In the Veins of the Drowning(97)
A gust cut across the deck and my balance swayed as the ship pitched over a set of high waves. The temperature was dropping as the sun fell behind a wall of dark, bulbous clouds. In the distance, a deep boom rolled over the water.
I searched the sea. The boom had been thunder—the cannon fire had ceased. The two Serafi ships that remained had retreated. Half of the Varian fleet had returned to port, and we had drifted far away.
“Looks like you lost,” I said.
“I had no intention of winning this battle, Imogen.” His eyes were depthless. Glittering with a terrifying sort of hunger. “Like I said, I came for you.” He slipped a hand through the ropes around him and tugged. They fell as readily as dead leaves. My arms shook with the weight of the sword, but I held it firmly between us and stepped backward across the deck. Nemea hardly noticed. He rose, unfurling his long limbs slowly, and then he adjusted his ill-fitting armor, the gesture easy and unafraid. He looked out toward the storm clouds at the horizon and asked, “What will you do?” He mocked me with the question. “I think only Ligea could have manned a crewless ship through a night storm. And you are so like her, yes… but you are also so much less.”
The air knocked from my chest. I watched him, quietly, waiting for him to take the dagger from his hip. He never did. He lowered himself onto a nearby crate instead.
“Did you love her?” The question slipped from me before I could stop it.
He huffed, rolling his shoulders before he answered. “I liked possessing her. That damn bond we shared was tricky, though. I wanted to hate her. I reminded myself that she was the root of my suffering, of my kingdom’s struggles, but the thoughts wouldn’t stick. That bond convinced me I loved her.”
I winced like his words had hit a bruise. “That’s not what the bond does.”
He froze. He’d been at ease, but now his body began to lock up with awareness. With a tilt of his head, he said, “You speak as if you know.”
“The bond compels you to protect.”
Disbelief, and the barest thread of amusement, curled his lips. “Dear Gods. That’s how you got that boy-king to help you, isn’t it? You stole him.” He scoffed. “Just like your mother.”
“I didn’t steal him. He agreed.”
“Oh, what benevolence! What sacrifice! And has he proclaimed his love? Has he sworn himself to you always?” He hit his knee with a fist. “He’ll be even more insufferable now, Panos’s grandson bound to Ligea’s daughter. As if the bastard wasn’t powerful enough already, he went and gathered up some more.”
The insinuation rocked something in me that had once felt unshakable. Theodore had first bound himself to me because of my power, because of who he’d thought I was. I suddenly couldn’t bat the thought away: Had Gods’ blood not flowed through my veins, would Theodore have left me in Nemea’s fort to wither and die?
Nemea stood quickly, his body coursing with familiar anger, and plucked the dagger from his belt. He rolled it in his fist and paced. “That bond…” He looked haunted and then locked our gazes. “Your mother learned of what I’d done. Of how I’d helped move Eusia. I was sailing back to Seraf through a narrow sea stack and there sat Ligea.” He pointed with his dagger, like he could see her before him. “Ligea, winged and speckled in salt water upon the rocks, looking like a glorious, brutal bird of prey. She dropped onto my deck and froze the entire crew without making a sound. I’d never seen anything like it. Power seeped from her, but she stared at me like I was a threat. She’d come to me like I was the one who possessed a vicious lure. She said, ‘I know you wish to harm me and my people. I shall see to it that you can’t.’ She sliced me open and bound us.”
My arms had begun to shake. The wind cut, covering my eyes in mist and stray hairs. I could sense our time running down and I still didn’t know where Eusia was. “How did you kill Ligea?
“I didn’t.”
“Don’t lie to me. Her wing hangs in your throne room, Nemea. How did the blood bond permit you to cut it from her?”
He took a menacing step toward me. “I never hurt her. I never wanted to. I lived with regret over my service to Eusia for years because of my feelings for Ligea and did all I could to keep her safe. I kept her from the sea so Eusia couldn’t sense her. When she… when we… Ligea was determined to give birth to you in the sea. Despite how I begged her, how I demanded she stay on land.” The color drained from his face. “She slipped out in the night. We were on Seraf, at the old keep on the western shore. The mountain fort wasn’t finished yet. I realized too late she was missing from our bed. I should have tied her to the post like I’d threatened to, but I couldn’t bring myself to scratch her wrists with the Godsdamned ropes.” He scrubbed violently at his eyes. “When I got to the beach, the sun was just rising. The spume was still colored with her blood. You were screaming, lying up on the dry sand—like she’d tossed you to safety. And her wing floated on the breaking waves. Bits of her flesh still hung from its root. Eusia took her, but she didn’t kill her.”
“How do you know that?” I whispered.
“Our bond didn’t break when she left me. I still felt it. For years and years.” He looked up at me and I could just make out the sneer and dark amusement on his face in the fading light. His laugh came angry and low. “This might be the first time you’ve ever looked at me like I have a heart.” He shook his head. “Don’t be fooled.”