Page 32

There was a tense, drawn-out silence. He gave a curt nod, took a cushion from the bedstead, and settled himself before the little hearth, curled up on his side. “Night.”

A pit tore through my stomach as I crawled into the pillows and blankets. It gnawed and grew, and I wished I had a vial of nepenthe. I wished I’d dragged Theodore into the bed with me by his collar. I stared up at the ceiling, listening to his breathing.

It was a long while before either of us fell asleep.

With our horses at a gallop, we devoured the rest of the journey in two full days.

Night had fallen hours before we finally reached the northern shore of Varya and the cluster of little rocky islands on its coastline. A stormy gust clawed through my hair. Cold drops of rain began to prick at my cheeks. Even knowing the pain that awaited me, I was eased to have finally arrived.

Aching, I dismounted and made my way over the black sand beach, toward the glowing, foamy shoreline. A narrow strip of water separated the little islands—the Sacred Holms—from the rest of Varya. On the largest and closest holm, dark against the storm clouds, stood a tiny shack.

“How do we cross?” I asked Theodore, who rummaged through saddlebags at the tree line behind me.

“She pulls back the water.” He sounded oddly hollow.

“How long will that take her?” Now that I stood within sight of the hut, the anticipation was too much. “How will she know we’re here in the dark?”

“We’re not going in until sunrise.”

“Why not?”

“Because I refuse.” His words cut like a whistling axe. He’d gone still beside the tree that the horses were tied to, and though the details of his face were lost to the night, I could imagine his glower. Could picture the unease tugging on his every muscle through the cool air and rain.

“You refuse.” I crossed over the black sand, wanting to look into his eyes. “You raced me here for two full days, only to have me sit on this beach, and wait for the sun to rise?”

“The Mage Seer is dangerous. We’ll wait for the added safety of the sun.”

It was a kingly command, but I knew him well enough now to note the fear in his voice, to see that the rigidity of his body did not come from a full day in the saddle but from something worse.

“What can she do to me by night that she can’t do to me by day?” I closed the rest of the space between us. “I suffer either way. It’s you who doesn’t want to enter her hut now. Tell me why.”

The only sounds were the tapping rain, the crashing waves. They drowned out his heavy breaths. Drops fell into my eyes, trickled down my neck.

“I need to get us out of the rain,” he finally said.

“You’re changing the subject.” I crossed my arms. “First, tell me what’s wrong. You won’t set foot on the sand. Why?”

He thinned his gaze. “Let me build us a shelter. Then we’ll talk.”

“Fine.”

He moved with efficiency, pulling food and a bottle of wine from a saddlebag, kicking away twigs and fallen branches from the sandy soil. Disquiet pulled his shoulders toward his ears. It clamped his jaw.

Movement at my side made me jump back. A single blooming vine had unwound itself from the trunk of the tree and hovered in the air.

New vine shoots grew out of it, like little wriggling worms. They thickened and wove into one another until a small domed shelter took shape.

The leaves broadened, each growing larger than my spread hand.

White flowers yawned into existence, emitting their own faint light in the stormy darkness.

“Charming.” I bent low to crawl into the little nest just as a bolt of lightning cleaved the sky. Theodore followed when the thunder cracked around us, so loud that my hands flew up to cover my ears.

Warmth rolled off him, filling the little shelter with the scent of rain and green earth and sweat and dust. The space was small, and Theodore was… not. His shoulder pressed hard against mine, and through the thin, wet layers of our shirts, his skin burned like a brand.

I pressed my eyes shut for a few breaths.

Soon I would feel the absence of him, and the thought sent sorrow cutting through me. I dug my teeth into my bottom lip and tried to focus on reason.

The low echo of a cork leaving its bottle grabbed me from my thoughts. Theodore brought the wine to his lips and tilted his head back, and back. So far that the bottle knocked into the vine roof above us. He took long pulls, like he’d come upon a spring after days in a desert.

“I’m out of the rain.” I took the bottle by its neck and tugged. He let me have it. “Now you can tell me what’s wrong.”

A nettled grumble filled his chest. “You won’t let me keep this to myself, will you?”

The light drops of rain had become a deluge.

It roared against the leaves. I took a sip of wine.

“You always panic when the Mage Seer is mentioned. Lachlan told me you were scared before we left. And now you’re guzzling wine from the bottle like you wished you were at the bottom of it.

It’s unsettling. And I don’t need to be unsettled before this ritual.

So, no. I will not let you keep it to yourself. ”

“My story won’t settle you in the least.”

“That won’t get you out of telling me.”

He blew out a long breath. His fingers brushed my own as he reached for the wine and took one more gulp.

“I was last here seven years ago. At my father’s behest. He hid it, but my father was born with very little power.

And he was not very skilled in wielding what he did have.

Only the Gods know why.” He brought the bottle to his lips, took another deep drink.

“It was a source of deep shame for him. And I can understand why now—he was the only son of a Great God. By all accounts he should have been his father’s equal, or close to it.

I, on the other hand, was given a great deal of power…

like his father. It was always a sore point between us.

He pushed me to master myself, my power.

None of my hard work seemed to be enough.

