The rattle and clink of armor made us turn. One of Theodore’sguards stopped and bowed. “You’re needed in the ballroom, Your Majesty. Wedding festivities, they said.”
Theodore nodded. Then gave me a look like he didn’t want to leave.
“Go,” I said, as reassuringly as I could, then added softly, “I need to look around.”
He caught my meaning. “Be careful. I’ll leave one of my men with your guards. Have him come for me as soon as you find anything.”
As Theodore left, I watched his broad shoulders firm and his chin tip back. That brooding air of inviolability and command fell over him like a cloak and I was filled with a mix of admiration and sorrow to see it. I understood what it cost to wear it. I knew how it stifled one’s breath.
“Your Majesty,” I called after him.
He stopped, and turned to look at me with dark eyes.
I reached up and took Nemea’s crown from my head. With my other hand I pulled the pins from where I’d tucked them in around his own gold-wreathed crown. His eyes turned bright, clinging to my every movement, watching every curling lock of hair fall, like I was something new and remarkable.
Finally, I took his crown from the top of my head and extended it toward him. “You forgot this.”
As he drew nearer, he never once looked at it. He reached out and plucked it from my hand. “Did I?”
I gave a breathless nod.
Slowly, he bent down and placed his lips to my ear. “It looks exquisite on you.”
I shivered, unsure how he’d managed to make the words so unbearably sensual. He’d watched me like I’d taken the very dress from my body rather than his crown from my head. His warmcheek scraped mine as he left. I watched him go, working to return my breath to its normal cadence. Then, finally, I faced Eusia’s altar once more.
The large bowl before her statue was half full of blood. Ofofferings.I looked up, watching the seawater trickle down from the line where the ceiling met the altar wall. I followed its descent to the narrow reservoir at the altar’s base. Clever.
With tight eyes, I awed again at the excellent craftsmanship of the statue. It was so detailed I could make out the delicate lines of her fingers and nail beds. It was impressive, the way the artist had been able to make the grotesque gash in her middle, and the way she held it open, look beautiful. Heroic, even. Even the awful growths of skin beneath her eyes looked so refined, so frail, that they begged the onlooker tocare.It made one force their thoughts toward sacrifice and pain and gratitude. It set my blood into a low, furious roil.
In a flash of anger, I snatched the offering bowl and flung the blood within across the altar wall, a shining slash of red. It cut across the statue’s face, dripped down its ruined chest. The rest of it joined the falling seawater, and a moment later the water coming from above was tinged a dark pink.
Fingers shaking, I threw the golden bowl into the narrow reservoir and made my way for the door at the other end of the lightly glowing room. My body burned with resolve. Eusia was at the tips of my fingers now, and when I finally firmed my grip on her—
A hand grabbed the hair at the back of my head and yanked. A terrible sharp pain struck the side of my neck. My arms wheeled, my talons extending, but I could only slash them against the fabric of the person’s arms. I called on my power, which was ripping through my middle in a hot, dark surge, but whatever had beenstuck into my neck began to creep beneath my skin, and through my veins. The strange pain of it was consuming, fast-moving. My vision began to break. My arms grew leaden.
Through the remaining moments of my hazy consciousness, I knew I was being dragged across the floor by my hair, like a doll in a child’s fist. Blurred above me, I saw Eusia’s blood-soaked statue. I heard the trickling seawater. Then, with a jerk, my body was pulled through an opening in the golden wall of the altar and swallowed by the dark.
32
Theodore
The ballroom was overfull with guests when I finally reached it.
The music and chatter were deafening, dissonant. I stopped just upon the threshold to look over my shoulder. Across the center hall, Imogen’s guards, and my lone armored one, still stood at the entrance to the altar’s chamber.
“Oh,there you are.” Halla’s usually soft voice was bolder now that she was off the ship and in her own home.
She took my arm firmly and tugged me into the ballroom. The smell of wine clung to her, mingling with the densely sweet perfume she usually wore. I tried to breathe the scent back out, but it was as pervasive as the noise, as stifling as the crowd.
She slid her chilled hand into mine and led me around the edge of the room with as wide a smile upon her face as I’d ever seen her wear. It was distinct and victorious, like a battle sword raised after striking a winning blow. At the head table, she waited for me to pull out her chair before she sat.
“Where were you?” She smiled above her goblet, eyes sparkling as they darted over the room, but there was an accusation in her question.
I took a slow sip from my own goblet before answering. “At Eusia’s altar.”
Her lips twitched, but she managed to keep her smile wide. “Ahh. I thought you might have disappeared with—”
“Is that where you would make your offerings?”
