Текст книги "In the Veins of the Drowning"

Автор книги: Kalie Cassidy

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

We stood with our toes at the water’s edge. Silent. Staring across the channel at the unmoving figure. Storm clouds clotted the sky beyond, like towering, stony peaks. They reminded me of Nemea’s mountains.

Beside me, Theodore’s breaths came tight, shallow. If I laid my hand over his heart, I was certain I’d feel it strike with the force of a forge hammer. I was wet and cold but the heat of him, the pressure of his fingers, the softness of his lips, still clung to my body. Haunting me. I prayed that the severing ritual would excise that too.

The figure on the rocks raised her arm. The motion was inhuman, both jerking and strangely fluid at once, as if she were moved by something other than her own muscle and sinew. With the flick of her wrist, the water in the channel slid away from our toes as if it was a cloth being pulled slowly across a tabletop.

“She’s a Siren.”

Theodore nodded beside me. “Her father was Varian.”

“But she’s not a Goddess, is she? How can she command the water without touching it?”

“That’s her magic. Her spell work,” he said, grimly. “If a Mage Seer has any Gods’ power, they can amplify it with magic. But where it costs us nothing to use our power, the cost of magic is great.”

The water had receded enough for us to cross, revealing the rocks and shells speckling the seafloor. Neither of us moved. I glanced up at him. At the beautiful, defined line of his profile. His eyes had glazed, his look remote. I wondered if he was thinking of the last time he’d been here. If he and his father had stood side by side like this before crossing, rough salt wind making their eyes water.

Worry swarmed me like beetles over a corpse. I’d rather eat the sand I stood upon than force him to do such a thing again. I took a reluctant step forward. Then another. Finally, Theodore’s boot crunched over the wet sand behind me, only to stop a moment later.

I spun. “You all right?”

He nodded too quickly. His features were drawn, hands fisted at his sides. I stepped back and lifted one of his fists. He tried to pull it back, but I held tight. Gently, I worked his fingers open and ran my hand over his. He watched me with a look that was both wonderous and bereft. “We may have muddied things for ourselves up there,” I said, “but it—you gave me comfort.” I wove our fingers together. “I would like to do the same for you now.”

Hard fingers squeezed around mine and he raised my hand to his lips. He placed a kiss on my knuckle. We started across the seafloor, hand in hand.

“You are picturing a woman like you,” he said when we were halfway across. “She’s not. She is ancient and time hardened. Emotion doesn’t rule her, only her poisons do—only her magic.” He tugged on my hand, made me look at him. “Do not make the mistake of thinking she will do right by you.”

I gulped. “I won’t.”

When we reached the edge of the holm, the sea slowly trickled back in behind us, nipping at our heels. The rocks were slick and steep, and our wet boots slid over bright green algae, over pebbles and sand, until finally we stood in the little clearing before her door.

It was warped and hung crooked. The large gaps between its slats had been filled with dried plants and pitch, the metal sashes had long been corrupted by rust, but it was sturdy still. I reached for the rough latch, then stopped.

Anticipation and fear had turned my stomach sick, but I was mere days away from being free. Days away from being rid of all the virulent ties to my old life—of my bond to Eusia. Days away from starting a new life that was all my own. I’d be rid of the deception of a blood bond that made me want a man I could never have.

Slowly, I turned toward Theodore and reached up to touch his stubbled cheek. He leaned into my palm. The edges of his eyes were strained, his full lips collapsed into a firm line.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. Then I flung the door of the hut wide open, slipped behind it, and slammed it firmly shut. I felt for a bolt, slid it into place. I pressed my back against the damp wood.

Theodore punched the door. “Imogen.”

It was black as night within.

“Imogen. Gods damn it.” He hit the door again. “Open it now.”

A voice came from the nothingness. A young woman’s, deep and melodic and lovely. Her croon was so encompassing it seemed to vibrate through my chest. “There you are, dearest. I have waited so long.”

Terror fell through me like a jagged stone.

Theodore redoubled his pounding at the sound of her voice. The wood rattled against my back.

“Imogen, open the fucking door.” His shoulder must have slammed into it next, deep voice cracking. “Imogen.”

“He’ll break my door,” said the maiden.

“Then let’s be quick.”

“Quick?” Her voice hummed like a song. “Oh, my girl, what you require is a slow business.”

“How do you know what I require?”

