19 Imogen
Imogen
Halla’s strength gave, sending Agatha below the pool’s surface once more. Halla fell back with a shriek, arms whirling.
On the stairs just behind us, I heard Lachlan running, his armor clanging.
The chamber was a gloomy blur as I rushed in, mindless to all else save Agatha.
Somehow, Lachlan reached the pool before I did.
He’d already removed his breastplate and was shucking off the rest of his armor at alarming speed, readying to dive in.
I pulled him back by the shoulder. “Get back.” I wouldn’t let his panic make him witless. “I’ll go.”
With his dagger raised, Theodore pressed Halla into the farthest corner of the chamber. She’d managed to pull up her gown, smearing the bright blood across her sternum in the process.
I swore to eviscerate her slowly when all this was through, then I threw off my boots and dove in. It was when the warm, oily water engulfed me completely that realization dawned. The torchlight flickering through the greenish-tinged pool. The dismaying feeling of limbs bumping against mine.
I’d been here before.
Though the flames lit the pool’s surface, I saw nothing but a dense knot of those white fleshy ropes.
They stuck to my sodden trousers and tangled with my arms. I blinked against the water’s sting, grimaced against its fetid taste.
I searched frantically, diving lower, but my terror only spiked when I realized just how deep the pool was.
I used the slick white ropes as my guide, drawing myself deeper. They looked like winter branches with a fat and sturdy base and finer splays at their ends. They moved with fluid grace, waving to and fro. I squeezed one and found it spongy—like gristle. Like a vein.
I sank lower, lower, until finally, at the very center of what looked like a knotted white net, I saw Agatha, barely illuminated by the chamber’s light.
I could make out her arms and legs, curled up into her like a new babe.
Her scalp was red with cuts and scrapes where it had been violently shorn.
The tips of those ghostly veins were stuck into her skin, over her entire body.
I swam nearer, trying to figure out how best to extract her from the mass, when I saw her torso.
There was a dark reddish line running down the middle of it.
A consuming rage overtook me. I began hacking and slicing through the tough veins with my talons, until a black ooze leaked into the already murky water.
My assault seemed to awaken them. They tangled with my hair, around my arms and legs, reaching and clinging.
Though I struggled to see, I still ripped at them, determined to free Agatha—until something rammed me from below.
Pain burned deep in my calf. I tried to jerk free, tried to see through the mass of white knots and flurry of bubbles, but an aching weight remained.
I reached down and realized it was a hand.
Agatha’s. She’d dug in her talons and was trying to pull her small body up mine.
Senseless with horror, I ripped away whatever veins still clung to her, but she moved like a terrified animal, on frantic reflex alone.
She sank her talons into my arm and raked them down.
The water garbled my scream. We were eye to eye now. I fought her thrashing and managed to grab her face in my hands and force her to still. Her entire body jerked when she truly saw me. Her heart-shaped face slacked, mouth hanging open in shock.
In that suspended moment, I took her in with clearer eyes.
She wore one of the ritual robes that Halla had worn on that Varian beach, the day I’d taken the severing draught.
A deep-red sash ran down the front of the pale pink garment, mimicking the gash from Eusia’s gutting.
Each of her wrists was tied with a length of rope, but the bit that had tethered them together had already been cut.
A moment later, Agatha began kicking and thrashing, fighting to get to the surface, just as those veins began stretching toward the both of us again. I swiped at them, but they were living things, reaching and reattaching at will.
No. No, no, no. One settled against my neck, its sting deep and burning.
Agatha began to sink, her energy waning, but a tempestuous fire was building in me.
It boiled through my center, oozed through my chest. I wrapped my arms around her and held her tight, and when the next vein hit my skin and began to burrow, that dark power in my stomach ruptured.
It flooded the space between my muscles and organs, and when I commanded the pool to still, every seeking vein went slack.
I forced us up.
When we finally broke the surface, the same awful cry as before rose from Agatha’s chest.
“You’re all right.” I held her tighter. “I’ve got you.”
“Get me out.” Her voice was shredded. She pushed against me weakly. “Don’t… touch. Get me out.”
I loosened my hold. Lachlan was at the edge of the pool, reaching to help her out.
