In the Veins of the Drowning(41)

“This is what fit.” We reached the last step and turned to move deeper into the palace’s first floor. “Would a single compliment pain you that much? We are stuck together, and this fucking bond won’t settle, and I’m alone. Away from home—”

“That place was no home. Home is where you’re safe.”

“It’s also a place where you’re wanted.” I flustered, shook my head. “I am not saying… I don’t need this place to feel like home. It won’t. But sometimes you make me feel so small you could crush me under your heel. The least you could do is tell me I look nice in this Godsdamned dress.”

His brow crumpled, a look like remorse filling his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he blurted. “You are… You’re one ambush after the next and I have yet to get my bearings.”

I stared up at him. “One ambush after the next?”

There had been the barest softness to his features, to his full lips, that quickly fled. “Yes.”

I gave an angry laugh. “Gods, even your apologies are deprecating.” I stormed away from him, into the shadow of the towering staircase.

“Imogen.” The stamp of his boots echoed behind me. “You want a compliment? You’re stunning. You’re—”

“Shit.” I stopped short in the darkened alcove of the stairs. There, like a phantom in the light of the candles at her feet, stood a statue of the Great Goddess Ligea.

Panic shook through me as I stepped closer.

Her hair swept up in a permanent gust. Her stone body had been carved into a blowing bit of cloth that covered one breast and encircled her hips. Her wings were spread wide at her back. She held out an arm, palm up, her fingers commandingly crooked, like she beckoned—or cursed—her watcher.

My gaze stuck to the swooping line of her slightly rounded nose. The fullness of her mouth, the pointed dip of her chin. I studied how her eyes, small and focused, pierced the nothingness before her. Her body too—the lean, muscled build of her legs and arms, the nip of her waist between her full breasts and hips.

My very countenance, shaped in stone.

I could feel Theodore standing behind me, unmoving, breathless. I blinked back a sudden swell of hot tears.

“Fuck you.” I said it to Ligea. And to Theodore. And to Nemea too. I reached up to touch her frigid fingers as my tears won out. I’d always longed for power—for the right to a life I chose and a way to keep myself safe. But this… I could hardly breathe from the sudden weight of it.

Theodore let out a slow breath behind me. I swiped quickly at my wet cheeks, not wanting him to see me, but I was beyond restraint. Something inside me had ripped clean open, and everything I’d thought to be true—who I was, where I’d come from, the fragile, stupid hope of a life of my own—was melting into something I could no longer hold.

When Theodore’s hand met my back, when his warmth wove around me, and the bond in my stomach flared, my tears only redoubled.

“Don’t cry.” The words were a soft plea. His arm encircled my shoulders, and he pulled me against him. “Not now.”

“I…” I sniffled. “She… looks like me.”

“I know.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. With a finger under my chin, he lifted my face and wiped my cheeks dry. “Breathe.” His voice was so maddeningly soothing, so incomprehensibly even, I wanted to scream. “Later, you can wail and break my things if it’ll make you feel better. But don’t go into the meeting like this.”

I kept my eyes closed, pulling air deep into my chest. “I need to get to the Mage Seer.” If I was the descendant of a Great Goddess, if her power ran through my veins and there was a mantle to be taken up, then I needed answers. I needed a prophecy.

Theodore kept dabbing at my still-falling tears. “One thing at a time, all right?”

Boots clicked to the side of us. Lachlan cleared his throat. “What’d you do to her?”

“She saw the statue,” Theodore answered, eyes still intent on me.

Lachlan wore a neat black coat with medals pinned at his chest. He looked up at the Great Goddess Ligea, then back at me. “Oh shit.” He came to my side and with a hand on my shoulder led me away from Theodore. “While I can imagine your shock, I’ll advise you to not stand so close to the king when you’re out in the open.” He shot Theodore a scorching look, but Theodore only stared at me.

Some strange emotion had permeated him. He looked empty and terrified and furious all at once, and though I knew I should, I couldn’t for the life of me look away from him.

“Theo.” Lachlan’s voice was a jagged warning. He took my arm in his. Absently, he patted my hand and tried for levity, but his tone, the look he bounced between the two of us, was grave. “Look alive, Godlings. I hear the empress has fangs.”

The Garden Room was not as quaint as it had been made to sound.

It was a massive, two-story ballroom, with an entire wall of glass that overlooked a perfectly manicured cutting garden. The other three walls were painted, floor to ceiling, in panels that mirrored the riotous hues of the flowers. Four massive crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, dimly lit, and as sparkling as the sea beyond the cliff’s edge. A long table ran down its middle like a backbone, grounding the otherwise empty room. It was piled with fruit—far too much for us to eat—and enough decanters of amethyst-colored wine to slosh a small retinue of the king’s men.