10 Imogen
Imogen
Lachlan followed me across the dark upper gun deck, toward the scuttle hatch, with a pouting Halla in tow. We wove through the morning-watch sailors as they woke and readied themselves to swap spots with the middle watch.
“This is one of your worse ideas,” Lachlan called up to me.
I gave him a sardonic glance over my shoulder. “Which is really saying something, isn’t it?”
But I did not know what else to do. I did not want to be the force that dragged Theodore down any more than I already had been.
“You don’t know that a locating spell will work,” Lachlan argued.
His argument was sound. I remembered the passage I’d read from that book on magic, back in Theodore’s palace, like the words had been stitched into my skin.
The night I’d read it, I’d lain beside Theodore, bare legs entwined with his, the book propped upon the warm arm he’d wrapped around my middle, and I’d learned about Eusia, about the true cost of spell work, about how spells could bring back the dead and raise ships from the deep.
I’d learned that magic could be used to locate people across the sea.
I did not know how to perform such a spell, but I knew enough about magic to feel certain that Halla’s blood would aid me in finding her mother. In proving to Varya’s royal council that Lachlan’s claim was true. Hopefully that would be enough to keep Theodore’s sovereignty intact.
Lachlan rolled his eyes, stopping hard before the ladder that led up to the main deck. Halla stood behind him, wrapped in her cloak and looking dangerously close to being sick again. Her worried, wide eyes darted between Lachlan and me.
“What about your pain?” Lachlan asked.
It was deep and thumping. Standing, let alone walking, was agony, but compared to what it had been before the healer removed the infection, I could endure.
I had to, for I worried that if I slowed, if I stopped, and let myself feel before I reached Agatha and Eusia, this pain would clamp its jaws around me completely and never let go. “What about it?”
He swiped a hand down his face. “At the risk of you thinking I’m unchivalrous—”
“Too late.”
Lachlan flashed me an angry grin. “I’m worried you’ll lose control and hurt someone.”
I paused, flattening myself against the nearby post as the last of the morning watch climbed past me to report for duty. “I’ll be fine. Just keep Theodore far from me—”
“Yes, I will,” Lachlan said, agitated. He glanced around, eyed Halla, then stepped closer and lowered his voice. “But what about everyone else.”
It would be easy for me to send every sailor, soldier, and courtier on this ship spilling into the sea.
The thought sent a shudder through me. It would likely be safest to perform the spell on the water, away from everyone, and where the nekgya were easier to summon.
“Have them lower a launch for me and Halla.”
Halla sucked in a sharp breath. “For me? No. No, I refuse to get in a little boat in the middle of the sea!” She gave her head a vehement shake. “With you, no less.” She made a break for the ladder. “I’m going to my husband.”
Lachlan grabbed hold of her cloak. “Your Highness—”
She jutted up her chin, jerking from his hold. “You’ll address me as Your Majesty.”
Lachlan slammed his eyes closed in a bid for patience. “Your Majesty. I have already requested that the council and captain arrange on the deck. They are waiting for us. Imogen needs your blood for the spell. So you will remain with us.”
Her cold eyes flared. “I demand to speak with Theodore.”
Lachlan threw up an exasperated hand. “Well, I don’t know where he is.”
I stepped in beside them. “Excuse me?”
With the early morning hour, and the ever-increasing strain of everything, it was no wonder that Lachlan’s temper was shortening.
“When I went back to discuss the topic of the locating spell, Theo wasn’t in his stateroom.
But Eftan was pacing the passageway. He summoned the rest of the council, and in the time it took to discuss our terms with them, Theo didn’t return.
Aleka only mentioned that she thought he was ‘out for some air.’”
“You made it clear that he cannot be present while I perform the spell, didn’t you?”
“No, I like playing reckless, Imogen. I like the thrill of it.”
Then Halla moved so quickly, so unexpectedly, that I could hardly tell what she’d done.
Her lithe arm lifted, and the next moment Lachlan gave a grunt and slapped a hand over his eye.
She darted up the ladder. I guessed Lachlan had been gentle with her, far more so than he would have been with a regular captive. But I had no such scruples.
A guttural sound escaped me as I followed after her.
Lifting my legs so quickly up the rungs sent pain wrapping around my entire torso like a blistering fist, but I kept moving, with Lachlan close behind, out onto the clamorous deck.
