29 Imogen
Imogen
The sun had just fallen from the steel-colored sky when a servant came to gather us for the feast.
Despite its weight and the overabundance of ties and buttons, I’d managed to get myself into the red velvet gown, but before I wrestled it on, I’d stripped down to my underclothes.
I searched every crease of my ample petticoats and felt along the hems for a missed fold.
Thoroughly, I checked the pockets I’d sewn for holes, but every stitch was intact.
The vial of the Mage Seer’s draught was well and truly gone.
I waited in the tight hall, standing amid my guards and Markis, as the servant knocked again on Aleka’s door, trying to collect her.
“Do you think the marshal has perhaps settled in for a nap?” The servant looked over his shoulder at me, jade eyes wide and searching.
Markis adjusted his fur coat, sending up a plume of wine-scented air. “No, no, she’s not one for naps.” Even drunk, his nerves had him fidgeting and tapping his polished shoes.
At the sound of hinges creaking behind me, I turned. Lachlan, in his full armor, and Agatha stood framed in the doorway. Her petite body was bundled into a black fur cloak that dragged across the stone floor.
I raced toward her. “Oh, thank Gods,” I said, then spoke quietly in her ear. “We need to speak.”
Her big eyes locked with mine for a moment before she took in the servants and armed sailors in the hall. She gave a tight grin to Markis, who pinched at his beard while watching us. “Is everything all right?”
Markis made a little whimpering sound, and I had to stop myself from going to him, grabbing him by his fancy collar, and forcing him to tell me what had happened in that carriage while I’d slept.
Instead, I drew my hand deliberately over the jewels down the middle of my gifted gown, hoping to draw Agatha’s attention to them, and spoke in a light voice.
“Yes. Only things seem to go missing left and right here in Fort Vuoria.”
Her gaze flicked down to my dress, flared, then went impressively blank. “I see.”
I turned to the servant. “Shall we look, instead of wait?” Then, to the servants’ surprise, I threw open Aleka’s chamber door and strode inside.
It was empty. Untouched. The bed was pristine, the washbasin dry.
It didn’t look like anyone had been in the room at all despite the fact that I’d watched Aleka enter with my own eyes.
Even so, I searched every surface, felt into the folds of the furs on the bed.
We’d been in the carriage together. I’d fallen asleep within her arms’ reach.
The servant watched on, bewildered. “Your Majesty,” he said. “It seems she’s not… here. Perhaps the marshal has made her way to the throne room already?”
I placed a hand to my stomach. “Yes.” There was no draught in this chamber. “Perhaps she has.”
The remaining vial bumped against my hip as we made our way down the halls, toward the throne room. I walked with Agatha, arm in arm, encircled by my retinue and Lachlan.
“I don’t like the mountains,” Agatha said under her breath.
I shook my head, then blurted near her ear, “Halla is Nemea’s daughter.”
Agatha nearly tripped on her cloak. She stared up at me with a flash of shock, then fixed her gaze on the hall ahead, trying her utmost to seem unaffected.
“Does Theodore know?” Her lips hardly moved.
“I haven’t seen him.”
The weight of my dress had me panting by the time we reached the throne room, and my head was feeling uncomfortably light. Fresh torches burned brightly and a long, rough-hewn table had been laid before the towering dais and its overt, glittering throne.
Meats and vegetables and loaves of hearty bread littered its surface. There were no flowers amid the settings, no crystal goblets or fine plates. The tapered candles stunk of tallow.
A massive hearth blazed in one wall, belching heat into the room.
I swiped a sheen of fine sweat from my brow as I took in the guests.
Markis made his way toward a small circle of Varian and Obelian nobles.
Halla and the empress, who looked the perfect match to her glittering throne in midnight blue and shining gold, stood at the base of the dais, speaking with a pair of Varian guests.
At the sight of the empress, Agatha grew fraught and tucked herself between Lachlan and me. “Find Theodore and tell him,” she whispered to me. “Right now.”
Lachlan grumbled, fury in his gaze as he watched the empress. “There is nothing pressing enough to justify you seeking out Theo here and now.”
Agatha scowled up at him. “Halla is Nemea’s daughter.”
For once, Lachlan had no rejoinder.
I spotted Theodore just then, standing on the dais’s other side, beautiful and glowering, deep in what looked like a strained conversation with Aleka.
