Текст книги "In the Veins of the Drowning"

Автор книги: Kalie Cassidy

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

There were many misguided things I desired, and I suspected it would always be so. Just as sure as I was made of flesh and blood and bone and sea, I was also made of want. Excising it, draining it like a bad humor, would never do, but this one time, with this one man, I could stop myself from being the fool.

“I don’t want an embrace,” I whispered. When he released me, my wrist was cold.

Head high, and with Theodore trailing in my wake, I made my way across the deck. There was an emptiness, a hopelessness, that rankled, but I tried to let this truth soothe me: Nothing good had ever come from me taking what I wanted.

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A full day and a half later, I clung to the rail of the ship as it glided across a crowded bay, toward Panos Port. I was ready to be off the water and touch solid land. To sleep soundly, dreamlessly, without being jostled by the sea’s merciless surface. I’d fallen into a malaise after my row with Theodore, and that Godsdamned plucking in my chest wouldn’t cease.

Agatha stood close at my side, face pinched in a troubled scowl. Theodore lingered not far behind me. I could nearly sense what direction he paced in, bow to stern, and back again.

Our blood bond still had not settled.

“I think something’s wrong,” Agatha said, leaning toward me so he wouldn’t hear. “The two of you shouldn’t be ill any longer.”

I frowned at the thought and stared into the water below. It was so clear, I could see straight to the bottom. Clusters of fish darted this way and that, looking like silvered arrowheads. Bright sprays of coral dotted the white sand of the seafloor.

“You don’t know that.” I tried to keep myself from sounding as worried as I felt. “It’s not even been three full days.”

She only offered me a sharp look, jaw tightly set. “And as I’ve said, it should only take two.”

“You performed your binding a long time ago. Maybe you’re misremembering.”

“It was two.” She was adamant. Then she paused to think. “Though our binding was different from yours. We didn’t spend time apart during those two days. We…” She looked at me sidelong, then away quickly. “Were together often.”

“Together?” I caught her meaning a beat later and grimaced. “Oh sweet Gods. Let’s assume it’s our lack of togetherness that’s the problem, then.”

“You could…” Agatha glanced at Theodore over her shoulder, then back at me. Her brows rose suggestively, disappearing into her thick curls.

“No. We couldn’t.” I scoffed. “He’s more interested in sending me off to be tortured in a severing ritual than bedding me.”

“Still—you can’t be this sick indefinitely.” She brought her voice even lower. “I don’t think he’d say no.”

“Think about what you’re suggesting!” A briny gust rolled over the water and wound through my loose hair. “And he most certainly would say no. He thinks I’m nothing but a superfluous imposition.”

Agatha shrugged. “I’d wager you’d be no imposition at all in this.”

The suggestion was laughable. Theodore and I had hardly spoken since he’d told me what my task was to be. Since he’d told me that he thought I was the descendant of a Great Goddess. That was laughable too. I knew my story. I was an orphaned child of noble birth. Nemea took me in because of my family’s money. Nothing more. But despite my lifelong surety, Theodore’s belief had left me bereft. Agitated, I brushed my thumb over the heap of scars that sat in the middle of my palm.

“Do you think he’s right?” I asked Agatha. We both leaned on the rail, and I pressed my shoulder to hers. “Do you think my power is like that of the Great Goddess Ligea’s?”

Agatha stared out over the water. At the little white stone buildings clustered tightly around the docks. More fanned out to dot the sprawling green hills of Varya. She shook her head. “She was the last Great Goddess to survive, but I never saw her. I knew all the stories of her power, though. Sailors would say the sea called to them, but it was her pull they felt on their bones. It was her call that rushed silently through their ears. And she could ruin them all without lifting a hand. They would pray to her and ask that she fill their nets. They’d ask for calm seas. And she would oblige, where she saw fit.”

My throat grew thick. “I can do none of those things.”

