“We need to go now,” said the guard, impatiently. “Lure the nearest men. Then I’ll retrieve the rest of the party.”
He made it sound so simple, but it felt suddenly impossible. I had no sense of my power. It was a lump of clay, and I was an untried artist. Whatever form it had taken tonight had not been because of my skill and understanding of it. I looked down at the vase of seawater. What if it wasn’t enough? What if I, in my shivering, fear-locked state, could not keep any of us from a brutal, bloody end, all because I was too craven to face a death that I’d earned?
“Imogen.” My given name on Theodore’s lips quieted my thoughts. The distant firelight flickered over his stricken features. “I’ll be right behind you.”
I could only nod. Slowly, I took the vase and began to pour the water over my chest, my shoulders. It soaked into the dark green silk and into my skin. Instantly, that string in my chest reverberated, but the strange, fractured feeling returned too. I closed my eyes and fought to focus past it. My heart galloped, breath quickened. Then the first ooze of oily power poured between my ribs. The bloody skin around my spine seemed to stretch with the pressure of my wings, but I smothered their emergence with a desperate thought and focused my intention. I wished to lure, and the darkness in my gut surged into my throat.
I stood and took a single step down.
Theodore’s fingers grasped mine. “Be careful.”
Our gazes stuck. “Yes, Your Majesty.” I had to force myself from his side, past his crouching men, down the last of the crooked stairs. The pebbles in the clearing poked into the soles of my feet. The chill, though I felt it, didn’t make me tremble now. With eachstep I took, however, I felt more and more amiss. I clamped my jaw against the stretching, twisting sensation in my stomach and stopped before Nemea’s guards at the edge of the torch’s orb of light.
The first guard to see me jumped. It was the pock-faced boy who’d forced me into my room earlier. I cocked my head, taking him in. He looked even younger with his black helmet removed, all round cheeks and unkempt hair. Though he reached for it, he never touched the hilt of his sword.
Silent lures had shot from my throat.
His face began to change—brown eyes bulging, cheeks turning a deep, ugly red. The wind in the clearing died completely. The torches burned steadier. The other guards slipped under my lures before they could make a sound. And one after another, the four of them choked and convulsed until they collapsed into an unmoving heap.
My eyes grew wet with tears. A swirl of nausea made its way up from my stomach. I’d not thought to kill them.
A shout echoed from the entry at the mountain road. The rest of the guards there had seen me. They assembled and panic fell through me at the sight of their swords and daggers and crossbows. I wished for darkness so no arrow could find me, and a gust extinguished the torches. I started toward them, intention on my lure once more, when an angry pain burst through my stomach. I hissed, pressing my hand over the spot, but I kept moving toward the advancing guards.
They were close enough now that my power should have stopped them, but they didn’t freeze. Though I’d sent out my lure, their bodies didn’t go slack. I squinted through the moonlit night, focusing past the way my blood raced, to see that they’d only slowed. They moved as if through water. The straining pain in my middlegrew and grew. I clamped my teeth, trying desperately to keep the guards at bay.
“Imogen.” Theodore’s agonized voice lanced the darkness. It stopped me dead in my tracks.
But Nemea’s guards kept advancing, plodding yet barbarous. Teeth bared, swords raised. I stumbled backward, trying to keep space between us, but the pain was spreading through me like ink through water. I landed hard on my backside. Gravel crunched behind me as Theodore’s men ran to my aid. A scream scraped through my gritted teeth when I realized one of Nemea’s guards was already upon me. I clawed at the gravel, trying to scramble away on my knees, but the building agony in my gut made me slow.
My stomach clenched like I was going to vomit, when a searing pain lit my thigh. Nemea’s guard loomed over me, his sword cutting slowly through the outside of my leg. I could feel the cold blade deep inside my muscle, flaying it wide.
One of Theodore’s men slid to a stop above me, spraying stones with his boots. He moved so quickly, his sword arching over him and down into the guard’s extended arm. A sickening wet crack rent the air. A guttural, pleading wail. The guard’s arm came clean off at the elbow. It fell over my stomach, dark blood spurting onto my wet silk robe, the sword that had cut me still held in its clenched fist.
The rest of Theodore’s men arrived, slashing easily into the slow-moving guards. Groans rang out, the foul rip and thud of swords slicing through flesh. Bodies folded to the ground, and then Theodore was beside me, pulling me up to stand.
The pain in my stomach fled completely.
His hands were in my hair, cupping my cold face, gripping my shoulders as he took stock of me. “You’re okay. You’re okay,” he kept repeating to himself. Grooves sat between his inky brows. His facewas sweat-strewn and terrified. Hard fingers swiped at the tears on my cheeks, and then he stooped and ripped aside the robe to look at my leg. “Shit.”
He hefted me up into his arms. As he ran us toward the stables, he set his lips to my ear. “I can fix it,” he promised. “You won’t even have a scar.”
“I don’t care about a Godsdamned scar,” I hissed at his lie. He set me atop a horse and climbed up behind me. “Just get me off this mountain.”
Idid not often dream.
When I did, the images were fragile, broken, blurred. As if I viewed them from high above, through a veil of clouds.
But now I dreamed in lurid detail.
A faceless woman floated upon the surface of the sea, her body bobbing over the churning waves. She was naked, without hair. Where her eyes should be were seared, empty sockets. Something swam below her. Far below, where the sunlight could not reach. Like a great monster with a shriveled stomach, it frantically searched the depths with a clawed, unquenchable need. Its eyes were milky and veinous. Its skin slick and mottled with decay.
But its heartbeat was strong. It pulsed through the water and through the air. A steadythump, thump, thumpof desperation. Ofwant.
Finally, the lurking thing strained up and up with delight, for it could sense the woman’s warmth leaking from her and desired to feast upon it.
Right before it reached her—right before I woke—I realized:
I was the woman. I was the water. I was the monster.
