In the Veins of the Drowning(89)

He gave a frantic nod.

A slow smile curved my lips. “How good of you.”

I turned on my heel for the doors and released the lure, listening eagerly for the echo of his desperate inhale as it bounced off the marble.

The afternoon was warm and clear. Damp, flower-scented air pushed through the cracks of the carriage door. I’d grown so used to the scent and how it mingled with the sea that I hardly noticed it anymore, but I pulled in a heavy breath now as the carriage jostled me over the blue cobblestone road that led toward Panos Port.

My mind churned like the surface of the sea, with black and lashing thoughts. They kept leading me back to Nemea, to his empty gray eyes and unyielding cruelty. To his cold, dry mountain, far, far from the sea. I’d never thought I’d return. I’d done all I could to avoid it. But of all the people in the archipelago who might know where Eusia was, it was him.

Before the carriage lurched to a stop, I slipped the ring Theodore had given me onto the chain around my neck and huffed a breath thinking about the future I could fund with my collection of engagement jewels. My hair had been washed while I’d been asleep. It smelled of sweet flowers and orange, and I plaited it down my back in a long braid. When I was done my hands had stopped shaking.

As I adjusted on the bench, something sharp poked my thigh. I searched the seat beside me, ran a hand over my dress. I froze at the square of folded paper that I felt in its pocket. A letter. Sealed in green wax, pressed with Theodore’s sigil—a hand wrapped in vines.

My shaking returned as I tore through it. I pressed the paper over my lap to keep it still enough to read.

Immy,

I begin uncertain what to write you. I am overcome by the empty space you have left behind. Please know, I had no intention of leaving you. I was ordered to do so by my council. They said I have forgotten my duty, that I have brought war upon us with my lack of control. Eftan refused to let me give you the binding gown and ring until I threatened to have him permanently removed from the palace.

All this to say, I am adrift.

I am bereft, but I think my purpose is growing clearer than it ever has been. My duty, my desire—they have become one entity. They are both unquestionably tied to you. The absence of you has shown me that, if you will let me, I will happily carve myself open again and pour you back inside me. I cannot see how yet. I don’t know the way. But if you will have me again at the end of all this—even if you won’t—I am yours.

For now, I must do terrible, punishing things to keep my people and you safe. Come back to me and absolve me of them.

Yours unendingly,

Theo

I smoothed a hand over the creased paper, my heart weighty and pained in my chest. “Gods, Theo.” He would completely forgo his duty to his kingdom if I ever returned to him. He would let me utterly ruin him. And yet, if I were honest, that was precisely what I wanted. Eyes burning, I refolded the paper and tucked it beneath my stays, above my breast.

Terrible, punishing things.

The driver pulled us to a stop beside another palace carriage, this one large and drenched in carved golden vines. I choked on a breath. My carriage door swung open, and the footman reached in a hand.

I shook my head. “Is that the king’s carriage you parked us beside?” If he saw me with his ring, in his gown, his scant resolve—and mine—would disintegrate.

“Uhh.” He walked away from me, then returned. “Aye, Your Majesty. It is.”

“What the hell is he doing at the bloody docks?”

The man pushed his lips forward, taking me in with round brown eyes. “I can’t say. Should I find out?”

“No, no, no. I’ll just walk fast. Do you see him?” The man looked left, then right. Then he shook his head. I gripped the little bundle of traveling clothes Theodore had left me and bounded out of the carriage without taking the footman’s hand. “Thank you.”

The docks were crammed and sprawling. Rows and rows of damp wooden planks and a forest of masts surrounded me on all sides. I was swallowed up by sailors and merchants hauling goods up and down gangplanks, their whistles and shouts piercing my ears. Squinting through the sunlight, I read the nameboards on the bows, and when I reached the end of the first run of decking I stopped. The water in the harbor was so blue and clear, so gentle and rolling, that I nearly forgot what swam through it.

A ship in the distance caught my eye. I raised a hand to block the glare. Those were Obelian flags flapping at the top of each of the ship’s four masts. A cluster of ice-blue runes on a sapphire background that had always reminded me of snowflakes.

That was the empress’s ship.

The wedding was currently being prepared for—the entire palace in a spin to see that everything was done and ready. I couldn’t comprehend why the empress would leave just days before her beloved daughter wed, what with her demands and detailed contracts ensuring Halla’s devoted care. All that talk of heirs and allowances and gardens to worship her monstrous saint in, and she was leaving before seeing Halla in her bridal gown.

The ship slunk past the breakwaters and realization struck me. The empress would never have left unless she’d gotten what she’d truly come here for.

Her contracts.

Her trade routes secured, treaties guaranteed. My stomach fell. Theodore must have signed them. For why else would a woman like the empress come all this way south? She could have shipped Halla off to be married on her own, like all rulers did with their children. She did not make the treacherous journey for the love of her child, even if she had sacrificed her husband to have her. Everything the empress did, every choice she made, every order and request, secured her own power.