“Not now. Not yet… perhaps.” She looked at me with the shine of hope in her eyes. “Every God’s power is different, but it’s always the greatest among the descendants who can wield it with ease. I have to sing to lure, but you do not.” She looked to Theodore. “And the king—he doesn’t need to touch to heal flesh or to make plants flourish.”

My attention snapped toward her. “I’m sorry—what?”

“What?” Agatha reared back at my reaction.

“Every time the king has healed me, he’s touched me.”

“Oh. Well.” Agatha’s lips curled into a knowing smile. “I can’t imagine why.”

I forced my eyes shut. The wind whipped again, blowing more salt mist into my nose. It should have calmed me, but it only fanned that unsettling hum in my chest. I glared at Theodore over my shoulder. He stood about ten paces away—as far as he could without either of us growing ill—looking resplendent. His golden laurel crown sat upon his head, twining through his black locks. His brown coat was cut precisely to the lines of his broad chest, his narrow waist. The emerald cape pinned to his muscled shoulders billowed in the wind. Damn him. I had to look away.

A wispy fog had rolled over Varya’s port city of Voros, veiling the newly risen sun. A portion of the city was walled, with little stone lookouts sitting upon its corners. Flowering vines covered the wall like a verdant cage. My gaze followed it all the way out to the peninsula that Genevreer Palace sat upon. It was brilliant despite the fog, with its creamy white stones and tiled roof the color of ash. Even from the ship, I could see how Varya’s famed flowering vines crept up its walls like dark veins webbing a fair body.

The city bustled and the land bloomed, all of it rich because of Theodore’s power. I’d never felt so small. “Agatha, I can’t do this. I can’t control my power in the least. I have nothing to my name, no way to protect myself. I’ll be alone—”

She curled her hand around mine. “I told you I’d be with you. I promised you.” She squeezed my hand tighter. “You won’t be alone.”

We stood like that, hand in hand, as the ship kept its course for the docks. I watched the turquoise water ripple and froth, when suddenly, some energy rocked through my body. What had been a hum in my chest became wild tugs and jabs. They crescendoed and I set a worried hand to my stomach. It was as if that string inside me had become many and they were being plucked by a hand coming from somewhere far below.

I looked past the gentle waves to the seafloor. It had changed. It was no longer pristine white sand, strewn with colorful coral. Now it looked to be covered in dark, twisting rocks. I leaned farther over the rail, squinting, when I realized—they were bodies.

Many, many bodies. Their unmoving limbs were knotted and overlaid like the strands of a weaving. I gasped as a spindly arm appeared just beneath the ship’s hull. A ghostly white shoulder, shadowed with decay, came into view next.

Then the whole corpse. A woman. Dark hair fluttered around her head like black fire. She was dead, I was certain of it, hanging lifeless not ten feet below the surface.

Then she moved.

She swam with the grace of a living thing. Like she was used to the water, meant to be in it. She strained toward the rolling surface, right below me, and her black eyes locked with mine.

Her face was blank, the edge of her jaw studded with a pattern of barnacles as intricate as white lace. She was dead. It was the sea that seemed to hold her together. She floated on her back over the waves. Leathery kelp had knit itself through the rotting edges of the holes in her torso. A stringy tentacle grew from her chest, right above her heart, and it curled down her shoulder to hold her arm in place at the joint. Bits of flesh were missing from her face, from her limbs—but her dark eyes saw me.

Rotting lips mouthed a single, silent word.

Home.

I screamed when two strong hands clamped onto me and jerked me back and off the ship’s rail. I’d nearly climbed over. Theodore set my feet on the deck and held me so tightly around the waist I could hardly pull in a breath. His gaze locked with mine, all fiery and full of terror. “Bloody Gods—Agatha was yelling at you. Didn’t you hear her?”

Agatha was pale beside me, a hand clutching her throat.

