Текст книги "In the Veins of the Drowning"

Автор книги: Kalie Cassidy

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But I didn’t wait for the next roll of the ship. The raging storm and lurching vessel would not be the executor of his fate.

I would.

I shoved the sword down. I felt it crunch through the tough pieces in his neck. I felt when it hit the bones of his spine, when it hit the wood beneath him.

I was grateful for the shroud of night.

I released the sword. Stumbled backward. Fell to my knees and vomited.

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The seabirds roused me.

Aching, I rolled my head to the side, then rushed to cradle it in my hands. I cracked open my eyes. Dim light… morning. Above me, the dregs of last night’s storm clouds hung low, gray-hued and wrung out.

My eyes began to focus, and I traced the lines of the drooping sails, the ropes swaying in the humid breeze. Panic tightened around me as my mind cleared fully of sleep.

Agatha. I needed to get to Agatha.

I’d huddled beneath the risers that led to the quarterdeck in the night, and I gripped them now as I pushed myself up to sit. My panic only grew as I took stock of myself. The air was warm, but I shivered. My skin looked gray, covered in gooseflesh and cold sweat. The thumping pain in my stomach was consuming, profound. I blew out three slow breaths in a weak attempt to ease my racing heart, then peeled back my wet tunic.

“Shit.” The hole in my stomach oozed a steady, thin trickle of blood. The skin around it had grown tender and red, and I let out a wobbling cry when my cruel mind pushed forward a memory of Theodore. His bright, healing warmth, the press of his calloused fingers, the way his presence and power beat back the darkness that nipped perpetually at my heels.

“Nemea did it wrong.”

I gasped, head snapping toward the creaking voice that had come from across the deck. My body pricked with awareness when I realized the voice had come from within my own head too.

Eusia.

One of her nekgya sat on the deck, right where Nemea’s body had been. Her dark, silken hair stuck to her shoulders. She was wan and smattered in black, ragged wounds. Decay crept over her mouth and fingers, over her chest and arms. The sea held her together with bits of kelp and a patchwork of delicate, pale barnacles.

She cradled Nemea’s crown in her crooked fingers. His sword lay on the deck before her. Beside it sat a mound of wet sand and a slimy ribbon of kelp.

“Where is he?” I croaked.

Her eyes were rimmed in deep purple skin, her irises the color of the water off Varya’s shore. “Do you truly care?” Eusia’s voice asked through the nekgya’s rot-smattered mouth.

I hated the man. I was relieved he was gone. And yet his death snapped a tether that had tied me to this world. Bits of my life—memories of me, of my mother—that only he held had died with him. That realization filled me with lonely grief.

“Tell me where he is.”

“The sea, of course.” She set the crown on the deck with uncanny, jerking movements. “Come. We must close that wound. You’re running out of time.”

“Why?” I said, in a groan. “Why help me?”

“If you die, in a short time, so shall my power.”

The impulse overtook me—to let myself fade, right there on the deck of Nemea’s bobbing ship. To let my death be the severance that finally brought an end to Eusia. But my selfishness was a stubborn, inextinguishable fire. My desire to live burned bright. I thought of Agatha and the danger she was in. Of Theodore, days away from marrying an enemy bride.

I rose to my knees, shaking from the pain, and crawled across the deck toward her. The ocean was calm, rolling the ship gently. I knelt across from her, with the sword and sand and kelp between us, and looked into her dead eyes. My voice trembled. “I’m inclined to die if it means your end.” She remained silent, unblinking. “Tell me how to get to you and I will agree to your spell.”

There was only quiet. Only her hollow stare, until finally she said, “It is not perfect.”

I shook my head. “What’s not?”

