In the Veins of the Drowning(58)
Our breaths slowed and knit together between us, and then with a final, remorseful exhale, Theodore released me. He took a deliberate step back. Color had bloomed on his cheekbones; his mouth was soft and parted. He adjusted his shirt and gestured to the little bedstead in the corner. “You need to get some sleep, Imogen.”
I looked to the bed, then back at Theodore. It was comfort I wanted. Oblivion, distraction. I wanted to lose myself in him, wanted to let him burn away the scourge of despair that grew within me. The feel of his body still lingered over my own. I opened my mouth, the request just forming on my tongue: Come with me. I am weary and empty, and you can make it right.
But I stopped myself.
He stared at me with unreadable intensity, and the thought of him seeing me as some desire-riddled creature, unable to control myself after a night as awful as this one. You are peerless, he’d said. I couldn’t stomach him thinking less of me again.
My gaze dropped to the ground between us. “Good night.”
There was a tense, drawn-out silence. He gave a curt nod, took a cushion from the bedstead, and settled himself before the little hearth, curled up on his side. “Night.”
A pit tore through my stomach as I crawled into the pillows and blankets. It gnawed and grew, and I wished I had a vial of nepenthe. I wished I’d dragged Theodore into the bed with me by his collar. I stared up at the ceiling, listening to his breathing.
It was a long while before either of us fell asleep.
With our horses at a gallop, we devoured the rest of the journey in two full days.
Night had fallen hours before we finally reached the northern shore of Varya and the cluster of little rocky islands on its coastline. A stormy gust clawed through my hair. Cold drops of rain began to prick at my cheeks. Even knowing the pain that awaited me, I was eased to have finally arrived.
Aching, I dismounted and made my way over the black sand beach, toward the glowing, foamy shoreline. A narrow strip of water separated the little islands—the Sacred Holms—from the rest of Varya. On the largest and closest holm, dark against the storm clouds, stood a tiny shack.
“How do we cross?” I asked Theodore, who rummaged through saddlebags at the tree line behind me.
“She pulls back the water.” He sounded oddly hollow.
“How long will that take her?” Now that I stood within sight of the hut, the anticipation was too much. “How will she know we’re here in the dark?”
“We’re not going in until sunrise.”
“Why not?”
“Because I refuse.” His words cut like a whistling axe. He’d gone still beside the tree that the horses were tied to, and though the details of his face were lost to the night, I could imagine his glower. Could picture the unease tugging on his every muscle through the cool air and rain.
“You refuse.” I crossed over the black sand, wanting to look into his eyes. “You raced me here for two full days, only to have me sit on this beach, and wait for the sun to rise?”
“The Mage Seer is dangerous. We’ll wait for the added safety of the sun.”
It was a kingly command, but I knew him well enough now to note the fear in his voice, to see that the rigidity of his body did not come from a full day in the saddle but from something worse.
“What can she do to me by night that she can’t do to me by day?” I closed the rest of the space between us. “I suffer either way. It’s you who doesn’t want to enter her hut now. Tell me why.”
The only sounds were the tapping rain, the crashing waves. They drowned out his heavy breaths. Drops fell into my eyes, trickled down my neck.
“I need to get us out of the rain,” he finally said.
“You’re changing the subject.” I crossed my arms. “First, tell me what’s wrong. You won’t set foot on the sand. Why?”
He thinned his gaze. “Let me build us a shelter. Then we’ll talk.”
“Fine.”
He moved with efficiency, pulling food and a bottle of wine from a saddlebag, kicking away twigs and fallen branches from the sandy soil. Disquiet pulled his shoulders toward his ears. It clamped his jaw.
Movement at my side made me jump back. A single blooming vine had unwound itself from the trunk of the tree and hovered in the air. New vine shoots grew out of it, like little wriggling worms. They thickened and wove into one another until a small domed shelter took shape. The leaves broadened, each growing larger than my spread hand. White flowers yawned into existence, emitting their own faint light in the stormy darkness.
“Charming.” I bent low to crawl into the little nest just as a bolt of lightning cleaved the sky. Theodore followed when the thunder cracked around us, so loud that my hands flew up to cover my ears.
Warmth rolled off him, filling the little shelter with the scent of rain and green earth and sweat and dust. The space was small, and Theodore was… not. His shoulder pressed hard against mine, and through the thin, wet layers of our shirts, his skin burned like a brand.
I pressed my eyes shut for a few breaths.
Soon I would feel the absence of him, and the thought sent sorrow cutting through me. I dug my teeth into my bottom lip and tried to focus on reason.
The low echo of a cork leaving its bottle grabbed me from my thoughts. Theodore brought the wine to his lips and tilted his head back, and back. So far that the bottle knocked into the vine roof above us. He took long pulls, like he’d come upon a spring after days in a desert.