I shook my head. “No. There was a…” The jabs in my chest had returned to their quiet, even hum. I felt so cold, so strained with fear, that I threw my arms around Theodore’s neck and held tight. I hated myself for seeking comfort in him, but he was so steady, so warm. The moment seemed to draw out, long as a string of honey, before he curled his arms around me in return. With a quiet exhale, he let his body soften against mine. It felt like a candle flared inside me—the bond—glowing bright. I raised my lips toward his ear. “I saw a woman. In the water.”

“A nekgya.” He pulled back to look in my eyes. “They hunt the waters closest to the islands.”

Despite his proximity, a chill slipped through me. “What do they hunt?”

Those eyes. A mix of pity and wariness filled them before he drew me back into his embrace. He spoke softly, his voice heavy with contrition. “Sirens.”

The carriage clacked over the blue cobblestoned streets, winding us through dense trees, their leaves a lush spring green. The boughs held large red blooms with centers like orbs of gold. I could hardly recall disembarking from the ship or walking over the docks to the shining carriage that had awaited us, but I remembered Theodore. He’d led me the entire way with a hand at my back, close and attentive. I sat beside him now, and across from us, in awkward silence, sat Lachlan and Agatha.

“They hunt Sirens,” I said in a shocked voice, staring out the window. “Agatha, did you know? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Her gaze rounded, but Lachlan spoke before she could. “You’re aware that Agatha lived away from the sea for nearly twenty years too, right? You’re not the only one who’s been locked away from the rest of the world.”

Agatha went rigid. “I do not need you to speak for me, Commander Mela.”

Lachlan rubbed his jaw. “Don’t call me that, please.”

“It’s your title.”

“It’s impersonal.”

“Precisely.” Agatha’s gaze shot to me. “And you—I tried to teach you everything I knew. Have you forgotten how you shut me down every time I tried to tell you anything at all about our kind?”

I blanched. It had been difficult to learn the details of a life that I’d never thought I’d experience. Every bit she’d shared with me had felt like something to mourn, one small death after another. Ignorance had hurt less.

“And when I left Varya,” she went on, defensively, “the nekgya were very few. I’d heard of only one or two attacks. I’d never seen one. I had no idea the waters had become so infested.”

Theodore shifted beside me. “And the attacks have only grown more gruesome. They have started to go after Varians now too.”

A shudder stole over me. “Have you not been able to do anything about them?”

“I’m trying.” His tone, his look, made me want to curse him and fall quiet at once. “There are other, more pressing matters right now that we need to discuss. Like this negotiation with the empress. She’s already here. I saw her ship in the harbor.”

Lachlan gave Theodore a regretful look. “Well, your bond still hasn’t settled. You’ll have to take Imogen with you to the meeting with the empress.”

Theodore scraped a hand down his face. “You know the size of her fleet, of her troops. The contracts she’s sent are extensive and need discussing. If I waltz into that council meeting with a… woman like Imogen beside me—”

“A woman like Imogen.” I smoothed my undone tumble of hair. “There’s no need to insult me while I’m sitting right next to you.”

Theodore’s mouth pinched. “Bloody Gods—I’m not. I’m saying that the empress will think I’m slighting her and her daughter if I bring such an uncommonly beautiful woman with me into the negotiations.”

My cheeks warmed. “Oh.”

Lachlan and Agatha stared at us for a moment, wide-eyed. Finally, Lachlan spoke in an oddly careful voice. “I’m your right hand. Have her come in on my arm and say she’s your cousin, eager to meet her new family member.”

I shot Lachlan an unpleasant look. Meeting the princess of Obelia, Theodore’s fiancée, did not make me feel eager in the least. It made the bond in my stomach coil and strain with jealousy.

Lachlan shot me an unpleasant look right back. “You’ll have to be nice.”

Theodore huffed and looked toward the carriage ceiling. “Fucking Gods.”

“I have to agree with His Majesty’s sentiment,” I said. “Bringing his pesky current wife to meet his future one is an awful idea.”

“Vomiting on the Empress of Obelia is a worse one,” said Lachlan.

