My heart ticked up. He was too close and not close enough. I tugged against Lachlan’s hold as my jaw began to tighten and burn. Theodore’s attention cut to where Lachlan held me and it was a long moment before he looked back into my eyes. When he did, I saw the spark of something hot and dangerous there.
“My guard…” I said, voice strained from my control. “My guard informed me that your council has requested proof of our claims.”
“Yourguard.” Theodore avoided looking at Lachlan, but I felt his anger grow. “Performing a spell is unnecessary and incredibly foolish. I have already rerouted the ship.”
Something in my chest swelled until it hurt. Gods damn him and his maddening determination to keep me from magic. Damn his pact with Halla. Damn the ease with which he stood there, staring at me with implacable austerity, when I could hardly contain myself.
I blew out a shaky breath, and flexed my fingers. “Nevertheless—”
“What’s more,” he interrupted. “Leucosia holds strict rules over spell work. You cannot legally perform it.”
“I—” I gasped, and bit down hard on my own lip as that pressure in my chest began to creep between the bones of my spine. Lachlan sensed the danger. He pulled me back a step, firmed his hold on the hilt of his sword, and placed his body halfway between mine and Theodore’s.
It was then that Theodore’s mask cracked. His eyes flared, and his hand curled up into a tight, angry fist. Lachlan was right to have done it, but some dark instinct deep inside me thrashed like it had been chained and wanted freeing.
I cleared my tight throat. “What do you mean I cannot legally perform—”
“You arenota Mage Seer.” His words were biting, and I realized that I’d forgotten this Theodore too. I liked to remember him as he was when we’d been alone, tousled and sweet, but this was who he was—who he needed to be. The righteous king. Powerful, heeded, dutiful.
The sun was rising, and now I could finally see the stern details of him. I could make out the faces of the people behind him too. My stomach plummeted when I locked eyes with the ship’s captain. The very captain whose ship I’d been on during the Serafi attack on Varya. I looked back up at Theodore and my chest tightened into a horrible knot. “I see. Yet, I am a queen and my queendom is without a Mage Seer, so under Leucosian law, wouldn’t I be permitted to appoint one?”
Theodore’s full lips flattened as he glowered at me, his eyes slowly filling with a look that I could only describe as desolation. It sent a piercing sensation through my chest.
The older woman behind him, dressed in exquisite lapis robes, answered. “Yes, according to the law of the realm, you would be the appointer… Your Majesty.” She spoke my title with surprising veneration.
“Very good.” I wanted to believe that Theodore was trying to stop this spell to keep me safe, just as I was trying to perform it so that he might once again have his council’s respect, but I could not let myself believe it. Not with such a bruised heart, not with my anger threatening to burst from me in a fiery red spill. I glared up at him. “Then I appoint me.”
“Imogen—” Theodore said it under his breath, incensed.
But hearing my name on his tongue like it was a curse sentsomething terrifying skittering through me. My fingers twitched, longing to reach for him. A moment later a vision of his flesh, ribboned and weeping red, flashed in my mind. I could imagine him strewn across a shadowed bed, could sense the power draining from him, could taste the hot metal of his blood.
I shuddered and forced a step back. “You—” My throat clamped. I swallowed against it. “You are renowned for your commitment and steadfastness—a paragon of duty. You do what is right.” My gaze cut to Halla, then back to him. “Even when… when it is difficult. As queen of both Anthemoessa and Seraf, I will model my rule after your own.”
Behind Theodore, whose brows had sunk low with confused fury, Eftan sputtered, “Queen of Seraf? Is that what you just said?”
“You heard me clearly, Chancellor.” I stepped back farther, but avoiding Theodore’s weighty attention was like trying to block out the sun at noontide. “Nemea died in the waters just beyond your harbor, at my hand. As his daughter, I take up his crown.”
My body screamed for relief from being so close. As I turned and made for the open deck, Lachlan followed. My nose cleared of the scent of Theodore’s soap and skin; my face cooled in the early morning breeze. The pressure around my spine eased.
Even so, I felt terrifyingly certain that there would be nowhere on this Godsdamned ship that would be far enough away.
“Not good,” Lachlan whispered over my shoulder. “You all right? You seem…”
I disregarded him and called behind me to where Theodore and his council still stood. “To perform the spell, I’ll need a launch.” At the nearest mast, I stopped. The rocking of the ship made my wound ache, but Lachlan was there at my side, an arm at my back to steady me. “And your wife.”
Theodore froze. When he finally responded, he sounded utterly bewildered. “My what?”
Anger ripped through my chest. I whirled and our gazes crashed together across the deck. “Yourwife.”
For once, he’d forgotten his armor, his every emotion laid bare. A sort of stunned recognition chiseled his face, as if the new day had revealed something heinous he’d committed in the dark. He gave his head a minuscule shake, and in a breath, righted himself.
The middling-looking man who had helped bar Halla from me stepped forward. “This is preposterous.” He threw his dark golden hair from his face and tightened the ties of his silken robe. From the affected way he held himself, the unhurried gate, the precise cut of his beard, it was clear he fancied himself a man of some significance. One to be heard. “What, precisely, do you need with Queen Halla? You cannot think the kingdom of Varya would allow you to take its king’s wife as hostage.”
When I took a step toward him, he gave a small flinch. “Who are you?”
“I am—” He smoothed a thin hand down the front of his chest, as if fortifying himself. “I am Markis Gabros, Varya’s steward. And a lauded and revered member of the king’s council.”
“Laudedandrevered?” I gave him a slow smile. “I am neither of those things, yet it seems I had the benefit of a better governess than you, Master Gabros, because my lessons taught me that I, a Leucosian queen, have every right to make a hostage of someone who causes harm to my people.”
