13 Imogen
Imogen
This pool was larger than the last one. The water was clearer but it still slimy and sour on my tongue. It sang with dark power; the air buzzed with it. Salt and metal and a hint of smoke hung all around.
Eusia floated on her back like a child swimming on a sweltering day.
High above, the coffered stone ceiling rippled with shadow that the meager torchlight couldn’t reach.
As I looked through her eyes, I knew she waited for something, biding her time by humming a macabre tune and languidly kicking her feet.
The scream of hinges echoed through the room, but Eusia didn’t sit up expectantly. She simply continued to kick and hum until the scuffing sound of footsteps drew nearer and the wail of a baby began.
“It’s arrived, then?” Eusia asked.
A woman cleared her throat. “Yes. I birthed her on the voyage here. She is called Halla.”
Eusia adjusted her body in the water then so that the woman—Nivala—was in her line of sight.
Heavy purple bruises pooled beneath her eyes.
Her white hair was piled haphazardly atop her head.
A heavy black robe hung from her wide shoulders, loosely tied.
She knelt at the pool’s edge and in her lap squirmed a naked baby girl. New and pink and plump.
Eusia gave a nod. “Go on, then. It’s been too long.”
Nivala held still. A wariness, a worry turned her elegant features childlike. Her hand shook as she reached for the sharpened rock that sat at the edge of the pool, as the baby’s wails rose louder than before.
Eusia groaned. “Can you make it stop?”
Nivala nodded and lifted the baby to her bare breast. As it suckled, she took the sharpened rock and made a small slice on its heel. She squeezed the little foot like a milk teat, until three small drops of blood fell into the pool.
I felt Eusia unhinge her mouth and collect the bloody water inside it. Her eagerness was encompassing, intoxicating. I tasted the coppery hint of the baby’s blood through the thick salt water when fury rocked through Eusia’s body so violently, that my consciousness flinched.
“It is…” Eusia curled her spindly hands to tight fists. “It is ordinary.” Her shock was a deep, coursing current. She pinned Nivala in her sights.
Nivala only stared at the water’s surface. “Please—”
“Why is it ordinary?” Eusia hissed. “Our agreement was clear—”
“Please.” Nivala held the baby out over the water. “You may have her. A gift of sustenance—”
Eusia growled in disgust, pulled away from the pool’s edge.
The image of Nivala’s penitent face began to ripple. The cries of the baby echoed and faded…
I woke with a start. On my narrow cot, in my tiny stolen cabin. Salty sweat drenched the sleep shirt I wore. Its scent was foreign—stale ale, an herbal soap. I tried to pull it from where it clung to my skin.
A vision. I knew now that was what I had seen. Not a hallucination, or my imaginings of a story I’d been told.
I pressed my hands into my aching eyes, then looked up at the porthole above me. The light was low, but when I’d performed the spell, the sun had been blaringly bright.
My arms shook as I sat myself up and leaned against the ship’s wall. I could still taste that baby’s blood on my tongue. I could still hear its cries ringing through my skull.
Halla.
Born on a ship to see Eusia. Why had Nivala looked so contrite? Why had Eusia been furious over Halla’s ordinary blood? I felt suddenly desperate to learn how a Mage Seer induced visions so I could take myself back and see more.
I threw my legs over the side of the cot and gasped when I realized my pain was gone.
It took another moment for all the memories to surface.
The spell, Eftan and his knife, Theodore and his radiant power.
I lifted the shirt I wore so I could see my stomach and drew my fingers over the new scar there.
He’d banished it. Small flashes of Theodore filled my mind. His sonorous voice. The warmth and weight of him, hovering above me, the smell of his blood. I shivered at the memory of his skin breaking under my talon tips.
“Gods damn it, Lachlan.”
The ship rolled steeply now, and the brass key to the door clanked against the wall where Lachlan had hung it.
There was no trace of him in the cabin, no weapon nor scrap of armor.
I searched the rickety chair and the foot of the cot for my clothes.
On the little desk in the corner sat a bowl of cold fish stew and a slice of bread. Beside it was a small wooden crate.
I inched toward it. A mother-of-pearl comb and a small glass box of hairpins sat within.
Nemea’s crown sat beside them. There was a bar of vetiver soap that smelled like Theodore and a little pot of rouge.
I removed them from the crate and set them gently on the desk.
My gaze was riveted on what was beneath.