“Our bond,” she said, simply. “How I have used up Ligea is preferable. If I had you beside me, like I do Ligea, I’d be stronger. This bond we share—I can access your power, you sustain me. But despite how I’d like to, I cannot harm you.” The nekgya’s dead eyes met mine and ice shards sliced through me. “Do you feel that too?” Her voice was a scratching whisper. “The desire to end me? To win. But if I let you come to me, if you stood above what is left of my body, ready to sever our bond, you could not do it.”

“Is that why the empress tried to take me?” I asked. “To bring me to you. She is your aide. She can harm me. She can help you perform the spell to break our bond and help you make a new one that is just like the one you share with my mother.”

The nekgya’s pallid head tilted unsettlingly to the side, the movement almost human. “Yes. Her veneration and fear have served me well.”

Warm blood dribbled down my lower stomach. My head seemed to float and the tremors that had begun to rack my body were too strong to stanch. As hopelessness settled over me, I thought to curl up on my side beneath it. We had reached an impasse. There was no way for me to succeed.

“You’re dwindling,” Eusia said, her voice empty as ever, but I could practically feel her panic. A thrum, a worried sort of whirr that stirred my blood.

I clamped my chattering jaw. Pulled in a painful breath. And a spark lit my mind.

I was fearsome too. I was worthy of veneration, and if none would devote themselves to me as the empress had done Eusia—then I would make them.

And I knew precisely who I would take as my aide. Who I would make assist me in breaking my bond to Eusia and ending her.

“Permit me onto Anthemoessa and I will perform this spell. I will keep you alive,” I said in a rush, my heart thumping quickly. She didn’t answer me. “Quickly, Eusia.” My voice scraped. “I have a bride to steal.”

The nekgya stared at me for a long moment and I knew Eusia was considering my terms. I would come to her on Anthemoessa and one of us would win. Her nod was sharp and quick. She blinked, then moved like a spider, inching toward me on all fours, and Theodore’s warnings against spell work pealed through me. He’d outright refused to let me even consider performing more than one spell—the one to end Eusia. But there was no hope without it.

“Will I be the same?” I leaned my body against the mast. “After the spell?”

“What magic takes, it never returns.”

My vision began to smudge the sails and rigging above me. My pain began to numb. “What do I need to do?” I sounded like a terrified child.

Her empty eyes did not meet mine as she knelt beside me. She cupped the sand in her decaying fingers. “The sand meets the blood. The fat fills the mouth. The kelp knits the flesh.”

I looked at her own rotting body, at the smattering of kelp and barnacles, at the patches of gelatinous skin. My stomach turned at the thought of making myself into her likeness, but I clamped my teeth and pulled my damp tunic over my head. “I put my blood in the sand?”

She nodded. I shook as I cut the familiar line over my palm with a talon. I let my blood run into the sand she held, and she crawled closer to me, reaching for my wound. I shuddered as she pressed the bloody sand into it, sucking in a harsh breath from the sting. She shoved the kelp at me. I bit a piece of it off, set it over the spot, then looked at her for approval.

“Fat,” she said.

My stomach fell. “I… I don’t—”

“Magic cannot make something from nothing.”

The price was steep.

Once again, I twisted my talon into the soft skin below my navel. I took the smallest piece from myself and remembered Rohana. How she had tucked the piece of my flesh into the hollow of her cheek. Gagging, I set it on my tongue and fought to swallow.

“The words.” The nekgya waited like she expected me to repeat them from memory.

My senses swam. “I don’t remember…”

“Repeat. Hold them in your head.” I could only focus on the nekgya’s black lips as they moved with the words. “In the wake of the ruined, when the spirit rends, mend and loop and seal. In the veins of the drowning, when blood fills the throat, clear and wash and heal.”

I repeated after her, each word torture to speak, and waited. When nothing happened, I met her empty gaze.

“You will feel pain,” she said, voice even. “You will only find relief in your king.”

“In my king?” My face bent as I tried to parse her meaning. “A healer will do, won’t they?”

“There is no power like that of the Gods, dear girl. Only the king will do.”

