“You’re going to the Mage Seer?” Agatha shuddered. “For a severance?”
A chill raced through me at the devastation that suddenly weighed on her. “Yes.”
Agatha’s voice went weak, impudent. “Your Majesty—”
Lachlan held up a hand. “Now, hold on.” He gave Theodore a disbelieving look, a strained and angry tilt to his lips. “You’re not actually sending her to the Mage Seer, are you? You wouldn’t. The severance will happen in the safety of the palace.”
Theodore’s broad chest rose and fell with increasing breaths, but his features were even as ever. “The severance will happen in the Mage Seer’s hut.”
“No.” Agatha rose from the settee so quickly I flinched. She stood like a bedraggled soldier, fierce and strong. Her black curls were a wild, sea-misted halo. Dirt and large tears marred her dress. “Absolutely not.”
Theodore’s gaze narrowed. “You’re out of line, Agatha.”
“I beg your forgiveness, then, because I do not plan on ceasing,” she snapped. “Please,Your Majesty, you cannot send her there.”
“Agatha.” Lachlan’s entire countenance softened as he made his way to her side. He reached out a tentative hand, but she stepped away.
“No,” she said, resolutely. She looked pleadingly toward Lachlan. “He cannot.Tell him.He cannot do this.” Her voice wobbled with tears.
I’d never witnessed Agatha in such a state. I wanted to go to her, take her hand, but as I tried to sit taller, I realized I was naked. With a violent tug, I pulled the sheets to my chin. My mind filled with questions, with dreadful, nightmarish thoughts of this Mage Seer and her severance ritual. They fell through me like stones, collecting painfully in my gut. “Tell me what’s wrong,” I said. “Is the Mage Seer dangerous?”
Agatha gaped at me. “Is she dangerous?” She rounded on Theodore. “Shame on you.” Theodore went so still, so terrifyingly quiet, but Agatha went on. “When your father ordered that Lachlan and I sever our blood bond, he sent us to the Mage Seer with nothing but a pack of food and two horses. I nearly died in that rotting hut of hers.”
The memory seemed to grind her down. Her shoulders drooped. Her voice faltered. “The severing draught… It turns the blood black and forces it through the nose and eyes and mouth. The pain of the binding is nothing compared to the severance. Lachlan could only sit and watch as I lost blood over days on a filthy pallet, without a healer, while the Mage Seer did nothing but slither around in her putrid smoke.”
An ugly silence stretched between us all. Finally, Theodore spoke, his tone barbed and labored. “I am not my father.” He paused. Pulled in a deep breath. “I know how terrible the Mage Seer is. That is why Lady Imogen will be accompanied by a retinue of guards and a palace healer.”
“I beg you to send a rider instead.” Tears slipped down Agatha’s cheeks. “Let them bring the severing draught back to the palace. Let her endure the ritual under your care. You’re the most powerful healer in all of Leucosia.”
Tension strung through Theodore. He dropped his attention back to the vials on the table in front of him. “I can’t do that.”
Agatha gaped, her tears falling now in earnest. “Youcan’t?”
I felt like I was sinking. Like the new shackle I’d stepped into when I knelt before the king of Varya was tightening, cutting in, pulling me down.
Lachlan’s eyes were bright with fury. “Theo, I think—”
“You can both leave.” It was an order, slicing through the room like a whistling sword. “Now.”
Agatha reeled like she’d been struck across the face. She whirled and stormed from the room. Lachlan lingered to give Theodore a final damning look. “I’d thought you, of all people, would have chosen better than this. On all fronts.” He strode with heavy steps toward the open cabin door, then slammed it shut behind him.
Theodore stood in the quiet, pinching the bridge of his nose. The moments strained, until finally, he swiped two vials from the table and came to the side of the bed. He pulled the stopper from one with his teeth and spat it to the floor. “Drink this.”
I wished I were standing and clothed, instead of laid out over the man’s bed, but I filled my voice with all the rebuke I could manage. “That was heartless of you.”
“It was necessary.” He held the little vial closer. “Drink.”
Anger burst through me. Keeping the sheets in place, I clumsily pushed myself up to sit. A sharp pain hit my thigh and hot liquid gushed over my skin. “I will not drink,” I said, ignoring it. “You tricked me. Why didn’t you tell me that severing our bond could kill me?”
He raked a hand through his waving hair. “I did not trick you. You do not understand the complexity—” He tried for some control and failed. “Gods damn it, you have forced me to make impossible decisions, to do things I never thought I would, and yet you make me the villain.”
“I forced you to do nothing! You agreed.”
“Do you truly think I had any other choice when you broke into my room, all wet and winged—” He cut himself off with a scowl. When he finally looked back down at me, he winced. “You’re bleeding through the sheet. I’ll ask once more that you drink this and let me close that wound on your leg properly. We can scream at one another after.”
The bright stain in the bedding spread quickly, but my anger did too. I glared at the little vial in his hand and spoke through my teeth. “What is it?”
“Nepenthe,” he said, evenly. It riled me further that he sounded so composed. “It’ll get rid of the pain.”
