Evening came slow that day, the light outside turning the particular gold it always did before dinner, and Isolde had spent most of the afternoon quietly aware of a stiffness settling into her shoulders that hadn’t been there that morning. There was sand still caught behind one ear, a leftover from a night two days past that neither of them had properly addressed. She’d been meaning to deal with it herself. She hadn’t gotten around to it yet.
"You should bathe," Emeric said.
He said it plainly, standing in the doorway with his arms loosely crossed, the way he said most things lately — direct, unhurried, none of the awkward hedging that used to color his first attempts at anything personal.
She looked at him for a moment before answering. "I’m aware."
"I meant I could help."
The silence that followed had weight to it. Her cheeks went red before she’d even decided how to respond, heat crawling up from her collar in a way she resented almost as much as she felt it.
"Excuse me."
"You heard me." He didn’t move from the doorway. His voice stayed even, almost casual, like he hadn’t just upended the entire balance of the room.
"I did." Her own voice came out higher than she wanted. "I’m choosing to give you a chance to take it back."
"I’m not taking it back."
She reached for her usual footing, the sharp, clipped tone she used when she needed to reassert some kind of control, but it came out thinner than she meant it to. "You’ve had aides help before, I assume. There’s a method to it. Direct me, if you’re determined to insist."
"Absolutely not," she added, a beat too late, as if she’d only just caught up to her own sentence.
"Isolde."
"No."
"I’m your husband."
The word landed strange in his own mouth, foreign almost, like a coat he hadn’t broken in yet. He said it anyway, testing the shape of it out loud for the first time since the wedding parchment, and something about hearing himself say it settled a little more firmly into place than he expected.
She stared at him like he’d grown a second head. "That word does not grant you access to my bathwater."
"Doesn’t it?" He said it lightly.
Too lightly, in a way that made the question feel less like a joke and more like a genuine test of how far she’d let him push before she stopped him for real.
She opened her mouth to argue further. She found him already closer, the distance between the doorway and her chair somehow gone without her having tracked the steps that closed it.
He crouched down to her eye level, slow and deliberate, close enough now that she could make out the small scar above his eyebrow she’d never noticed before. Close enough that her breath caught somewhere it had no business catching, not for him, not after eleven days of being together
"Hell no," she said. It came out softer than the words intended, all the usual conviction drained out of it.
"Noted." He reached up without hurrying, tucked a loose strand of hair back behind her ear, his fingers grazing her cheek on the way down. Barely a touch.
"You can wear a towel. I’ll be careful. I only need to reach what you can’t reach yourself."
She didn’t answer right away. Her pulse was doing something thoroughly inconvenient, loud enough in her own ears that she was half-certain he could hear it too.
"You’re very close," she managed.
"I am." He didn’t move back.
For one long, suspended second, neither of them breathed properly. The air between them had gone thin, charged, his eyes dropping briefly to her mouth before he pulled them back up to meet hers instead — deliberately, like he’d decided at the last possible moment to leave the choice sitting there rather than take it from her outright.
"Emeric."
"Mm."
"If you’re going to do something, do it. Don’t just sit there."
Something shifted in his expression, not quite a smile, something steadier than that, more certain of itself than the version of him that had stumbled through a wedding-night dinner apologizing for burnt vegetables.
"Something like?" he said. "I wouldn’t know what you mean." He said, observing her as he straightened and offered his hand. After a long moment, she took it.
***
The bathroom was small by noble standards—white tiles that had seen better decades, a single window high on the wall letting in the last bruised light of evening, and a copper tub that sat low to the ground, wide enough for two if they didn’t mind touching.
Emeric had filled it twenty minutes ago, testing the water with his elbow the way he’d seen servants do, adjusting the temperature twice before he was satisfied. Steam rose in lazy spirals, fogging the window glass. A single candle sat on the narrow ledge, the only light besides what filtered through the frosted pane.
He stood in the doorway with Isolde cradled against his chest, her arms looped around his neck, her weight familiar now in a way it hadn’t been that first night. She was still in her day clothes—a simple dress the color of storm clouds, the fabric soft from washing. He could feel the warmth of her through it, the particular tension in her shoulders that hadn’t quite eased since he’d lifted her from the chair.
"Still time to change your mind," he said.
She didn’t answer with words. She just tightened her grip on his shoulders, just slightly, and pressed her face into the curve of his neck. Her breath was warm against his skin. He felt it travel down his spine like a slow match being struck.
"Put me down," she said. Not an order. Something softer. A request.
He crossed to the tub, the floor cool under his bare feet. He’d removed his boots somewhere in the hallway—he didn’t remember when. The tiles were slick with steam, and he moved carefully, deliberately, lowering her to the low wooden stool he’d positioned beside the tub.