Page 15

I did not often dream.

When I did, the images were fragile, broken, blurred. As if I viewed them from high above, through a veil of clouds.

But now I dreamed in lurid detail.

A faceless woman floated upon the surface of the sea, her body bobbing over the churning waves.

She was naked, without hair. Where her eyes should be were seared, empty sockets.

Something swam below her. Far below, where the sunlight could not reach.

Like a great monster with a shriveled stomach, it frantically searched the depths with a clawed, unquenchable need.

Its eyes were milky and veinous. Its skin slick and mottled with decay.

But its heartbeat was strong. It pulsed through the water and through the air. A steady thump, thump, thump of desperation. Of want.

Finally, the lurking thing strained up and up with delight, for it could sense the woman’s warmth leaking from her and desired to feast upon it.

Right before it reached her—right before I woke—I realized:

I was the woman. I was the water. I was the monster.

My eyes shot open to bleary, amber light. I did not move. I couldn’t. My body still seemed to bob atop waves, but now it hurt with such vibrant pain that I couldn’t even moan.

I rolled my head over a cool pillow. Sleep still clung like spiderwebs, but I could just make out the large room.

A few ornate lanterns swayed from the ceiling, casting their light through the dark space.

Everything was gilded. The walls, the intricate vines carved into the bedposts, the settee.

I squinted at the figure on the far side of the room.

The broad yet trim shape. The dark hair and darker gaze.

I blinked, and the king of Varya came into focus.

A black lock of hair hung over his creased brow.

He rifled through a box of small glass vials and as I watched him, the memories came.

The strange pain in my middle that had brought me to my knees in the gravel yard of Nemea’s mountain.

The slow, excruciating slice of a sword through my leg.

Theodore clinging to me as we rode down the mountain atop a stolen horse.

The jostling had tugged me in and out of consciousness, but I remembered the warmth of his power pouring through my bleeding thigh, the soft roll of his voice at my ear telling me to stay upright, to keep my hold on the pommel.

The bed lurched, swayed, and I realized… we were on the ship. I was on the sea. I could feel it in my body, through my pain, through the pitch and wood.

“We made it,” I rasped. Then, in the next breath, “I’m gonna be sick.”

Agatha was at my side in a rush, holding an empty washbasin below my chin. I heaved into it, coughing, then shuddered at how it flared my pain. Theodore moved himself and the box of medicines closer. The nauseating twist in my stomach eased.

“It’s the blood bond that’s making you ill,” Agatha said warily, as she ran a hand through my knotted hair. “It takes some time to settle.”

I held my throbbing head. “How much time?”

“Two days.” Lachlan and Agatha answered at the same time.

Lachlan sat at the far end of the table Theodore stood beside, sharpening a dagger with a whetstone.

I could see him properly now. He was wiry but imposing, with wide shoulders, light brown skin, and brown-gold hair, cropped close.

There was an upward curve to the corners of his mouth and a mischievous light in his eyes.

Irritation pinched Agatha’s features. “Had you told me that you had performed a sacred blood bond with the king of Varya before walking into a horde of armed guards, I could have told you that you’d be sick.

I could have told you that you’d need to keep close to one another until the bond settles.

But instead, you told me nothing and nearly got yourself killed. ”

“Agatha,” I groaned. “A lesson learned. The next time I frantically bind myself to a king and flee my home, I’ll make sure to run all the details past you first. That’s assuming that next time this happens, you’re not in the middle of a liaison.”

Lachlan snorted, and Agatha shot him a look that should have set him aflame.

“Don’t worry,” she bit out, more to Lachlan than me, “it won’t happen again.

” She swept away from the edge of the bed with the washbasin, her cheeks flushed bright.

Guilt lanced through me, and I noted the strain between them.

I wondered what had transpired in the short amount of time they’d been reunited.

I tried to sit up, to find a quiet way to ask Agatha what was wrong, but only managed to wince in discomfort.

“Don’t move.” Theodore’s order was low and chagrined. “You’ll make your leg bleed. It’s not properly healed yet.”

I met his icy gaze across the room and stilled.

There had been a kindness to him, an attentiveness, while we’d made our way down the mountain.

He’d kept a hand at my back and warmed me.

He’d looked at me with something like compassion when I’d been scared.

Now it was all gone. He possessed all the heat and civility of a marble statue.

