I slipped into a haze as I squared my shoulders and stood before Halla once more. I took the bloodstained ring from her hand and slipped it onto my finger.
When I finally spoke, it was quietly, so the words remained between Halla and me alone. “Before the Great Gods, wherever they may be, I commit myself to—” A pang shot through me. Not her heart, nor mind. Not her body. “To your crown,” I said. “And all that it entitles you to. Let our agreement—”
Halla watched me keenly for a moment before she held her pearled dagger up in offering. The expectant rise of her pale brows, the pleading way her pink mouth parted, made me feel certain that Eftan had gotten to her too. Discomfited rustling and murmurs rose from the witnesses.
I took the blade, the hilt warm from her grip, and set it on the ship wheel’s platform, right beside the blade that Eftan had left for me. I would do what was required of me and nothing more.
“Let our agreement serve our people,” I said firmly, “as is our purpose and aim.”
Halla’s chin lifted, a gesture that looked both triumphant and affronted at once. A chorus of muttered whispers rose up from the courtiers, before they spoke their part of the ceremony.
“By the blessings and power of the Great Gods.”
Halla and I repeated them in a quiet mumble. Halla’s lady’s maid came to her side, wrapping her cut palm in gauze, as thathaze I’d slipped into grew thicker. It took me a moment to realize that Halla’s icy hand rested upon my cheek.
I didn’t bend to her. I stood ramrod straight, but then her face was before mine. Her lips were on my lips. Cold, wrong.
To a smattering of quiet applause, Halla took my hand and led me toward my stateroom, but all I could see was that Siren in the stained glass of the door.
Hovering above theEleuthios.
Resplendent, haloed in sunshine. And just beyond my reach.
7
Imogen
Green filmy water coated my open eyes again. I could make out nothing but wobbling torchlight.
“I told you, a spell so powerful will require more than you may be willing to pay.” Eusia’s voice was lovely, rolling through her chest like a song, but I could feel it in my own too. I could taste the putrid, salty water that dribbled over her withered tongue.
“No,” said a woman, her words low and softly reverent. Her outline rippled through the water. A coronet of white hair, snowy skin. “I have decided. I am willing to pay it.”
The water cleared from my eyes and a youthful visage emerged. The woman was slight, with broad shoulders. Her face was smooth and plump, but despite her young age, she seemed formidable, with an unsettling steadiness in her blue-eyed gaze.
Eusia gave a hungry, amused hum. “Is that so? And what will your advisors think, Nivala? What will your people say to something so…despicable?”
Nivala’s chin lowered in challenge. “All of them would protest loudly, of course. But they are nothing compared to you. Or me. When you are that small, even your loudest protestations cannot drown out such might.”She turned, giving her back to the pool. The sleeve of her black gown was shredded, like she’d been in a tussle. As she reached and bent, the chamber filled with a heavy scraping sound.
“And what of your husband?” Eusia asked, the question a drawl. “How loud do you expect his protestations will be?”
Then, Nivala turned, heaving a long object wrapped in blood-soaked burlap into her arms. “They were loud enough to draw Nemea and his men into my chambers,” she said. “But it was for the best.” She peeled back the burlap, revealing a pale, red-streaked limb, and dropped it into the pool.
I could feel Eusia’s elation as it rushed through her. A burst of saliva flooded her mouth.
Nivala wiped the blood on her hands down the front of her torn dress. “He helped.”
I woke with a rattling gasp. To the metallic taste of blood and that awful, salty water sitting on my tongue. Darkness engulfed me where I hung, suspended in the air. Wood creaked, my head hammered.
“Shit,Imogen.” Lachlan gripped the edge of my hammock and shook it. “Shit.” He looked toward the far end of the dark gun deck, where dozens and dozens of crew members were slung in their hammocks, sleeping. His voice was a low hiss. “What the hell did you do?”
I stared up at him, vision bleary and sparking white. “What? What do you mean?”
He kept scanning the deck. “The ship. Has stopped. Moving.”
It took a drawn-out moment for me to realize that the ship was in fact still, and that my power pulsed through me as hot and quick as my blood did. I had no recollection of sending a command, and yet even through the nepenthe’s blurring effects, through thestill-vivid images of that strange dream, I could feel my tether to the water and wind like they were extensions of my own body.
They’d frozen, waiting to see what I would have them do next.