I ran my fingers over the neatly folded heap of black, shimmering fabric. “Oh, you ass,” I whispered, as I lifted the silk binding gown into my hands. A scrap of paper was tucked into one of the creases of the bodice.
Theodore’s scrawling words were smudged, like he’d written the note in haste.
Your Majesty,
I am aware that you have given this gown up before, but I thought I’d gift it once more, as it is all I have to offer. If you find it unacceptable, which I expect you will, a new sailor’s uniform can be procured. Simply send your guard for it.
Signed,
His Majesty, Theodore Ariti of Varya
I balled the note in my fist and snatched the chemise from the bottom of the crate.
A low, eerie melody seeped through the cracks of the ship as I took off the sleep shirt and pulled the chemise over my head.
I jerked the laces of the stays that had been made special for the dress and knotted them.
Then I pulled on the binding gown, letting my golden chain and rings rest atop it, right between my breasts.
Seething, I turned the hanging lantern up and stood before the looking glass bolted to the wall.
My color had improved, and while my eyes were rimmed in shadows, they were bright and clear.
And angry. Good. I ran my fingers through my wild hair and tried to comb out the strands I’d lost from the spell as best I could.
My plan to keep away from Theodore had crumbled like sea-battered stone.
Suddenly, I wanted to meet him face-to-face.
I wanted to scream at him for his audacity and relentlessness.
For his sullen note. For marrying Halla and agreeing to give her a Godsdamned child.
For being so good, even though that was precisely what I’d come to love about him.
I set Nemea’s crown atop my head, took the key from the hook on the wall, and threw open the door.
The gun deck bustled with sailors, some at work cleaning cannons, some at makeshift tables eating their evening meals.
Lachlan sat at one of the tables nearest the hatch. When he saw me, he sprang to his feet.
He looked me up and down. “You look better.” Then, tentatively, he said, “You look mad.”
“I’m both.” But once I’d said it, it seemed a lie.
In truth, I was crushed. My muscles were weak and tender, and I was plagued by a deep fatigue.
My pain was gone, which left room for me to feel the rest of what ached.
I started for the ladder that led to the main deck, where a heavy fog had fallen through and shrouded it in white.
“Where are you going?” Lachlan downed his ale and rushed to my side.
“To find Theodore.”
He barked a laugh and grabbed my arm. “No, no, no. Just this morning you made him bleed.”
“If you hadn’t—”
“You nearly killed his chancellor, Imogen.”
“After he stabbed me.”
“You are not to be left unattended ever, with anyone. And need I remind you how you begged me to prevent you from being alone with him?”
“And a fine job you’ve done of it!” I scanned the space around me. Strapped-down crates, hooks with tools and harpoons. From one of the nearby hooks, I took a loop of thin rope. “You’ll stand guard.” I shook the rope in his face. “And we’ll take precautions.”
Lachlan pressed a hand to the middle of his forehead. “What’s rope going to do?” He made sure his sword and dagger were secured and followed me up the ladder.
The main deck was a wall of white fog. From what I could tell, it was just past sunset, and blooms of swaying lantern light made the mist glow.
I’d slept the day away. The strange music was louder up here, bent and twisted by the thick, damp air.
A harp, a lute, a flute played somewhere to my right, sounding low and slightly off tempo.
The fog changed the laughter and voices of the people milling about the deck too, muffling their words and shielding their whispers from being easily heard.
The shapes of courtiers dancing, of sailors tending lines, of groups in conversation were shadowy silhouettes for a brief moment, before the fog shifted and hid them once more.
I stepped toward the mainmast and stopped when I heard a peal of laughter and congratulations. Lachlan stood close at my side. “It’s the wedding feast, isn’t it?”
In Seraf, this custom was the same. The wedding feast was always held the day after the ceremony and consummation.
Bloody Gods.
“Mmm-hmm.” He gave me a tense and sidelong glance. “You sure you want to see him?”
Now that I’d taken in some air, I thought better of it. I feared my impulses—I feared Eusia—but if I meant to keep Theodore truly safe, and keep my heart from breaking further, I would need to set a hard line between us. “I’m sure.”
The ship moaned and dipped steeply over a wave.
I reached for the mainmast, trying to find my balance, but instead of damp wood, I felt warm, callused fingers wrap around my hand.
One moment I could make out Lachlan’s angular profile; the next there was only white.
I was being led deep into the swirling fog, hidden amidst the revelers, until my back pressed into a cool wall.
Theodore was before me, ardent and looming.