36 Theodore
Theodore
The corridors of the Godsdamned keep had no defining features. It was one torchlit passage after the next, but I moved through them knowingly, as if being lured.
As if something outside of myself drove me forward, beaconing me in the direction that was true. Something in the air vibrated against my skin, raised the hairs on the back of my neck. My stomach slipped low from the impossible sense of coercion, but I didn’t fear it.
I was content to give in to the call. To let go.
I moved as quickly as I could, despite not knowing where I was.
The pound of my boots matched the violent beat of my heart, and then suddenly, the passage spat me out into the keep’s front hall.
I stopped, no longer feeling that coaxing impulse to move.
The entry was empty, the high oaken doors barred.
Then it started again, that prickle at the back of my neck, that quiet, alluring hum in the air. That pull from the center of my stomach. It drew me through the entry, toward the keep’s main passageway. Deeper and deeper.
Footsteps echoed from the far end of the hall and I whirled. Lachlan and Agatha ran toward me.
“How did you get in?” I asked.
“A servant at the front door,” Lachlan answered.
I spun, searching for anyone at all. “The empress—have you seen her?”
“The servant said she was still in the throne room, but when we looked it was empty. Quiet. We’ve been searching. ” Agatha shook her head. “Imogen’s not in her chamber. Not in any chamber in that corridor.”
Lachlan’s eyes narrowed. “Do you feel that?”
I nodded. That lure again, low and lovely, like the crying wind in harmony with itself. It took great focus to keep myself still.
Color sat high on Agatha’s cheeks from exertion. “Siren song.”
Once again, it stopped. But its pull was stronger in this passageway, and I had no doubt that it had come from the other side of the closed throne room doors. We ran toward them and I pushed my way through with a growl.
We all stopped hard just inside.
It was empty no more. The empress sat regally atop her looming dais and its throne.
She stared at us with heavy-lidded eyes.
The malodorous air of achievement hung about her, making me feel weak.
Her wrists were bare of her heavy bracelets, her sleeves were pushed back to her elbows, and she pressed her pale skin hard into the protruding bolts that sat upon the golden arms of her throne.
A step nearer showed me the smear of bright blood where the bolts met her flesh. “Where is Imogen?”
Nivala’s voice was dark and blissful. “Near,” she whispered. That whisper was threaded with unsettling bliss. “Near, Theodore. And yet she’s well beyond your grasp now.”
Fury burst through me like a shot of white light.
I started toward Nivala, but she hardly flinched.
She merely pushed her arms harder into the bolts of her throne and a thin spurt of blood shot from her wrist. Her dark-painted lips moved with quiet words, as her blue eyes rolled and flickered closed.
The dais was taller than I was, unadorned, old slats of wood.
I pulled my dagger and bounded up its stairs.
The empress’s mouth still moved. When I set my hand around the velvet collar of her gown she curled it into a broad, victorious smile.
I realized then that her mouth was not painted at all—but was coated in a thick smear of blood.
“It’s done,” she said, eyes still closed. “The spell has been spoken, the blood has been offered, the flesh has been swallowed. When Imogen is finally in the pool, all will be as it should be. They will be blood-bound, flesh-joined, and Eusia’s might will be paramount.”
She gave no resistance at all when I jerked her from her throne. Her knees landed on the dais with a great thud. Blood leaked from the open wounds in her wrists, but that triumphant look remained, fixed like a mask upon her face.
I made a deep slice across her cheek with my dagger. “Where is she?”
She didn’t flinch at the cut, only threw back her head, sending the diamond crown she wore crashing to the ground.
Her eyes fell shut. A Gods-awful gasp tore through her chest—the effect of the spell.
“Where she is meant to be,” she answered through a euphoric, cronelike voice.
“Where she was created to be. Nemea saw to it. He did what was asked of him, and now—”
I drew my blade across the other side of her face, almost all the way to her bone, and her eyes flew open.
They held with mine. They were the same blue as a spring sky.
The same blue as her daughter’s. They were empty—not a note of pain, not a single tear.
No fear. She didn’t try to claw at them—in fact the spell’s effects seemed to soothe her.
Those wretched eyes looked straight through me.
Skittering terror fueled me then. I lifted Nivala by the collar of her gown. Blood spilled down her cheeks, spattering my hands.
Behind me, I heard Agatha’s voice fill the throne room with booming intention. “Goetia hecates thantos.”
I whirled to see her on her knees—red on her lips and Lachlan’s dagger in her hand. He poured seawater from a little bottle into a pool of blood Agatha had dripped onto the stone before her.
She had performed the death spell.
“Wait,” I breathed, far too late. I knew she’d wanted her revenge, but Nivala would now take Imogen’s location with her to the grave.
Agatha’s body arched. Lachlan took her into his arms as the spell began to wind its way through her. Nivala squirmed and whimpered in my grip, writhing strangely, just like the rat I’d killed had. “Tell me.” I shook her. “Please.”
Her blood-coated lips pulled back in a sneer, body going taut for a moment, then she went death heavy. Her pale face went slack, her once-triumphant eyes were now unseeing. Dead.
“Fucking Gods.” With all the strength I could muster, I threw Nivala from the top of her dais. I heard the thud and crack of her body as it struck the middle step.
Lachlan was trying to keep Agatha from clawing at her eyes. She cried and thrashed as I stumbled down a step, hopelessness at my throat, when a wail like the one I’d heard earlier started again.
I jolted. Looked down. The cry rose up from… beneath me… up through the cracks of the empress’s towering dais.