I froze. Eusia’s meaning had morphed. I could nearly feel her yearning through my body, through our bond. A warning shot through me. “You want him. You want his blood like you want mine, don’t you? This… this spell was a trick. To get me to return to him.”

A slow pain started in the middle of me. I winced, and the nekgya smiled. “No trick, Imogen. The spell will keep you alive. And you, all on your own, will find your way back to him.” The nekgya was so still, so horribly lifeless. “And if you don’t… well, one way or another, I’ll have his blood too.”

I opened my mouth to speak, to scream, when the spell consumed me. My eyes seared like hot oil had been dripped into them. My scalp, my skin, my lungs, all felt like they were being pierced by thousands of burning needles. My mind left my body from the sensation. It slipped into another plane where there was only insatiable hunger and endless want. It took me to a place where I yearned for Gods’ blood like it was precious, flowing gold. Yearned like it was the only thing that would sate me.

Beneath the spell’s influence, terror took me. Magic was headier than I’d anticipated. It was like nectar—ambrosia. And despite the horrific pain, I wanted more and more and more. I wanted power in all its forms. Safety and control and influence. I wanted revenge. I wanted Theodore and the potent, shimmering blood that ran through his veins.

I would do awful things to ensure that it was mine… to ensure that I was fed.

There was no grasping the passage of time, but when I returned to my body, it was with a shriek. The nekgya was gone. I was alone. Only Nemea’s crown and sword remained at my side. My body felt like it had absorbed the entirety of the sea. I looked down quickly. The seaweed had stitched itself into my skin, sealing the wound and stopping the blood. I pressed my hands to my burning eyes. I ran my fingers over my scalp and a clump of dark hair came away stuck to the tips.

My cries seemed to come from outside myself, mixing with the slap of the waves against the hull, with the hammer of my heart in my ears. Using the mast behind me as support, I rose, and the effort nearly made my vision go black. The bleeding had stopped, the spell had worked, and just as Eusia had said, I was filled with a crippling pain.

For a long moment, I simply stood there. I fought to remember what my own want had felt like before I’d been tainted with Eusia’s. Kill Eusia, find Agatha, keep Theo safe. I chanted it like a prayer. I grasped it like a lifeline.

The sun was warm over my chilled skin, and I let my aching eyes skip over the ship’s deck. It was worse for wear. Large, jagged holes marred its sides. Some of the sails had torn and come free from their lines. Nemea’s eel-stitched sail hung empty above me. Shame burned through me. Perhaps my mother could have guided a ship in this state alone, but I was not my mother.

I was something darker and plagued, something worse.

Bending was agony, but I scooped up my tunic, Nemea’s crown and sword, and hobbled toward the edge of the ship.

Kill Eusia. Find Agatha. Keep Theo safe.

Keep Theo safe.

I clothed myself. I stared down blankly at the frothing water.

Keep him safe. Safe from me. For I had become his greatest threat.

Sea mist settled over me, and I set my plan. I would find Halla and take her with me. I would let her meet her beloved saint before she helped me end her. I’d bring Agatha to safety. The command I sent to the sea was crystalline: Guide me to Varya one last time.

I stepped off the edge of the ship, and the water swallowed me whole. It hauled me up and held me, so I floated on its surface like an old corpse.

In the cool, in the salt, my dream flashed to my mind.

The faceless woman, floating over the waves. No eyes. No hair. Adrift. While a dark, lurking presence combed through the depths below.

Starved.

Searching.

It finally found me.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Writing a book is far from a solitary endeavor. And while I am the one who put the words on the page, I was only able to do so because of the support of the following people.

To Doug. It’s because of you that I write love stories. Thank you for holding me and our little family up. Thank you for celebrating me, for believing in me. You are steady and bright, and our life together is my greatest joy.

To my mom, Lynn Quinones. Thank you for your unwavering support. For happily watching my children so I could steal some writing time. You have always made me feel like my wildest dreams were not so wild, after all. In large part, it’s because of you that I’ve reached them.

