14 Imogen #2
Incredulity rushed through me as I realized how unguarded and sincere her gaze had become. She meant to help me perform the spell, and though it sent relief rushing through me, I kept it hidden. It wouldn’t be wise to reveal the depth of my desperation.
My gaze darted from Halla, to Markis, to Aleka, and all of them watched me with sharp gazes, waiting to see what I would do. “Very well—”
“There you are.” Lachlan appeared through the mist, seething. “I’ve circled the bloody deck five times searching for you.”
Markis rolled his eyes at Lachlan’s appearance, but Aleka extended a hand toward the chair beside her. “Sit, Commander. Queen Imogen was about to regale us with a history lesson.”
Lachlan glanced about the table like he’d entered an alternate world. He lowered himself very slowly to the chair. “All right.”
I shook my head, abashed. I felt certain that I knew less about the Great Gods than everyone at the table, but I wanted to breach the barbed divide that sat between Halla and me. If a story about the Gods would do it, then I would tell one.
“Do you not learn of the Great Gods in Obelia?” I asked Halla.
The tiara on her brow glinted as she nodded. “I learned of them in my schooling, of course,” Halla said, “but only the names of your Gods. Their powers. I would like to know how they came to be.”
“Very well.” She was earnest, and still, I did not understand her aim.
I gave Lachlan a quick sidelong glance. He was quiet, tense with suspicion, but he gave me a nod to go on.
I reached for my goblet again, simply to give my anxious fingers something to do.
“I’ll tell it to you the way I was told it as a girl, directly from the Great God Jesop’s histories.
” I could see Jesop’s lacelike script in my mind.
“‘Back before time and history were shaped by my hand’—I’ve read enough of his books now to gather that Jesop thought himself a great deal more important than the rest of the Gods—‘there was the vast and ancient world.’”
I glanced at Halla to find her already enrapt.
“There was the rock and soil, the sprouting, life-giving flora, the depthless and violent sea and its winds, the roaming, prolific fauna. All of these pieces of the world were—are—vital. Alive. They possessed an essence that moved and breathed and lived in these different bodies, existing in harmony with one another, helping the others to thrive. But as time drew on, these spirits grew restless. As so many ancient things do.”
“Ancient,” Halla whispered, abruptly. She looked staggered and guileless. “Do you feel ancient?”
I met her wide eyes, surprised by the question. “Do I… No,” I said. “I feel… I feel very new.”
She made a thoughtful sound, then gestured an apology. “Go on.”
“These spirits still live on in their first homes,” I said.
“In the earth and sea, plants and animals, but a piece of them was able to escape their old bodies and imbue something new.
The histories say that the immortal shred of the spirits found a way to inhabit the flesh of a mortal.
Jesop, who was one of those new-bodied Gods, wrote, ‘How strange it is to have a boundless consciousness, and a body that knows nothing.’
“The Great Gods ruled for centuries, and while their souls were suffused of these immortal spirits and their bodies long-lived, they could not escape the desire for power that comes from being suddenly limited by flesh and bone. They wanted more. So they decided to build kingdoms. When they were only Gods—pure spirits—their power had been equal, albeit different. They’d lived in harmony.
But crowns set them apart. They converted their power into wealth by claiming land and subjects who worshipped them.
They could leverage their influence to grow their might beyond that of their Gods’ power, which had been untainted by such things.
Jesop was the one God who loathed his crown.
He gave his small island, Gos, to the Great God Milton to rule.
And it was said that the Great Goddess Diantan became a queen very reluctantly. ”
I shrugged, lost in my story. “The rest of them, though—Panos of Varya, my mother, Ligea, Milton of Della—they raised kingdoms up very willingly.”
“And what of magic?” Halla asked. Her voice had changed, and I wondered suddenly if this was what she’d wanted all along. To learn more about Eusia.
“What of it?” A new song began, this one more boisterous.
I spoke louder to be heard. “Magic is…” I disliked the twinge of empathy I felt for Eusia.
She didn’t deserve it. “I suppose Eusia’s creation of spell work was just one more attempt to strike some balance in a very imbalanced world.
She was not imbued with power, so she made some herself. ”
Halla looked almost feverish now, eyes glassy and distant, as if she were combing through her memories. “I’d been taught that Eusia was Ligea’s sister, but that during her creation she’d been forsaken.”
My brow creased. “Forsaken?”
“Yes.” Halla’s swell of emotion thickened her accent.
She spoke nearly too quickly to be understood.
“Eusia had been looked over and was only given the same power that the rest of the Sirens were given—a voice that lures, and meager influence over the water and wind. She was created by the same spirit as Ligea. She deserved equal greatness.”
An unsettling prickle moved across my skin. “Even if I’d been forsaken,” I said in a hard voice, “I could never be as cruel as Eusia has been simply to make my lot evenhanded.”
Halla scowled, lashes fluttering as she cut her attention to her goblet. “I expect you cannot understand. You possess every power your realm has to offer.”
“Do I?”
The fog seemed to grow denser now, curling over the table.
“You are a Goddess, a queen, and a Mage Seer at once.” She gave me a very serious look, chin low, eyes wide.
“It is cruel to speak of evenhandedness yet disparage Eusia’s desperation when you have everything she has ever wanted. All without trying.”
A warning pealed through me. One I couldn’t fully grasp, but my body felt it.
I wasn’t certain that Halla could ever unlearn all she’d been raised to believe.
I lifted my goblet to my lips, not wishing for Halla, or anyone at this table, to know that I felt like a pretender to every one of my titles.
My power felt as sturdy and reliable as a shadow did.
I took a gulp, then set my cup down carefully.
“I expect that Eusia could possess everything I do, and still, she would want for more.”