Page 34

“Shame.” The orbs of light hovered around her.

They were made of nothing but faintly glowing air, swirling and thick.

The rattling of her vines filled the room.

They wove around themselves, raising her to stand.

They coiled around her emaciated legs, around her gauzy, stained wrap, and rolled her toward a rough carved bowl protruding through the floor.

It was made of the same rock as the island, as if the hut had been built around it.

“Come, then. Give me your blood and your payment. And I will give you guidance.”

I moved my hand from Theodore’s shirt to the bulk of his arm and held fast. My body hesitated at the thought of bleeding myself into yet another ritual bowl. “What will you do with it?”

“You would be worried about that, wouldn’t you?” Her laugh changed. It was rough now, like sand on glass. “I remember the first day I tasted your blood in the water. You must have been just a babe. You’ve been quite generous with it since.”

My fingers dug deeper into Theodore’s arm. “Answer my question.”

“I will not feed off it the way Eusia does, dearest. We will forge no bond. I simply need a drop of it so I can see you clearer. So I know how to help.”

My head went light from quick breaths. I looked up at Theodore, who already watched me.

His eyes were grave, but he gave me a small encouraging nod.

We moved together toward the rock bowl and Rohana.

Something clattered around our feet as we walked.

Theodore kept his stalwart gaze up, but I looked down.

Bones. Human bones. And animal. Strewn all over the floor. The orb light caught on their yellow-white shapes, their broken ends, where it looked like the marrow had been sucked out. A whimper shook through my throat. Theodore pressed his arm around mine, pinning it harder to his solid torso.

At the bowl, I finally looked up, directly into Rohana’s eyes. Up close, her face was even more repulsive. The large bags of skin beneath her eyes were rippling and white-lined. They drew up to her eyelids, marring the delicate skin there too.

“It’s from the smoke,” she said abruptly.

“From hundreds of years of prophecies. My eyes used to be the same gold as yours. Hair like yours too.” Bitterness colored her words.

“We always give something up for power, don’t we?

” A vine wove through the air and dropped a small jagged-edged knife into the empty bowl. “Blood.”

I let go of Theodore’s arm and placed the crude blade on the lip of the bowl. I pressed my talon tip into the end of my finger instead and squeezed until a single drop fell into the basin.

“And you, my king,” Rohana said, cloyingly.

I took Theodore’s hand and gave him the same puncture wound. He let a drop of blood fall. Two more vine tendrils snaked toward us. In the coiled end of each was a small vial of black liquid.

“Drink.”

“What will it do?” I asked.

“It will make you float.” Her voice was beautiful, lit by a sinister smile. “It will loosen your lips and free your mind. It will unstring your muscles so that I may truly know you. I do not give prophecies that cannot be received. You must open to me, dearest. You must let me in.”

I could think of nothing more terrifying. My tendons were strung taut, and I shook as I forced myself to take the vial from its coil.

Theodore took his and clamped it in a fist. “If the smoke makes her ill, you do not touch her. You will not rip at her hair or pick at her skin. Your foul mouth will not touch her body. She owes you nothing for your prophecy.”

“Payment is req—”

“Yes, I know.” Theodore’s voice filled the crooked hut. “But she is not yours to take from. She is mine.”

Rohana grimaced, showing her stained teeth. “Not for long, Your Majesty.”

Theodore was terrifying in his stillness. “Agree that you will not touch her. Or I’ll cut your head from your shoulders myself.”

Rohana held his stare for a moment before she gave a sharp nod of agreement.

He lifted the vial to his lips and drank.

I took his hand to stop mine from shaking and drank from my own.

The liquid was thick and muddy and foul.

It coated my tongue, my throat. I swallowed, coughed, gagged, trying to clear it, but it clung and only grew thicker.

Theodore squeezed my hand as a prickling feeling filled my chest. A boom of thunder rocked through my head.

I pressed at my temple, desperate for the feeling to ease.

Another coiled vine rose into the air and emptied the contents of a third vial of black sludge into the bowl where the drops of our blood had fallen. It hissed, bubbled, and then Theodore let go of my hand. In one slime-coated breath, he fell to a knee and groaned.

“Theo?” I took his face in my hands. His skin was cool and slick. “What’s wrong?”

“Sick,” he grumbled. Then he was tilting backward, toward the bones that littered the damp wood floor. I did my best to guide his dead weight down slowly, but he was too large. I slipped, sending us both to the floor with a rattling crash.

I moaned from the pain, but it was the blood bond in my gut that had me clambering, fighting my way back to Rohana. “What did you do to him?” I seethed at her through the tendrils of smoke that were lifting from the bowl.

“He’s all right, my sweet,” Rohana said, lowering her face to the smoke. “He expected it.”