To my agent, Sheyla Knigge. You are a brilliant partner, and I am grateful every day for your keen story sense, for your passion, and for your reminders to get off Goodreads. How thankful I am that you saw the potential in me and this book. It’s been a hell of a year and a half. So happy to have shared it with you.

To my editor, Julia DeVarti. You understood my story from the start. I don’t think there’s a better feeling in the world than having a creative partner who loves your work for the same reasons you do. Thank you for your generosity, and your sharp feedback.

To the rest of my team at Little, Brown and Company. I am overwhelmed by all the support, excitement, and expertise that every one of you poured into this book. Sally Kim, Gabby Leporati, Danielle Finnegan, Kirin Diemont, Linda Arends, and Amy J. Schneider, thank you, thank you. And huge thanks to my team at Gollancz and my editor, Millie Prestidge.

To my writing wife, Rachel Gillig. I am convinced there is no surviving this job without you. And if I could, I wouldn’t want to. Thank you for your heart, your wit, your Greg-like sensibilities, your understanding, your commiseration. Your friendship is one of the greatest parts of this journey and I am so much better in every way for it.

To Caitlin Poole and Ginger Swan Lindsey. For years, you have gotten your hands dirty with me. You have combed through ideas and plot holes with me. You have celebrated successes and mourned losses with me. I feel eternally lucky that I found you both.

To Nirmaliz Colon Acosta, April Chandler, Marissa Young, Ellie Burke, and all the other writing friends who read, gave feedback, cheered me, and guided me. In some way, at some time, you impacted this story’s path, and mine, and I’m so grateful.

To Allison Saft. Thank you for your truly endless generosity and insight on this book. Your constant belief and feedback helped grow this story, and me, in so many ways. I’m forever thankful to call you a friend.

To Hannah Teachout. Thank you for your expertise and steady support. To Skyler Wry, thank you for believing in me and telling me to just start when I said I wanted to write a book all those years ago.

To my family and friends, near and far, your love, enthusiasm, and support have meant the world to me. To every reader who picks up this book, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kalie Cassidy was born and raised in Southern California and spent over a decade working in Los Angeles as a professional theater actor, coach, and acting teacher. She now lives in the Midwest with her family and rambunctious golden retriever.

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Praise for Kalie Cassidy’s IN THE VEINS OF THE DROWNING

“A provocative dark fantasy with all the alluring qualities of siren song. Sensuous and lushly romantic, In the Veins of the Drowning ensorcelled me from the very first page.”

–Ava Reid, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Study in Drowning

“An absolute riptide of a book. It draws you in, pulls you under. Atmospheric and evocative, Cassidy’s writing sews adventure, romance, and political intrigue together while maintaining its ominous tenor. Monsters lurk, and danger knows your name. I was completely swept away.”

–Rachel Gillig, New York Times bestselling author of One Dark Window

“Cassidy has written your new favorite romantasy couple: a king tormented by his honor and a siren grappling with her monstrosity, each of them walking the knife’s edge of duty and desire. Sensual, gripping, and resonant as siren song, In the Veins of the Drowning will sink its lure into you and leave you breathless.”

–Allison Saft, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Dark and Drowning Tide

“Perilous stakes underscore a defiant, hate-to-love affair that’s as vulnerable as it is sexy. In the Veins of the Drowning is a sprawling, incandescent debut that emerges with talons and teeth.”

–Isa Agajanian, author of Modern Divination

“As glittering as the sea and lush as its foamy waves, In the Veins of the Drowning will lure you in like a siren’s call with its mysterious lore and fierce, yet tender romance. Imogen and Theo are perfect reflections of each other and I have no doubt they will ensnare the hearts of readers the way they’ve ensnared mine. Devastatingly atmospheric and utterly captivating.”