“You do not know me, do you?” She tutted. “I can feel your power through the sea. Just like you can feel the water that has seeped through the soles of your boots. I can nearly taste the God’s blood that flows beneath your supple, young skin in the air.” A faint rustling sound sent a shiver through me. “Your blood has spread through the sea for decades. I can only assume you are here because you want it back.”

“I am the daughter of the Great Goddess Ligea. I need to know what… happened. Where she went. And how.” I tried to swallow, but my mouth had gone dry. “And I hold two blood bonds. I need them severed.”

A loud bang came from the door at my back. Another and another.

“Two bonds! Two is one too many, did no one ever tell you?” Her amusement was caustic. “Has it made you sick?” Another scraping, rustling sound came from the darkness. The quiet clinking of glass against glass. “I need your blood first, sweeting. To give you the answers you seek. And to know just what kind of severing draught to give you.”

Theodore’s next assault on the door sounded with a splintering crack. “Open the door, Imogen. Do not give her your blood without me beside you.”

She gave a gentle, melodic laugh. “You’re certain he wants a severance?”

“Of course he does. That’s why he came here with me.” She gave a simpering hum at my answer. “The blood bond is confusing us both.”

“Confusing is not what I’d call a Siren’s blood bond. The bond is clear as clean water… to protect. That is all it commands.”

I shook my head, trying not to lose my nerve. This was the only way I could protect him. By keeping him out of her hut, away from her smoke and its memories. More rustling, and then the maiden’s lovely voice fell low. “Your blood.”

“Imogen.” Theodore’s voice turned begging, broken.

“Making a draught will take hours at the very least. A severance will take days. I’m afraid my door won’t hold that long.”

My breath raced as I scowled into the black.

“Now, now,” she said condescendingly, as though she could see me.

The dark was impenetrable, my eyes never seeming to adjust. Somewhere in the middle of the space three orbs began to glow. It was not like the spill of golden candlelight but a dampened brightness, like when a lantern cuts through the webbing between a finger and thumb. They filled the room with a sickly aura, illuminating a figure at their center.

She sat upon a mound of vines. The lines of her body were straight and youthful, unlike the hunched figure I’d seen on the rocks. But as the light grew brighter, I could make out the vines that snaked around her torso, shoulders, and neck, forcing her straight. The jaundiced light snagged on the hanging skin of her bare arms. It gleamed over a taut bald head and cast grotesque shadows over the sacks of loose flesh that hung beneath her eyes. Blank, still eyes the color of goat’s milk, and yet I knew without a doubt she could see me clear as day.

My fingers twitched to unbolt the door.

“Cruel,” she chided. “I know time and magic have made me monstrous, but there is no need to look at me like that. Open the door, Imogen.” Her lovely voice turned sultry—covetous, possessive. “I’d like to see my king.”

My own possessiveness seized me. The blood bond scalded me from the inside out. Without taking my eyes from her, I reached behind me and searched for the latch. I slid the bolt, and the hut flooded with gray morning light.

“Hello, Theodore.” She spoke to him like a lover, her voice laced with the memory of shared private moments. The tips of my fingers burned as my nails stretched into talons. “Look how you’ve grown. From a sweet-faced boy to a hardened man in so few years. And still just as beautiful.”

Theodore didn’t look at me. Didn’t touch me. Instead, he placed his body between mine and the Mage Seer’s. His voice was knife-edge sharp. “Hello, Rohana.”

“Oh no. You can’t still be angry. After all this time?” Rohana hummed, eerie and low. The notes curled through the air like perfumed incense, intoxicating, stifling. A Siren’s song. Panicked at the sound, at what it could do to Theodore, I gripped his shirt. As if that small restraint could stop him from being pulled toward her.

He didn’t budge. “Not this time,” he said.

Fury beat through me. What had she done to him?

Her song broke into a tittering laugh. “Of course not. Not now that you have her protection. Are you certain you want to give that up?” Rohana’s smile was beastly and snarling, her mouth studded with sharp, blue-tinged teeth.

There was a long pause before he finally spoke. “Yes. I do.”

“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.

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Time stuttered. Perhaps it stopped. My vision rippled and went black. When I came to, I lay upon the floor, the gleam of orb light above me. Beside me, Theodore was still unconscious. The tinkling of glass, the hiss of smoke, the sound of all those slithering vines, filled my ears.

Sluggishly, I lifted my arm and pressed my hand to Theodore’s chest. Even, shallow breaths. I rose onto my elbow and watched Rohana working over her bowl, her bald head reflecting the sickly, yellow glow.

