In the Veins of the Drowning(87)

My body jostled, cradled within those strong arms. I coughed and felt the liquid spray and fall over my cheeks. As my vision left me and my lungs scorched with the anguish of drowning, I felt the sun.

Theodore.

His power.

Hot and unwavering, it poured through me like molten gold. It tried desperately, determinedly to beat back the darkness.

But the darkness won.

There was nothing in the darkest, deepest part of the sea but pressure. The kind that morphs a living thing into a grotesque, slanted version of itself.

And that was where my body lay. Under all that water. Moldering. Changing.

An unbankable heat hollowed out my stomach. It was not a heat like Theodore’s, gentle and warm as daylight. It was hellfire. It boiled my blood, scalded my veins. My sight was gone, my hearing muffled, and I was being emptied. Theodore was leaving me, one drop of glistening Gods’ blood at a time.

I’d never known the sea without his power stitched through me. I’d never known the sea with only my bond to Eusia lingering in my gut.

Theodore’s absence would bring me more than heartache. For awful things filled empty spaces. And it was in the darkest, deepest part of the sea that monsters were made.

I sucked in a breath like I’d broken the surface of the water. My body was overwarm, covered in a clammy coating of sweat. I stared up at a ceiling I didn’t recognize. It was unadorned—no gilded trimming or painted vines. It didn’t smell of vetiver soap and summer, like Theodore’s room did, but of dull mint and lavender flower and the sharp note of nepenthe.

For a moment, I wondered if I was still in the palace at all, and it felt like my chest collapsed in on itself. The narrow bed creaked as I sat up and let my legs fall over the edge. My entire body was sore as a swollen, beating bruise. The thin gray sleeping gown I wore was rough against my tender skin.

I scanned the little room, my mind stuck in a thick fog. There was a glass of water and small bottles of medicine on the shelf beside the bed. A washbasin sat below the window where glittering beams of afternoon sunlight sliced through the glass and pooled on the floor.

My eyes stung. The damned shafts of light reminded me of Theodore. I was empty, scraped clean of the warm spot where our bond had resided, but he still lingered. He was everywhere. On my skin, in my body. I could still hear the echo of his voice in my ear.

It was bitter determination that forced me to stand. That forced me to bite back my tears and set my mind to my task. I could not sit alone in a nightdress, weeping at sunlight, or I would fall apart entirely. I had to get to Seraf. Nemea held the answers I searched for.

I made for the washbasin and paused at a new weight that hung around my neck. I reached up and tugged a long gold chain from where it rested beneath my clothes. It was finely made, with a little diamond set into the clasp, and at its end hung my engagement ring. The stormy gray spinel. My teeth clamped. I let it fall against my sternum, then set to scrubbing my skin with the frigid water.

There were folded clothes on a bench at the foot of the bed. My gaze stuck to the dark trousers and tunic. They were folded into neat, small rectangles and wrapped tightly in twine, just the way Theodore had folded our clothes while we’d traveled through the wildlands. A pair of lovely black boots sat beside them. When I noted the second pile of clothes, I stilled.

It was a gown. Black as night, but the rich fabric held the faintest sheen of iridescence. Like Siren wings. I let my fingers play over the deep V of the neckline. Tidy little stitches of midnight thread depicted a scrolling vine. It curled up to the shoulders, the splay of leaves and star-shaped blooms beautifully rendered. My fingers froze. Tucked into the vines, so the eye could not tell where one ended and the next began, were feathers.

I pulled a breath through my tight throat. He’d had a binding gown made for me. Black to resemble the endless blood bond, when the boundaries of two faded to nothing and they became one. I tried to douse the flare of hope that lit in me. I picked up the gown to shake out the skirt, and something small fell from its folds. It landed on the wood floor with a ping. My joints rioted as I bent to retrieve it.

Another ring. Clawed into the gold filigree setting was a large, honey-colored jewel. The very color of my eyes. I forced them shut. “Gods damn you, Theo.”

The door swung open on silent hinges and a young, bright-eyed woman with smooth, brown skin strode in. “Oh! You’re up.” She gave me a small smile, but her gaze skipped over every part of me, taking dutiful account. She wore her black hair pulled tightly back and under a gauzy white cap. Her dress was a deep, Varian green, its lines simple beneath her stark white apron. “Are you feeling well? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Theodore’s ring pressed into my palm as I curled my fingers around it. “No ghosts,” I breathed. But I did feel as if I were being haunted.

“Well, thank Panos for that.” She closed the door behind her. “Let’s get you dressed, Your Majesty.”

My gaze shot to hers. “Excuse me?”

The woman’s eyes went wide. She dipped into a fast curtsy. “Forgive me. I’d been instructed by the king to address you as Your Majesty.”

“By the king. But why?” My heart pounded heavily in my ears. I lost hold of reason and wondered for a breath if Theodore had found some way around Halla and her mother.

She gave her head a panicked shake. “I assumed because you are a queen, Your Majesty. Ligea’s heiress, I was told.”