8 Theodore #2
Doxa had been captaining vessels for longer than any other Varian in the fleet.
She’d never lost a battle; she’d never kowtowed to my father.
She nodded, and her sun-spotted jaw flexed.
“Then you know that attempting to access the island will put the ship and its entire crew in mortal danger. And you know that we cannot get onto the island itself.”
Eftan stepped forward. “Your Majesty—”
It was then that he noticed Lachlan, who’d been tucked into the shadows beside the door. Lachlan strode into the lamplight and grinned.
Eftan sputtered. “What in the name of the dead Gods are you doing here?”
I thought I heard Markis mumble Bloody bastard beneath his breath.
Lachlan’s grin only widened. “Miss me, Markis?”
“You were to oversee the palace,” Eftan said, stunned. “How on earth… Why—” He stopped. His head turned toward me with the slow precision of a bird of prey. “Theodore—Your Majesty… Where is your wife?”
The man never missed a thing. “Resting.”
He took a slow step toward me. “In her cabin? On your wedding night?”
I didn’t bother answering him, turning my attention back to the captain instead. “Your caution is admirable, Captain Doxa. You can be assured that there is a way for us to get past Anthemoessa’s outer reef and onto her shores.”
“I beg your pardon, Majesty, but that is impossible,” Doxa protested. “There is no one in the realm who is a greater authority on the state of Leucosia’s waters than I am.”
Lachlan shrugged. “There might be one.”
Markis paced to the end of the table and anxiously stroked his bearded chin. “I cannot see the good in this, Your Majesty. I cannot think of a single reason for such danger.”
Lachlan looked to Markis and gave his own temple a patronizing tap. “Thinking can be such a feat for you, I know.”
I shot Lachlan a warning look. Lachlan had been wary of Markis since I’d been an adolescent, warning me away from taking up his vices and habits.
Now, after years of working together on the council, Lachlan outright despised him.
He had even gone so far as to request a new steward be voted in by the noble court—to no avail.
Aleka sat quietly upon the settee, waiting to learn more, as Eftan watched me with disturbing cunning. Captain Doxa’s shoulders had rolled back like she was preparing for a fight.
And I would give her one.
We were mere days from something I’d worried might never come to pass: Imogen severing her bond with Eusia.
Ensuring her own safety as well as that of the entire Leucosian realm.
I remembered the twist of nausea our own damaged bond had caused and didn’t bother trying to keep my self-interest at bay.
Once her bond with Eusia was severed, ours could be remade.
“Then there is no better captain in all of Leucosia to have at the helm,” I said. “Reroute the ship.”
Doxa held my glare with an unflinching one of her own, but to her credit, she made for the door like she intended to obey.
It was then that Eftan spoke, eyes wild with panic. “We need proof.”
“No.” My voice snapped through the tense air. “You want proof. You do not need it. And you will not have it. I make this decision for the greater good of the realm, and you will believe me because I have lived my whole Godsdamned life in service of it.”
No one moved, not a breath was taken, but as surely as I could sense the turn of the air before a storm, so too did I sense it in my stateroom. Now it was tinged with treason. I saw it in Eftan’s hardening countenance, in the deepening crease between his brows.
Lachlan met my eye, and I knew he sensed it too. “Your Majesty,” he said, trying to sound easy, “they’re bound to find out soon enough. Might as well tell them.”
The notion of giving Eftan any information that might bring him even an inch closer to Imogen was unimaginable.
“Very well.” I exhaled through the twist in my stomach. “The empress of Obelia has abducted Lachlan’s former wife. She’s taken Agatha to Anthemoessa to be given as a sacrifice to her saint, Eusia.”
Silence stretched as Eftan gawked and sputtered, cheeks flushing a furious red. “You expect us to take your word?”
Captain Doxa stepped farther into the stateroom. “We are not equipped to play search party.”
Markis blew out a short breath. “That’s a rather unbelievable claim.”
Lachlan pinched the bridge of his nose. “Markis—a thing isn’t unbelievable simply because you don’t want to believe it.”
“Enough,” I snapped. “Eusia—Obelia’s saint—is the monster that animates and controls the nekgya. She resides on Anthemoessa. She is the First Mage. The envious sister of the Great Goddess Ligea. And when she is finally found, she can be defeated.”
For Aleka and Markis, that seemed to be enough. The nekgya had been an insurmountable threat for far too long and hope of ending them had started to wane.
Aleka rose and straightened her tidy robes before she bowed. “It’s a dangerous path you set us on, Your Majesty,” she said, sagely. “But you have my trust.” With that she left the stateroom.
Doxa met my eye next and begrudgingly dipped her chin. She strode out onto the deck, where her bellowed commands rang through the damp air. Sailors’ whistles and calls followed as they set the ship on its new course.
I wouldn’t show my relief, but exhaustion pressed in around my eyes, and my body rang with nerves. I met Markis’s stupefied gaze, then Eftan’s. “Go,” I said. “You will be summoned in the morning. When I’m ready to see you.”
Both bowed deeply before they wound their way toward the door, but once there, Eftan slowed.
Steady assuredness oozed from him like thick blood from a gash.
The smile that curved his mouth was deliberate and baleful.
In it hung a terrifying admission, a gleeful realization.
His voice was smooth when he said, “Sleep well, Theodore.”
He left my stateroom with his chin high, Markis following at his heels like a leashed dog.
Lachlan bolted the door behind them and we stood there in a silence so dense it kept me still.
Eftan knew.
He knew Imogen was on this ship, and it filled me with unspeakable terror. For whatever reason, he’d given the woman my father had loved a dignified death—a vial of pure nepenthe oil for a quick and painless end.
I had no doubt that he’d aim to give Imogen the opposite.
“You owe me, Lach,” I said miserably. “Get to Imogen, now. Do not, for any reason, let her out of your sight, or so help me—”
He nodded, knowing better than to speak. The bolt scraped and I watched, hapless, as he made his way into the night, across the deck… to Imogen.