Agatha nodded. “Lachlan’s right.”

“Thank you.”

“Hush.” Agatha pursed her lips, her eyes darting between me and the king. The look on her face was the one she always wore before she started an argument, gaze narrowed and lips quirked. I braced myself as she took a deep breath. “Your Majesty,” she said, sweetly. “We also need to discuss you ordering Imogen to the Mage Seer.”

Theodore closed his eyes. “Not today, Agatha.”

“Please, let me speak, Your Majesty.” But she didn’t wait for his permission. “I am willing to accompany her on her trek. It’s wretched of you to insist on sending her, but even with soldiers and a healer and me at her side, she will still be in danger.”

At her words, Lachlan seemed to fill with hollow anger.

“What’s your point?” Theodore’s every muscle had clenched.

Agatha crossed her arms haughtily. “In the event that your bond does not settle—which at this point seems highly likely given it’s been nearly three days—I’d like to know if you are prepared to accompany her yourself?”

Theodore’s face went slack. “It’ll settle.”

“What makes you think it will?” Agatha challenged. “It should be two days. The stories say it’s always two days. I expect there’s something off, I can’t imagine what, but regardless, how will you handle being on opposite sides of the island? Both of you will go mad with sickness and worry.”

Just as the palace materialized through the mist and the wheels crunched over the gravel of the wide main drive, I saw something in the king of Varya that struck me with unease: panic.

It was such a small thing. So small, I doubted Agatha even noticed—but Lachlan did. His mouth thinned into a hard line as he watched Theodore’s chest rise and fall with slightly increased breaths. I felt another layer of tension fall over him. His lovely eyes widened for the briefest moment, and it made my heart slam into my ribs.

Lachlan leaned forward and casually patted his knee. “We’ll discuss this at another time.” His smile was effortless, but there was a new trouble in him too. He looked out the carriage window. “We’re here, so let’s focus on the first terrible task on the list, shall we?” He clapped his hands. “Let’s go meet your fiancée.”

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We exited the carriage to a horde of eager-looking servants and soldiers, all arranged into neat lines. Theodore strode up the wide steps first, mumbling quiet greetings to the official-looking assembly nearest the door. I kept close to Agatha, eyes down, and felt entirely out of place in the face of such opulence. My hair was undone and wild. I wore no chemise, or stays, or shoes. I was grateful that the hem of my gown was long enough to cover my bare feet.

We slowed just inside the soaring entry hall, where Theodore was accosted by a willowy woman carrying a stack of envelopes on a silver tray. I looked around, taking in the shining details.

The gilded, frescoed ceiling. The curving black marble staircases. One wound up to the eastern wing, the other to the western. Pale statues of Great Gods, their beautiful, stern faces fully intact, lined the railings. Their unseeing eyes were fierce, their hair upswept, their strong bodies carved into flowing swaths of fabric. I searched for Ligea but could not find her. They held candles, illuminating the risers, looking down on us with the same look of authority and self-importance that Theodore so often wore.

No one would doubt he was a God.

Lachlan turned to me. “Don’t let them intimidate you. They were a lustful, violent, pigheaded lot. You’ll fit right in.”

Agatha tsked before their gazes caught on one another and lingered. Lachlan beheld her with fondness, with heartbreak. He set an absent-minded hand to his chest like it ached. “My rooms are the same, Agatha.”

Agatha only gave him a sharp, cold nod, then looped her arm through mine.

Head bent, Lachlan started up the western stairs, taking them two at a time, then disappeared into the shadow of the hall.

“What the hell are you doing?” I chided. “You still love him. And he still loves you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Lachlan loves everyone. And everyone loves him. He’s charming and roguish and too witty.”

“Opposites attract.” I looked up the staircase he’d ascended. “I think he’s hurt that you’re willing to leave him again.”

“I tried to explain it to him.” She shook her head. “I told him I’d go with you when the king sends you off in search of Eusia too.”

