22 Theodore
Theodore
We trudged through the dead meadow all the way to the line of the beach in silence.
Lachlan stood beside the launch as the sluggish waves lapped at his boots. He’d already settled Agatha on the center bench, and now he ushered a solemn Halla onto the bench across from her. Through the swirling haze, I could just see the Eleuthios’s hulking outline.
I reached out a hand to help Imogen into the boat, but she paid me no mind. She was already in the brown waves to her knees, a hand over her stomach, her eyes searching the water.
“Get in the boat,” she said without looking up.
I did. She was stunningly terrifying in that moment; all focus and swelling concentration.
I could nearly feel her power as it spilled from her and into the lagoon.
Her eyes fell shut; her head tipped back toward the turbid sky.
Deeper into the water she went until it licked at her thighs, until her fingertips brushed the yellow spume.
A shiny tentacle broke through the surface before her, the too-large mass of organs and gills and suckers curling around itself as it drew closer to her, closer to the shore.
Lachlan and I dipped the oars into the water, but before we could drag them through, a current propelled us toward the ship.
A breathless mix of horror and wonder filled the boat as every single one of us watched Imogen urge the heaving, grotesque mass of flesh from the lagoon and onto the beach, ensuring that we could pass safely.
Agatha let out a harsh breath. “I suspected, but I never thought…” She let the thought die as Imogen dived through the next wave and into the lagoon. Agatha watched on in amazement and distress. Clearly, neither of us would know peace until Imogen did.
The launch bobbed beside the Eleuthios as we secured the pulley ropes to their hooks. Imogen had swum alongside us, and now she sat in the boat’s hull, arms wrapped around her knees, eyes on her feet. She leaned her shoulder into Agatha’s knee, taking the meager comfort. I wished to give her more.
The pulleys gave a protesting squeal as the sailors hoisted us up.
Lachlan nudged Agatha’s shoulder softly and said, “I’ll put you in a cabin. With a cot and a door. And you’ll have a hot bath and food. All right?”
Agatha nodded at him absently, her tight fists in her lap.
The launch stopped its ascent and swung to and fro above the deck, and then one by one, we disembarked.
Halla first, then Lachlan, who helped Agatha up and over the edge.
I stepped out next to find Aleka pushing her way through the crew with purpose.
She stopped in front of me before I could reach back to help Imogen. Aleka was dressed in a stern rust-colored robe, her folder and a piece of parchment in her hands. “We are happy to see you returned and well, Your Majesty.”
Markis was behind her in a gold-trimmed suit. Both of them bowed.
Aleka extended a parchment toward me. “As you have requested, the execution has been arranged. The plank is bolted to the port side of the ship, Your Majesty.”
Lachlan scowled beside the launch, his arm protectively draped around Agatha’s shoulders. “What’s this?”
A tremble started in my hand. “Eftan’s execution,” I said faintly.
Lachlan’s eyes bulged. He snatched the parchment from Aleka and read over the list of Eftan’s crimes. “Theo.” He said my given name quietly, his tone half warning, half disbelief. “Banish him instead. Don’t do this.”
Markis had come alongside Lachlan, his hands clasped behind his back.
“I have to disagree with the commander, Your Majesty. The chancellor’s crimes are inexcusable.
Banishment will only communicate to the people that committing such heinous acts is not so grave.
Furthermore, he has admitted to them all.
” His sandy brows rose, and his voice turned conspiratorial.
“What’s more, while he’s been ill, we found written-up schemes that outline his intent to imperialize the realm of Leucosia, playing Varya as the aggressor. ”
No matter how Eftan himself had trained me for it, I could not keep my shock hidden. Not this time. I supposed it was just like him, though, to have a handful and lament that his other fist was empty. “Show me the papers.”
Aleka pulled them from her folder as Lachlan gathered himself. “I am not suggesting that his threat go unchecked, Markis,” he said. “It’s not right, but execution is not the only—or best—course. He can be imprisoned.”
Imogen had climbed from the launch all on her own and came alongside Agatha.
She tucked her arm around her, guiding her to a calmer part of the deck.
As she did, she watched me with disbelief and something like caution, as if I were changing my shape right before her eyes.
It made me bristle. I’d warned her against thinking of me as good.
My grip on the parchment tightened.
Markis guffawed. “How quaint—the soldier forms a distaste for killing. Eftan cannot be reliably imprisoned, you fool.” Markis then looked to me with a sweepingly arrogant smile.
“Put the man who’s run the palace for over four decades within its dungeon?
There is no telling how loyal some of the guards and servants might be to him. ”
Aleka stepped forward, as if she wished to speak, but I held up a hand before she could. A thick quiet fell. The stares of those gathered on the deck were just as weighty, but it was Halla who pulled my attention now.
She glared at me with the same ire and judgment she’d offered me when we’d been in that foul pool chamber.
What would you do to keep your power? What would you do, Theodore Ariti, the good and noble God-king of Varya?
I almost answered her now, as my anger flickered through me like flames. I knew with a certainty that I would do all manner of awful things to keep my crown and the power it afforded me. Keeping it was the only way I could keep Imogen and Varya safe against men like Eftan.
It was then that Eftan appeared from the passageway beside my stateroom.
He was flanked by two armored soldiers who supported his wobbling gait with a firm grip on each arm.
He looked a decade older than when I’d last seen him, his full cheeks gaunt and deeply lined.
