Chapter 15 - 14 - Blood on the Moonlight
The bathwater had long lost its warmth.
The steam that once rose in soft waves had vanished, replaced by a creeping chill that nipped at her skin. Yet Ashtoria did not move. She remained submerged, her body sunken up to her shoulders, her crimson hair floating unevenly atop the water like strands of blood woven into the surface.
Her face was still. But it was not a peaceful stillness—it was the stillness of a tombstone.
Her empty gaze drifted upward, fixed on the dim, stone ceiling lit only by the flicker of candlelight. She had lost count of the hours spent in that silence. Time felt irrelevant in this cold sanctuary. The warmth had long drained from her body, and still, she did not rise.
Only when a faint sense of calm returned did she move.
Ripples broke across the water as she stood. Droplets slid down her pale skin, tapping softly against the stone floor. She took a white towel, previously laid out by the handmaidens, and wrapped it around herself with slow, deliberate movements.
She lingered at the edge of the bath, then looked down into the now-murky water, as if searching for a reflection she no longer recognized—and found nothing at all.
.
.
.
Some time later, Ashtoria sat in the dining hall.