This is an ongoing companion piece to be read after completing the Snakesblood Saga. Because it takes place during the final chapter of the last book, it will be very full of spoilers. It’s also unedited first draft fluff… just for fun! Read at your own risk, and expect installments no closer together than once a month.
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Firal had not set foot inside the study often. She hesitated at the door as she battled with her own sense and the almost reverent sense of respect she held for what she interpreted as private space. Had others regarded her study in Ilmenhith with the same regard?
Yet hers had never been unwelcoming to visitors. Often, her door had stood ajar, the tiny gap letting people know she was inside.
This door was always closed.
But open or closed hardly mattered, she reminded herself. The person she sought was not inside and she still stood with a plate in her hands and a pitcher tucked in the crook of her elbow
If he was not there, she had no reason to be there, either. She stepped back and drew the door shut behind her, then turned on her heel with the plate atop her palm, as deft as any barmaid. If he wasn’t in his study, there was one other place she expected to find him.
She carried the food up the stairs and wished she’d thought to bring a tray, but she hadn’t thought she’d have to go far. The latch on the door at the top of the second stairway was gone, so the door swung open with a gentle nudge of her elbow. The loft on the other side was dark, though that was no guarantee it was empty. She slipped inside and scanned the space, half expecting to find him hunched over a book or working figures on some scrap of paper. Instead, her eyes drifted to the large windows and the estate beyond them.
Outside, a light glowed among the trees.
Firal could not fathom what might have drawn him out there, but there was no one else who might be so close to the house. She returned to the kitchen and considered fetching a tray, but toting food through the woods in the dark did not strike her as pleasant.
She covered the plate and left it on the table instead, taking far longer to straighten the corners of the cloth than such a task required. Then she turned the cup just so beside the plate, and rotated the pitcher until its handle was oriented perfectly.
Did she go outside now? Encourage him to stop whatever he was doing and settle for the evening? Or was she better off finding herself a book to read and retire on her own? He hadn’t requested help or company. He hadn’t even let anyone know he meant to venture outside. Any other time, she might have thought that meant he wanted to be alone. Yet he’d welcomed her the night before, dragged her into his arms and curled close to sleep after she’d done everything her power to earn his ire.
After all these years, she still did not know how to read him.
Frustrated, Firal skimmed her hands through her hair and stepped out the back door.
If he wished for privacy, he could tell her. Or else he could sulk, or ignore her. Any of them would get the message across.
The moment she set foot outside, a steady thud reached her ears. An axe, she thought, or maybe a hammer, and she skirted the edge of the woods in search of some trail or some sign he’d passed through.
The light in the woods was harder to detect from the ground, but she found a place it glowed brighter—a trail that led down a gentle slope to the creek nearest the house.
Firal had not ventured down there more than once. The trail led to a pretty place, a flat clearing where the creek meandered through across a bed of pretty gravel, but the thought of Lulu playing at the water’s edge had filled her with discomfort and she had decided it was best to wait until the girl was older before they visited again.
Rather than a clearing, Firal found a mess.
Piles of tangled sticks and heaps of stripped-off leaves littered the clearing. Thicker branches supported a log that had been split in half, its insides hollowed, while both ends hosted… something. Right in the middle of it all, Rune stood with a knife in one hand and a tree branch in the other, stripping bark to leave the smooth, pale wood underneath.
She looked between him and the strange, fin-armed columns beside the hollowed log until her brows drew together and crinkled her forehead.
The bare stick transformed into a pin of some sort before he noticed her there. No surprise registered on his face—maybe he’d sensed her approach. There had been a time when his magic had burned like a beacon in her awareness, but much had changed. She no longer felt him so clearly and they had not discussed what that meant for his magic.
Instead of greeting her, Rune gestured to the contraption at the foot of the log. “Hold that?”
Firal bit back the sharp greeting that sprang to the tip of her tongue and did as he asked. She wasn’t sure what it was, but she caught it by the fins and held it steady as he wiggled the newly-carved pin into a hole in its top. When it refused to go any farther, he shaved off the excess with his knife and gave the fins a turn.
They moved without sticking.
Satisfied, he strode past her to take a bucket from the ground and stepped down into the creek bed to gather water.
Waterwheels, then. Upon closer examination, she noticed the slight angle at which the log sat. The strange, finned waterwheels sat at both its mouth and its end. Whatever for, though, she could not decipher. “What are you doing?”
“Getting water,” he replied, as if it should have been obvious.
Firal gave him a long-suffering stare.
“Testing,” he added. “I think vertical fins will be a lot more reliable. If one breaks off, it’s less likely to form a gap that keeps it from turning.” He upended the bucket at the top of the log and let the waterwheels explain on their own. They set to spinning at once, the water directed by the angled fins, and both turned a crank on the side of the log that was attached to nothing.
She watched the water spill from the log’s end, its impact digging a little farther into the already-wet soil. Mud splashed everywhere. “And this is related to your bathhouse…?”
Rune poured another bucket of water through the ramp. “Instead of windmills, waterwheels. The pipe will be small enough it will bring no security risk in running it straight into the city. Waterwheels go inside the pipe, and the water moving through it will power its own lift out of the reservoir.” He pointed at the muddy furrow at the log’s end, then gestured upward.
“That’s what this is for?” Firal motioned toward the crank, though it was little more than a spinning disk of wood for now. She could picture the sort of complicated gears it would require. She’d seen enough of them in Core.
He nodded. “That’s the idea, anyway. I wanted to test the fin placements first. The real ones will need to be bronze, most likely. Steel would make rust a problem. We’ll need to figure out some kind of filter, though, something to keep debris out of the pipes so the fins don’t break.” His gaze unfocused as he spoke.
Firal couldn’t resist a smile.
His eyes flicked to her face. “What?”
“It was water in Core, too. The baths. Why water?” She arched a brow.
Rune snorted softly. “They had baths in Core before I ever got there. I just made them better. And this…” He lowered the bucket and as he rested a hand against the log, a hint of wistfulness touched his face. “Just a project to bring back a piece of home, I suppose.”
That tugged at her heart in a way she hadn’t expected. She touched a hand to her chest and willed away the ache that spawned there. No matter what they built, there was no bringing back what they’d lost in Core. Or Ilmenhith. Or any of the rest of the island.
“Besides,” he added as he tossed the bucket aside and wiped his wet hands against his already-dirtied trousers, “have you smelled the nobles in the Royal City? I’d prefer not to live someplace where baths are considered a luxury and not a part of essential grooming.”
She snorted a laugh, the momentary morosity broken. “Oh, I beg your pardon.”
“What?” One of his brows twitched, though it didn’t quite surrender to his quizzical tone.
“I’ve not had a chance to properly wash in days,” Firal said. “That is, I do make use of the washstand in my room, but—”
Rune stepped forward and caught her by the hand before she could finish. “Come with me,” he said, even as he pulled her along and gave her no choice. “I have something to show you.”
Her heart thumped against her ribs.
The abandoned lantern cast long shadows against the path as he led her back to the house, but all she could look at was their hands.
It felt so natural, the way their fingers met and twined together.
The lantern winked out, extinguished by some thread of power she only barely sensed, leaving only his touch to guide her in the dark.