17 Imogen
Imogen
Before us, up the pale purple-hued beach, sat Raidne Keep. My mother’s old home. The thick mist that hung over the water choked the land too, but the wind swirled it, letting me glimpse the gnarled shapes of bare trees, clusters of hollowed-out and fallen buildings, and empty rolling fields.
The blight had stolen even the memory of Anthemoessa’s beauty. There was no telling what it had once been.
Lachlan still lay in the hull at my feet, regaining his strength, as Theodore dragged the launch farther onto the sand. When he let go, those capable hands of his trembled.
Gods, I wanted to go to him, to soothe and hold him, but instead I watched a shaky Halla rise from her spot in the boat and reach out for him to help her to the sand. He did, then once she was on her own two feet, Theodore hung his head and started down the beach.
Halla took a step toward him. “Your Majesty, are you well—”
“Leave him,” I said, letting my possessiveness and concern make the words harsh. I set my boots on the sand. “Let him have a moment.”
Halla shot me an imperious look, but she stayed put. I expected she was too afraid to defy me.
In the boat, Lachlan rose slowly to his knees. “Did the spell work?” He glanced warily at the lagoon behind us.
I glowered at Halla. “No.” She paled, then looked uncomfortably away, toward the castle ruins. I went to Lachlan and whispered. “She said it wasn’t in her heart to kill Eusia.”
Lachlan grunted and swiped a hand through his hair. Water droplets flew from the short strands. “And you’re surprised?”
I was too embarrassed to admit that I was.
It had been na?ve of me, I supposed, but I’d seen the scars on her body.
I knew the pain of such offerings. I’d also experienced the devastation of having no autonomy, of living only to be used.
And so, it did surprise me, deeply, that Halla might not be as furious as I was.
That she did not wish to shatter every bond that had held her in place, by any means necessary, and relish doing so.
The shoreline was an unending curve, the line of it fading into the mist in either direction.
Lachlan’s face was angled toward the lagoon, his mossy eyes hard and unsettled.
It was impressive to watch him take his shock and tuck it neatly away.
He donned his armor, picked up his sword like he was merely a soldier on mundane duty, and climbed out of the launch.
The moment his sodden boots met the beach, he was moving.
He threw me a dire look. “Let’s go find Agatha.”
I gave a nod and followed.
Theodore worked his way back toward us as Halla wandered up the shore to take in the details of the towering ruins.
As I followed after Lachlan, I noted the state of the sand.
It was free of any footsteps or drag marks.
In fact, it was so pristine that I imagined a wave had swept over it and wiped it clean.
Past the sand sat a barren field. When I’d been a girl, Agatha had told me a story about Anthemoessa’s hills and meadows.
She’d reprimanded me for not listening, but I’d heard every word.
They’d once been covered in a carpet of swaying wildflowers.
She’d told me the air had been tinged with their scent, and that the earth had been rich with heavy veins of gold that the Sirens had preferred to mine with restraint.
It was why the island was so often assaulted.
It was why Ligea had asked Diantan, the Great Goddess of Craft, to use her power to move the earth and build a barrier of ragged stone around the island.
Reeflike teeth that would bite at the hulls of greedy, ill-intentioned ships.
Lachlan and Theodore stood just beyond the sand, where the charred-looking soil began, studying the ground. I couldn’t see what they looked at until I came closer, but when I did, I reeled.
There were more footprints than I could count, crossing this way and that. There were deep wheel grooves and long drag marks. My heartbeat ratcheted. I looked through the mist, following one path straight, then another that veered right. Toward the ruins of Raidne Keep.
Lachlan was already moving down the straight path. “Follow the one that leads to the ruins,” he yelled back to me and Theodore. Then he disappeared into the wall of mist.
I was glad Halla still lingered on the sand. Theodore remained sullen, his attention inward, but before he started down the path, his warm fingers drew across mine. It was a quick, absent-minded touch, like he was reassuring himself that I was still there before we hurried toward the keep.
The dried earth crunched under our quick steps.
By most standards, Raidne Keep wasn’t large.
Half the size of Nemea’s keep, and a mere stone hovel compared to Theodore’s gratuitously spacious palace.
I stared up at its high walls and jutting spires, at the elegant and finely crafted, curving stones.
