She curtsied her acquiescence. “Is Queen Imogen already in the brig?”
“It is not her execution that I wish you to plan.” I stared at Eftan where he lay. “It’s his.”
13
Imogen
This pool was larger than the last one. The water was clearer but it still slimy and sour on my tongue. It sang with dark power; the air buzzed with it. Salt and metal and a hint of smoke hung all around.
Eusia floated on her back like a child swimming on a sweltering day. High above, the coffered stone ceiling rippled with shadow that the meager torchlight couldn’t reach. As I looked through her eyes, I knew she waited for something, biding her time by humming a macabre tune and languidly kicking her feet.
The scream of hinges echoed through the room, but Eusia didn’t sit up expectantly. She simply continued to kick and hum until the scuffing sound of footsteps drew nearer and the wail of a baby began.
“It’s arrived, then?” Eusia asked.
A woman cleared her throat. “Yes. I birthed her on the voyage here. She is called Halla.”
Eusia adjusted her body in the water then so that the woman—Nivala—was in her line of sight. Heavy purple bruises pooled beneath her eyes. Her white hair was piled haphazardly atop her head. A heavy black robe hung from her wide shoulders, loosely tied. She knelt at the pool’s edge and in her lap squirmed a naked baby girl. New and pink and plump.
Eusia gave a nod. “Go on, then. It’s been too long.”
Nivala held still. A wariness, a worry turned her elegant features childlike. Her hand shook as she reached for the sharpened rock that sat at the edge of the pool, as the baby’s wails rose louder than before.
Eusia groaned. “Can you make it stop?”
Nivala nodded and lifted the baby to her bare breast. As it suckled, she took the sharpened rock and made a small slice on its heel. She squeezed the little foot like a milk teat, until three small drops of blood fell into the pool.
I felt Eusia unhinge her mouth and collect the bloody water inside it. Her eagerness was encompassing, intoxicating. I tasted the coppery hint of the baby’s blood through the thick salt water when fury rocked through Eusia’s body so violently, that my consciousness flinched.
“It is…” Eusia curled her spindly hands to tight fists. “It is ordinary.” Her shock was a deep, coursing current. She pinned Nivala in her sights.
Nivala only stared at the water’s surface. “Please—”
“Whyis it ordinary?” Eusia hissed. “Our agreement was clear—”
“Please.” Nivala held the baby out over the water. “You may have her. A gift of sustenance—”
Eusia growled in disgust, pulled away from the pool’s edge.
The image of Nivala’s penitent face began to ripple. The cries of the baby echoed and faded…
I woke with a start. On my narrow cot, in my tiny stolen cabin. Salty sweat drenched the sleep shirt I wore. Its scent was foreign—stale ale, an herbal soap. I tried to pull it from where it clung to my skin.
A vision. I knew now that was what I had seen. Not a hallucination, or my imaginings of a story I’d been told.
I pressed my hands into my aching eyes, then looked up at the porthole above me. The light was low, but when I’d performed the spell, the sun had been blaringly bright.
My arms shook as I sat myself up and leaned against the ship’s wall. I could still taste that baby’s blood on my tongue. I could still hear its cries ringing through my skull.
Halla.
Born on a ship to see Eusia. Why had Nivala looked so contrite? Why had Eusia been furious over Halla’sordinaryblood? I felt suddenly desperate to learn how a Mage Seer induced visions so I could take myself back and see more.
I threw my legs over the side of the cot and gasped when I realized my pain was gone. It took another moment for all the memories to surface. The spell, Eftan and his knife, Theodore and his radiant power. I lifted the shirt I wore so I could see my stomach and drew my fingers over the new scar there.
He’d banished it. Small flashes of Theodore filled my mind. His sonorous voice. The warmth and weight of him, hovering above me, the smell of his blood. I shivered at the memory of his skin breaking under my talon tips.
“Gods damn it, Lachlan.”