I stiffened. That was something else entirely. There was no way of knowing where the hunt for Eusia would take me, but it would most certainly be dangerous. “You can’t come with me, Agatha,” I said, firmly. “I’m hardly qualified for the task, and you have even less power than I do. I won’t see you get hurt. I’d only blame myself for it.” Her mouth fell open, her chest filling with a protest. “Please. You’ve looked after me for so long. You’ve given up so much for me. You should make up for it now.”

“I’m not sure how.” She looked overcome. I was not the only one who had been ripped from her old life, I was not the only one starting new. Selfishly, I was grateful to not be alone in the terror of it.

“Your Majesty!” A jovial voice echoed through the hall. A stout man with a bright smile approached the king. His face was as round as his stomach, his skin a dark, smooth brown. His crinkled eyes were a faceted amber. “It’s good to have you back.” He stopped before Theodore and gave him a grand bow. “Was the Isle of Seraf just as we suspected?”

Theodore’s dark brows lowered. “There were a few surprises.”

“Ahh, well. The empress and the princess have been here for nearly two days. They’ve been content to rest and wander the gardens, but I think it would be wise to plan the negotiations directly.”

Theodore nodded. “Thank you, Eftan. Is all well with them?”

The man’s wide smile dropped ever so slightly. He let his booming voice soften. “The empress is a woman of… high standards. I suggest the meeting be held in the Garden Room. I’ll have the servants set the table.” His eyes brightened, and he leaned in conspiratorially. “The princess, however, is lovely. Lucky for you.”

Theodore gave an unaffected grunt.

“And who are these young women?” Eftan set a hand to his belly, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

“This is…” Theodore strained for words. “Lady Imogen Nel. She…” He gave up searching for an explanation for my existence and gestured to Agatha, absently. “And this is Commander Mela’s former wife, Agatha. She was my governess once. Perhaps you remember her.”

Eftan’s face creased with distant recognition. “Why, yes. Agatha. I believe I do remember you.” His cheeks rounded further with a full and friendly smile. “I’ll find you both comfortable rooms. Come with me.”

“Chancellor, it’s good to see you again.” Agatha’s cheeks flushed pink, and she said, “Are there any rooms available near Commander Mela’s?”

“I believe so, yes.” He gestured to a nearby maid and then Agatha was making her way up the western stairs. She gave me an unsure smile before she disappeared.

“Eftan,” Theodore said, “may I have a word?” He stepped closer to the little man and leaned in to whisper. As Theodore spoke, Eftan stood very straight, very still, then he shot me a quick, condescending look.

I choked back a groan.

Eftan gave Theodore a reverential bow. “I understand, Your Majesty.” The man faced me without meeting my eye, bowed, and offered a clipped “Good day.” Then he turned on his heel and strode from the hall, boots snapping quickly over the marble.

“What did you tell him?”

Theodore’s eyes narrowed and an uneasy warmth fell through my stomach. “I told him to have the warships and land soldiers prepared for an attack from Seraf.” His voice had sunk so deep into his chest I could nearly feel it rumble through me. “And I told him you would be sleeping in my room for the time being.”

“Oh.” I swallowed hard. “Did you tell him why?”

“I’ll let him draw his own conclusions. They’re likely better than the truth.” He yanked the crown from his head and started up the eastern stairs.

I fisted my skirt and all but ran up after him. “He’ll think I’m your mistress, and just as your fiancée has arrived—”

“Like I said—better than the truth. The poor man would collapse if I told him you are my blood-bound wife.”

We reached a long hall, where he led us past large windows that framed flowering gardens, vine-covered outbuildings, and the wide, glinting sea beyond the cliff. The carpet was thick and soft, but I was desperate for a pair of shoes. For stays and underclothes that fit. For a hot bath.

