In the Wake of the Ruined (The Siren Mage, #2)(36)

“To stop?”

All but a few of her black-tipped talons were intact, and she began slicing them through the rope’s coarse strands. “You must complete the steps quickly. Before the blood mixture thickens. Begin.”

I didn’t tarry. As the nekgya sawed through the rope, I took a drop of Halla’s blood and let it fall, metallic and salty, onto my tongue.

I let it sit there as I dipped my finger once more into the cup and traced an N over the wooden bench before me. I homed in on my intention. I saw Agatha’s face in my mind, and I thought of the empress. I pictured her ship, midnight-blue flags snapping at the top of the masts. The nekgya kept sawing at the fraying rope, and I continued to write until the last letter was clear.

Then I spoke the name. “Nivala.”

Just as the nekgya finished cutting through the rope, I spoke the words of the spell.

The boat gave a sudden lurch and slowed. I stood, legs wide and stomach aching, as the distance between the ship and the launch grew. I sent a current to keep the little boat close.

Before the nekgya jumped back into the sea, she perched on the launch’s bow, scaled legs hanging, ruby-webbed toes grazing the choppy waves. I took in her shimmering scales and flashing eyes, with a discomforting sort of awe.

She tilted her head, unblinking gaze locked with mine. “I will see you soon, dearest.” Then she slipped into the sea and was gone.

I waited for the spell with my hands in tight fists, but all I could feel was a slight thinning of the air, a crackling against my skin. My breaths began to speed, loud in my ears. I glanced up toward the ship where the windows were open, and the council’s faces, Halla’s now included, watched me with such engrossed attention that I had to look away.

I wondered what step I’d performed incorrectly when the launch’s bow began to list to the starboard side. I tried to right it with a current, but to no avail. I nearly tried again when I realized—the boat was turning. Its first revolution was sluggish, the second more sure, and on its third turn a deep, familiar pain began to spread slowly through me.

The spell seeking its due.

I fell to the bench, then slipped to the hull, the motion only igniting the ache of my wound, as the boat’s revolutions began to come faster.

The sky and clouds became a blue-gray swirl. My body arched. My eyes began to sear with oil-hot pain, and as I squeezed them shut, I thought of Theodore. I tried to push him from my mind, but I could picture him as if he stood before me. I could almost feel his firm flesh and a sticky wet heat between my fingers as I tore through it.

That same bone-deep hunger I’d felt after performing my first spell ripped through me. That wonderful, terrible want. Sweet longing and pain. My scalp burned like it had been set aflame, my whole body stung like it was being lashed with blades, and still I could not ignore how inexplicably intoxicating it felt.

I wanted more and more and more.

I opened my eyes to the sky, but there was only a sickening blur above me. Despite my clamped jaw, a shattering scream filled my chest. Then, as if a hand reached down from above and grabbed the whirling vessel, the boat stopped. My head rammed into the bench’s support. Agonized, I clambered onto my knees, searching for the compass.

The Eleuthios had drifted ahead, its bow pointing toward the north, toward Obelia. It bobbed atop the waves, as all sea vessels did, but my boat was so still that had I not known better, I would have sworn it had snagged itself on a sandbar.

My gaze locked on the compass’s needle. I knew the contours and lines of Leucosia’s maps. I’d studied the shading and angles of the waters and mountains and rivers. I’d traced them with my quill for lessons, and again with longing strokes of my finger while I’d huddled in the corner of Nemea’s dark study, whereby the glow of a single candle, I’d imagined the wonders of each of Leucosia’s islands.

The compass told me what I already knew. The bow of my boat pointed west.

Toward Anthemoessa.

Toward the empress and Agatha and Eusia.

I squinted toward the ship’s windows, where Markis and Eftan now took turns staring at me down the length of a telescope.

The dregs of the spell swelled through my chest, through the water around the boat, and then in an instant its pressure released. The boat rolled over the sea’s peaks and troughs again; the point of the bow no longer stuck in one direction.

Even as my scalp nettled and my body thumped from exhaustion, I sent a current that sped the boat back to the Eleuthios. I had been squeezed dry and filled up at once; I had never known pain so terrible and satisfying, but none of it mattered.

That spell should be enough to give Theodore’s council the proof they needed to respect his sovereignty. It should be enough to prove that the empress was not to be trusted, and by proxy, neither was her daughter. It should be enough to rally the support of the Eleuthios’s might and help me save the person who meant the most to me in the world.

Finally, my boat was near enough to the rope ladder for me to reach, but I hardly had the strength to hold on, let alone climb it as it swayed. I pressed my forehead into the rung, gathering my strength before I fought my way up. The effects of spell work were like nothing I’d ever known. It was a drink as it took you from elation to illness. It was a rich feast dragging you from satisfaction to engorgement. It was a lover, attentive to the point of inducing pain.

I fought my way over the ship’s rail, cold sweat beading over my face, and planted my feet on the deck. Theodore still stood at the bow with his retinue and Lachlan, as I’d requested. The wild impulse to rush toward him—to bury my face against his neck, to pinch his skin between my teeth—overwhelmed me.