In the Wake of the Ruined (The Siren Mage, #2)(2)

I opened my mouth to ask, but the guard rose and started back up the stairs with my sword and crown in his fist. An incoherent protest shook up my throat. My arms wobbled as I tried to push myself up, to crawl to the next stair, but pain filled my stomach in a shocking burst. My limbs gave out. I laid my cheek once more on the warm, smooth tread, and slowly, the afternoon light dimmed to black.



I woke to the sound of footsteps. Boots, and clanging armor, and murmuring voices. My senses rushed with the cutting sunrays, with the warm air perfumed with the scent of Theodore’s flowering vines. My body ached against the stairs I lay upon, and my wrists were heavy with the manacles that the guard had locked around them.

“Lachlan,” I said on a jagged, searching sob. My head sat in a fog. My vision was bleary. “I need to see Commander Mela. Please. Not the king. I need Lach—”

Something bit into my shoulder. I squinted up at a handful of armored soldiers, swords drawn and poised on me. One of them spoke, though I was too beset to decipher which. “We’re ordered to run you through without trial if you use your power.”

My heart struck my ribs. “Who ordered tha—”

“She’s supposed to go straight to the prison tower, isn’t she?” asked another soldier, cutting me off.

“No. Please. I need… I need to tell Lachlan about his wife.”

“Commander Mela doesn’t have a wife.”

My mind, my tongue, could not find and form words quickly enough. Chain rattling, I tried to twist, to sit myself up straighter, but a guard pinned me still with a boot to my hip bone.

A piercing screech tore up my throat. Some of them jolted and swore at the sound. I couldn’t comprehend how that pressure alone was enough to ignite a blaze of agony through the whole of my body. Panic carved through me. I was weaker, tremulous, when all I’d previously known was a body that had felt sturdy and capable.

You will only find relief in your king. The words Eusia had spoken to me scraped through my head, a provocation and a warning made one. Only the king will do.

The guard yanked his boot from me, more from fear, I guessed, than remorse or pity. Perhaps he thought whatever vile thing coursed through me might seep from my skin and crawl into him. Then the group of soldiers was straightening, clearing their throats, making themselves look well disciplined and alert, as descending footsteps sounded above me.

“Found her at the base of the stairs,” one of the guards said. “Do we carry ahead as usual? Not sure if royalty is treated differently from commoners in something like this, Commander.”

I lifted my head just as Lachlan lowered himself to a knee beside me. Our gazes locked.

His mossy eyes were cold, his mouth sitting at an unfriendly slant. He looked empty, worn. “In Varya, queen, commoner, and Goddess alike,” he said, voice bereft of its usual mischief, “are all equal when it comes to the law.”

Fucking bastard. I let out an angry breath and fought to raise my manacled wrists. “Unchain me.”

Lachlan ignored my plea completely. “You look like a living corpse, Imogen.”

“Lach.” His name came out as a squeak. “What are you doing?”

“My job.” He stood and loomed. “You’ve been proscribed.”

I didn’t know that word or its implication. I shook my head, frantically scanning the half-dozen swords that were still trained on me.

Lachlan spoke to me, slow and clear. “You’ve been condemned and banned from Varya for your crimes of entrapment, treason, endangerment, and murder…”

“Who did I entrap—”

“The king.”

“That’s not—Lachlan, you were there. You know the truth.”

His lips twitched. “Help her stand,” he said to the two guards nearest me.

As they hauled me up, another cry shredded my throat. Lachlan scowled, and I searched for any sign of concern in his flattened gaze. My chest hollowed out when I didn’t find it.

“We have testimony that you ordered the murder of the captain of the Hercule, that you stowed away and endangered a Varian warship in the midst of battle.”

A plummeting sensation took me as I remembered that captain’s death. The deep gurgling wound in his gut, the putrid lures that I’d cast into his killers. Lures I hadn’t been able to control.

I leaned into the soldiers to keep myself upright. “I didn’t. I sank Serafi ships—I helped you win that battle.” I groaned through my clamped teeth. “I killed Nemea. His crown is mine.”

Lachlan’s eyes rounded at my confession, but he said not a word.

“Who proscribed me?” I finally whispered, unable to keep the tremor of hurt from my voice. “Was it Theo? Or did you and Eftan force his hand?”

His throat moved as he swallowed. The moment stretched, thin and taut as a lute string. When he finally answered me, it was with an empty voice. “The king and his council are one and the same.”

Something cracked in my chest and all I could do was hold his unfeeling gaze, hoping to dredge up some shame or remorse in him. Quickly, he flicked his eyes toward the top of the stairs, and the guards turned me roughly. I spun like a cloth doll, loose and lolling, as they hauled me up to the flower garden. Each jostle drew a whimper until finally they released me at the top of the stairs, where I fell to the soft grass in a tremoring heap.