It took years for me to understand that he envied me, perhaps worse.

When I was twenty, he decided he wanted to perform a ritual of transference.

He wanted to give me what little power he had, add it to the power I already possessed, and have me ascend to the throne. He said he was unfit compared to me.”

He sat so quiet, for so long, that I thought he’d decided against telling me more. I leaned against him in encouragement.

“I didn’t want to be king,” he finally said. “But he dragged me here anyway, to the Mage Seer. We performed the ritual.” We sat in silence. “The ritual of transference… it takes the life of the giver.”

My body flexed in surprise.

Hurt laced his voice. “I left that little hut in the middle of the night, having watched my father die a horrific death, with a crown I did not want, with power I did not want—and with a stolen bottle of the Mage Seer’s poison in my pocket.

The poison she uses for the prophecies and rituals she performs.” He stared through the shelter’s opening, to the dark shore before us.

“I couldn’t take his body back with me. I…

I drank the bottle of poison empty, right there on that beach while my head was still clouded from the ritual smoke. ”

I didn’t realize I’d gripped his leg until his fingers bumped over my knuckles. He turned my hand over and ran a finger over the web of white scars on my palm.

“Days later I woke up in a room I didn’t recognize.

An older couple—Hector and Antonia—nursed me back to health.

They live not far from here. Eftan ruled in my stead and allowed me to convalesce for a handful of months out here.

” He held up the wine bottle. “I learned to make this wine. Learned to cook Varian wildland dishes. Gardened, and mucked horse stalls, and washed clothing. I mourned my father. My freedom. But I’d also never been so content.

I still visit them often.” His voice snagged.

“They’ve become parents to me, in a way. ”

“And now you’re back here because of me.” My stomach sank low. “I’m so sorry.”

“No.” He shook his head emphatically, twisting to face me.

“Don’t go searching for more guilt to pile atop yourself.

” His eyes were intent on mine. “I chose this. I agreed to it. Neither one of us knew it would have come to this.” His free hand rose to my jaw and the tips of his fingers dragged across its edge. “And even if I had known…”

The space between my racing heart and ribs squeezed. Even with his pretty words, I felt scheming and selfish and wicked. Utterly undeserving of the understanding and care that Theodore bestowed upon me. I reared back, away from his touch.

His look hardened. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s nothing wrong,” I said quietly. “I’m tired.”

“Imogen?”

Something in me snapped. “I’m going inside the Mage Seer’s hut alone. I’ll get the draught, and then we’ll find a safe place to perform the severance after I’ve left her.”

His handsome face, that had been open and tender, broke into a scowl. “Is this a joke?”

“No.” I blinked frantically as a sting began at the back of my eyes.

The rain beat loudly. His brows lowered; his jaw ticced once, twice. “If you think I’m letting you walk into that hut alone—” He scraped a hand through his wet hair. “What’s come over you? Is this some twisted form of pity?”

“No.”

“Are you upset I touched you?”

“What? No.”

He stilled. Only his broad chest rose and fell as his gaze dragged over my face. “No?”

“I’m…” I shook my head. “I’m embarrassed. You have given me so much care when I haven’t done a thing to earn or deserve it, and I’ve hurt you in return.” I clamped my mouth against my rambling. “But, no, I’m not upset you touched me.”

“There are no more transactions between us, remember?” he said in a husky whisper. “You’re deserving because I say you are.” Slowly, he raised his hand to my face. His touch was feather light as it dragged from my cheekbone, to my neck. I leaned into the warmth, relished the sensation of his touch.

“Are you upset I kissed you? On that beach by the village.”

I closed my eyes, remembering, then shook my head. “No.”

Relief enveloped him. A low, hungry groan filled his chest, and in one swift movement, he scooped me into his lap. He wrapped my legs snugly around him. Heat cascaded through me as his fingers twined through my hair, curled into a fist, and tugged. “Good.”

For a moment, we sat like that, his strong body held between my thighs, and stared. His eyes were torrid; his breath rolled over my sensitive lips. I was a heartbeat away from begging when he lowered his mouth to mine.

His kiss was decadent, slow, and the world around me fell away.

I was lost to the softness of his lips, the firmness of his body, the languid heat of his tongue.

I made a desperate moan when his teeth scraped over my bottom lip.

He showed no restraint, and still, I wanted more.

I rolled my hips over his and went nearly mad from the sound he made.

His strong hands roved to my back, and lower, then to the front of my shirt where he raced to undo the clasps.

“I need to see you.” His lips met my shoulder, my neck. He nipped at my earlobe and made his way back down toward my nearly bare chest when an icy shock of water wrapped around my buttock, my thighs.

We both gasped. Our bodies jerked. “What the fuck—”

Out of the shelter opening, the dark gray sky glowed with the faintest morning light.

The storm still raged, but through the rain, I could make out the Mage Seer’s grass-roofed hut and the outline of a small, hooded figure on the rocks.

Her arm was extended toward the sea. The wave she’d sent to us began to flow back in a curve of white foam, like a beckoning finger.

Theodore gripped my shoulders with determined force, as if he meant to keep me.

The sun had come. It was time to sever my bonds.