Jun Mulin's amethyst eyes widened in primal horror. Gods be good—she's ringed my royal scepter with poisoned needles! Did this wildling grasp nothing of propriety? Nothing of where precisely men and women ought not to touch?
Before outrage could crystallize, Bai Heran surfaced, plucking the needles free. "Troublesome," she muttered, sulfur droplets clinging to her lashes. "Sulfuric acid in these springs suppressed your toxins. Had you left the water, venom would've flooded your veins." Her nose wrinkled in disdain. "Why must your royal scepter stand at attention during healing?"
"By right!" he thundered, though warmth already spread from his abdomen—the poison dissolving like snow in dragonfire. Her needlecraft is sorcery.
"Done." She waved a dismissive hand. "No martial arts for half an hour. Then we part ways—no debts, no names." She turned to swim ashore.
Snow crunched in the surrounding woods—twenty pairs of feet at least. Bai Heran froze mid-stroke. "Yours?" she hissed.
"Or yours?" His lip curled. "Thirteen needles in your back—no petty grudge." He glanced up the cliff. "Pushed, weren't you?"
"Household squabbles." She resumed her dog paddle , inelegant but determined. "Two maids pushed me—not twenty assassins. But you? Forty-nine red-tailed gecko tails brewed into venom—that's no trifle. Your foe is formidable; your lineage greater still. I'll not drown in your storm."
Jun Mulin watched her flounder, a winter sparrow in thermal waters. "Go then," he called, bitterness sharp on his tongue. "Better you flee. Gratitude for the cleansing."
She stopped. Her heart—cold as the Shivering Sea—thawed a fraction. "Since I've touched your flesh," she sighed, turning back, "I'll not love 'em and leave 'em like some fishwife's bastard."
"Fool!" he spat as she dragged him shoreward. "Twenty killers approach! I've no martial arts for half an hour—"
"—So you'll die like a trussed duck!" She hauled harder. "They know sulfur springs aid poison. They'll drain this pool to find you!"
"Unhand me!" He dug his heels into silt. "My fate is mine!"
"Your fate?" She whirled, eyes blazing frost-fire. "I could scatter twenty like chaff! But first—" Her gaze dropped pointedly. "—get. Out. Of. My. Springs."
He flushed crimson to his earlobes. "I've no robes!"