Positioned at its back sat the blackened remnants of an old garden.
Expansive beds lined its walls, and within them stood the spiked skeletons of dozens and dozens of massive rosebushes.
It shocked me more than I’d expected—to learn that my mother had grown roses.
Theodore kept moving toward the towering door, but fear made me feel heavy.
My chest had begun to constrict the closer I drew to the dilapidated place.
But for Agatha, I pressed on.
The stones around the arched entrance were carved with images of winged women.
With cresting waves, and ships, and jagged rocks.
A pattern of wildflowers and feathers trimmed the reliefs.
I dragged my fingers over the outline of a Siren with a spired crown atop her head.
Even in the rough stone Ligea looked so regal, so indomitable.
And yet she’d fallen.
A small carved nameplate sat below the relief.
Vathia Aithier. Vathia had been her second name—taken from the spirit of the deep water that had helped create her.
Aithier, if I remembered correctly, was the spirit of the air.
They’d been so intrinsically threaded together—so bonded—that they chose to inhabit the same Goddess.
Just before we reached the threshold, Theodore gripped my hand. He didn’t speak, didn’t meet my eye, but he held me as if he knew I needed it, and urged me gently forward. The door’s hinges gave a low wail. I gasped at the sight of Halla, standing in the middle of the keep’s circular center hall.
The front doors opposite us, the ones that faced the lagoon, sat wide open to the misty sky. I pulled my hand from Theodore’s, but it had been too late. Halla fixed us with a frigid, knowing look.
“Your mother’s home,” she said in a brittle voice. There was an almost feverish gleam to her eyes, an unsettling note of awe in her voice, that acted like a bellows to the flame of my ire. “It’s been quiet in here. No signs of your friend.”
Dirt and dried leaves were scattered over the marble mosaic floor around her. Sandy footprints. Bits of frayed rope. More wheel marks. We took tentative steps farther inside. The entire keep was filthy. To the side of the hall lay an iron chandelier, its chain broken and strewn over the marble.
“I’ll search it myself, regardless.” I started for the narrow stairs that clung to the curved wall. “Agatha?” My call bounced around the stones.
Theodore stopped before Halla. “You know more of Anthemoessa than you let on. ”
“I cannot know more than you and Queen Imogen do…” She kicked at a pebble. “Your Majesty.”
“Halla, tell us.” The gravity of his voice made me stop in my tracks. “I am ordering you—”
“Ordering me? I am your wife, not your servant.” Theodore seethed, but Halla fixed him with a withering look that would have made her mother proud. “I only know that Eusia resides in a deep pool,” she finally offered. “She must always be in the pool.”
I thought of my most recent visions. “Have you seen the pool she used in Obelia?” I asked, gripping the banister.
“No.” Her resentment was palpable. “All I’ve seen is a painting of the offering sanctuary. The pool in it was small and round. It sat in the very center of the room.”
As if deciding that was the end of the conversation, Halla scanned the modestly dressed hall.
The dust-covered tapestries were so faded there was no making out what they’d once depicted.
The candelabras were empty. The center hall gave way to a western and eastern wing, with a narrow set of stairs leading to the upper level of each.
Her gaze locked on the darkened entrance to the eastern wing and narrowed.
“I will help you search,” she said distractedly, and started toward the hall. “You’ll take the westerly half, won’t you?”
We both watched as Halla disappeared through the shadowy doorway. Theodore looked up at me, brow furrowed with suspicion. “I’ll watch her,” he mouthed.
I gave him a grateful nod.
As I made my way up the dust-strewn stairs, I found it difficult to pull air into my chest. I’d had my sights so set on Eusia and Agatha I’d forgotten entirely that when I found Eusia, I would also find my mother—or what was left of her.
Her bond with Nemea, though weak, had still been intact when I’d killed him, which meant she was still alive.
I reached the top landing. Heavy cobwebs draped a round table and empty shelves. Half-burnt candles still sat in their metal holders. There were no footprints in the dust and dirt. “Agatha?” Save for the distant sound of gently lapping water, the keep was so upsettingly quiet.
Frantically, I searched chamber after chamber, knowing full well that I was the first person to open their doors in ages. With the cry of every rusty hinge, and the subsequent emptiness, my panic built until it ached like a wedge in my chest.