–Maddie Martinez, author of The Maiden and Her Monster

“Rich with atmosphere and lore, this lush fantasy is like the sea that roars at its heart: fierce and dangerous; darkly glittering. The ferocious tide of Imogen and Theo’s irresistible romance will sweep you off your feet, but it is Imogen herself—grappling with her power and what it means to be a monster—who will steal your heart. A gorgeous, spellbinding debut.”

–Claire Legrand, New York Times bestselling author of Furyborn

“In the Veins of the Drowning is a seductive study of the monstrous, weaving a rich tapestry of prose and emotion in which beauty has talons, memories hold magic, and blood runs deep.”

–Maggie Rapier, author of Soulgazer

“Consider me drowning and gasping for air. In the Veins of the Drowning is as seductive as a siren’s song and as haunting as the sea itself. Don’t miss sinking into this gorgeous debut!”

–Brittney Arena, author of A Dance of Lies

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If you enjoyed

IN THE VEINS OF THE DROWNING

look out for

IN THE WAKE OF THE RUINED

BOOK TWO OF THE SIREN MAGE

by

KALIE CASSIDY

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1

I crawled out of the sea like some graceless water creature, unused to the air and hard sand.

In one fist, I gripped Nemea’s sword. On the opposite arm, looped around it like an overlarge shackle, was his crown. I’d been delirious with pain and exhaustion, floating over the sea’s surface and through the remnants of the battle, slipping in and out of consciousness for the whole of the night. There had been no deciphering between dream and reality as bits of soldiers’ bodies bobbed on the water beside me. Ship flotsam mingled with the blood-laced foam.

It had been a strain to keep my power focused, as that spell seemed to have reduced me to almost nothing. The taste of it still sat on my tongue, an incessant hunger for more pulsing through me with each thump of my sore heart. My senses had been dulled by the fierce, terrible pain in my middle, and yet, I’d managed to force the sea to ferry me across its surface. All the while, I’d clung to the sword and crown like the dented pieces of metal were what kept me afloat. They were imbued now, anointed with Nemea’s blood. When I touched them, I remembered that I had slain a monster.

I remembered that I could do it again.

Shaking, and on all fours, I paused at the edge of the waves and looked up the dune.

The white sand rolled gently, creased by the wind, and I realized the sea had spat me out onto the very beach where Halla had performed her offering to Eusia. Where I had choked on the draught that had severed my bond to Theodore. I could make out the stairs that led to the flower garden, where the pain had brought me to my knees and blotted out my vision. The pale walls and turrets of Genevreer Palace loomed beyond in an endless, mocking sprawl.

I lay slowly onto my side and let out a sob at the flare of pain in my stomach. I could hardly stand, let alone reach the palace, traverse its halls.

“Your house is too big, Theo,” I mumbled to myself, sounding half dead.

Perhaps I was.

The moldering, sea-filled hole in my middle throbbed like a heartbeat, carrying pain from my tender scalp to my wet toes. It pounded in my lips, in my fingers, and all I wanted was to sleep on the warm sand. I closed my eyes, only to have my thoughts flicker and distort like images from a violent fever-dream. I imagined the empress on her swaying ship, and Eusia in her little pool of dark water, and Halla, warm and safe with Theodore in the palace above me. I imagined Agatha’s halo of dark curls, her wide, shining brown eyes, and there was fear in them.

A thin whimper filled my throat. Agatha, who never seemed to fear or fumble. Who was made of steely resolve. Agatha, who had given me years and years of stalwart care and friendship. Who’d done so much to ensure I would never be alone or afraid.

“Get up,” I said, the words sharp air through my teeth, “get up, get up, get up.”

With pain licking at me like wildfire, I pushed myself back up onto all fours. I knew, even as I dragged myself—and my damned sword and crown—over the sand, toward the garden stairs, that I wouldn’t be welcomed back on palace grounds. I’d threatened the safety of the Varian kingdom in more ways than one. I’d gleefully choked Chancellor Eftan in farewell. But I was too unwell to enact my plan alone, and there was only one person in the palace who cared for Agatha the way that I did.

