In the Veins of the Drowning(31)
I pushed up onto an elbow and scowled. “And why can’t you send a rider?”
He kept his gaze on my wound. “Because it’s not just the severance you need while you’re there. You need a prophecy too.”
I stared at him. My mind swam with worry over his words, his commands, over everything he withheld. I was overcome with fury and fear, but still, I could not help but notice that King Theodore was appallingly, tragically handsome. Fucking nepenthe. I squeezed my eyes closed. “A prophecy.” The words slurred. “Is that your third condition?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then I don’t need to do it.”
“You do.” He rose in a huff and went to a clean washbasin beside the bed. He washed his hands, wrung out a rag, then brought it to my healed leg to clean away the thick smears of blood. “Because I am your king, and you swore fealty to me. And because the third condition, which you have already agreed to, hinges upon the prophecy.”
My hand shot out and grabbed his hard forearm. I yanked him toward me, leaning in close enough to feel his breath fanning over my cheek. “I know you did not bind yourself to me out of the goodness of your kingly heart. You did it because I have something you need. Something, I expect, that you cannot get from anyone else.” My words were sloppily strung together, but not without bite. “I will not live another life like my last, honoring the whims of a king who wishes to use me. I bent the knee to you, yes, but it will cost me nothing to denounce you and leave your kingdom with my blood still running through your veins. I will happily let our bond plague you with unending worry over my well-being until you are old and gray if you treat me like I am some palace maid to be ordered about. If you want a severance, if you want me to receive a prophecy so that I can fulfill your final condition, then I have some terms of my own you must agree to.”
Theodore did not blink as he stared at me. I wasn’t certain he breathed. His handsome face was unreadable, until his mouth parted in the barest look of offense. I wondered if anyone had ever spoken to him as I just had. I waited for him to rail at me for doing so. But his bewildered eyes merely slipped from mine and landed on my lips. One breath. Two breaths. Three. Then he jerked his arm from my hold.
“Later.” His voice was rough, clenched. “When you’re not flying from the nepenthe, we’ll…” He rolled his jaw. “… negotiate.” He strode to a built-in bureau and pulled a white nightshirt from within. He tossed it over my now clean and healed leg. Only a fine, silvery line of new skin remained.
Brooding, he went from lantern to lantern, turning them low. “A rule: If you somehow wake before I do, you are not permitted to leave this cabin without me at your side.” He strode to the door and clicked the lock over with a key. Then he tucked it deep inside his trouser pocket. My heart thundered, the fog over my mind grew denser, and I watched the shadow of his strong body curl onto the settee. “Good night, Lady Imogen.”
I fumbled the nightshirt over my dizzy head before falling back into the pillows. Sleep held me in its palm, but I could not help picturing it as the clawed, slick-skinned hand of the monster from my dream. I thought I could feel it writhe through the water below me, thought I could hear its roaring heart in my ears. Despite how I tried, my eyes wouldn’t stay open. A terrified whimper filled my head as I finally slipped into midnight darkness.
The dress draped over the foot of the bed was made of the finest cobalt silk I’d ever seen. The distinct smell of armoire clung to it, and the hard creases in the skirt told me it had been shoved into a forgotten corner for some time, but there was no mistaking how expensive it was. I ran my fingers over the whirling stitches on the bodice, when my gaze snagged on my engagement ring.
The large, rare stone glittered and shone. Perhaps it would fetch me enough money to start a new life. New clothes and a small home. The king’s discarded dresses and goodwill would very soon run out.
I tightened the dress’s laces over my stomach and tied them into a bow at the swooping neckline. It was a perfect fit, and somehow I did not question that Theodore had known it would be. “You bastard,” I mumbled, not knowing if I intended the curse for Theodore and his flawless gown or Nemea and his torturous one.
Frustrated, I shook out the wrinkled skirt and swallowed back a flood of saliva. It was sickness that had pulled me from a nightmare-suffused sleep. And from the way the light coming through the massive wall of windows had begun to melt into a luxurious evening gold, it had been a long sleep too.
The minutes passed and I only managed to nibble at a bit of apple as I paced the room. Then to the basin to heave up what little I’d eaten, and then toward the cabin door in hopes that Theodore would return and give me some relief. The golden light began to deepen, and I stood at the window watching the lambent sea ripple and slice. The spume haunted the peaks of the waves, there and gone, and there once more. I awed, and wondered if I should love it, or if I should fear it. If I should see something of myself in its changeability, in its ceaseless, churning want. In how I could never truly know what lurked in its depths.
My mind was yanked from its thoughts with my next round of dry heaves.
“Priggish ass,” I groaned, wiping my mouth. “At least you’re sick too, wherever you are.”
I trudged back toward the door and tried the handle. Locked. I pulled back the green velvet curtain that hung neatly over the door’s glass and stilled.