The Lightning Witch

Copper Pipes

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"There is something to be said for knowing you cannot possibly be worse than your predecessor."

Jason looked up from his small workstation as his wife walked in. Dara was gowned in white today, which set off her milky skin and raven-black hair strikingly. A small, glittering tiara was pinned into her hair, and she looked both frustrated, and exhausted.

"You're doing a good job," he offered, dropping a cloth over his current project before she could see it, and came cover to wrap her in his arms. She sighed and pressed her face into his shoulder as the tension slowly faded out of her small body. "I hear it down in the forges, and at the market. The people don't know what to make of you yet, but they're tentatively hopeful."

"The nobles are not," Dara mumbled as she tried to burrow her way under his shirt. "I may have ot kill some of them. I don't want to."

"Why will you have to kill them?" Jason asked as he ushered his wife towards their bathing chambers. After a month in the castle, they were starting to get used to the luxuries that surrounded them, but the bathes were something special. "Turn around. I'll undo your gown."

She turned and lifted her hair out of the way so he could unlace her gown and ease it off before going for the tight-laced corset under it. "I think they are planning a coup."

"That might be trouble."

"Not if I cook one or two of them in their own armor in the middle of court."

Dara had gotten significantly more bloodthirsty since they took the castle. Jason would worry, but to be fair, he sort of wanted to cook them in their own armor too. Most of the nobles were accustomed to doing whatever they wanted, and generally that wasn't good for the common folk.

"Let's try talking to them first," he offered instead, and Dara sighed in relief when the corset finally came off. "You think they're bad, or just misguided?"

"One of them told me to kill you, because I needed a noble husband for the people to accept me as queen."

No wonder she was so angry. The quickest way to get Dara's temper going was to threaten her husband. Jason was both amused, and somewhat annoyed.

"They know we've been married for nearly ten years, right?"

"Apparently marriage means something different to the nobility," she said dryly, and he nudged her forward again.

The bathes were a dream that almost made up for the nobles and their stupidity, and the one in the royal suite was spectacular. As it turned out, the castle was built on natural hotsprings, and some clever engineer had designed the castle with water flowing through copper pipes in the walls. That water formed an ever-warm, clean pool in a polished-stone tub, and drained slowly through another series of pipes.

"Go on," Jason told his wife, only a little distracted by her nakedness. Her relieved smile was enough to keep him on task, and he stepped back through the door as she sank to her neck in hot water with a blissful sigh.

He had planned for tonight. Corryn tipped him off that the council was being difficult, and after all, he had a promise to keep.

When he returned to the bathing room, it was with a bowl of fresh strawberries in one hand, and a bowl of beaten cream in the other.

"What-" Dara sat up to look at him, puzzled but smiling. "Jason, what is that?"

"I promised," he said, and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "That when we took this castle, I would find you a bath, and feed you berries."

"You don't have to do that," she protested incredulously, and he just proffered a berry towards her with absolute seriousness. "Husband-"

"Wife," he told her seriously, laughter barely under control. "You don't think I would break a promise to you, do you?"

"No, never," she said, and let him feed her the berry. "You make it hard to replace you with a noble windbag."

"Part of my devious plan." Jason grinned and offered her another berry. "My wife is the Lightning Witch, and if I want to feet her berries while she washes off a bad day, I'm gonna do that. Those nobles really don't know what they're about, do they?"

"They don't," Dara said, and leaned up to kiss him, tasting of strawberries and cream. "I love you."

"I love you too," Jason said, and kissed her, and then the tip of her nose. She scrunched up her face and giggled, but let him feed her another berry. "Besides, I'm supposed to be holding back the darkness, and all that stupidness. If you throw me over for some nobleman, how can I do that?"

"It is prophesy," Dara agreed, still giggling. "Are you getting in with me? You also promised that, if it was big enough, and it is."

"Well," Jason said, and set the bowls where she could reach them herself before standing to undress. "If the Lightning Witch commands."

Dara smiled and lightning crackled across her fingertips when she beckoned him. "She does."