Page 14

“I need to stop shaking,” I said. He nodded and our gazes held.

Then he offered me a hand. It was so warm, with calluses over his palms and the pads of his strong fingers.

Guided by his steady hold, I stepped down onto the wide slab he stood upon.

He took us toward the rock face. It was slightly concave, and he stepped into its curve, placing himself at my back.

Neither of us spoke as he swiped at my damp hair to pile it over my shoulder.

Nor did we speak when he tugged me slowly backward, into the sphere of his warmth.

My body tensed when my back touched his hard chest. The sore skin there ached, but quickly, the heat of his body seemed to soothe it.

He looped an arm around the front of my shoulders, and it was as if a band of sunshine bloomed over my collarbone.

Slowly, carefully, he wrapped his other arm over my stomach, below the vase I held.

“Don’t spill it,” I whispered, as if he were not already handling me with the utmost care.

I didn’t think he was breathing as he gently pressed me further against his body.

My twitching muscles were so exaggerated next to his steadiness.

I could make out the lines and divots of his chest, his stomach.

The hard press of his thighs against the back of my own.

Self-consciousness leaked through me. If I could picture the intimate details of his outline, he most certainly could picture mine.

He spoke softly, lips beside my ear. “Your back. Why didn’t you tell me you were bleeding?”

“There were more important things to worry over,” I said, staring out into the darkness. “It hardly hurt compared to the binding.”

“I can’t heal the wounds with the silk stuck to it.

” We stood like that, listening to the wind, and my body began to mirror Theodore’s stillness.

He leaned against the rock, and I leaned against him, and for the briefest moment, I closed my eyes and imagined I lay on my stomach in the sun.

That its rays sank through my skin and muscle, to my very center.

It felt like the blood bond in my gut glowed.

“Are you ready?”

Theodore’s low voice jolted me. My head had fallen back against his shoulder, chin tipped up toward the stars. I jerked upright. “Yes.” I moved too quickly, trying to pull my body away from his. His arm snagged on the bottom of the vase. Water sluiced over the edge, soaking the front of me. “Shit.”

The water felt strange.

In the tub, it had sparkled over my skin and burrowed toward that dark, steady pulse in my middle. Now the water made that same place feel strained. It was as if something inside me were close to fracturing, as if the source of my power had become incongruent.

Theodore set his hands to my shoulders. “What is it?”

I shook my head, not wanting to speak what I’d felt, and started down the stairs once more. It was easier now, with Theodore’s warmth lingering over me, but it sat uneasily. Every kindness, every favor, was a debt to be repaid, and I already owed so much.

Quickly, nimbly, I moved down the stones, relying on myself alone. His boots scuffed over gravel behind me as he tried to keep up. We came upon the first Varian guard crouched around a bend. I lowered myself beside him. Theodore knelt close on my other side.

The entry yard had come into view. A wide, stacked stone gate ringed an open paddock, and beyond it stood the well-kept stable house.

Torches burned on either side of the stable doors, with two more at the paddock gate.

They fought to stay lit in the gusts, which made their flames strobe through the clearing.

Four guards were clustered at the gate. They spoke and laughed, but the wind carried their sounds away.

“Are there only four?” I whispered over the guard’s shoulder.

“Four here. Another six or so at the entry to the mountain road.” He pointed off into the blackness between two towering crags of stone.

There were more torches at their base, illuminating a small huddle of guards, but the light was faint, and Nemea’s men were dressed in armor that was the same color as the night.

I pulled in a breath and held it. Worry gnawed at me. Worry over how my tremors were returning, over getting us all down this mountain. Over Theodore and his safety.

“We need to go now,” said the guard, impatiently. “Lure the nearest men. Then I’ll retrieve the rest of the party.”

He made it sound so simple, but it felt suddenly impossible.

I had no sense of my power. It was a lump of clay, and I was an untried artist. Whatever form it had taken tonight had not been because of my skill and understanding of it.

I looked down at the vase of seawater. What if it wasn’t enough?

What if I, in my shivering, fear-locked state, could not keep any of us from a brutal, bloody end, all because I was too craven to face a death that I’d earned?

“Imogen.” My given name on Theodore’s lips quieted my thoughts. The distant firelight flickered over his stricken features. “I’ll be right behind you.”

I could only nod. Slowly, I took the vase and began to pour the water over my chest, my shoulders.