“Speak, Imogen,” she said, sounding once more like a young woman. “I know you wish to.”

“I want my severing draughts,” I croaked.

“I am making it.”

“I paid for two.”

“You will get one.”

I rushed to stand but her vines tightened around my calves and wrists, keeping me down. I focused, tried to find Theodore’s power through my smoke-addled haze, but I was too sick, and she was so strong.

“I can sever the bond between you and your king, and that is all.” Her awful, cloudy eyes locked with mine. “And what a shame too. You are so much better together.”

I reeled, head hammering. “What do you mean?” I yelled. “What about my bond with Eusia? The bond that you just told me drains me of my divinity.” I thrashed against the vine’s hold. “You told me that I will ruin Theodore, that we will bring death and chaos. How can we be better together?”

Rohana gave an eerie, skittering laugh and loosened the vines. “How young you are, how new and bright. You see things with clear, crisp eyes. But let your vision blur and break. Let yourself see deeper.”

I pushed myself up with a hiss. “If that’s your way of telling me to look for more meaning in your prophecy, then fuck you.”

She was too still, her little body sagging against the cage of vines that held her up. She set a small glass bottle into the loop of a vine and sent it toward me. “It’s time for you to leave. This will remove the God-king from your blood—”

I nearly screamed. “What of my bond with Eusia?”

“You made that bond with a despicable spell, and it is always the Mage who makes the spell that must break it.”

Hopelessness pummeled me. My voice grew small. “What should I do? How?”

A vine curled around her chin, cocking her head for her. Her unblinking eyes were locked with mine. “Go home.”

My brow creased. “Go home?”

The room erupted with the scraping of moving vines. Like a bed of verdant snakes, they began to creep around Theodore’s supine body and ferried him over the bones and wood, toward the hut’s crooked door.

Go home.

The blood bond pulsed like a racing heart, filling me with worry, and I rushed to his side. I touched him, needy for the assurance of his warmth. Gently, I traced the edge of his cheekbone. I ran a fingertip over the slanting line of his nose, down to the contour of his lips.

Home.

The word was a changeling, twisting its meaning from one breath to the next. My mind was still sluggish from the lingering taint of the ritual smoke, and that word—home—spun it and filled it.

Then I was transported. I stood in my old home. In King Nemea’s icy-white throne room, cold penetrating to my bones. I looked to the wall. To the splayed black wing that hung upon it.

It was just like mine.

The king sits wrecked and ravaged beneath her wing. My heart began to squeeze. What they have made will decimate the order of all things.

“What they have made… What the queen and the king have made…” I whispered, clinging to Theodore’s sturdy shoulder. My stomach dropped. “Is Nemea…”

Rohana began to giggle, and with sickening assuredness, I knew.

“He’s my father.”

“Good girl.” She sounded approving of my revelation, but I was undone.

The features of Nemea’s face, the notes of his voice, even the remembered touch of his hand, swarmed me. “I’m not…”

Then Rohana was in front of me. Her skeletal fingers clamped onto my jaw, and she jerked it toward her face. “You are what will bring chaos and ruin and death. You are the fount of desolation and change.”

My throat tightened with tears. “And Theodore…” I was the daughter of the man he hated most. “Will I ruin Theodore too?”

She blinked slowly. “His power and duty are as incorruptible as ever. And yet he would give up his throne for you.”

“No.” I shook my head. “He’s a good, loyal king—”

“Chaos. Ruin. Death,” she whispered through a flash of bluish teeth. Her wrinkled mouth pulled back in a smile. “I’ll tell you what I would do if I were still young and beautiful like you.” Her white eyes shone. “I would keep him. I’d use his power and body to keep myself safe. Your journey to sever your bond with Eusia will be dangerous. You’d be a fool to go it alone.” Her vines brought her even closer to me, but I was too stunned to recoil. “Damn the war I feel brewing in the water. You are a Goddess-queen. Take what you want while you can.” Her voice dropped low. “For someday you will be like me.”

I batted her hand from my face. Her laughter was coquettish, completely at odds with the monster before me, but her guidance struck me square in my chest with intoxicating force.

Keep him. I wanted to. Desperately.

Despite all the destruction Rohana saw following in my wake, despite there being no clear path toward remaining together, I yearned for it. My stomach turned with sick, my eyes burned with tears, but I refused to fall apart in this hellish place.