Together, we heaved her onto the uneven stones of the floor.
She spat and coughed and curled herself up just as she’d been in that pool, bloody arms wrapping tightly around her knees.
She lay still, muscles quavering slightly.
Her wings were not out, but her dark-tipped talons were.
Some were chipped; one was missing altogether. I didn’t doubt she’d put up a fight.
I reached out and laid a hand to her shoulder.
She yelled a brutalized “No.”
I yanked my hand back, chest crushing. Lachlan sat beside her.
He was wet with blood and water and in such complete shock that I felt certain a part of him would never recover from it.
He remained motionless and I had to fight a scream.
All the years they’d spent apart had been because he’d obeyed when Agatha told him to leave her be.
Because she was too damn stubborn, too steely, to let herself be cared for.
Helpless, I glanced around the room. Halla huddled on the floor in the corner, leaning against the wall with inexplicable tears in her eyes.
Water rushed from my hair and pooled around me as I pushed myself to my knees.
I looked to Theodore, who was already moving toward us, as if he knew what I was about to ask of him.
Help. Please, help.
He took a knee. “Agatha, may I close your wounds?” he asked, gentle and quiet. “I won’t touch you. You’ll only feel some warmth.”
She made the smallest, most devastating sound. Agatha flinched when Theodore began his work, closing all the little marks that spotted her skin. When Lachlan still didn’t move, I crawled to her, stretching myself out on the stones, so I could see her face.
Agatha had always been metal-spined, uncompromising, untouchable, and the empress had broken her. Her black curls were gone; only chunks remained here and there. I glanced up at Theodore kneeling behind her, and a crush of ferocious determination fell over me.
I’d fix this. I’d fix it for the two people I loved most in the world, the two people who’d shown me compassion, who’d given me care not because I deserved it, but simply because.
“Agatha,” I whispered. She didn’t blink; she only stared with dark, glassed-over eyes. “Agatha, what happened? The empress put you in there?”
“Offering.”
She spoke so quickly I jolted. “You were an offering? To Eusia?”
She tried to shake her head but only shivered. “I keep it alive.”
It? My brow bent with confusion. One of the bloody gashes in her scalp slowly closed, the flesh knitting back together, then another.
Agatha opened and closed her mouth like she searched for words, then said, “Still in there.”
Shock stole through me. I sat halfway up. “What’s still in there?” I asked. “Eusia? Is Eusia in the pool?”
Agatha finally blinked. “At the bottom.” And then, on wobbling arms, she began pushing herself up.
I reached out, stopping before I touched her. “What are you doing? Agatha, lie down.”
She shook her head and finally looked up at Lachlan. Her face dove into a frown before she nodded briskly at him. “Commander Mela.”
Lachlan’s chin quivered. He raised a hand from his knee like he longed to touch her and let it fall back down. His voice was strangled. “Hello, sweetheart.”
It was like a full glass shattering, the way Agatha’s face bent and the tears began to fall. Lachlan’s arms wrapped around her, and she tucked her small body into his.
Never in my life had I seen Agatha so consumed by feeling. She was desolate, terrified and clinging, and it made me feel like the entire world had fractured. I wanted nothing more than to be the one who mended it.
I stood quickly, snatched the dagger from Lachlan’s belt, and walked to the edge of the pool.
I could have ended this on my father’s ship.
I could have kept Agatha safe, removed the threat that hung over Theodore, and given the entire realm of Leucosia some peace, but I’d selfishly kept myself alive instead.
I was about to step into the water when Theodore pulled me back. His verdant gaze was knowing, as if I’d just spoken my every thought aloud. “Not like this, Imogen,” he begged. “Teach me the Godsdamned spell.”
“Theo—”
“I know nothing of performing spells, but I do know that intention is the crux of the magic’s success.” He firmed his grip on my arm. “No one wants Eusia dead more than I do.”
My thoughts were a maelstrom, imagining every way that letting Theodore perform a spell could go terribly wrong. What if it opened him in some way to Eusia? Would it bring him near enough for her to harm him?
It was a moment before I realized that Agatha’s cries had stopped.
That the chamber had gone quiet, save for the squelch of wet fabric.
She’d come to our side, Lachlan supporting her from behind.