Her silver-streaked hair had been tidied, and she wore a heavy cloak, trimmed in gray furs, over the same Varian green robes that she’d traveled in.
Theodore held her in the highest regard, and Lachlan himself had said that she was beyond reproach.
She’d been steadfastly honest with me, and at times even kind.
I felt a pang of foolishness for suspecting her, followed quickly by a frustrating wave of helpless terror.
If it wasn’t she who had taken the severing draught, then I couldn’t parse who might have.
The empress’s clumsy handmaids, perhaps.
Or lewd and middling Markis. He stood beside the table, nursing yet another cup of wine, fidgeting nervously with his buttons.
Even standing still, his drunkenness made him sway.
I’d not seen him drunk on the ship once and I wondered if his twisted nerves were perhaps rooted in something other than the marriage contracts.
My guards had taken up their stations against the wall. I started toward Markis but stopped cold when Theodore walked around the dais and caught me in his sights. His incisive attention slunk down my body, taking in the details of my gown, the fall of my dark hair, the crown atop my head.
Lachlan was right. Speaking here and now would not be our best course, but he needed to know what my vision had shown me, and considering how he would have to play the doting husband while we were here, now might be our only opportunity.
I started toward him only to halt a moment later at the sound of the empress’s echoing voice.
“Friends.” Her spoke with dark mirth. “Enemies. Now that we are all here, let us begin.” She swept a hand toward the table, and all the guests made their way toward a seat.
As everyone vied for a spot I felt an overwhelming warmth at my side. Warm fingers gave my hand a fleeting squeeze.
Theodore’s voice rumbled near my ear. “I’ve always liked you in red.”
He was there and gone, walking ahead of me toward a seat beside Halla, but my focus had been on the empress. She had watched the whole thing.
As I hurried toward an open seat, the empress’s voice boomed once more.
“Not there,” she called to me, her blue gaze boring into mine.
My heart flew up into my throat, beating angrily.
Everyone quieted and watched as she pointed to the chair to her right and gave me a smile as sharp as a pen knife. “When I heard you arrived with the company, I was most excited. It would be my honor to have you sit beside me, Queen Imogen.”
I stalled for a moment, trying to master a rough swell of foreboding.
For a fleeting moment, I thought how nice it would be to rip the diamonds from her neck and lash her with them, but I made my way toward the seat beside her instead.
It placed me directly across from Halla, with Theodore at her side.
“Very good,” the empress said as she took her spot at the head of the table. She gave me a weighty, knowing look and leaned in to pat my hand. “I look forward to our… conversation.”
I gave her a full smile and spoke as softly as she had. “And I look forward to watching you lose the thing you treasure most in the world.”
Her laugh was deep and unfeigned. She patted my hand again, dismissively, before starting a conversation with the guest beside me.
The empress glittered. Diamonds haloed her white hair.
They hung heavy around her neck, and thick bracelets of gold and silver adorned her wrists.
Even her dark gown was studded in gems, and the effect gave her an air of immovability.
I doubted even the Great Goddess Diantan herself could have moved so much metal and stone.
Finally, the she lifted her goblet. “I bid you all welcome.”
Though she smiled, there was nothing in her tone that made me believe it.
She didn’t sip her wine. “I must say, though…” She looked at her daughter with unfriendly blue eyes. “When I heard there was a Varian ship on the horizon, flying an Obelian flag with its own, I was rather surprised.”
Halla dipped her head and whispered. “Yes, Mother. The visit was not long planned.”
Even over the conversation and clatter of the meal, I could hear the familiar note of fearful reverence in Halla’s voice. It was precisely how I had sounded in Nemea’s presence, after a lifetime of subjugation had taught me my place.
I studied Halla anew. Searching for a trace of my father in her features and feeling relieved to find none.
“And what is the true reason for this visit?” The empress’s voice had dropped so low I had to strain to hear her. “You did not endure the sea for a paltry wedding feast.”
There was a long pause before Halla spoke. “I have plans. Hopes,” she said, diffident yet clear. “I have always wanted a wedding at home, Mother. You denied my first request. And my second. So I have come to beg.”
The empress’s eyes shone with such violence that I flinched. The look fled as quickly as it came.
Halla sat taller. “And my husband and I have come to a new agreement.” Her voice shook, but to her credit, she did not cower. “In it, he promised me this visit home.”