In the Veins of the Drowning(36)

There were many misguided things I desired, and I suspected it would always be so. Just as sure as I was made of flesh and blood and bone and sea, I was also made of want. Excising it, draining it like a bad humor, would never do, but this one time, with this one man, I could stop myself from being the fool.

“I don’t want an embrace,” I whispered. When he released me, my wrist was cold.

Head high, and with Theodore trailing in my wake, I made my way across the deck. There was an emptiness, a hopelessness, that rankled, but I tried to let this truth soothe me: Nothing good had ever come from me taking what I wanted.

A full day and a half later, I clung to the rail of the ship as it glided across a crowded bay, toward Panos Port. I was ready to be off the water and touch solid land. To sleep soundly, dreamlessly, without being jostled by the sea’s merciless surface. I’d fallen into a malaise after my row with Theodore, and that Godsdamned plucking in my chest wouldn’t cease.

Agatha stood close at my side, face pinched in a troubled scowl. Theodore lingered not far behind me. I could nearly sense what direction he paced in, bow to stern, and back again.

Our blood bond still had not settled.

“I think something’s wrong,” Agatha said, leaning toward me so he wouldn’t hear. “The two of you shouldn’t be ill any longer.”

I frowned at the thought and stared into the water below. It was so clear, I could see straight to the bottom. Clusters of fish darted this way and that, looking like silvered arrowheads. Bright sprays of coral dotted the white sand of the seafloor.

“You don’t know that.” I tried to keep myself from sounding as worried as I felt. “It’s not even been three full days.”

She only offered me a sharp look, jaw tightly set. “And as I’ve said, it should only take two.”

“You performed your binding a long time ago. Maybe you’re misremembering.”

“It was two.” She was adamant. Then she paused to think. “Though our binding was different from yours. We didn’t spend time apart during those two days. We…” She looked at me sidelong, then away quickly. “Were together often.”

“Together?” I caught her meaning a beat later and grimaced. “Oh sweet Gods. Let’s assume it’s our lack of togetherness that’s the problem, then.”

“You could…” Agatha glanced at Theodore over her shoulder, then back at me. Her brows rose suggestively, disappearing into her thick curls.

“No. We couldn’t.” I scoffed. “He’s more interested in sending me off to be tortured in a severing ritual than bedding me.”

“Still—you can’t be this sick indefinitely.” She brought her voice even lower. “I don’t think he’d say no.”

“Think about what you’re suggesting!” A briny gust rolled over the water and wound through my loose hair. “And he most certainly would say no. He thinks I’m nothing but a superfluous imposition.”

Agatha shrugged. “I’d wager you’d be no imposition at all in this.”

The suggestion was laughable. Theodore and I had hardly spoken since he’d told me what my task was to be. Since he’d told me that he thought I was the descendant of a Great Goddess. That was laughable too. I knew my story. I was an orphaned child of noble birth. Nemea took me in because of my family’s money. Nothing more. But despite my lifelong surety, Theodore’s belief had left me bereft. Agitated, I brushed my thumb over the heap of scars that sat in the middle of my palm.

“Do you think he’s right?” I asked Agatha. We both leaned on the rail, and I pressed my shoulder to hers. “Do you think my power is like that of the Great Goddess Ligea’s?”

Agatha stared out over the water. At the little white stone buildings clustered tightly around the docks. More fanned out to dot the sprawling green hills of Varya. She shook her head. “She was the last Great Goddess to survive, but I never saw her. I knew all the stories of her power, though. Sailors would say the sea called to them, but it was her pull they felt on their bones. It was her call that rushed silently through their ears. And she could ruin them all without lifting a hand. They would pray to her and ask that she fill their nets. They’d ask for calm seas. And she would oblige, where she saw fit.”

My throat grew thick. “I can do none of those things.”

“Not now. Not yet… perhaps.” She looked at me with the shine of hope in her eyes. “Every God’s power is different, but it’s always the greatest among the descendants who can wield it with ease. I have to sing to lure, but you do not.” She looked to Theodore. “And the king—he doesn’t need to touch to heal flesh or to make plants flourish.”

My attention snapped toward her. “I’m sorry—what?”

“What?” Agatha reared back at my reaction.

“Every time the king has healed me, he’s touched me.”

“Oh. Well.” Agatha’s lips curled into a knowing smile. “I can’t imagine why.”

I forced my eyes shut. The wind whipped again, blowing more salt mist into my nose. It should have calmed me, but it only fanned that unsettling hum in my chest. I glared at Theodore over my shoulder. He stood about ten paces away—as far as he could without either of us growing ill—looking resplendent. His golden laurel crown sat upon his head, twining through his black locks. His brown coat was cut precisely to the lines of his broad chest, his narrow waist. The emerald cape pinned to his muscled shoulders billowed in the wind. Damn him. I had to look away.