Theodore flung the door at the end of the hall wide open. “After you, my lady.” He stood with his back against the jamb, watching me with his chin tipped back, features hard. As I approached the threshold he stood upon, I stopped. The small space between us was charged. “You loathe me, don’t you?”

He held my gaze, features unreadable as ever, but the rise and fall of his chest increased. As did mine. Then he cocked his head toward his chamber. “Get in.”

It was as grand a space as I could have expected. The ceiling soared, coffered and painted with the island’s flowering vines. The entire space was dressed—unsurprisingly—in shades of green and gold. At the center sat a bed even grander than the one on the ship. Wide, with stairs at its side. Heavy velvet drapes hung from its towering posts. Before an opulent mantel sat a large settee, but it was too far from the bed. We’d have to drag it closer so we could both sleep without growing sick.

I jumped when the door slammed. Theodore brooded his way across the room, unbuttoning his coat and tossing it over the back of a chair. “Keep close,” he said, as he stepped into the washing room. I moved nearer and heard the burble and splash of water.

Crossing my arms tightly over my chest, I studied Theodore’s room closer. There was a perilously tall stack of books on the table by his bed, one splayed open at the top, upside down to save his spot. A delicate crystal glass and a bottle of wine sat beside them. A desk as messy as the one on his ship sat before the floor-to-ceiling windows. Large, lilac-colored blooms sat in a vase amid the clutter. I itched to move closer and look at the papers there. I found myself wondering over the shape of his writing, if it was angular and prickly, like he was toward me. Or if perhaps he let the curling warmth he hid so well creep into its lines.

A knock sounded.

“Yes, what?” Theodore called. He emerged from the washing room shirtless, golden brown skin flecked with drops of water. He toweled his hair, his face, and I stared dumbly at his strong, beautiful body. His chest was hard and muscled, with a smattering of dark hair. Divots looked like they’d been carved over his stomach, into the edges of his hips.

“Dressmaker, Your Majesty,” came a weathered voice from the other side of the door.

“Come in.” Theodore draped the towel over his wide shoulders. When the door opened and a hunched woman, black hair streaked with white, entered, Theodore smiled. “Hello, Antheia. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

The old woman giggled, chiming and unaware as a young girl would be. Slowly, she pushed a cart of hanging gowns into the room. She stopped and bobbed into a wobbly curtsy.

“None of that,” Theodore said. That devastating smile of his dimpled his left cheek. “Let me.” He took the cart from her and rolled it into the middle of the room. “I’m sorry to rush you, but the lady needs to be dressed quickly. Something subtle if you don’t mind.”

The old woman, Antheia, glanced at me and shuffled toward the cart. “Subtle!” Her dark, deeply wrinkled eyes twinkled. “Pity. I’ll see what I can do.”

Theodore looked at me, and his smile slipped away. “Go on,” he said to me, the words empty and quick. He strode toward me to return to the washroom.

“I think you were wrong.” I spoke quietly as he passed. He stopped, close enough for me to smell the vetiver soap on his skin, with a question in his green eyes. “You called me a gnat, but you were wrong. I’m a mosquito, I think. A nuisance you cannot be rid of, and I take and take and take—” I pulled the engagement ring from my finger and held it up between us. “Here. As payment. I do not want charity and I do not wish to be further in your debt.”

His gaze bore down on me, amplifying that hollow feeling in my chest. “A mosquito.” Then the corner of his mouth lifted.

It took effort, but I raised my chin. “Are you laughing at me?”

He shook his head, and before he could speak, I pressed the ring closer.

He sobered. “I don’t need your ring.”

“That’s not the point.” I nearly stopped myself from speaking further, but for some bleeding reason I wanted him to understand. “My care has always been dependent upon what I could provide in exchange for it. It was that way with Nemea, with Evander. With you. Agatha is the only one who has ever cared for me in earnest, and even she looked after me in exchange for compensation.”

His look became fathomless, grave. “That’s the end of it, then.”

I shook my head, confused. “The end of what?”

