In the Veins of the Drowning(3)
My breath snagged. I looked toward the sea again, blinking against the returned sting in my eyes, feeling stripped bare. “Oh.”
“Have I upset you?”
“Not at all.” I fisted my skirt and started toward the stairs. “Excuse me.”
“Wait.” He took a tight step closer, a gentle hand raised up in offering. “May I be of assistance?”
The earnest crease in his brow made me want to spit. “Do I look like I need it?”
“You do,” he said, commandingly, wholly unfazed by my turn of emotion. “There are tears in your eyes.”
He looked at me again with that incisive stare, like I was made of water he could see straight through. I opened my mouth—to say what, I wasn’t sure—when he cut me off.
“The entryway and halls are full of guests eager for gossip. As we’ve established, you’re quite…” His gaze darted down the front of my body. “… conspicuous in that gown. It would be wise to take a moment before you descend.”
His fastidious caution stunned me. There was something about him that made me want to relent. Perhaps it was that I could sense no malice in him, no lack of patience. I could feel his steadiness, a rooted, immovable quality that made me want to linger. We stood, gazes locked, at the top of the stairs.
A strong gust boomed up the wall below us. It howled around the fort’s corners and ran through our hair. I took a step back. “Thank you for the conversation,” I said, curtly. “Enjoy gaping at Seraf’s horrors, my lord.” I started down the stairs. “They’re as endless as the cheap wine.”
When I returned to the throne room it was close to bursting. It brimmed with beating music, bodies, and more of that unfamiliar salt air.
Agatha stood at my side, arm looped with mine. She took a deep breath and gave a shiver. “I suppose it’s best you can’t breathe.”
I grunted at that, unamused. The conversation from the parapet played over in my mind, and that odd plucking feeling in my chest had returned. “I need some wine.”
“It’s worse than usual.” She took a sip of her own half-empty glass and grimaced.
“Then I’ll drink it quickly.” I wound us through groups of whispering guests, toward where the drink table sat. I downed a quick glass, then tried to pull in a breath, which earned me her scowl.
“Nemea ordered the dress to be made that tight on purpose, you know.” Her mood hadn’t improved in the least.
I took another gulp. “Yes, I know.” I’d already surmised that Nemea had wanted my gown to be as heavy and pinching as a fetter. Expensive and garish, so that visitors would see his ward, would look closely, and I would be tasked with hiding my pain. He wanted me to remember that even in marriage, I would still be his to control. “I hope you find someone to dance with,” I said in a gentle voice, trying to change the subject. “I know how you love it. The music shouldn’t be ruined by my circumstances.”
“They’re hard to ignore,” she said. I watched the first of the dancers twist and spin, letting the vibrations of the drum and lute stifle that feeling in my chest. “And how was dinner with your adoring captain last night?” Agatha asked, the question dripping with sarcasm. “Was your husband-to-be what we’d expected?”
We’d expected him to be dull and harsh, but to my surprise, he’d been anything but. I’d been surprised by his wit. He’d shown manners and offered thoughtful conversation. He’d kissed me softly when he left, his fingers firm on my jaw. “It was nice. He was kind.”
The look she gave me felt like a strike to the knees. “Kind.”
My throat clamped. “I… I meant that he—I simply meant that I didn’t fear him.”
A woman beside me gasped and pointed toward the throne room’s tall oaken doors. She had not been the first to do so. Plenty of young ladies had swooned, leaning into their friends or escorts, at the sight of the Siren wing hanging above them, stark against the pale wall. The large feathers were stretched wide; bolts through the bone held it to its wooden plaque. The dim, golden candlelight didn’t pull out the riot of colors on the wing’s black plumage—the slash of iridescent blue and green near its base, the purple near its fringed edge—but I could paint it from memory. My gaze dipped to the inscription in the marble below it.
THE MONSTER IS ALWAYS SLAIN.
That motto was the black-tipped root of King Nemea’s cruelty and the reason all the other rulers of the archipelago loathed him. It was why all these people had sailed for days across treacherous seas to visit a poor, near-barren rock of an island. For decades, King Nemea had obliterated all goodwill that might have once been his with the heinous practice of hunting divine Sirens.
I moved us away from the group of young women, whose eyes had found me and drank me in with condescension. Nemea had done well at making me a spectacle. We tucked in near the dais, where King Nemea stood speaking with the queen of the united kingdoms of Della and Gos. He was tall and barrel-chested. Wild black hair streaked with gray contrasted his fairer skin. That narrow, usually dour face of his looked so strange with a smile upon it. He gestured proudly and patted his chest, and the deep red coat he wore, boasting ruby buttons down its front, looked too fine against his rough countenance.
“He’s positively glowing,” Agatha drawled, a hateful frown on her face as she stared at him.