Page 38

B y late evening, Theodore felt well enough to sit before the fire in the main room. His eyes were still shadowed underneath, his skin was still wan, but he reclined with his feet up. His head leaned against the chairback, a cup of cooling tea in his hand.

We hadn’t spoken save for a few terse words since the moment we’d had in bed.

I sat on the floor before the hearth, staring into the flames, remembering.

Theodore’s touch lingered over my body, inside it.

As if his kisses, his hands, were but an extension of his power, taking root despite our tumult.

I adjusted my skirt and wished that I could go back, wished that I could have kept my mouth shut and let him take me with him into the oblivion we’d both wanted.

The unfinished memory wouldn’t be enough to suffocate the horror of the tasks ahead.

Find and kill Eusia. Sever our bond. And find some way to make Nemea pay for every lie and cruelty. I let my gaze slide toward Theodore. He watched me with heavy lidded eyes, chest rising and falling just quickly enough to make me think he was remembering too.

Hector pushed through the front door with a large bundle of firewood in his arms. “Ahh, you’re both up!” He set the wood next to the hearth, then took in Theodore’s reclined form as he clapped the dirt from his hands. “You’ve looked better.”

“I’ve looked worse.” Theodore chuckled weakly.

Hector laughed alongside him, the sound ringing and bright.

He gave me a broad smile that I couldn’t help but return.

“And you—you’re looking far better than you did all soaked from the rain.

” He pointed to the dress I wore. I’d pulled on a simple linen gown of Antonia’s from the wardrobe.

It was studded with the smallest embroidered flowers in shades of lavender and periwinkle.

“I recognize that gown. Looking as lovely as Antonia used to in it.” His gaze moved toward where she stood in the kitchen, preparing a platter of fruit, bread, and boiled eggs.

He shuffled toward her and kissed her on the cheek before pouring himself a cup of tea. “Did you hear, Theo? About the attack on Ammos?”

Theodore tensed. “What?”

“I was talking to the baker’s son traveling the road there.” Hector looked to me. “Ammos is just an hour up the coast by foot, if you don’t know. Three ships sacked it. Lit it aflame. Two were unmarked. Mercenary ships, he said, but one was Serafi.”

I gasped around the fear that lodged in my throat. Theodore sat up, spilling his tepid tea onto the ottoman.

“When?” He stood so quickly, he swayed. I jumped up to steady him.

“Two nights past,” Hector said, jade eyes wide. “I’m sorry. I thought maybe that was why you went to the Mage. Getting guidance.”

He shook his head. “No. I had no idea.” Theodore looked utterly adrift, his attention darting around the room helplessly. Finally, he strode toward the front door, closed it, and barred it with the wooden beam.

“What are you doing?” Antonia asked, a nervous hand at her chest.

“It’s not safe.” He moved to the window and began securing the shutters. “They’re looking for her.”

Hector and Antonia stared at me with twin looks of astonishment. “Who is?” asked Hector. “What do they want with the queen of Varya?”

I shook my head, my stomach all the way at my feet. “I’m not the queen of Varya.” I swiped at my brow at their growing confusion. “I mean, I am, but not by choice. His choice. He didn’t choose me to be queen, per se. I just—I don’t know what I am.”

Antonia crossed her arms and glared at me. “Are you married?”

“Yes,” Theodore and I answered at the same time.

He secured the next window. “She’s a Siren. We bound ourselves when I helped her escape from King Nemea’s fort where he’d been abusing her. I’ve been skirting a war with him for years. Taking her set it into motion.”

“Oh, Theo.” Hector shook his head. “Why’d you do it? Why not plan for something like this?”

Theodore stopped, shoulders perking in offense.

“I did try to plan.” I felt a punch of shame for my lack of patience, for not accepting how he’d told me to wait when we’d been on Nemea’s mountain.

He looked to me then, but I saw no prickling of conscience in his gaze, no regret in it.

Only a tormented certainty. “But I couldn’t leave her—” He cleared his throat, suddenly self-conscious.

“She’s the daughter of the Great Goddess Ligea and King Nemea.

She can kill the monster that hunts the Sirens.

” He looked to Hector and Antonia and said quietly, “In truth, it did not matter who she was… I couldn’t bring myself to leave her behind. ”

Warmth rose to my chest, my cheeks. He would give up his throne for you. Rohana had been right. He’d already done it.

