Page 55

“I’ve been busy.” I lifted the sword once more.

Nemea cracked his jaw, a dangerous energy building through him.

“Eusia wanted me to have a child with Ligea.” He said it so simply, as if he were remarking on the mundane.

“There was a reason your mother never had children. She feared her sister, feared what she might do to them. Eusia wanted generations to feed on. Bodies kept her alive, but mortals did not give her Gods’ power.

If she could capture her sister, and her sister’s children, she would be able to swallow their power and use her own magic. She would be endless.”

“And so you did.” I didn’t hide how despicable I thought it was. “How? Why would Ligea ever let you—”

“She bound herself to me.” He’d never spoken with such softness.

Not even in my memories of him from when I was a girl, when he would greet me with a fleeting smile and a sweet in his palm, did I remember his voice sounding quite like that.

“She was no fool, your mother, but binding herself to me was the most misguided thing she’d ever done—the beginning of her end. ”

I took a step back. I needed space between us, I needed to remember his callousness and cruelty, for the look that swam in his eyes now set me too off-kilter. He was heartsick.

A gust cut across the deck and my balance swayed as the ship pitched over a set of high waves. The temperature was dropping as the sun fell behind a wall of dark, bulbous clouds. In the distance, a deep boom rolled over the water.

I searched the sea. The boom had been thunder—the cannon fire had ceased. The two Serafi ships that remained had retreated. Half of the Varian fleet had returned to port, and we had drifted far away.

“Looks like you lost,” I said.

“I had no intention of winning this battle, Imogen.” His eyes were depthless.

Glittering with a terrifying sort of hunger.

“Like I said, I came for you.” He slipped a hand through the ropes around him and tugged.

They fell as readily as dead leaves. My arms shook with the weight of the sword, but I held it firmly between us and stepped backward across the deck.

Nemea hardly noticed. He rose, unfurling his long limbs slowly, and then he adjusted his ill-fitting armor, the gesture easy and unafraid.

He looked out toward the storm clouds at the horizon and asked, “What will you do?” He mocked me with the question.

“I think only Ligea could have manned a crewless ship through a night storm. And you are so like her, yes… but you are also so much less.”

The air knocked from my chest. I watched him, quietly, waiting for him to take the dagger from his hip. He never did. He lowered himself onto a nearby crate instead.

“Did you love her?” The question slipped from me before I could stop it.

He huffed, rolling his shoulders before he answered. “I liked possessing her. That damn bond we shared was tricky, though. I wanted to hate her. I reminded myself that she was the root of my suffering, of my kingdom’s struggles, but the thoughts wouldn’t stick. That bond convinced me I loved her.”

I winced like his words had hit a bruise. “That’s not what the bond does.”

He froze. He’d been at ease, but now his body began to lock up with awareness. With a tilt of his head, he said, “You speak as if you know.”

“The bond compels you to protect.”

Disbelief, and the barest thread of amusement, curled his lips. “Dear Gods. That’s how you got that boy-king to help you, isn’t it? You stole him.” He scoffed. “Just like your mother.”

“I didn’t steal him. He agreed.”

“Oh, what benevolence! What sacrifice! And has he proclaimed his love? Has he sworn himself to you always?” He hit his knee with a fist. “He’ll be even more insufferable now, Panos’s grandson bound to Ligea’s daughter.

As if the bastard wasn’t powerful enough already, he went and gathered up some more. ”

The insinuation rocked something in me that had once felt unshakable.

Theodore had first bound himself to me because of my power, because of who he’d thought I was.

I suddenly couldn’t bat the thought away: Had Gods’ blood not flowed through my veins, would Theodore have left me in Nemea’s fort to wither and die?

Nemea stood quickly, his body coursing with familiar anger, and plucked the dagger from his belt.

He rolled it in his fist and paced. “That bond…” He looked haunted and then locked our gazes.

“Your mother learned of what I’d done. Of how I’d helped move Eusia.

I was sailing back to Seraf through a narrow sea stack and there sat Ligea.

” He pointed with his dagger, like he could see her before him.

