Markis gave a haughty chuckle. “I don’t, Your Majesty.”
“They’re called Malvinia vines. They’re named after my grandmother. The blooms are easy to grow, but they wilt very quickly if not rigorously tended. They leave a sticky mess, but Panos used to grow the vines full of them because they were my grandmother’s favorite. When she died, and she died long before he did, my grandfather tried to stop growing them. In his heartache, he instructed other Varians to grow the vines without the flowers too. They all obeyed the command, but whenever Panos—the Great God himself—grew the vines, the Malvinia blooms always snuck in.” I adjusted the weight of my crown. “Even he could not stop himself from being possessed by her.”
Markis made a neutral sound, then downed the last of his wine. “I’m no great romantic, it seems,” he said through the faintest laugh. “You saypossessedlike it’s something to hope for.”
I straightened, as some emotion I didn’t care to name moved through me like a rip current. “Leave me.”
“Of course.” He tried to hide it, but I saw the spike of derision in his look. He bowed reverently, made for the door, and stopped. “It’s a pity I never met your Siren, Your Majesty. She sounds rather…singular.”
I couldn’t determine if it was a threat, but my hackles rose regardless. As Markis left, his head at a pitying tilt, a servant appeared.
The young man bowed quickly, keeping his attention on the rug at his feet, “Your Majesty. It’s time.”
I stood at the altar, barely breathing.
Halla walked slowly down the middle of the courtiers, glowing pale as a spirit. Her powdered face was pinched—from her seasickness, I imagined. Her white train was so light that even the gentlest breeze lifted it so it floated behind her like a cloud of curling mist. In her joined fists, she held a pearl-hilted dagger, tip facing down.
She was the epitome of regality now, when only two nights prior she’d hunched in the chair before my bedroom hearth, eyes pink and swollen, and had agreed to every single one of my amendments like they were lashes from a whipping she knew she deserved. With a wavering voice she’d sworn on her home, on her life, that she did not know that the saint she worshipped was an ancient, bloodthirsty monster. And then she’d begged me for only two things.
Eftan stood at the edge of the lantern light and fixed me with an urging gaze. As if he invoked it, I recalled Imogen’s broken voice:
See to your duty, Theo. And I will see to mine.
Imogen and I had made a bargain in that drafty chamber in Fort Linum: My protection in exchange for her service in slaying a monster. I wasn’t fair to fault her for keeping her word, but Gods I wanted to.
Halla’s handmaid, a tall young woman with the same coloring as her mistress, trailed her to the altar, then lowered herself to her knees. The rest of the witnesses in the crowd followed, leaving Halla and me standing face-to-face. She met my gaze through her veil. Her eyes were pulled wide; her chest rose and fell with short breaths.
Suddenly I realized that her request to marry on a ship had been a brilliant one. I was trapped with no place to run. I smoothed a hand down the front of my coat and gave her a stoic nod.
“Your Majesty.” She pulled back her veil. Her lips tipped up. “You look very handsome, if not a little shaken.”
Time stalled as I looked at her. At her bright face and blue eyes, rimmed in the thinnest line of kohl. Her pale hair was loose and hung down to her thin hips. If I were to grab it, I imagined my fingers would slip right through.
As she watched me, a crease darkened the space between her white-blond brows. Her lips and cheeks were smudged with pink. Certainly she could invoke some warm feeling from other men, but my body wanted to recoil. Every feature was wrong. Her hair should be thick and dark and wild. When I fisted my hand into its soft waves it should be reluctant to let me go. Her mouth should look bitten red, full, and held at a maddeningly determined slant. Her eyes should be like gilded arrowheads, sharp and honeyed, lined with a fringe of lashes like thick, black feathers.
Halla gave me a puzzled look and stepped closer. “I understand. Your fear, that is,” she whispered, and a look of genuine concern lit her eyes. Her gaze darted toward the onlookers and back to me before she spoke even softer. “When I was young, my mother spoke to me of my father. She told me how she had admired him, loved him even. She spoke often about their union with affection.”
I scowled down at her. “The father she fed to Eusia?”
Her cheeks paled even further as she nodded. “That is my point. If she willingly gave up a person she loved to get what she wanted, what awful thing might she do to you—or me—if we deny her this union.”
Duty had always required sacrifice. I’d always given of myself endlessly, but I realized now that I’d been able to do so because I’d been numb, deadened. It was easy to carve yourself to pieces whenyou couldn’t feel the cut of the blade, but Imogen had jolted me awake. Everything that had been dull was suddenly piercing.
I blew out a breath, preparing for the pain. “Begin…” I said, sounding strangled. “When you’re ready.”
Halla lifted the hem of her white dress, heavy with pearls and glass beads, and lowered herself to her knees. “Before the Great Gods, and before the saints of Obelia, wherever they may be, I commit myself to your heart, your mind, your body, and your crown.” Her voice was lilting and soft, and she looked up at me with startlingly blue eyes. “Let our bond make us one.”
Finally, she took her dagger and sliced a shallow cut across her palm, and anger tore through me.
I’d made myself clear. She was not meant to bare her blood. We would not bind. Yet there was the growing pool of red, cupped in her hand. When I did not move to cut my own palm, her lady’s maid reached forward and placed a gold band, studded with jet-colored stones, into the blood. Halla rose, looking flustered, and stepped close.
I was supposed to slip the ring onto my finger, but I couldn’t bring myself to move. A tension blanketed the onlookers as they waited for me to speak my part. They watched to see if I would kneel, to see if I would take the blade and speak commitments that matched Halla’s. The gentle sounds of snapping sails and shushing waves grew deafening as I stared at that golden, bloody ring.
Then, in a blink, everything stopped. The wind died. The sea went still.
The ship pitched and slowed, throwing all of us off our balance. An unnatural hush fell, an abrupt calm. The courtiers and crew looked up in puzzlement at the now drooping sails.
A prickle spread over my skin. I could picture Imogen, her beautiful face stern and determined, standing under the cloudless night sky, as she bent the world to her will. I took a step away from the altar and scanned the shadowed deck for her shape, but a breath later, the wind came back to life. The waves dipped. The sails bloated once more and my heart fell through my chest like a stone.
