In the Veins of the Drowning(13)

Power radiated from the man. It poured from him, wove through his well-formed muscles. On the heels of the disgrace he’d made me feel came a burst of anger. He had never known what it felt like to be bent by someone else’s will. He’d never been required to give something of himself that he did not wish to give. I met his blazing glower with my own, suddenly enraged that he would make me feel like my desire to survive was unforgivable.

“Begin, ” came Nemea’s dark voice.

Evander lifted his blade, and I watched him, frozen. He swiped it quickly over his hand, splitting it open. His blood spilled like dark wine between his fingers and over his wide palm, tapping into the bowl below. He whispered his prayer, then snapped his gaze to mine. A lock of sandy hair fell over his furrowed forehead.

“Imogen,” he warned through clamped teeth.

There was not even time for me to lift my knife. His shocking grip found my wrist, and with a sharp twist, he forced my palm up. The black blade bit deep into my skin and with a flick, my hand burst open. My entire body jerked at the ripping pain.

In my periphery, King Theodore moved closer, but I didn’t look up. I could only focus on the sting and the growing pool of red in my palm. It oozed toward my sleeve cuff, seeping into the black lace. Evander twisted it over the bowl. “Say the prayer, love.”

I tried to speak through the bitter taste of self-loathing, through the fiery anger. All my life I’d thought being docile and obedient would give me a sort of strength, safety. But I’d made myself fragile instead. I’d turned myself into something easily snapped between the finger and thumb of a person like Evander. My voice wobbled when the words finally came. “I give to the sand. I give to the water.” The last bit of the prayer stuck, just as it did during every offering. “Hear me, heed me. Cleanse the sea.”

When my blood stopped flowing, Evander stroked my wrist, a gentle back-and-forth, then took a bandage from the pile and wrapped it around my palm. How effortless it was for him to cut me, then mend me. To mix his barbarous duty with his endearment. I slid my gaze away from him, as if compelled, straight to King Theodore.

He’d stepped so close that his polished boots toed the black velvet we knelt upon, spear-tip eyes on me and me alone. Anger flushed his cheeks, and when he spoke, like a deep roll of thunder, the pressure in the room seemed to shift. “How much blood have you taken from her, Nemea?”

Not a single courtier pulled in a breath as they waited for King Nemea to answer. Even Evander had frozen, his hand hovering over the hilt of his sword.

“I have taken blood from my entire court and gifted it to Eusia for over two decades, boy.” A smile colored his voice.

King Theodore finally unlocked our gazes to glare at Nemea. “I asked about hers.”

Why?

Something dangerous hung between the two men, something unspoken that I could not decipher, but I felt myself—my blood—sitting at the rotting heart of it.

Nemea laughed, the sound rattling and bleak. “Look at the cogs of your mind trying so hard to spin. I have taken her blood since her infancy.” Nemea sat back in his seat. “Since the day she became mine.”

There was no time for me to parse Nemea’s words before King Theodore reared back his long leg and swung it into the offering bowls that sat between Evander and me. They flipped and spun, spraying the blood within across my face. It spattered over his own cream-colored coat. I fell back, swiping the sticky, hot liquid from my cheeks, my eyes, when the room surged into motion. Guards’ swords rang as they were pulled from their scabbards. Women gasped; men shouted. I tried to untangle my legs from my gown, scrambled to stand, but all the while I could not look away from the fearlessness that King Theodore possessed amid all the swords and muscle and sound.

Nemea’s guards encircled him, and Evander pushed me back, clearing me from the center of the room. King Theodore was quickly enfolded by his own guards too, but there came no clash of metal. Nemea bellowed over the huddle of grunting men, “You cannot undo what has been done, you fool. But I hope you die trying.”

“Imogen, get to your chamber,” Evander yelled from where he stood between the two kings. “Now.”

The courtiers cawed and clutched one another at the sight of the two rulers coming to blows, and I shouldered through them, toward the steep, uneven stairwell. The stone wall was cold beneath my bandaged hand, but I used it as my guide, forcing myself up and out of the belly of the mountain and into the slicing light of Fort Linum’s entry hall. The front doors sat wide open to the courtyard, just as they did every day when the weather was fair. I started toward my chamber and stopped.

The sky outside was shrouded in clouds that rippled like gray waves. The mountains below sat in a bluish-white haze. How vast, how endless it all seemed, and I did not want to be locked behind a door. Trapped and amenable. I wanted out. A pitiful thrill of excitement raced through me as I disobeyed my order and crossed the fort’s threshold.

The courtyard was a wide, barren circle, ringed in towering white pillars. At the very center sat an oblong stone, soaked with layer after layer of old blood. I strode past the stain, black gown dragging behind me, toward the cliff’s edge. Beyond the peaks, through the haze, I could just see the fluttering stretch of sea. I pulled in a long, slow breath and imagined I could smell it. Imagined I was filled with it once more, like I had been last night. I had been fearsome. I had made Evander’s eyes stretch wide. I had made him beg. Made him bleed.