In the Veins of the Drowning(99)

Silver light glinted off the blade in his hand as he reared back. I waited for him to freeze under my control, waited for the dagger to clatter to the deck… but my lure never sank in.

He lunged, eyes locked with mine. I sucked in a ripping breath as the dagger tip cut into me. Fire blistered through my middle, through muscles and organs. Right through the spot where my bond with Eusia sat.

A cry bubbled up in my throat.

Nemea froze. His eyes blew wide. The rain rolled down his stunned face like tears. “No,” he whispered, releasing the hilt of the blade like it scorched him. He shook his head, mouth gaping. “You tried… didn’t you? You tried your lure?”

I gave a weak nod. My hands went to my stomach, to either side of the half-pressed-in dagger. “It didn’t take.”

He nearly lost his balance as a wave crashed over the deck. It washed me off my feet. Threw me on my side. My gut exploded in agony as the dagger shifted and drove deeper into me. No scream came forth, no rush of pained breath. My body locked up instead, stiff from the consuming press of metal into my soft flesh.

Nemea’s fingers dug into my arm. He hauled me up with such force that my shoulder popped loudly from its socket. I screamed then. I flailed, dragged my talons over his cheek and summoned forth dark blood.

He hissed, but his fingers dug deeper into my arm. “Stop.” He hauled me to the stairs that led to the quarterdeck and forced me down. My spine struck the risers. I only saw his shaded outline, a flash of teeth as he yelled, “She’s still alive. If your lure didn’t work, that means Ligea’s still alive. Our bond remains.”

He was frantic. The stormy twilight lit his horrified face. “The spell.” He set his hand on the hilt of the dagger in my middle like he meant to remove it.

I whimpered and spoke through gritted teeth. “Do not touch me.”

“The spell will keep you alive.”

“So I can keep feeding Eusia for you?”

He shook his head, face crumpling as the pelting rain beaded down it. “Ligea. She was gone. I swear, I thought—as long as she lives, I swore I’d keep you safe.”

It was incomprehensible, how the blood bond he shared with my mother had formed this twisted moral compass of his. He was despicable, deceitful, but I’d never seen him like this. Heartsore and broken. Willing to offer me life when I’d spent so long certain that he wanted me dead—after he himself had struck the killing blow.

Regardless of how I could not understand him, I was clear in one thing: I wanted to live.

Lightning ripped through the sky, illuminating Nemea’s intent. He didn’t wait for my consent. His shaking hand gripped the dagger, and he ripped it straight out of my gut.

A cry gouged my throat.

Lowered on one knee, Nemea kept himself steady as the ship rocked. As water washed back and forth across the deck. He dragged the dagger over his fingertip, then scooped up some seawater as it rushed by. He let the bloody mixture trickle over the gash in my stomach. The salt burned my open flesh. “Will I be sick?” I asked, through a cracking voice.

“I don’t know.” He’d gone pale, tense.

My gushing blood looked black in the quickly fading light. I was growing cold. My body began to shake.

“Keep still.” He pressed his hand against the weeping gash. I squirmed from the feel of his fingers on my skin, all cold and gentle and wet. He closed his eyes and an unnatural calm came over him. He was a foil to the chaos of the rocking ship, the slashing rain, the gusting wind.

He spoke with reverence, with purpose. “In the wake of the ruined, when the spirit rends, mend and loop and seal. In the veins of the drowning, when blood fills the throat, clear and wash and heal.”

I felt nothing. Warmth still gushed from beneath his fingers. Then, at the very moment that Nemea sucked in a scraping breath and pulled his hand from me, my body arched with an awful, stabbing pain. It was like the dagger had been driven in once more. I looked down. The flow of blood slowed to a dribble, but it did not stop. The skin did not close. The wound was the width of my palm, a red-stained maw.

Nemea fell to the deck, wailing, as the spell sought recompense. His fingers flew to his eyes like they seared. Water crashed over him, sending his large body sliding until it hit the base of the mast. Water gurgled in his throat, and I couldn’t tell if it was the seawater or the spell that choked him.

I didn’t move from where I sat. Instead, I watched him flail and slide as the wind and water saw fit. With another sway of the ship, he managed to wrap his arms around the mast and curl himself around it. I waited for his watery breaths to even the way Halla’s had after she’d performed her spell. I waited for him to stop scratching at his eyes, but he writhed instead, fighting to stay put as the storm tried to dislodge him.

My gaze slipped back down to the dribbling wound in my stomach, and a flood of sickness filled me. I had been so close to suffering a death like Eusia’s. And then something struck me—Theodore’s account of her execution.

She was gutted and thrown off the coast of Anthemoessa.

The Sirens’ island. The seat of Ligea’s queendom. Where she and her sister had been created.

Home.

“It’s Anthemoessa, isn’t it?” Nemea’s breaths were coming easier now. “Answer me,” I yelled. “How did you get there? The waters are supposed to be impassable.”