The lower edge of the sky, right where it kissed the water, was dusted with the first signs of dawn.
Faint gray light washed over the deck, dulling the details of the crew that tended the sails and ropes, but it made Halla’s pale hair glow like a beacon.
I followed as she darted through sailors, toward Theodore’s stateroom, spry but not particularly quick.
I reached out for her arm, felt my fingertips brush her cloak, before she flung herself forward, into the middle of a shadowy huddle of people.
She crouched behind them, whimpering and speaking unintelligible words at a gratingly high pitch.
Blowing out a ragged breath, I stepped away from the group, who’d begun to shout and reach for Halla, as if fawning.
“Oh, for the bloody love of—she’s fine.” Speaking, breathing, walking was near unbearable. My knees threatened to buckle. “Move. There’s no need—”
“Your Majesty.” The voice was a deep, gravelly rumble, and masterfully unemotional. I felt it ricochet through my chest.
Oh Gods.
I gasped and reared back, bumping directly into Lachlan, and scanned the shadowed group of people before me.
The blue wash of dawn light barely reached this part of the deck, tucked as it was under the upper deck’s overhang, but I made out Eftan’s outline first. Short and broad and tense.
Three others I did not know stood beside him: a younger man of average build, a stoic yet elegant older woman, and a woman in uniform, making a sort of barricade between myself and Halla.
I could feel their scathing dislike though the dark.
But I could not see him.
I took another stunned step back, and Lachlan quickly clamped a ready hand around my arm.
Eftan and the others shifted before me, encircling Halla, their own protestations joining her terrorized cries.
I could not make out their words, their faces, fast enough.
I lifted my hands, yielding, when Theodore’s voice filled my ears once more.
“That’s enough.”
Suddenly he was before me, close enough to touch.
I tilted my head back, taking in the whole of him like I’d swallowed a too-large gulp of air, painful and slow going down.
It was unthinkable, but somehow the reality of him was even greater than my memory.
How had I forgotten the way everything seemed to tip toward him when he was near?
The way he altered the air and made it go thin?
He was as cold and imposing and beautiful as the first time I’d seen him.
Dawn swept gray-blue light across his lips, down the ridge of his strong, slanting nose.
It dotted the gold leaves of his crown in its gentle color.
He’d changed his clothes since I’d seen him in his stateroom with Halla.
His black binding suit had been replaced with a simple deep-blue shirt and dark brown trousers, tucked into his polished black boots.
Lachlan’s grip tightened on me as the thick silence stretched long, as Theodore and I stood face-to-face, as if stuck.
Even in the gray light, I could make out the summer green of his gaze.
A gaze so perfectly blank that even I—who’d seen it filled with longing and anguish and warmth—could not decipher it.
Finally, he breathed. “My council tells me you’ve come to perform a spell.” His low voice curled around me, and even though it sounded even, empty, the skin down my back stippled. “I’d like to know why.”
My heart ticked up. He was too close and not close enough.
I tugged against Lachlan’s hold as my jaw began to tighten and burn.
Theodore’s attention cut to where Lachlan held me and it was a long moment before he looked back into my eyes.
When he did, I saw the spark of something hot and dangerous there.
“My guard…” I said, voice strained from my control. “My guard informed me that your council has requested proof of our claims.”
“Your guard.” Theodore avoided looking at Lachlan, but I felt his anger grow. “Performing a spell is unnecessary and incredibly foolish. I have already rerouted the ship.”
Something in my chest swelled until it hurt. Gods damn him and his maddening determination to keep me from magic. Damn his pact with Halla. Damn the ease with which he stood there, staring at me with implacable austerity, when I could hardly contain myself.
I blew out a shaky breath, and flexed my fingers. “Nevertheless—”
“What’s more,” he interrupted. “Leucosia holds strict rules over spell work. You cannot legally perform it.”
“I—” I gasped, and bit down hard on my own lip as that pressure in my chest began to creep between the bones of my spine. Lachlan sensed the danger. He pulled me back a step, firmed his hold on the hilt of his sword, and placed his body halfway between mine and Theodore’s.
It was then that Theodore’s mask cracked. His eyes flared, and his hand curled up into a tight, angry fist. Lachlan was right to have done it, but some dark instinct deep inside me thrashed like it had been chained and wanted freeing.
I cleared my tight throat. “What do you mean I cannot legally perform—”