Hector and Antonia gawked at me. She bobbed into a quick curtsy, to which I only opened my mouth like a stranded fish.

Renewed determination filled Theodore. He piled a plate with fruit and bread and eggs.

He gave Hector and Antonia each a kiss on the cheek.

“It’s likely those ships left and took all their men with them, but sleep with your sword at the ready regardless.

With your door and windows barred. We’ll leave at first light. ”

Antonia held up a finger. “You’re still too sick—”

He shook his head and gave her a smile. “Your broth healed me completely.”

She swatted at him, still concerned. “I’ll pack food for your journey,” she said, reluctantly. “And Hector will see that your horses are ready in the morning.”

My heart thundered. My terror was weighty, keeping my feet stuck to the spot.

Theodore started toward our shared bedchamber, hands full of food.

He stopped at the threshold and looked toward me.

Everything sat in his gaze—the heat and hurt of the moment we’d shared.

The fear and uncertainty of the days to come.

His voice left him like a lure, like he’d used my own power against me, if such a thing were possible. “Come to bed with me?”

The request all but turned my bones to water with how weak it made me. I gave Hector and Antonia a quiet Good night and followed.

Only a few candles were lit within the chamber. The small fire in the hearth was down to coals. Theodore set the food on the small desk in the corner. I closed the door, slid the lock. When I turned to cross into the room, Theodore was before me.

His attention bore down. The news of Nemea’s ships, the residual sickness from the Mage Seer, it all morphed into barbed words and piercing eyes.

“Tell me again,” he said, gruffly. “Tell me again that you want to take that severing draught. That you want to move ahead through war and uncertainty without each other. Without the ability to heal yourself, without me there to help keep you safe.”

My lips parted. I wanted no such thing. I wanted to keep him.

The thought of parting from him filled me with the worst sort of anguish.

But I couldn’t bring myself to ruin him further.

To watch his kingdom fall simply so I could have what I wanted.

I had to make my own safety. And if my life was forfeit because I tried to go it alone, at least I wouldn’t take him with me.

In my silence, Theodore pressed toward me, making my back bump against the door. “If you truly think I just need to get you out of my system, that you are merely an itch that needs scratching, then let’s. Let’s spend the night seeing ourselves satisfied and then unbind so we can move on.”

He raised his hand to my chin. He tipped it up and let his lips hover over mine. “Say it, Imogen.”

I opened my mouth, trying to get the words to form on my tongue. I knew the whole of the prophecy. Keeping one another was an utter impossibility, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to speak.

He waited, gaze locked with mine, and then he lowered his mouth until our breaths became one. “Tell me that this —what’s between us—is just our bond.”

I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. Finally, I shook my head. “There’s too much against us,” I whispered. “This—what’s between us—will end, and it will end terribly.”

“You can’t know that.”

I can. I do .

My eyes fell shut, chest crushing, and still, I couldn’t bring myself to speak the words I should. “Let’s get to the palace first,” I finally said. “Then we can decide.”

He let go of my jaw. Took a wide step back, so we each stood on one side of the rift that sat between us.

“We should eat,” I said, flatly. “And sleep.” He nodded, slipping behind a stern mask. “We need to get back as soon as we can.”

The next morning, the sky was a deep gray, low and thick with yesterday’s storm clouds.

I fed my horse an apple as Theodore said his goodbyes.

Last night, we’d eaten in silence propped up against the pillows.

We’d fallen asleep almost instantly on our respective sides of the mattress.

When we woke, we were so knotted together, it was as if we’d tried to climb into one another in the night.

We mounted and started down the muddy road, the air between us strained and misshapen. The horses’ hooves squelched. The sky released a light misty rain over us in fits and starts.

“Rested enough to try to ride through the night?” I called up to him.

“Yes.” His answer was cold and concise.

We made good time, and as we rode, my mind scrambled for a plan.

When we finally did reach the palace, Lachlan and Agatha would make Theodore see sense.

We would perform the severing ritual, free ourselves of our compromised blood bond, and then I could leave and sever the one I shared with Eusia. Only, I had no idea where to find her.

The day darkened, the sun a shocking spill of red over the horizon. The horses drank from a storm-swollen stream while Theodore and I perched on two rocks, eating the bread and cheese Antonia had packed us. “What do you know of magic?” I asked, picking at the crust. “Of the Mage Seers’ spells.”