They moved slowly across the deck, and as they approached Imogen, Eftan pulled awkwardly on the soldiers’ hold.
He could hardly stand unassisted, but he managed to throw an annihilating sneer at her before spitting on the deck at her feet.
Imogen didn’t flinch. My hand twitched for a sword, but the soldiers jerked him toward me before I had a chance to find one.
Eftan inclined his chin, that previous sneer wiped clean of his haggard face.
“Chancellor.” I eyed him with a hard look. “You’ve confessed to your crimes.”
“I have.” Eftan’s normally robust voice was threaded. “And as for the attempt on Queen Imogen’s life, I did it proudly. In service of the realm.”
Those flames within me surged and would not be banked. “The realm you wish to destroy?”
Eftan tipped his head to the side, just barely, as if we had a mere difference in opinion over the sanctity of the islands’ rights and Varya’s law. He gave a brief grin and spoke in the familiar tone he’d used when I’d been young. “I never thought we would find ourselves here, Theo boy.”
It was another ploy, another manipulation, and it worked. I felt the swift urge to obey, to have him praise my diligence and capability. I shoved it down. “Commander Mela, will you read the chancellor’s list of crimes aloud?”
Lachlan did, begrudgingly. “For crimes of manipulation, murder, domination, conspiracy, treachery, and regicide, Theodore Ariti, King of Varya, has commanded the execution of Eftan Zervas, Chancellor of Varya.” Lachlan cleared his throat. “The accused may speak his last words.”
Cast in the hoary light, Eftan looked serene, composed, save for the bright red flush upon his full cheeks. It seemed a hardship, but he managed to make his tired voice sound as it had always been—clear, not too loud, and entirely captivating.
“I will not deny my aforementioned crimes, nor will I seek forgiveness for them,” he said.
“However, I refuse to let my service to the kingdom of Varya be summed up in a list of only my perceived failings. I have been proud to serve two courageous kings. Men—Gods—who did not shy away from their duties, but rather, with my assistance, faced them. To that end, I have a final request, for if all the wrong I have done must be acknowledged, so too must all the good.”
I felt the turn coming, the request for a pardon or an eased sentence. I nodded.
“I request that I be executed by my king.” He lifted his chin. “For my unwavering service.”
Imogen must have seen my body tighten. Her voice was a tense admonition. “Theo—”
I cut her off with the shake of my head. From a young age, Eftan had taught me how to hold duty in my fist and wield it like a honed, flashing blade. I wouldn’t stop now.
The captain’s face was somber as she offered me the sword from her belt. The weapon was heavy enough to do the job. I recalled the feeling of heaving a sword for an execution readily enough. The force needed. The focus, the aim.
It was what all rulers were taught to do: offer a noble death.
A quick and clean one. I’d trained since I was a boy of nine in the yard with Lachlan and other soldiers of the guard.
The only time I’d had to carry out an execution was in my first year as king.
He’d been a young soldier, about the same age as I’d been.
He’d gotten so drunk that he’d brawled his barrack mate to death in the night, and it had been Eftan who had counseled me toward execution.
A swift, severe punishment would keep the guard in line.
I’d swung true then. I’d not slept for a week afterward and drunk more wine than the man I’d killed had.
I adjusted my slick hold on the hilt, and a smug sort of satisfaction crumpled Eftan’s chin.
“Kneel.”
“Your Majesty.” My attention snapped to Imogen. Seawater still ran down her body, pooling at her feet. Her narrowed eyes were like bits of gold. “A piece of you will regret it.” She swallowed uncomfortably—everyone watched her, rapt. “For the rest of your life, I expect.”
She did not offer direction, but knowledge. I saw in her face what she did not say—that her father’s death would stay with her. Her mother’s too. Every necessary, complicated decision would leave its mark, and I had to decide if I wished to bear it.
Eftan watched me acutely.
I lifted the sword and scraped my thumb across its keen edge.
Then I lowered it. “From this day forth, Eftan Zervas of Varya will live a proscribed criminal to the realm.” I paused to watch the way his eyes changed, the way his shoulders slumped.
“It will be known that he valued domination over service. That he employed every malicious tactic that he could to maintain his role, and he will pay for his misdeeds for the rest of his life on the island prison of Mav Petra, off the coast of Seraf.” I met Imogen’s gaze. “If their queen will have him.”
Her lips parted as she exhaled. Then she dipped her chin in agreement.
Eftan had gone bloodless. He leaned heavily against one of the guards, who fought to hold him up. “Your Majesty—”
He had already left a mark on me. Despite how I loathed the thought, he had shaped me, and I would spend my life working to scrub away the imprints he’d left behind. That burden was already too much. I wouldn’t add his execution atop it.
“You don’t deserve a death by my hand, Eftan.” I nodded to the soldiers who held him. “Lock him in the brig.”
Captain Doxa took back her sword. “Eusia was not here,” I said. “The empress collected her and left Agatha in her place. She’ll have taken her home—to Obelia. We’ll be following, by way of Della, so that we can restock, if that suits you, Captain.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
I needed to move. “Aleka, please see that Princess Halla is made comfortable in her cabin. Make sure guards are outside her door at all times. She is not permitted to enter my stateroom.”
The captain boomed her orders. Markis followed after Eftan to see that he was secured in the brig. Aleka and a set of guards escorted Halla across the deck to her quarters.
Then once I’d done all that was required of me, I guided Imogen, Agatha, and Lachlan into my stateroom and locked the Godsdamned door.