In the Veins of the Drowning(9)
I released him. My chest heaved with panicked breaths.
He sat back on his heels, rounded eyes darting over the whole of me. My naked body, the black wings beneath me, the dark talons at the tips of my fingers. “Fucking Gods.”
Like a scolded pup, I rolled away from him and crawled toward the hearth. I covered my breasts in shame as he collected his clothes and pulled them on. His movements were quick, controlled. The flex of his muscled body filled me with petrified awareness. Those were muscles born of hunting Sirens, of heaving flailing, fearful bodies as they fought their executions. Evander stopped at the door, fury and disappointment rumpling his face. His lips parted as if he might speak, but he only etched one last withering glare over me before he left.
And with that, the steady, bright light that had grown within me snuffed out.
I sat awake, eyes on the bolted door, a jewel-encrusted dagger gripped in my fist.
The firelight set its rubies glinting and lit the short, dull blade gold. As the sun finally crept through my window, I twisted it in my fingers, feeling suddenly foolish. King Nemea had gifted it to me on my seventeenth birthday. With its profuse jewels and blunted blade, it was more ornamental than deadly—like me, I thought.
Even so, clinging to it through the night had given me a sense of safety.
From the moment Evander had slammed my door, I’d wept. I’d prayed to the Great Gods and Goddesses as if they could hear me, mindlessly asking them for some fleeting peace that never came. I’d waited for the clomp of Evander’s boots on the stairs, for him to crash through my bolt and drag me to the courtyard for execution. It had been years since a public execution of a Siren—Nemea’s men killed them too quickly to bother hauling them up the mountain for a show.
But I was already here.
I’d be made into a spectacle: the king’s ward having her wings gouged from her back. Her throat cut deep, a pulsing curtain of red. When they were done, my body would be displayed on a stake to rot for days after. Perhaps my wings would hang on Nemea’s wall too, this trophy a perfect set.
A quick knock sounded at the door. I tightened my hold on my dagger. “Yes?”
“Open up, Im.” The heavy oak muffled Agatha’s voice.
“Shit.” With Agatha, I might as well be made of glass. She’d know something awful had happened the moment she laid eyes on me. “Just a minute.”
She gave another impatient rap.
“I’m coming.” Everything ached as I moved toward the door. The raw skin on my back pulled as I reached for the bolt. At the sight of my outstretched hand, I paused. Dark brown crescents of dried blood sat beneath each nail.
Evander’s blood.
Images of last night sliced through my mind. The feel of him, the salt on his flesh, the monstrous power I’d felt at the sight of those glimmering drops of red. I couldn’t parse which was worse—that I’d nearly killed him or that I’d let him live.
I’d always known what I was. When I was growing up, there had been a beckoning whisper in my mind and a pull on my body to descend and meet the sea. I’d never heeded it, fearing it would make a monster of me. For the legends of Sirens and blood were true. We were created to yearn for it. To call it—hot and rushing beneath a sailor’s skin—to us. To pull them fully beneath the spume.
Forcing a fist, I finally slid the bolt and opened the door. My voice scraped. “Morning.”
Agatha rushed straight for my dressing room, not sparing me a glance. I locked the door behind her. “The ritual starts soon,” she said. “Let’s get you dressed.”
I’d been so consumed with worry over Evander that I’d forgotten all about King Nemea’s blasphemous ritual. For nearly three decades now, he had refused to worship the Great Goddess Ligea—the queen of Sirens. He claimed Sirens were vicious and pitiless as the sea, that they took joy in destruction, and over time he’d stopped honoring the Great Gods altogether. He made blood offerings to his water deity, Eusia, instead.
I wasn’t even convinced Eusia was real, as the histories I’d read were bereft of her name. Yet Nemea was devout, gathering his court for an offering before making weighty decisions, before fishing seasons, before name days. And before weddings too, so the betrothed could ask for her blessings. I’d been forced to give my blood since I was small. Denying Nemea and his deity an offering meant death.
“The tailor brought the wedding gown,” I called to Agatha. “Nemea asked that I wear it for the ritual.”
My body dragged as I forced my way to the basin to scrub my fingertips. The brush’s stiff bristles were sharp against my nail beds, and a shiver fell down my sore backbone.
“Imogen, I thought we might talk,” Agatha called from the dressing room. “Last night, I was able to speak with King Theodore—” She came in, brow buckled with thought, a clean chemise and the wedding gown of black lace carefully slung across her arms. She froze when she finally looked at me. Those big eyes of hers flared with worry, with the fierce, sisterly look she always armored herself with when I was hurt. “Tell me what’s happened.”
Suddenly, I was a girl again. Thirteen, slipping into a salt bath that a new maid had drawn me, forgetting that she should have forgone the salt. A sharp pulsing had filled my chest at the feel of it. My body had begun to ache. Agatha had pulled me out the moment I’d called for her. She’d had that same look in her eye then as she did now. She’d wrapped me in a towel, hurriedly drying the brine from my skin. “I’m like you, Immy,” she’d whispered. “A Siren away from the sea. Salt water only makes the longing worse. Keep away from it.”