The Fetching Room was not what Eryk expected.
Eryk had expected something simple. A wooden tub, perhaps, or a stone basin filled with lukewarm water. A place to scrub off the grime of the road, and nothing more.
What stood before him was something out of an elven dream.
The Fetching Room was a sanctuary of quiet luxury, a place where time itself seemed to slow. The walls curved upward in a perfect circle, their surfaces polished to a soft sheen, the grain of the pale wood swirling like captured smoke. Above, the domed ceiling arched gracefully, threaded with living vines that spilled downward in lush cascades. Their leaves shimmered with moisture, each droplet catching the golden light of floating orbs that hovered near the ceiling, casting shifting constellations across the water below.
And the water...
At the room's heart lay a sunken pool, its surface so still, so impossibly clear, that it mirrored the ceiling like a second sky. Eryk could see his own reflection staring back at him, wide-eyed and travel-worn, his dark hair tangled, his face smudged with dirt. The water was so transparent that it seemed to have no depth at all, as if stepping into it would send him tumbling into the stars above.
The air was thick with fragrance. Night-bells, their petals half-open even in daylight, and their scent sweet and drowsy. Beneath it lay something darker and richer: crushed herbs, minerals, the deep, damp smell of earth after rain. It filled his lungs, heavy and intoxicating.
Sera took one look at the pool and crossed her arms.
"I'm not getting in that."
Dame Liriel, standing at the arched doorway, arched a single brow. "You would defy the queen's orders?"
"I'd defy the gods if they told me to take a bath in some magical elf puddle," Sera shot back at her. Her nose was wrinkling.
Yavanna sighed, rubbing her temples as if already exhausted by the argument. "It's not a puddle. It's a cleansing pool. The waters are infused with herbs—moonleaf, silverroot, things you don't have names for in your tongue. They'll soothe your muscles, clear your mind—"
"I don't need my mind cleared," Sera muttered, though her usual sharpness was dulled by the weariness in her voice.
Eryk, meanwhile, was already toeing off his boots, his toes curling against the smooth, warm stone of the floor. The thought of sinking into that water, of letting the heat seep into his aching muscles, was too tempting to resist. Weeks of sleeping on hard ground, of marching until his feet bled, of fighting and running and fearing—it all coiled inside him like a knot he couldn't undo.
But maybe, just for a moment, he could let go.
Ares, still perched on his shoulder, dug his claws in with sudden urgency. "I am not going in there."
Eryk reached up, scratching under the dragon's chin in the spot that always made his wings flutter.
"You don't have to. You can stay on the edge."
Ares eyed the pool with the deep suspicion of a creature who had, on principle, never trusted anything that couldn't be set on fire.
"If I fall in, I am burning this entire kingdom to the ground."
Eryk nodded solemnly. "That seems fair."
Dame Liriel cleared her throat, her patience clearly thinning.
"The queen expects you within the hour. Do not dawdle."
With that, she swept from the room, her silver robes whispering against the floor, leaving them alone in the hushed stillness.
Sera stared at the pool for a long moment, her jaw working as if she were chewing on a dozen different arguments. Then, with a groan, she yanked off her jacket and tossed it onto a nearby bench with unnecessary force.
"If I drown, I'm haunting both of you."
Yavanna grinned, already pulling the pins from her hair, letting the dark waves tumble free. "Noted!"
Eryk turned away to give Sera privacy, focusing instead on peeling off his own layers. The clothes the elves had given him were fine. Softer than anything he'd ever worn. Woven with threads that shimmered faintly in the light. The fabric was too light, the fit too loose, like wearing someone else's skin. He missed his old tunic, battered and stained as it was, the frayed edges and the tear along the sleeve where a knife had nearly taken his arm off. That tunic had history. These clothes had no stories in them.
Ares hopped down to the floor, his tail flicking as he paced the edge of the pool like a wary cat inspecting a suspicious puddle.
Sera, now stripped down to her underclothes, dipped a toe into the water—then hissed, jerking back.
"It's hot!"
Yavanna, already waist-deep, sighed in contentment, her eyes slipping shut. "It's perfect."
Eryk stepped in next, the heat searing at first, a sharp bite against his skin. But then, slowly, it melted into his bones like liquid fire, unraveling the knots in his back, his shoulders, the places where fear and exhaustion had settled deep. He sank down until the water reached his shoulders, letting his head fall back against the smooth stone edge.
For the first time in weeks, his muscles unclenched.
Sera, after a few more seconds of glaring at the water like it had personally offended her, finally surrendered with a muttered curse and slipped in, her face twisting in a grimace that slowly, reluctantly, smoothed into something like relief.
Silence settled over them, broken only by the soft ripple of water and the distant hum of the Grove's magic, a sound like wind through distant trees.
"So," Sera said, her voice oddly small, almost hesitant. "What now?"
Eryk opened his eyes, blinking water from his lashes.
"What do you mean?"
She scowled, but there was no real heat behind it.
"You heard Eldrin. The ogres are coming. The queen and the king are too busy preparing for war to worry about your cursed book problem. And we're stuck here until the portals stabilize." She flicked a droplet of water at him. "So. What's the plan?"
Eryk hesitated. The truth was, he didn't have a plan. Not a good one, anyway. Every step they'd taken so far had been reaction, not strategy—running from one disaster straight into the next.
Yavanna, ever the optimist, leaned forward, her fingers tracing idle patterns on the water's surface.
"Grandfather will help. Once the immediate threat is handled, he'll—"
"If the threat is handled," Sera interrupted. "If the ogres don't smash through your gates first."
Yavanna's smile faded, her dark eyes flashing.
"They won't."
"You don't know that."
"I do," Yavanna insisted, her voice hardening. "The Silver Grove has stood for a thousand years. We've faced worse than ogres."
Sera opened her mouth, probably to argue, but Eryk cut in before the tension could snap.
"We'll figure it out," he said, more firmly than he felt. "One step at a time."
Sera gave him a long, searching look, her amber eyes sharp even in the soft light. Then, with a sigh, she sank deeper into the water until only her nose and eyes were visible, her hair fanning out around her like spilled ink.
Ares, still pacing the edge, let out a low chirp.
"Humans are strange," the dragon observed. "You drown yourselves for fun."
Eryk laughed—a real, genuine laugh, the first in what felt like forever. It bubbled up from somewhere deep, surprising even him.
For now, in this quiet moment, with the warmth of the water and the weight of his friends around him, the future didn't seem quite so daunting.
Even if it was just an illusion.