The sun beat against my back, and still, my skin stippled from a deep, penetrating cold. I reached the base of the stairs. Though my arms shook, I lifted Nemea’s sword, and brought it down against the wooden treads with a loud clang. I did it again. And again. Tears slid down my cheeks, over my pinched lips, but finally a gold-armored soldier appeared at the top landing.

He squinted down at me. “Oy! You all right?”

In answer, the sword clattered from my hold. I collapsed fully against the wood. “I need Commander Mela.” The words were hardly loud enough to reach him.

His boots thudded his descent. Once on the tread that my head rested upon, he squatted to inspect me, then reared back with recognition—with fear. “Ahh shit.”

“I won’t hurt you.” My voice rasped, ugly and thin.

He reached out and plucked Nemea’s sword from where it had fallen. Then, he slipped the crown from its place around my limp arm. My resistance was delayed—a weak jerk and a curl of my lip.

A grave note colored his voice. “Right, but I won’t be takin’ you at your word.” He coughed in discomfort. “Sorry, Your Majesty.”

There came the rattling of a chain. Fingers gripped my forearm. The biting cold of metal enveloped my wrists and squeezed and squeezed.

The sun shone behind him, and I squinted, trying to see him better. I’d not expected to be welcomed, but a nick of surprise cut through me anyway. I couldn’t ignore its sting, nor the question that accompanied it: Did Theodore order this?

I opened my mouth to ask, but the guard rose and started back up the stairs with my sword and crown in his fist. An incoherent protest shook up my throat. My arms wobbled as I tried to push myself up, to crawl to the next stair, but pain spread through my stomach in a shocking burst. My limbs gave out. I laid my cheek once more on the warm, smooth wood, and the afternoon light dimmed to black.

I woke to the sound of more boots. Boots, and clanging armor, and murmuring voices. My senses rushed with the cutting sun rays, with the warm air perfumed with the scent of Theodore’s flowering vines. The stairs I lay upon ached against my body, and my wrists were heavy with the manacles that guard had locked around them.

“Lachlan,” I said on a jagged, searching sob. My head sat in a fog. My vision was bleary. “I need to see Commander Mela. Please. Not the king. I need Lach—”

Something bit into my shoulder. I squinted up at a handful of armored soldiers, swords drawn and poised on me. One of them spoke, though I was too beset to decipher which. “We’re ordered to run you through without trial if you use your power.”

My heart struck my ribs. “Who ordered tha—”

“She’s supposed to go straight to the prison tower, isn’t she?” asked another soldier, cutting me off.

“No. Please,” I managed, “I need… I need to tell Lachlan about his wife.”

“Mela doesn’t have a wife.”

My mind, my tongue, could not find and form words quickly enough. Chain rattling, I tried to twist, to sit myself up straighter, but a guard pinned me still by pressing a boot to my hip bone. “Uh-uh,” he grunted.

A piercing screech tore up my throat. Some of the guards jolted and swore at the sound. I couldn’t comprehend how that pressure alone was enough to ignite a blaze of agony through the whole of my body. It sent panic through me. I was weaker, tremulous, when all I’d previously known was a body that had felt sturdy and capable.

You will only find relief in your king. The words Eusia had spoken to me scraped through my head, a provocation and a warning made one. Only the king will do.

The guard yanked his boot from me, more from fear, I guessed, than remorse or pity. Perhaps he thought whatever vile thing coursed through me might seep from my skin and creep into him. Then the group of soldiers was straightening, clearing their throats, making themselves look well disciplined and alert as descending footsteps sounded above me.

“Found her at the base of the stairs,” one of the guards said. “Do we carry ahead as usual? Not sure if royalty is treated differently from commoners in something like this, Commander.”