“Ligea, winged and speckled in salt water upon the rocks, looking like a glorious, brutal bird of prey. She dropped onto my deck and froze the entire crew without making a sound. I’d never seen anything like it.

Power seeped from her, but she stared at me like I was a threat.

She’d come to me like I was the one who possessed a vicious lure.

She said, ‘I know you wish to harm me and my people. I shall see to it that you can’t. ’ She sliced me open and bound us.”

My arms had begun to shake. The wind cut, covering my eyes in mist and stray hairs. I could sense our time running down and I still didn’t know where Eusia was. “How did you kill Ligea?

“I didn’t.”

“Don’t lie to me. Her wing hangs in your throne room, Nemea. How did the blood bond permit you to cut it from her?”

He took a menacing step toward me. “I never hurt her. I never wanted to. I lived with regret over my service to Eusia for years because of my feelings for Ligea and did all I could to keep her safe. I kept her from the sea so Eusia couldn’t sense her.

When she… when we… Ligea was determined to give birth to you in the sea.

Despite how I begged her, how I demanded she stay on land.

” The color drained from his face. “She slipped out in the night. We were on Seraf, at the old keep on the western shore. The mountain fort wasn’t finished yet.

I realized too late she was missing from our bed.

I should have tied her to the post like I’d threatened to, but I couldn’t bring myself to scratch her wrists with the Godsdamned ropes.

” He scrubbed violently at his eyes. “When I got to the beach, the sun was just rising. The spume was still colored with her blood. You were screaming, lying up on the dry sand—like she’d tossed you to safety.

And her wing floated on the breaking waves.

Bits of her flesh still hung from its root.

Eusia took her, but she didn’t kill her. ”

“How do you know that?” I whispered.

“Our bond didn’t break when she left me.

I still felt it. For years and years.” He looked up at me and I could just make out the sneer and dark amusement on his face in the fading light.

His laugh came angry and low. “This might be the first time you’ve ever looked at me like I have a heart. ” He shook his head. “Don’t be fooled.”

“Why didn’t you gut me and throw me into the sea?” I fought for balance against the rolling ship. “Why didn’t you make Eusia all-powerful? Get rid of us Sirens once and for all.”

“Eusia doesn’t want you dead,” he said in a snarl. “She kept Ligea alive as long as she could. And she’d do the same to you. She’d use you up slowly.”

I stared at him in slack-jawed disbelief. “Are you telling me that you kept me as a mercy? That you made me give my blood in that ritual so that I wouldn’t suffer like my mother did?”

Alarming anger filled him, bringing color back to his cheeks. “I did it for Ligea. Not you. I’ve kept my word to Eusia. I’ve fed her. But I swore that while our bond still lingered, I wouldn’t let Ligea’s daughter suffer her same fate.”

“Your bond,” I said. “Is it gone?”

He paused and seemed stunned by the question. As if he’d never before considered it. Eyes darting, he searched himself inwardly. Set a hand to his stomach. His voice went low and, unbelievably, a lovelorn look filled his eyes. “I can’t feel it.”

The change in him was instant. Intent built through his body, bringing him nearer to me.

“Where is Eusia?” I demanded, firming my stance.

“With all that you’ve learned while you’ve been away, you still can’t figure it out?

” His shoulders rose. His weaponless hand curled into a tight fist. “I kept you up in that fort, away from the sea, as a mercy because you have always been so weak. You were so small when you were born, so sick. The sea would have swallowed you whole had I ever let you near it. Eusia would have plucked you from the sand with no effort at all. Even now, you stand there with a sword, letting me speak and asking me questions you should know the answer to.” He gave me a disgraced shake of his head. “Harden up. Fight. ”

“If I am fearful and weak, it’s because of you,” I yelled. “You have made me this way.”

“And what will you do about it?” He held his dagger up between us.

“Will you come back home with me where you’re safe, and we can pay Eusia for her blessings where she cannot reach you, or will you make me gut you now, and let her monsters carry you to her?

I know the spell that will keep you alive until you reach her.

The very one she used to save herself from death. ”

The water had grown choppier, the troughs of the waves deeper, and it made the ship sway steeply. I met his gaze through the gloaming. My voice filled with steel. “Neither.”