A heavy rolling sound, like thunder, filled the cabin. “What is that?”

“Cannons,” Lachlan said, attention on his dagger. “They’re readying them in the very likely event that Nemea sends his ships after us. You know, since his captain was murdered, and his ward was stolen away in the night.”

His harsh hazel gaze and the derogation in his tone made it more than clear: Lachlan did not think highly of me.

“If I didn’t know better,” he went on, metal ringing with each swipe of his blade, “I’d think you were trying to take advantage of Theo. He’s always been susceptible to a damsel in distress.”

Agatha flopped down onto the settee, where she cradled her forehead in her hand. “Shut up, Lach.”

Theodore gave him an annihilating scowl, but Lachlan only raised his brows placatingly. The whetstone gave another scrape.

“Take advantage of him?” It was almost comical, to picture someone so implacable and intimidating as the king of Varya being victimized.

Lachlan looked at me like I was simple. “To make yourself queen.”

“Queen?” I blinked. “What do you… I don’t understand.”

Theodore’s deep voice was quiet, filled with a soft sort of tension. “Marriages are not performed as blood bonds on Seraf, Lach. She didn’t know.”

“Marriages!” My gaze bounced between all three of them. “We’re married?”

Theodore rubbed at his eye.

“That’s fine,” said Lachlan, clearly annoyed. “But you did. And you agreed. So now, in the eyes of the Great Gods, you’ve taken a fugitive wife, right before you’re supposed to meet your fiancée.”

“Your what ?” My glare shot to Theodore.

A surge of inexplicable possessiveness raced through me like venom.

Color sat high on his cheeks. His full mouth was a hard, flat line.

I could hardly understand my emotions—the irrational, spitting jealousy, the impulse to defend him to Lachlan.

“I gave His Majesty my word that I’d have our blood bond severed.

I trek to the Mage Seer the moment I land on Varian soil. ”

The air seemed to thin. Slowly, Agatha raised her head from her hand. Lachlan set his dagger to the table with a deafening clack .

“You’re going to the Mage Seer?” Agatha shuddered. “For a severance?”

A chill raced through me at the devastation that suddenly weighed on her. “Yes.”

Agatha’s voice went weak, impudent. “Your Majesty—”

Lachlan held up a hand. “Now, hold on.” He gave Theodore a disbelieving look, a strained and angry tilt to his lips. “You’re not actually sending her to the Mage Seer, are you? You wouldn’t. The severance will happen in the safety of the palace.”

Theodore’s broad chest rose and fell with increasing breaths, but his features were even as ever. “The severance will happen in the Mage Seer’s hut.”

“No.” Agatha rose from the settee so quickly I flinched. She stood like a bedraggled soldier, fierce and strong. Her black curls were a wild, sea-misted halo. Dirt and large tears marred her dress. “Absolutely not.”

Theodore’s gaze narrowed. “You’re out of line, Agatha.”

“I beg your forgiveness, then, because I do not plan on ceasing,” she snapped. “ Please, Your Majesty, you cannot send her there.”

“Agatha.” Lachlan’s entire countenance softened as he made his way to her side. He reached out a tentative hand, but she stepped away.

“No,” she said, resolutely. She looked pleadingly toward Lachlan. “He cannot. Tell him. He cannot do this.” Her voice wobbled with tears.

I’d never witnessed Agatha in such a state.

I wanted to go to her, take her hand, but as I tried to sit taller, I realized I was naked.

With a violent tug, I pulled the sheets to my chin.

My mind filled with questions, with dreadful, nightmarish thoughts of this Mage Seer and her severance ritual.

They fell through me like stones, collecting painfully in my gut.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” I said. “Is the Mage Seer dangerous?”

Agatha gaped at me. “Is she dangerous?” She rounded on Theodore.

“Shame on you.” Theodore went so still, so terrifyingly quiet, but Agatha went on.

“When your father ordered that Lachlan and I sever our blood bond, he sent us to the Mage Seer with nothing but a pack of food and two horses. I nearly died in that rotting hut of hers.”

The memory seemed to grind her down. Her shoulders drooped.

Her voice faltered. “The severing draught… It turns the blood black and forces it through the nose and eyes and mouth. The pain of the binding is nothing compared to the severance. Lachlan could only sit and watch as I lost blood over days on a filthy pallet, without a healer, while the Mage Seer did nothing but slither around in her putrid smoke.”