Her reddened eyes locked with Theodore’s, and in them I thought I saw the barest glint of her old ferocity.
Her hands curled. “I do.”
“Agatha.” It took me a moment to organize my objections. “You’re not well. There’s no way you—”
Agatha jutted her chin toward Theodore, the tenacious gesture familiar, but there was a new fragility about her that robbed it of its usual effect. “He just healed me.”
I bit my tongue. Theodore might have healed the gashes and cuts, but it took only a glance to know that her injuries ran far deeper than the skin.
“Agatha…” I spoke in as careful a tone I could, but she went rigid regardless.
Lachlan stood behind her, trying to remain placid, but I sensed his panic as if it were a swarm of buzzing insects. “I’d appreciate it if you could refrain from doing something as… uh, brave… as performing your first spell right now, Agatha.”
“Please,” she said. “I need to do this. I need… some way to keep you and me and everyone else safe.” She looked to Theodore. “And unlike you, if I fall in, I won’t drown.”
I knew the terror of powerlessness better than most. I knew what it was to crave the ability to exact some force over your own existence. “All right,” I said to her, fear blanketing the words. “Lach will be beside you, and Theodore will do what he can to care for you.”
Lachlan’s nostrils flared, an angry breath pushing from his chest. “Hold on. No. You can’t let her—”
“Let me?” Agatha glared.
I didn’t want Agatha performing the spell any more than he did. “I never intended this, Lach.”
Theodore raked a hand through his hair. “No, Imogen intended to sacrifice herself.” His agitation was palpable, tingeing the air. “I offered to do it—”
Lachlan rounded on him. “Right, but she’s in love with you, so I’m sure she refused—which is what I’m pissed about.”
My anger lit, but it was half doused by seeing that terrible look of heartache upon Lachlan’s face. I knew the depth of his love for Agatha. It rivaled my own. “Lachlan, I don’t—”
Agatha cut me off. “I chose to do this.” Her big eyes narrowed. “I want my Godsdamned revenge.”
Before Lachlan could argue, Halla’s soft voice filled the chamber.
“She’s not in there.” Halla looked despondent now, head tipped back against the stone wall, eyes focused softly on nothing.
“Shut up.” I lunged for her, but Theodore caught me around the waist and hauled me back. “You said you’d help me. I swear to you, I will take my time ripping you apart for this—”
“I tried to get your friend out.” All the light had drained from her eyes. “You saw me.”
I fought to break free of Theodore’s hold. “I saw you bleeding over the pool of your beloved fucking saint.”
Halla gave a dejected shrug. “Perhaps it’s the wrong pool. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were many—”
Agatha gave her head a vehement shake. “Don’t listen to her. There is a body in there. I’ve done nothing but stare at it since she forced me in.”
“How long?” Halla asked. “How long have you been in the pool?”
Agatha’s face blanked. Then panic filled her eyes. Lachlan moved closer, offering her some steadying support. “I’m… I’m not sure how long…” Agatha looked to me.
I spun back toward Halla. “It’s the right pool,” I said through my teeth. “A Mage Seer—like your saint, like me—can perform spells, but they also have visions, Halla. Mine have just begun and I know this is the right pool because I have been here before. And so have you.”
Halla’s face twitched with confusion.
Theodore watched me, on high alert, as I took a step nearer to her.
“You were born on a ship,” I said, voice viciously low.
“I saw your young, supplicating mother kneeling at the edge of this pool, with you—but a few days old—at her breast. I’d thought she’d come to give thanks for her miracle, but your mother offered you up to Eusia for sustenance instead.
To eat. Just as she had your father.” I pulled in a breath to keep myself from shaking.
“But Eusia did not want you. She said you were ordinary. She spat at your mother’s gift.
” Halla’s eyes took on a glassy, lifeless quality, tears shining on their lower rim.
“That is who you have chosen to be loyal to, Halla. A mother who thinks you are expendable and a monster who thinks you are worthless.”
She said nothing, but a lone tear streaked down her cheek.
The dank silence needled at me. I turned from her, avoiding Theodore’s overwhelming stare, and made my way back toward the pool. Toward Agatha and Lachlan.
I met Agatha’s gaze and pulled in a harsh breath. “Ready?”