Page 46 of Witchshadow

After unfurling her spyglass, Vivia scanned her gaze over the gravel beach and cliffs that surrounded theIris.Everything looked as she remembered it, and in some ways, that was a comfort. The world here remained dead, outside of time. The same wasteland she’d always told herself she wanted no part of. This was where Merik had grown up, free on the Nihar estate several miles inland, while Vivia had been trained, groomed, molded into the queen her father wanted her to be.

Or the queen she’d thought he’d wanted. As Noden would have it, he’d only ever wanted a sycophantic pawn. Someone to tend him and flatter him. To obey him and mimic him.Share the glory, share the blame,he’d always said, but it had been a lie.Give up the glory, take all the blamewas the truth Vivia now saw.

It was also where Merik’s ship, theJana,had been blown apart by Baedyed seafire. Everyone had thought he’d died; only Vivia and Cam knew he still lived. Remnants of theJanalingered in the cove: charred wood, shredded sail cloth, and old caulking.

“Your Majesty.”

Vivia lowered her glass and found Cam beside her. He smiled his sunny smile as he popped a bow. “I delivered food to the captain’s cabin—and the Empress too.”

Of course she’s in there,Vivia thought with a sigh. She could no more escape Vaness than she could the Hagfishes. “Thank you, Leeri.” Vivia clapped him on the shoulder; his smile widened. Then she strode for her cabin, adjusting her cuffs, her collar, her salt-crusted hair as she went.

She found the Empress standing at a window when she marched in. Vaness’s cheeks were no longer pale, her posture no longer weakened, but there was a dullness to her eyes.

“You,” she declared as soon as she saw Vivia, “must be cleaved. What you just did…” She shook her head. Her hair, damp against her skin, swished with sea-spray curls. “We could have died.”

“But we didn’t.” Vivia shut the door behind her. “Would you like to eat?” She motioned to cheese and old bread that Cam had laid upon the table. A solid snack for a ravenous Tidewitch.

Vaness shook her head—and Vivia desperately wished she hadn’t. She was half starved, but the thought of eating alone while Vaness watched on… It felt awkward. Filthy. Brutish next to Vaness’s tiny, ever-graceful frame.

Noden curse her. She’d come in here expecting a fight. Not whatever this was with Vaness leaning against a window, her forehead pressed against the glass.

Vivia’s stomach growled. She swiped up a chunk of hard goat’s cheese.No regrets, keep moving.Yet before she could stuff it back like the beast she was, Vaness asked: “Why are there so many dead birds?”

Vivia froze. This was most certainly not what she’d expected. “The dead birds,” she answered carefully, “are because the water is poison.”

An audible swallow. “That was twenty years ago.”

“And the imperial witches were thorough.”

“You meanmywitches were thorough.”

Vivia didn’t argue with this. Instead, she moved to another window on Vaness’s other side. “The empires have always crushed what they could not control. We were the last nation to resist, so they…youallied together to ruin us.”

“We failed, though.” Vaness withdrew from the window. Her eyes fastened onto Vivia’s.

“Did you, though?” Vivia stared right back. “Look at this cove, Empress. Dead birds, dead fish, no trees for miles. People can’t live here, so they live in Lovats, which…” She swiveled her head to rest it against the frame. “Lovats cannot sustain. Because after you’d ensured we could not live on our lands, you impoverished us through trade.”

A soft sigh. “We did, and I cannot even pretend otherwise.”

“Is that an apology?”

“Would you accept if it were?”

“No,” Vivia admitted. She had spent her whole life hating the empires. Hating Vaness and every leader like her. A hate nurtured by the constant death, constant hunger, constant need surrounding her. That she and Vaness were allies now—that there were even aspects of the Empress she liked—couldn’t erase what waited outside the window.

She shoved the cheese into her mouth. Hard, strong. Then she chewed and chewed, her gaze shifting to the barren shore.

Vaness also returned her attention to the window, and for several moments, the only sound to interrupt this graveyard was the high tide whispering and lapping against the hull. And Vivia’s smacking mouth. She should have grabbed the water.

“I am sick, you know,” Vaness said eventually. “It is a disease of the blood. One I have always had. In Marstok, I had healers attend me, and I regularly bathed in the Fire Well. But it has been a month now since I was able to heal.”

Vivia swallowed her cheese. Then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“Because no one but my healers and my Adders have ever known. It was a weakness I could not let free. A weakness I’ve hidden since childhood.”

“Yet now you’ve shared.”

Vaness opened her hands. “Now I’ve shared. Which places my future—once again—squarely in your hands.”