“Expected it?” I lunged for her, but her vines yanked her back. “ Undo it. ”

Whatever I’d drunk from that vial was beginning to affect me too. It made me feel like I was sinking. Like time and the world around me were suddenly submerged in thick water, rippling and slow. I blinked, trying to clear the way Rohana’s visage began to blur.

“I slipped him some hedera. I cannot undo it .” Her empty eyes locked with mine. “Payment is required before we begin. Magic must be fed, Imogen, and I know my God-king very well.” She gave a chuckle that only stoked my blistering anger. “He’ll prefer paying me while unconscious.”

The three glowing orbs winked out. There was abject darkness, filled only by the slithering, rattling sound of her vines. My senses were so overwhelmed that I couldn’t place where in the little room she was. Then Theodore’s body jerked at my feet.

I looked down to see the faintest bloom of yellow light.

A pale arm, snaked in vines, hooked over Theodore’s torso.

Rohana was there, sliding her decrepit body up his.

Her bony fingers dove into his thick hair, gripping like she would pull some of it out.

Her lips scraped up his cheek, teeth settling against his ear.

Without a thought, I lunged and forced my talons into the thin, sagging skin around her feeble biceps.

My other hand sliced through her robe, stuck into her ribs, and drew an ear-piercing shriek from her.

Rohana was only bone. With ease, I hoisted her up and slammed her down onto the floor, placing my body between hers and Theodore’s.

My voice ripped from my chest. “You touch him again and I’ll tear your limbs from your fucking body.”

“He must pay.” Her voice had turned weak and begging. “The ritual has already begun, the smoke is already in my chest. I must replace what is taken.”

I was nearly choking on the rotting mist that was filling the hut. And I needed my severing draughts. I needed a prophecy, but my anger was consuming. I dug my talons in deeper.

“Please,” she moaned. “I need flesh.”

Flesh. There was no way I could let her touch him.

Her thin lips pulled back in a snarl. “There is an order, a balance that I keep. Killing me will ruin it. If you will not let him pay, then you must so that I may continue to serve.”

“I’ve grown tired of paying with my body so that monsters may keep living.” My talons scraped against her rib bones as I forced them even deeper. Her scream bounced off the walls.

“Do not be like Eusia and kill your own. What kind of monster would you be if you took me from the people I am here to care for?”

I’d grown into a woman believing I was a monster. Living in shame and fear over what I was. But even with my talons tapping against Rohana’s ancient bones, that feeling had momentarily fled. I was not like her. I would never be.

“What exactly do you require?” I ground out. “How much flesh?”

“Just a piece. With fat still attached,” Rohana answered in a relieved wheeze. “And hair. Pulled out at the root.”

The foul, sweet scent of the smoke sat heavy in my lungs. It smelled like dead things, broken down, nearly gone. My head beat with the pressure of that brew she’d given me, but I managed to pull my talons from her crepey flesh. “Don’t move.” I sounded like I’d downed an entire flagon of wine.

It took all my concentration, but I wrapped a clump of hair at my nape around my fingers and ripped it from my scalp. One of her vines stretched longingly for it.

Rohana’s empty white eyes watched hungrily as I lifted my shirt. I dug a talon tip into the soft band of flesh beneath my navel, pulling out a small round of bloody meat. The vine took both my hair and skin and tucked them inside Rohana’s gaunt cheek.

Her entire body relaxed, instantly satiated.

She was dragged back to the bowl, looking like a pale corpse in the lone orb light. The brown mist crested the lip, and the vines heaved her up, holding her so her face hung above it. A rank sucking sound cut through my ears as she gulped the thick, brown fumes deep.

I could hardly see her now with how thick the mist had become. My sight began to fracture with the more breaths of it I took. I adjusted myself so that Theodore lay protected between my legs just before the orb light went out once more. In the dark, I felt like I was floating.

The voice that came was not that of a maiden. It was the voice of a crone, reed-thin and wobbling.

There is a crown. Ripped, ripped, ripped from the head.

There is a bond. Cut, cut, cut from the blood.

The queen lies drained of her divinity.

The king sits wrecked and ravaged beneath her wing.

Rohana made an awful gasping sound that droned on for what felt like minutes.

What they have made will decimate the order of all things.

I shook my head. My voice was dreamy and slow. “I don’t understand.”

Rohana cackled through the darkness.

What they have made will bring chaos. Will bring ruin. Will bring death.

Feeling disembodied and confused, I had the sensation of resting atop coarse, pleated waves. Rocking, swaying, dipping. I fought through the meaning of her words and a chill fell over me as understanding snapped into place.

I was the queen, drained of her power.

And Theodore… the king.

Wrecked and ravaged because of me.

And together… Panic slipped through my body as my thoughts and fears slowly crystalized.

Together we would bring chaos.

We would bring ruin.

We would bring death.