In the Veins of the Drowning(37)

A wispy fog had rolled over Varya’s port city of Voros, veiling the newly risen sun. A portion of the city was walled, with little stone lookouts sitting upon its corners. Flowering vines covered the wall like a verdant cage. My gaze followed it all the way out to the peninsula that Genevreer Palace sat upon. It was brilliant despite the fog, with its creamy white stones and tiled roof the color of ash. Even from the ship, I could see how Varya’s famed flowering vines crept up its walls like dark veins webbing a fair body.

The city bustled and the land bloomed, all of it rich because of Theodore’s power. I’d never felt so small. “Agatha, I can’t do this. I can’t control my power in the least. I have nothing to my name, no way to protect myself. I’ll be alone—”

She curled her hand around mine. “I told you I’d be with you. I promised you.” She squeezed my hand tighter. “You won’t be alone.”

We stood like that, hand in hand, as the ship kept its course for the docks. I watched the turquoise water ripple and froth, when suddenly, some energy rocked through my body. What had been a hum in my chest became wild tugs and jabs. They crescendoed and I set a worried hand to my stomach. It was as if that string inside me had become many and they were being plucked by a hand coming from somewhere far below.

I looked past the gentle waves to the seafloor. It had changed. It was no longer pristine white sand, strewn with colorful coral. Now it looked to be covered in dark, twisting rocks. I leaned farther over the rail, squinting, when I realized—they were bodies.

Many, many bodies. Their unmoving limbs were knotted and overlaid like the strands of a weaving. I gasped as a spindly arm appeared just beneath the ship’s hull. A ghostly white shoulder, shadowed with decay, came into view next.

Then the whole corpse. A woman. Dark hair fluttered around her head like black fire. She was dead, I was certain of it, hanging lifeless not ten feet below the surface.

Then she moved.

She swam with the grace of a living thing. Like she was used to the water, meant to be in it. She strained toward the rolling surface, right below me, and her black eyes locked with mine.

Her face was blank, the edge of her jaw studded with a pattern of barnacles as intricate as white lace. She was dead. It was the sea that seemed to hold her together. She floated on her back over the waves. Leathery kelp had knit itself through the rotting edges of the holes in her torso. A stringy tentacle grew from her chest, right above her heart, and it curled down her shoulder to hold her arm in place at the joint. Bits of flesh were missing from her face, from her limbs—but her dark eyes saw me.

Rotting lips mouthed a single, silent word.

Home.

I screamed when two strong hands clamped onto me and jerked me back and off the ship’s rail. I’d nearly climbed over. Theodore set my feet on the deck and held me so tightly around the waist I could hardly pull in a breath. His gaze locked with mine, all fiery and full of terror. “Bloody Gods—Agatha was yelling at you. Didn’t you hear her?”

Agatha was pale beside me, a hand clutching her throat.

I shook my head. “No. There was a…” The jabs in my chest had returned to their quiet, even hum. I felt so cold, so strained with fear, that I threw my arms around Theodore’s neck and held tight. I hated myself for seeking comfort in him, but he was so steady, so warm. The moment seemed to draw out, long as a string of honey, before he curled his arms around me in return. With a quiet exhale, he let his body soften against mine. It felt like a candle flared inside me—the bond—glowing bright. I raised my lips toward his ear. “I saw a woman. In the water.”

“A nekgya.” He pulled back to look in my eyes. “They hunt the waters closest to the islands.”

Despite his proximity, a chill slipped through me. “What do they hunt?”

Those eyes. A mix of pity and wariness filled them before he drew me back into his embrace. He spoke softly, his voice heavy with contrition. “Sirens.”

The carriage clacked over the blue cobblestoned streets, winding us through dense trees, their leaves a lush spring green. The boughs held large red blooms with centers like orbs of gold. I could hardly recall disembarking from the ship or walking over the docks to the shining carriage that had awaited us, but I remembered Theodore. He’d led me the entire way with a hand at my back, close and attentive. I sat beside him now, and across from us, in awkward silence, sat Lachlan and Agatha.

“They hunt Sirens,” I said in a shocked voice, staring out the window. “Agatha, did you know? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Her gaze rounded, but Lachlan spoke before she could. “You’re aware that Agatha lived away from the sea for nearly twenty years too, right? You’re not the only one who’s been locked away from the rest of the world.”

Agatha went rigid. “I do not need you to speak for me, Commander Mela.”

Lachlan rubbed his jaw. “Don’t call me that, please.”

“It’s your title.”

“It’s impersonal.”

“Precisely.” Agatha’s gaze shot to me. “And you—I tried to teach you everything I knew. Have you forgotten how you shut me down every time I tried to tell you anything at all about our kind?”

I blanched. It had been difficult to learn the details of a life that I’d never thought I’d experience. Every bit she’d shared with me had felt like something to mourn, one small death after another. Ignorance had hurt less.