Unanimated vines still draped Theodore’s body, and I tried to focus on his power within me. I set my fingers to them, fighting to command them to drag Theodore the rest of the way to the door. They were slow at work, sputtering under my weak control, but I managed to get him near enough that I could drag him the rest of the way myself, out into the daylight and sea air.

The waves churned against the rocks. I tried to let the sound soothe me, but each word of Rohana’s prophecy was a needle-thin blade, slipped through my skin. There they sat now, aching, refusing to be ignored. I pulled Theodore farther into the clearing and slammed the door.

“Goodbye, Rohana. I hope you rot.”

In the light of day Theodore looked so much worse. His golden-brown skin had been drained of its glow and was beaded with cold sweat. The rise and fall of his strong chest had lessened, now nearly too shallow to see.

“Shit, shit, shit.” I cupped his clammy face, dragged my hands down to his neck. His pulse had grown sluggish.

I squeezed my eyes shut and saw Nemea’s face once more. I remembered bouncing on his knee as a girl. The terror his nasal voice would send ricocheting through my body. The gifts he’d lavished upon me after he’d been particularly cruel—gowns and jewels and books. His thumb digging into my flesh to take my blood. The unsettling, empty way he would lose himself to some remote place while looking at me. I wondered if it was my mother he thought of then. My mother—whose wing hung upon his wall.

I lurched to the side and vomited onto the rocks.

Coughing, I swiped at my mouth and crawled halfway over Theodore’s inert body. “Theodore. Please.” I hit his chest with a fist. “Theo. Get up.”

He gave a hoarse groan.

“Theo.” I grabbed his face again, begging. “You need to get up. We need to get back to the shore.”

The water in the channel was high. The storm gusts turned its surface into a frenzy of toothy white peaks. I rose to my knees, tugged on his heavy hand. His head lolled to the side.

Panic rammed me so powerfully that I was certain something cracked. I was alone. Utterly alone save for a confluence of fear and fury, crashing through me like the sea. I stood and walked over the jagged rocks, down toward the edge of the water. I stared and stared at the waves. “Listen to me,” I said through my teeth. “Listen.”

The power in my stomach rose, and I focused, focused on twining it and the sea together until they could not be rent apart. Until they were indistinguishable.

Finally, when I pulled in a deep breath, the surface swelled. When I blew it out, it ebbed. I told it to steady, and the frothy peaks smoothed. A narrow path of water between Rohana’s island and Varya’s shore went flat. Calm. I could feel the waves at the tips of my fingers, and with the curl of my hand, the sea rose up the rocks, toward me.

Higher and higher the gentle flood climbed, until it rolled around Theodore’s body. The dark fan of his lashes fluttered at the contact, but he didn’t rouse.

“Theodore?” My voice cracked at the sight of him. “Shit. Wake up, please wake up.” I urged the water to move quicker. It cradled him, carried him down over the rocks and into the now-glassy channel. With a hand clamped around the severing draught in my pocket, I followed. Cold water met my hips, my navel. When it reached my chest, I swam.

He looked like a dead man. Motionless, empty. I swam faster, commanding a current to aid me, and when my boots hit the other shore, I ran up the sand and urged the water to carry Theodore up the beach, toward the vine shelter and our tethered horses. He sprawled over the black sand, white shirt clinging to his skin. He made an aching sound, cracked his eyes.

I fell to my knees. “Theo.” I forced a smile, swiped the wet hair from his brow. “I’m going to take care of you. Tell me how to get to Hector and Antonia’s. Can you tell me?”

His eyes shut. I tapped his cheek too hard, and this time he opened them wide enough for me to see the faceted green of his irises.

“Road,” he croaked, before he dropped away again. A bead of dark muck dribbled from one of his nostrils. Like oil. Like black blood. I frantically swiped it clean and bent to place kiss after kiss on his cold lips, his chin. He didn’t flinch.

In my single-mindedness, I lost all sense. I cursed and focused to near exhaustion and somehow commanded the vines of the shelter that Theodore had built us to help me bundle him up and over his horse. I sat behind him, straining to keep him steady, and started us down the road with my horse’s lead in my hand.

Rain started and stopped as we traveled through the mud, though I hardly felt it. For over an hour I kept silent, a hand firmly over Theodore’s back, counting his breaths and feeling his heart.

If I stopped counting, stopped pushing, I feared what would become of me.

We took a bend in the road and a well-built wooden house, tucked behind a lush, fenced garden, revealed itself. It was painted a creamy white, with those ever-present blooming vines climbing up its walls.