35 Imogen
Imogen
Blood no longer trickled from the hole in my back; it gushed.
Perhaps the pain was simply too much for my body to hold. Perhaps I’d slipped into shock. But everything seemed to steady—the vibration of panic, Aleka’s hissing breaths, the thunder of my own heart—all of it hushed and calmed.
I pressed my hands flat to the stones beneath me and went still. The slice and dig of the blade made me whimper as Aleka worked to finish removing my wing from my back.
I focused inward, and though I could feel the oily, hot swirl of my power in my middle, whatever she’d injected into me kept me from grabbing hold of it.
My vision dotted black. My breathing halted, yet I felt something else was trying to rise in me like a numbing tide. Something warm and bright.
But still, my silent lure wouldn’t fill my chest or warm my throat.
The weight around my spine changed, lightened, and through my dimming vision, I watched as my wing was tossed onto the damp stones before me with a whispering, wet thud.
I stared at it for a strangled moment, not breathing, not moving. I was going to faint. No, I was going to be forced into that pool and bound to Eusia.
Aleka’s blade pierced the base of my other wing.
No.
I thought of my mother lying at the bottom of Eusia’s moldering pool.
No. No. No.
That bright warmth within me came again.
It reminded me of Theodore’s sunny power, but all my own.
Even with Aleka’s weight shifting and pressing into my lower back, I harnessed that building warmth as it moved through me, up into my throat.
Then I pulled in a full, gasping breath and hummed a song.
The note that came forth was dark and curling, a low, sonorous sound that filled my chest. My voice wavered and scratched, but I sang loud enough that even wax could not block the notes out entirely. The uncanny song was haunting, alarming, beautiful.
Aleka hissed and jerked as the song grew into an echo, twining around itself within the close chamber walls.
I felt her try to fight it, felt her try to shove the blade into my back once more, but she didn’t succeed.
Her weight slipped off my side. There was a hollow thunk as her head knocked against the floor.
With her weight removed, I realized that the draught in my blood had faded enough for me to roll to my side.
I continued my singing, even as I felt the hot spew of fluid fall across my spine and puddle beneath me.
I took in more of the tiny chamber and realized there were no doors, no windows.
The small pool sat in its very center. I faced Aleka.
Her eyes were wide and glassy, her body strewn.
When I paused my song to speak, she sucked in a loud breath.
My own breathing was frayed. “Why did the… empress choose you to perform the spell? The spell to bind me to Eusia,” I managed to say. “Who… taught it to you?”
I started my song again, compelling her to answer. “No spell,” she said, eyes locked on me, voice droning. “I only… prepare you.”
Prepare me. Cut my wings. Get me into the pool.
For a moment, I let my song fade, lost to my shock and sensations and thoughts.
It was enough time for Aleka to reach for the blade that rested between us.
She took it into her shaking hand. But she didn’t hold it for long.
I let another dark, curling note spill from me and the blade clattered to the stone between us once more.
My leaden arm shook as I lifted it. I knocked my hand into the butt of the blade and sent it skittering over the floor.
I heard a quiet splash and knew the blade had slipped into Eusia’s pool.
The surface rippled from the disruption, and before it returned to its glassy tranquility a cluster of bubbles rose up from its depths.
Urgency sped through me like a current, but my body could not match it. I dragged myself nearer to Aleka, my song still in my throat, and fought my drugged body to search her for another weapon. For anything I could use to protect myself that was not my taloned fingers or tattered voice.
“Who will perform the spell?” I asked as I felt at her waist, at her hips. “The empress?”
She gasped in another breath before I started my song anew. She nodded. “Eusia… is… weakened.”
I knew. With her connection to my mother broken, all that sustained her was bodies, small offerings of blood… and my power.
Our bond.
A small pouch dangled from Aleka’s belt. There were rumpled bandages within, a ball of wax, and at the very bottom, a glass vial of dark liquid. I gasped and rolled the bottle into my open palm. It was the first severing draught I’d lost. The one with the ripped and crackling label.
“You took the second one too?” I asked in a hoarse voice. “The one from my chamber.”
She sucked in a loud breath. “I convinced Markis… to take it. For safekeeping, I told him. You are too reckless… I said.” Tears sped from the corners of her eyes. “Witless… he is… easy to convince.”
I glanced around the little room, squinting through that unearthly yellow light, and finally noticed the shape of a small door. It was made of the very same wood slatting as the rest of the chamber, tucked into the far wall.
“Where are we?” The room was beginning to sway.
Aleka let out a groan. “Below…” Her breaths were still inordinately labored. “Under…”
It didn’t matter where we were.
I’d found Eusia. The dagger was gone, but I had a severing draught. Perhaps that would be enough to end this. And so, as I tried to steady my dizzy head, I sang my song again, letting the resonant notes seize Aleka’s lungs until she shook, spasmed, then went still.
I uncorked the vial with my teeth. The dark sludgy draught within would likely be enough to kill me. I’d survived my first severance because of Theodore’s unrelenting care. It was the image of him that I clung to as I slowly brought the draught to my lips.
His sturdiness and acceptance and warmth. He’d given me the short but altering privilege of knowing what it felt like to belong somewhere. To be safe and at home. To be seen and loved. He’d given me what I’d always hoped to have.
As I wrapped my lips around the vial, I decided that would be enough.
I started to tilt it back, then stopped as two new sounds hit my ears at once.
The first was a steady beat of dripping liquid.
The drops fell from the high ceiling, rippling into the pool with watery plunks.
I looked up to see a pair of golden tubes, about the diameter of two of my fingers, hanging down from the shadowed ceiling.
The second sound was the patter of quick footsteps.
I lowered the vial, searching for the cork with jittery hands, when the door on the other side of the chamber swung open on smooth hinges.
Halla.
Even through my tilting vision she looked spectral and awe-stricken. Her ritual robes swayed around her ankles. Red splotches rimmed her tear-swollen eyes. There were bright blooms of pink on her cheeks.
And held firmly in her fist was a small glinting dagger.