, and a shelf that houses a bunch of glass jars filled with salts and herbs and liquids. But I’m also seeing the polished pink finish of the floors and the energy that flows through them, the copper-tiled ceiling that matches the bath, a long marble sink below curved mirrors lined with dragon eggshells, the gilded arches above a stained-glass window.
I peer through the blue stained glass—a motif of stars in a daytime sky—and open it a crack, the gold hinges creaking. Cool air flows inside and I breathe in deeply. That scent of the umberwoods and clear, fresh running water fill the room. The sun is gone now, hidden from this side of the keep, and the scenery looks surreal. All those tall green trees, the flowering fields, the rushing waterfalls, and the craggy snow-capped mountains in the distance look as if someone enchanted painted them, a world that I could have never even imagined. Even when teachers at school would talk briefly about the other realms, the idea of a forest when all we had in Esland were prickly shrubs, scrawny nut trees, and the occasional palm that dotted the capitol buildings, was beyond anything I could have dreamed.
Lemi whines from behind me and I when I look back at him he’s gesturing to the tub with his muzzle.
“All right, I get it, I stink,” I tell him. I walk over and turn on the taps and then while the bath takes time to fill, I try to decide on what to put in it. Solla had mentioned salts, and I remember my father used to put salts from the mines outside Lerick in his bathwater after he had a long day fishing. Said it helped the muscles. Would probably be nice when my womb is having a flare-up, though it seems to be behaving for now.