Had he not had the direst look on his face and a patch of red creeping over the top of his collar, I would have thought the suggestion was in jest. I might have laughed at the ridiculousness of it had my chest not felt like it were caving in.
I gave my head a confused shake. “You hate me.”
His brow pinched. “I don’t—”
“You called me a gnat.”
“Imogen.” His grip tightened on my wrist, and I stopped breathing. “I would like to find a way to make you feel better right now.” His voice was all warmth, curling around me. “This is what I can offer.”
I thought of our escape, when he’d held me to calm my shaking body and how the bond in my belly had glowed. I remembered the outline of him, the feel of his heart beating against my spine. The memories alone filled me with frisson.
There were many misguided things I desired, and I suspected it would always be so. Just as sure as I was made of flesh and blood and bone and sea, I was also made of want. Excising it, draining it like a bad humor, would never do, but this one time, with this one man, I could stop myself from being the fool.
“I don’t want an embrace,” I whispered. When he released me, my wrist was cold.
Head high, and with Theodore trailing in my wake, I made my way across the deck. There was an emptiness, a hopelessness, that rankled, but I tried to let this truth soothe me: Nothing good had ever come from me taking what I wanted.
Afull day and a half later, I clung to the rail of the ship as it glided across a crowded bay, toward Panos Port. I was ready to be off the water and touch solid land. To sleep soundly, dreamlessly, without being jostled by the sea’s merciless surface. I’d fallen into a malaise after my row with Theodore, and that Godsdamned plucking in my chest wouldn’t cease.
Agatha stood close at my side, face pinched in a troubled scowl. Theodore lingered not far behind me. I could nearly sense what direction he paced in, bow to stern, and back again.
Our blood bond still had not settled.
“I think something’s wrong,” Agatha said, leaning toward me so he wouldn’t hear. “The two of you shouldn’t be ill any longer.”
I frowned at the thought and stared into the water below. It was so clear, I could see straight to the bottom. Clusters of fish darted this way and that, looking like silvered arrowheads. Bright sprays of coral dotted the white sand of the seafloor.
“You don’t know that.” I tried to keep myself from sounding as worried as I felt. “It’s not even been three full days.”
She only offered me a sharp look, jaw tightly set. “And as I’ve said, it should only taketwo.”
“You performed your binding a long time ago. Maybe you’re misremembering.”
“It was two.” She was adamant. Then she paused to think. “Though our binding was different from yours. We didn’t spend time apart during those two days. We…” She looked at me sidelong, then away quickly. “Weretogetheroften.”
“Together?” I caught her meaning a beat later and grimaced. “Oh sweet Gods. Let’s assume it’s our lack oftogethernessthat’s the problem, then.”
“You could…” Agatha glanced at Theodore over her shoulder, then back at me. Her brows rose suggestively, disappearing into her thick curls.
“No. We couldn’t.” I scoffed. “He’s more interested in sending me off to be tortured in a severing ritual than bedding me.”
“Still—you can’t be this sick indefinitely.” She brought her voice even lower. “I don’t think he’d say no.”
“Think about what you’re suggesting!” A briny gust rolled over the water and wound through my loose hair. “And he most certainlywouldsay no. He thinks I’m nothing but a superfluous imposition.”
Agatha shrugged. “I’d wager you’d be no imposition at all in this.”
The suggestion was laughable. Theodore and I had hardly spoken since he’d told me what my task was to be. Since he’d told me that he thought I was the descendant of a Great Goddess. That was laughable too. I knew my story. I was an orphaned child of noble birth. Nemea took me in because of my family’s money. Nothing more. But despite my lifelong surety, Theodore’s belief had left me bereft. Agitated, I brushed my thumb over the heap of scars that sat in the middle of my palm.
“Do you think he’s right?” I asked Agatha. We both leaned on the rail, and I pressed my shoulder to hers. “Do you think my power is like that of the Great Goddess Ligea’s?”
Agatha stared out over the water. At the little white stone buildings clustered tightly around the docks. More fanned out to dot the sprawling green hills of Varya. She shook her head. “She was the last Great Goddess to survive, but I never saw her. I knew all the stories of her power, though. Sailors would say the sea called to them, but it washerpull they felt on their bones. It was her call that rushed silently through their ears. And she could ruin them all without lifting a hand. They would pray to her and ask that she fill their nets. They’d ask for calm seas. And she would oblige, where she saw fit.”
My throat grew thick. “I can do none of those things.”
“Not now. Not yet… perhaps.” She looked at me with the shine of hope in her eyes. “Every God’s power is different, but it’s always the greatest among the descendants who can wield it with ease. I have to sing to lure, but you do not.” She looked to Theodore. “And the king—he doesn’t need to touch to heal flesh or to make plants flourish.”
My attention snapped toward her. “I’m sorry—what?”