It soaked into the dark green silk and into my skin.

Instantly, that string in my chest reverberated, but the strange, fractured feeling returned too.

I closed my eyes and fought to focus past it.

My heart galloped, breath quickened. Then the first ooze of oily power poured between my ribs.

The bloody skin around my spine seemed to stretch with the pressure of my wings, but I smothered their emergence with a desperate thought and focused my intention.

I wished to lure, and the darkness in my gut surged into my throat.

I stood and took a single step down.

Theodore’s fingers grasped mine. “Be careful.”

Our gazes stuck. “Yes, Your Majesty.” I had to force myself from his side, past his crouching men, down the last of the crooked stairs.

The pebbles in the clearing poked into the soles of my feet.

The chill, though I felt it, didn’t make me tremble now.

With each step I took, however, I felt more and more amiss.

I clamped my jaw against the stretching, twisting sensation in my stomach and stopped before Nemea’s guards at the edge of the torch’s orb of light.

The first guard to see me jumped. It was the pock-faced boy who’d forced me into my room earlier. I cocked my head, taking him in. He looked even younger with his black helmet removed, all round cheeks and unkempt hair. Though he reached for it, he never touched the hilt of his sword.

Silent lures had shot from my throat.

His face began to change—brown eyes bulging, cheeks turning a deep, ugly red.

The wind in the clearing died completely.

The torches burned steadier. The other guards slipped under my lures before they could make a sound.

And one after another, the four of them choked and convulsed until they collapsed into an unmoving heap.

My eyes grew wet with tears. A swirl of nausea made its way up from my stomach. I’d not thought to kill them.

A shout echoed from the entry at the mountain road.

The rest of the guards there had seen me.

They assembled and panic fell through me at the sight of their swords and daggers and crossbows.

I wished for darkness so no arrow could find me, and a gust extinguished the torches.

I started toward them, intention on my lure once more, when an angry pain burst through my stomach.

I hissed, pressing my hand over the spot, but I kept moving toward the advancing guards.

They were close enough now that my power should have stopped them, but they didn’t freeze.

Though I’d sent out my lure, their bodies didn’t go slack.

I squinted through the moonlit night, focusing past the way my blood raced, to see that they’d only slowed.

They moved as if through water. The straining pain in my middle grew and grew.

I clamped my teeth, trying desperately to keep the guards at bay.

“ Imogen. ” Theodore’s agonized voice lanced the darkness. It stopped me dead in my tracks.

But Nemea’s guards kept advancing, plodding yet barbarous.

Teeth bared, swords raised. I stumbled backward, trying to keep space between us, but the pain was spreading through me like ink through water.

I landed hard on my backside. Gravel crunched behind me as Theodore’s men ran to my aid.

A scream scraped through my gritted teeth when I realized one of Nemea’s guards was already upon me.

I clawed at the gravel, trying to scramble away on my knees, but the building agony in my gut made me slow.

My stomach clenched like I was going to vomit, when a searing pain lit my thigh. Nemea’s guard loomed over me, his sword cutting slowly through the outside of my leg. I could feel the cold blade deep inside my muscle, flaying it wide.

One of Theodore’s men slid to a stop above me, spraying stones with his boots.

He moved so quickly, his sword arching over him and down into the guard’s extended arm.

A sickening wet crack rent the air. A guttural, pleading wail.

The guard’s arm came clean off at the elbow.

It fell over my stomach, dark blood spurting onto my wet silk robe, the sword that had cut me still held in its clenched fist.

The rest of Theodore’s men arrived, slashing easily into the slow-moving guards. Groans rang out, the foul rip and thud of swords slicing through flesh. Bodies folded to the ground, and then Theodore was beside me, pulling me up to stand.

The pain in my stomach fled completely.

His hands were in my hair, cupping my cold face, gripping my shoulders as he took stock of me.

“You’re okay. You’re okay,” he kept repeating to himself.

Grooves sat between his inky brows. His face was sweat-strewn and terrified.

Hard fingers swiped at the tears on my cheeks, and then he stooped and ripped aside the robe to look at my leg. “ Shit. ”

He hefted me up into his arms. As he ran us toward the stables, he set his lips to my ear. “I can fix it,” he promised. “You won’t even have a scar.”

“I don’t care about a Godsdamned scar,” I hissed at his lie. He set me atop a horse and climbed up behind me. “Just get me off this mountain.”