have a hot bath.
She snorted at herself. Such a female characteristic to be so tickled at the idea of a warm bath. She shrugged, removed her boots, and unbuttoned the Turgonian military jacket with relish. How she missed her sandals and loose hemp dresses.
There was no place nearby to set the clothing, so she folded it and crossed the room to leave everything on something octagonal, flat, and chest-high she decided to call a table. She skipped back to the tank and slipped over the side. Warm water embraced her, and she shivered with delight. She unbraided her hair, submerged everything, then draped her arms over the sides and laid her head on the ledge. Bliss. The bath reminded her of the volcanic hot springs near her family’s property. She wondered how everyone back home was doing. The harvest would be over by now. She had missed her nephew’s birthday and her parents’ anniversary celebration. She closed her eyes, lost in memories of home.
“ Tikaya?” Rias called sometime later.
She sat up, and water sloshed over the side. When had the hammering stopped outside?
“ Tikaya, are you all right?”
“ Fine!” She scrambled out of the tub. “I’m fine up here.”
Naked and dripping water, she peered about for something to use as a towel.
“ You didn’t touch anything, did you?” He sounded like he was right below the lift.
She darted for her clothes even as air whooshed.
Rias appeared on the platform before she made it half way. Worry furrowed his brow, and he clutched her journal. That expression changed to a wide-eyed gape when he spotted her.
Frozen mid-step, Tikaya felt ridiculous-and guilty at being caught relaxing while everyone else worked.
“ I, uhm, sorry.” She stood, dripping, not sure where to put her hands or how to explain. “I found this tub, you see, and it’s been so long, and, well, one does get sort of dirty tussling with tunnel monsters and marching across the tundra, and…”
Rias was just staring. She really ought to shut up and put some clothes on.
He closed his eyes and clenched a fist, looking very much like a man trying to control his temper. With rigid, precise motions, he walked to the table, placed the journal on it, and turned his back on her.
“ Take your time,” he rasped, then stepped on the platform and disappeared.
Belatedly, she realized it was not his temper he had been struggling to control. Her first thought was that she should have hopped into his arms and invited him to join her in the tub. Her second thought was to remember he was on top of the Kyatt Islands enemies-of-state list and that she had no idea what kind of seeds Sicarius’s promises had planted in his head. The third thought ran the way of dismissing the second and seeing what might come of the first.
“ Tikaya, you think too much,” she muttered, grabbing her clothes.
Outside, she found Rias and Sicarius building the frame of something that promised to be large. While the assassin dragged wood over, Rias knelt, his back to her, and hammered. Hard.
“ Rias?” she asked between whacks.
His shoulders tensed, and he hunched his neck. “Yes?”
She took a couple steps toward him. “May I speak with you?”
He fiddled with the hammer. “I should keep working, try to get this done so we can cross as soon as possible.”
Tikaya hesitated. Maybe she had guessed incorrectly. Yet he had never lost his temper with her, and it was hard to imagine a midday bath truly irking him.
“ Please?”
Rias’s head drooped. He stood, gave Sicarius instructions, and finally faced her. Tikaya led him out of the assassin’s earshot.
Rias stared at the ground, avoiding her eyes. She was about to speak, but he did so first.
“ I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stare. I wasn’t expecting you to be, ah…”
She resisted the urge to hug him-that would probably make him more uncomfortable-and gripped his forearm instead. Corded muscle lay beneath her hand. “I don’t mind. You can stare.” Though so many differences stood between them, she could not feel anything but delighted that he would want to.
Rias lifted his eyes. “Oh? I had the impression that your parents wouldn’t approve of Fleet Admiral Starcrest ogling their daughter.”
“ They’re not here.”
He arched his eyebrows. “I didn’t think you were particularly enamored at the notion either. Something about a nation’s war enemies not being easily inserted into dreams involving beach houses and blond children.”
She blushed. “Originally, I was rather distraught at the dishevelment of my dreams, but I must admit I can’t think of anyone else in the world I’d rather have ogling me.”
“ Really.” His eyes gleamed with humor but intensity too. He brushed his fingers down a lock of damp hair dangling by her cheek.
Tikaya considered the construction site and the assassin who, through tact or disinterest, was ignoring them. “Almost private around here at the moment.” She arched her eyebrows and stepped closer, placing a hand on his chest. “I haven’t figured out which piece of furniture up there is a bed, but I’m willing to conduct research.”
“ I wouldn’t think it’d be a problem. You found the tub after all.” Rias slid his arm around her, drawing her against him.
“ Actually, that’s an aquarium.”
She felt the soft rumble of laughter in his chest, but it ended with a sigh. She tilted her head back, searching his face.
“ Trust me, I’d very much like to research the furniture with you, but…” He smiled and brushed his thumb along her lips. “I suppose it’d be rather irresponsible of me.”
She barely managed to avoid blurting ‘huh?’ Instead, she guessed, “Because you’re supposed to be building a, er, whatever that is you’re building?”
Rias snorted. “Rust what I’m building-and it’s a counterweight trebuchet, by the way.” His inability to dismiss his project without at least a short explanation almost made her laugh, despite her confusion over the rejection.
“ I’m aware of what is, and what isn’t, included in a standard Turgonian field kit,” Rias went on, “and I wouldn’t want to put you in the awkward situation of explaining to your family how you came to be pregnant with an enemy admiral’s child.”
“ Oh.” She laughed with relief. He wasn’t rejecting her.
Rias frowned at her reaction. “Tikaya, I know what the world believes about Turgonians, and the Kyattese have every reason to think the worst of me. I fear that if you intimate that we’re even friends, your people will believe I’ve tortured and brainwashed you into giving that response.”
He looked exasperated that his words didn’t drive the grin from her face, and his concern touched her.
“ What you say may be true,” Tikaya said, “but that’s something to worry about after we both get out of here alive. As for the other, getting pregnant wouldn’t be possible until I returned home to see one of our doctors to have the…” She groped for words to explain it in Turgonian-as far as she knew, their women took their chances drinking egata tea for contraceptive purposes. “It’s a procedure, performed by a doctor-who is, in our culture, a practitioner specializing in the psychological and somatic aspects of the mental sciences. Anyway, it’s not irreversible. You just go see the doctor again when you want to have children.”
During her explanation, his expression changed from consternated to perplexed to enlightened. “There is no…danger?”
“ No. After certain incidents during the war, it was recommended by our government that any women at risk of being captured have it done.”
His face darkened. “Were there many? ‘Incidents?’”
“ I was sheltered by the fact that I never left the island, but from the folks who went out, I heard…there were some ships you really didn’t want to find yourself aboard.”
“ I see.” His jaw was tight, body rigid. “I’d ask for the names of those ships, but there’s nothing I could do now. It’s hard to know-I don’t mean to make excuses, but men present a vastly different face to their superiors than they do to their prisoners.”
