“I need to get us out of the rain,” he finally said.
“You’re changing the subject.” I crossed my arms. “First, tell me what’s wrong. You won’t set foot on the sand. Why?”
He thinned his gaze. “Let me build us a shelter. Then we’ll talk.”
“Fine.”
He moved with efficiency, pulling food and a bottle of wine from a saddlebag, kicking away twigs and fallen branches from the sandy soil. Disquiet pulled his shoulders toward his ears. It clamped his jaw.
Movement at my side made me jump back. A single blooming vine had unwound itself from the trunk of the tree and hovered in the air. New vine shoots grew out of it, like little wriggling worms. They thickened and wove into one another until a small domed shelter took shape. The leaves broadened, each growing larger than my spread hand. White flowers yawned into existence, emitting their own faint light in the stormy darkness.
“Charming.” I bent low to crawl into the little nest just as a bolt of lightning cleaved the sky. Theodore followed when the thunder cracked around us, so loud that my hands flew up to cover my ears.
Warmth rolled off him, filling the little shelter with the scent of rain and green earth and sweat and dust. The space was small, and Theodore was… not. His shoulder pressed hard against mine,and through the thin, wet layers of our shirts, his skin burned like a brand.
I pressed my eyes shut for a few breaths.
Soon I would feel the absence of him, and the thought sent sorrow cutting through me. I dug my teeth into my bottom lip and tried to focus on reason.
The low echo of a cork leaving its bottle grabbed me from my thoughts. Theodore brought the wine to his lips and tilted his head back, and back. So far that the bottle knocked into the vine roof above us. He took long pulls, like he’d come upon a spring after days in a desert.
“I’m out of the rain.” I took the bottle by its neck and tugged. He let me have it. “Now you can tell me what’s wrong.”
A nettled grumble filled his chest. “You won’t let me keep this to myself, will you?”
The light drops of rain had become a deluge. It roared against the leaves. I took a sip of wine. “You always panic when the Mage Seer is mentioned. Lachlan told me you were scared before we left. And now you’re guzzling wine from the bottle like you wished you were at the bottom of it. It’s unsettling. And I don’t need to be unsettled before this ritual. So, no. I will not let you keep it to yourself.”
“My story won’t settle you in the least.”
“That won’t get you out of telling me.”
He blew out a long breath. His fingers brushed my own as he reached for the wine and took one more gulp. “I was last here seven years ago. At my father’s behest. He hid it, but my father was born with very little power. And he was not very skilled in wielding what he did have. Only the Gods know why.” He brought the bottle to his lips, took another deep drink. “It was a source of deep shame for him. And I can understand why now—he was the onlyson of a Great God. By all accounts he should have been his father’s equal, or close to it. I, on the other hand, was given a great deal of power… like his father. It was always a sore point between us. He pushed me to master myself, my power. None of my hard work seemed to be enough. It took years for me to understand that he envied me, perhaps worse. When I was twenty, he decided he wanted to perform a ritual of transference. He wanted to give me what little power he had, add it to the power I already possessed, and have me ascend to the throne. He said he was unfit compared to me.”
He sat so quiet, for so long, that I thought he’d decided against telling me more. I leaned against him in encouragement.
“I didn’t want to be king,” he finally said. “But he dragged me here anyway, to the Mage Seer. We performed the ritual.” We sat in silence. “The ritual of transference… it takes the life of the giver.”
My body flexed in surprise.
Hurt laced his voice. “I left that little hut in the middle of the night, having watched my father die a horrific death, with a crown I did not want, with power I did not want—and with a stolen bottle of the Mage Seer’s poison in my pocket. The poison she uses for the prophecies and rituals she performs.” He stared through the shelter’s opening, to the dark shore before us. “I couldn’t take his body back with me. I… I drank the bottle of poison empty, right there on that beach while my head was still clouded from the ritual smoke.”
I didn’t realize I’d gripped his leg until his fingers bumped over my knuckles. He turned my hand over and ran a finger over the web of white scars on my palm.
“Days later I woke up in a room I didn’t recognize. An older couple—Hector and Antonia—nursed me back to health. They live not far from here. Eftan ruled in my stead and allowed me toconvalesce for a handful of months out here.” He held up the wine bottle. “I learned to make this wine. Learned to cook Varian wildland dishes. Gardened, and mucked horse stalls, and washed clothing. I mourned my father. My freedom. But I’d also never been so content. I still visit them often.” His voice snagged. “They’ve become parents to me, in a way.”
“And now you’re back here because of me.” My stomach sank low. “I’m so sorry.”
“No.” He shook his head emphatically, twisting to face me. “Don’t go searching for more guilt to pile atop yourself.” His eyes were intent on mine. “I chose this. I agreed to it. Neither one of us knew it would have come to this.” His free hand rose to my jaw and the tips of his fingers dragged across its edge. “And even if I had known…”
The space between my racing heart and ribs squeezed. Even with his pretty words, I felt scheming and selfish and wicked. Utterly undeserving of the understanding and care that Theodore bestowed upon me. I reared back, away from his touch.
His look hardened. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s nothing wrong,” I said quietly. “I’m tired.”
“Imogen?”
Something in me snapped. “I’m going inside the Mage Seer’s hut alone. I’ll get the draught, and then we’ll find a safe place to perform the severance after I’ve left her.”
