I could think of nothing more terrifying. My tendons were strung taut, and I shook as I forced myself to take the vial from its coil.
Theodore took his and clamped it in a fist. “If the smoke makes her ill, you do not touch her. You will not rip at her hair or pick at her skin. Your foul mouth will not touch her body. She owes you nothing for your prophecy.”
“Payment is req—”
“Yes, I know.” Theodore’s voice filled the crooked hut. “But she is not yours to take from. She is mine.”
Rohana grimaced, showing her stained teeth. “Not for long, Your Majesty.”
Theodore was terrifying in his stillness. “Agree that you will not touch her. Or I’ll cut your head from your shoulders myself.”
Rohana held his stare for a moment before she gave a sharp nod of agreement. He lifted the vial to his lips and drank. I took his hand to stop mine from shaking and drank from my own. The liquid was thick and muddy and foul. It coated my tongue, my throat. I swallowed, coughed, gagged, trying to clear it, but it clung and only grew thicker. Theodore squeezed my hand as a prickling feeling filled my chest. A boom of thunder rocked through my head. I pressed at my temple, desperate for the feeling to ease.
Another coiled vine rose into the air and emptied the contents of a third vial of black sludge into the bowl where the drops of our blood had fallen. It hissed, bubbled, and then Theodore let go of my hand. In one slime-coated breath, he fell to a knee and groaned.
“Theo?” I took his face in my hands. His skin was cool and slick. “What’s wrong?”
“Sick,” he grumbled. Then he was tilting backward, toward the bones that littered the damp wood floor. I did my best to guide his dead weight down slowly, but he was too large. I slipped, sending us both to the floor with a rattling crash.
I moaned from the pain, but it was the blood bond in my gut that had me clambering, fighting my way back to Rohana. “What did you do to him?” I seethed at her through the tendrils of smoke that were lifting from the bowl.
“He’s all right, my sweet,” Rohana said, lowering her face to the smoke. “He expected it.”
“Expected it?” I lunged for her, but her vines yanked her back. “Undo it.”
Whatever I’d drunk from that vial was beginning to affect me too. It made me feel like I was sinking. Like time and the world around me were suddenly submerged in thick water, rippling and slow. I blinked, trying to clear the way Rohana’s visage began to blur.
“I slipped him some hedera. I cannotundo it.” Her empty eyes locked with mine. “Payment is required before we begin. Magic must be fed, Imogen, and I know my God-king very well.” She gave a chuckle that only stoked my blistering anger. “He’ll prefer paying me while unconscious.”
The three glowing orbs winked out. There was abject darkness, filled only by the slithering, rattling sound of her vines. My senses were so overwhelmed that I couldn’t place where in the little room she was. Then Theodore’s body jerked at my feet.
I looked down to see the faintest bloom of yellow light. A pale arm, snaked in vines, hooked over Theodore’s torso. Rohana was there, sliding her decrepit body up his. Her bony fingers dove into his thick hair, gripping like she would pull some of it out. Her lips scraped up his cheek, teeth settling against his ear.
Without a thought, I lunged and forced my talons into the thin, sagging skin around her feeble biceps. My other hand sliced through her robe, stuck into her ribs, and drew an ear-piercing shriek from her. Rohana was only bone. With ease, I hoisted her up and slammed her down onto the floor, placing my body between hers and Theodore’s.
My voice ripped from my chest. “You touch him again and I’ll tear your limbs from your fucking body.”
“He must pay.” Her voice had turned weak and begging. “The ritual has already begun, the smoke is already in my chest. I must replace what is taken.”
I was nearly choking on the rotting mist that was filling the hut. And I needed my severing draughts. I needed a prophecy, but my anger was consuming. I dug my talons in deeper.
“Please,” she moaned. “I need flesh.”
Flesh.There was no way I could let her touch him.
Her thin lips pulled back in a snarl. “There is an order, a balance that I keep. Killing me will ruin it. If you will not let him pay, then you must so that I may continue to serve.”
“I’ve grown tired of paying with my body so that monsters may keep living.” My talons scraped against her rib bones as I forced them even deeper. Her scream bounced off the walls.
“Do not be like Eusia and kill your own. What kind of monster wouldyoube if you took me from the people I am here to care for?”
I’d grown into a woman believing I was a monster. Living in shame and fear over what I was. But even with my talons tapping against Rohana’s ancient bones, that feeling had momentarily fled. I was not like her. I would never be.
“What exactly do you require?” I ground out. “How much flesh?”
“Just a piece. With fat still attached,” Rohana answered in a relieved wheeze. “And hair. Pulled out at the root.”
The foul, sweet scent of the smoke sat heavy in my lungs. It smelled like dead things, broken down, nearly gone. My head beat with the pressure of that brew she’d given me, but I managed to pull my talons from her crepey flesh. “Don’t move.” I sounded like I’d downed an entire flagon of wine.