He wrapped his hand over the ring, warm fingers touching mine. He pushed it away in refusal. “The end of transactions. We came to a deal, yes, but that is done. I offer my care now because I choose to.”

His words made me feel placid and troubled at once. “But why?”

He didn’t answer. It was a long moment before he broke our stare and glanced at the old dressmaker. “Antheia is waiting for you.”

Not an hour later, Theodore and I were descending the grand stairs into the entry hall. He glowed in a light suit, his crown nestled back into his dark hair, but his mood had grown even more sullen.

I shot him a sharp look. “What are you upset about now?”

“I’d asked Antheia for something subtle.”

The gown she’d put me in was anything but. The satin silk reminded me of a cherry blossom painting I’d loved in one of the books in Nemea’s study. It was the palest, most delicate pink, the color deepening at the hem. The sleeves were sheer and flowing and cuffed at the wrists. The bodice was cut low, fitted, until it gave way to a skirt that moved like rippling water with my steps.

“This is what fit.” We reached the last step and turned to move deeper into the palace’s first floor. “Would a single compliment pain you that much? We are stuck together, and this fucking bond won’t settle, and I’m alone. Away from home—”

“That place was no home. Home is where you’re safe.”

“It’s also a place where you’re wanted.” I flustered, shook my head. “I am not saying… I don’t need this place to feel like home. It won’t. But sometimes you make me feel so small you could crush me under your heel. The least you could do is tell me I look nice in this Godsdamned dress.”

His brow crumpled, a look like remorse filling his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he blurted. “You are… You’re one ambush after the next and I have yet to get my bearings.”

I stared up at him. “One ambush after the next?”

There had been the barest softness to his features, to his full lips, that quickly fled. “Yes.”

I gave an angry laugh. “Gods, even your apologies are deprecating.” I stormed away from him, into the shadow of the towering staircase.

“Imogen.” The stamp of his boots echoed behind me. “You want a compliment? You’re stunning. You’re—”

“Shit.” I stopped short in the darkened alcove of the stairs. There, like a phantom in the light of the candles at her feet, stood a statue of the Great Goddess Ligea.

Panic shook through me as I stepped closer.

Her hair swept up in a permanent gust. Her stone body had been carved into a blowing bit of cloth that covered one breast and encircled her hips. Her wings were spread wide at her back. She held out an arm, palm up, her fingers commandingly crooked, like she beckoned—or cursed—her watcher.

My gaze stuck to the swooping line of her slightly rounded nose. The fullness of her mouth, the pointed dip of her chin. I studied how her eyes, small and focused, pierced the nothingness before her. Her body too—the lean, muscled build of her legs and arms, the nip of her waist between her full breasts and hips.

My very countenance, shaped in stone.

I could feel Theodore standing behind me, unmoving, breathless. I blinked back a sudden swell of hot tears.

“Fuck you.” I said it to Ligea. And to Theodore. And to Nemea too. I reached up to touch her frigid fingers as my tears won out. I’d always longed for power—for the right to a life I chose and a way to keep myself safe. But this… I could hardly breathe from the sudden weight of it.

Theodore let out a slow breath behind me. I swiped quickly at my wet cheeks, not wanting him to see me, but I was beyond restraint. Something inside me had ripped clean open, and everything I’d thought to be true—who I was, where I’d come from, the fragile, stupid hope of a life of my own—was melting into something I could no longer hold.

When Theodore’s hand met my back, when his warmth wove around me, and the bond in my stomach flared, my tears only redoubled.

“Don’t cry.” The words were a soft plea. His arm encircled my shoulders, and he pulled me against him. “Not now.”

“I…” I sniffled. “She… looks like me.”

“I know.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. With a finger under my chin, he lifted my face and wiped my cheeks dry. “Breathe.” His voice was so maddeningly soothing, so incomprehensibly even, I wanted to scream. “Later, you can wail and break my things if it’ll make you feel better. But don’t go into the meeting like this.”