I lifted my head just in time to watch Lachlan lower himself to kneel beside me. Our gazes locked.

His mossy eyes were cold, his mouth sat at an unfriendly slant. He looked empty and worn. “Queen, commoner, and Goddess alike,” he said, voice bereft of its usual mischievous tone, “are all equal when it comes to the law.”

Fucking bastard. I let out an angry breath and fought to hold up my manacled wrists. “Unchain me.”

He ignored my words. “You look like a living corpse, Imogen.”

“Lach.” His name came out as a squeak. “What are you doing?”

“My job.” At my look, he stood and loomed. “You’ve been proscribed.”

I didn’t know that word or its implication. I shook my head, frantically scanning the half dozen swords that were still trained on me.

Lachlan spoke to me slow and clear. “You’ve been condemned and banned from Varya for crimes of entrapment, treason, endangerment, and murder…” He cleared his throat. “Your Majesty.”

“Who did I entrap—”

“The king.”

“That’s not—Lachlan, you were there. You know the truth…”

His lips twitched. “Help her stand,” he said to the two guards nearest me. As they hauled me up with hard hands, another cry shredded my throat. Lachlan scowled, and I searched for any concern in his flattened gaze. When I didn’t find it, my chest hollowed out. “We have testimony that you ordered the murder of the captain of the Hercule, that you stowed away and endangered a Varian warship in the midst of battle.”

A plummeting sensation took me as I remembered that captain’s death. The deep, gurgling wound in his gut, the putrid lures that I’d cast into his killers. Lures I couldn’t control. I used the soldiers’ hold on me to keep myself up. “I didn’t… I sank Serafi ships—I helped you win that battle.” I groaned through my clamped teeth. “I killed Nemea. His crown is mine.”

Lachlan’s eyes went round with the impact of my confession, but he said not a word.

“Who proscribed me?” I finally whispered, unable to keep the wobble of hurt from my voice. “Was it Theo? Or did you and Eftan force his hand?”

His throat moved as he swallowed. The moment stretched, thin and taut as a string. When he finally answered me, it was with a choked voice. “The king and his council are one and the same.”

I could only hold his unfeeling gaze, hoping to elicit some shame or remorse in him. Quickly, he flicked his eyes toward the top of the stairs, and the guards that held me turned me roughly. I spun like a cloth doll, loose and lolling, as they hauled me up to the flower garden. With each jostle I whimpered, barely able to keep my legs moving in step with theirs. At the top, they released me, and I fell to the soft grass in a tremoring heap.

Slowly, as the guards all filed in, and Lachlan came to stand before me, I sat myself back on my haunches. I went still, quiet. For a desperate moment, I thought to search for my power beneath the heavy shroud of pain. To send out a slew of lures at once and unchain myself.

The tinny scrape of a dagger torn from its sheath pulled me from my mind. Lachlan shook his head. “I see your wheels turning.” He stooped to pick up the chain that hung between my cuffs. “Use your power”—he pointed the dagger directly at me—“and I’ll have no choice but to use this.”

I locked my gaze onto its silver point. “You wouldn’t have the chance.” Then, I studied his dark-rimmed eyes, resolute and grim, and could see no scheming in them. It set me off-balance, how we had gone from a warm, if awkward, farewell just yesterday to this.

His lips twisted. “Two of my guards are Siren-bound, Imogen. They’ll kill you before you can beg. And I’ve told you before, I have no desire to see you dead.”

I’d known Lachlan’s fears over how I might set Varya toward ruin from the first. He’d threatened and scolded me and made his dislike clear. Our discord had sat between us like a reared-back weapon, but I never once thought he would bring it crashing down so violently.

He raised his brows in unhappy irony and gave my chain a tug. “Rise, Your Majesty.”

Not long ago, the Mage Seer had given me guidance: Take what you want. I wanted to curse and gnash. I wanted to scream and be heeded and see all these guards on their knees. But I also wished, for better or worse, to live.