She tipped up her chin. “I’d like to be returned to my husband now.”
I’d once thought her to be nothing more than a lump of clay shaped and directed by her mother’s hand, but she was more than capable of inflicting her own hurt when she chose to. The way she’d saidmy husbandwas meant to sting me and it had.
But I had become well acquainted with pain by now. I could handle what she dealt.
The ship dipped and moaned. “If you will not tell of your scars,” I said, sternly, over the creaking wood, “then I will tell you of mine.” I held my open palm between us, steadily, so she could see. I did not want to give her commiseration or a gentle coaxing. I wanted to see her afraid. Wanted to lock her in this cabin and leave. But seeing those scars carved into her body—a lifetime’s worth of them—had sent a sort of sympathetic desperation through me that I could not banish. She was the only other person who knew the awful, heady taste of spell work. She was the only person who could help me. And despite everything, I was surprised to find I did not want to force her to it.
I fixed my eyes on the twist of gnarled skin on my palm. “The first offerings I remember were not performed by me. King Nemea, my… my father—”
Halla gave a soft gasp.
“He would cut my palm for me. I remember the cuts being deep, and he would squeeze the blood from them into a very small bowl. He would always make the cut in the same spot, which made it heal poorly. All hard.” I drew a finger over the ropy flesh. “It still aches sometimes. In the mountains, I never felt the full force of a spell’s effects. Just a gentle illness, fatigue, a rough throat. And then when I was older, I grew bold and desperate enough to ask if I’d be permitted to make my own cuts. I made them shallower, and in a different place each time, so they could heal. But even that didn’t prevent them from leaving a mark.”
With an unreadable look upon her face, Halla’s gaze darted between my hand and my eyes. She said nothing. She did not move. The nepenthe’s effects were nearly gone, and what crept through me now was a thumping anger, a stifling frustration. Inexplicably,I wanted to hear Halla sayIt was the same for me tooif only so I could feel a moment of furious solidarity.
My loneliness was a traitor, prodding my control, when I heard a muffled voice yell out over the main deck above us. Boot fall and sailors’ calls preceded a low, deep creak. I held my breath, hoping… The ship began to tilt as it turned.
West.We were heading west.
Lachlan had gotten them to reroute the ship. As the vessel straightened out on its new course, my crumbling sense of control began to grow sturdy. We were on our way to Agatha.
Halla’s gaze darted across the ceiling. “They’ve changed course,” she said with trepidation. “Why?”
“Because your mother took Agatha to Anthemoessa—to Eusia.” A new rush of fury and fear filled me. “And when I’ve seen that Agatha is safe, I’ll relish watching Eusia die.”
She’d been so impressively stoic, but for the briefest moment, she slipped. The jerk she gave, the way her eyes went wide and her mouth broke open, gave the impression that a long, thin dagger had been driven through her gut. The shock of what I’d said, the odd pain, was clear on her face. She tried to master herself, but when she reached up to smooth her hair with her hand, it shook.
“Do you have no objections to our altered course?” I asked.
Her eyes had gone cool once more, but she locked them with mine. “No,” she said. “I have no objections.”
“Did you know that your mother—”
“This is a waste of your time and mine.” Anger flared her eyes and flushed her cheeks. “My mother tells me nothing. All I know about her is that she aims to secure her power. She is motivated by that and that alone.” She pulled mindlessly at a loose stitch in the blanket she sat upon, her long fingers twisting the thread. “She would only take your friend if it served her in some way.” When she met my gaze, hercountenance turned from frantic, albeit tired, to steady. “Or perhaps my mother is using her to lure you into a trap.”
I’d had that thought myself and still my stomach swooped. I cataloged what threats I could make, what pain I could inflict, but I did nothing because I found that I believed her. Halla’s surprise at learning that Eusia was on Anthemoessa was genuine. She hadn’t known. If her mother had never revealed where their own beloved saint resided, then why would she have revealed her schemes?
After a long moment, Halla finally spoke again, her voice soft and sweet once more. “You look ill.”
I leaned against the chair back and regarded her. “I am. Does that please you?”
She shook her head. Confused interest lit her eyes, and an air of disbelief, or perhaps awe, hung around her. “It surprises me.”
“Why?”
“You are the daughter of a Great Goddess.” Resentment ran through the words. “Infallible. Untouchable.”
“Great Gods can be injured and ill,” I ground out. “They are simply long-lived.”
“Simply long-lived.” She gave an angry titter. “You take it for granted. Your power. Gods and Mages and saints,” she said with disdainful longing. “So much tension between you all, yet to me—a pawn, a person with nothing—you are all the same. Mighty and dangerous.”
A person with nothing.I’d spent my entire life feeling precisely as Halla did. Powerless, inconsequential, an instrument to be played. Yet I was a Goddess, and now a queen, and in many ways, I still felt as she did.
A soft knock sounded at the door. I unlatched it and Lachlan rushed in. “We should reach Anthemoessa in a couple days’ time.” He pointed to Halla with relief. “Still alive. Good.”
Halla sat straighter. “Has the king demanded my return?”
“No,” Lachlan said. “But he’s been assured that you will be treated well and since I am a man of my word, you get to sleep on the cot.”
