Seeing that eel, knowing how close Nemea had come to me—I’d not known this sort of consuming terror. Spurred by it, the power in my middle became hotter, thicker, prompting a slew of lures to fly from me. They sank deep into the mercenary men scattered through the road, making them spasm and collapse to the mud.
Theodore’s soldiers stepped back, watching in astonishment as the men they’d just been in combat with writhed on the ground, choking and grabbing at their throats. My vision had blurred with fury. I tightened my hold on the lures, eyes stinging, breath fast, when Theodore’s fingers gripped hard into my arm once more.
“Imogen, stop.” He shook me, urgent. “Damn it.Stop.” He ran through the handful of convulsing men. He lifted one of them into his arms, screamed my name again.
It wasn’t until Theodore heaved the man further into his embrace that my vision seemed to clear. It was Lachlan.
Horror struck me in a searing bolt. I pulled in a hiccuping gasp and cut every lure I’d sent out. Sucking sounds scraped at my ears as the mercenaries all took in a frantic breath at once. Theodore’s soldiers moved toward them so quickly that I stumbled back a step. The tips of their swords pierced through skin and rib, conjuring a gruesome chorus of death cries. Dark, thick blood spread over the mud, seeping through the puddles like the earth itself was bleeding out.
Slowly, Theodore helped a shaken Lachlan to stand. He looped his arm over his shoulder and together they moved over the bodies of the dead and dying. “On your horses,” Theodore ordered in a weary voice. “Onward.”
The soldiers’ distrustful gazes clawed at me. Some of them scooped up the limp body of the soldier who’d been shot from his horse. A snapped arrow protruded from the side of his neck. They removed his breastplate and threw him over his horse’s back, belly down.
“Lachlan. I’m sorry,” I said as they passed me for the carriage.
Lachlan shook his head. “We’re even.” He tried for a crooked smirk. Theodore’s gaze was downcast. “I should know better than to make you mad.”
His voice was hoarse from how I’d strangled him. It made mystomach roll with sick. Lachlan climbed into the carriage, but Theodore lingered for a breath. I waited for him to look at me, to see how I was rattled, to give me his ever-steady comfort and pull me up from the darkness I’d too easily slipped into.
Instead, he rolled a tight shoulder, then entered the carriage. In his absence, the world grew overloud. The ring of swords forced back into their scabbards, the horses’ nickering, the soldiers’ voices. The incessant echo of the waves in the distance; the unending rattle of the grape leaves. My mind played cruel tricks too, showing me Lachlan’s face contorted, and Theodore’s etched with brutal worry. The meaty smell of blood from my shirt sat heavy in my nose. It had grown sticky and cold. I stepped through the mud, head hung, toward the carriage door. I decided then that the moment after our severing ritual was complete would be the last I would see Theodore. For I was as undiscerning as a storm, as ruinous as a tidal wave crashing, and I could never live with myself if he was caught in my devastation.
Theodore’s hand found my leg, gave it a shake. “We’re here.”
Two days had passed. The carriage wheels crunched over gravel. I peeked through the window and yawned. Genevreer Palace seemed like a skeleton lit aflame in the night. Its stone walls were pale as bone, its windows glowing bright against the black sky.
The carriage rolled to a stop and a short line of servants greeted us. Theodore exited the carriage first, but he did not reach back to help me down himself. A servant came swiftly on his heels, his glove soft against my hand as he helped me down the narrow steps.
“Thank you,” I mumbled.
His brown eyes raked over the filthy shirt I still wore. It wascreased and stiff with dried blood. In the melee, the saddlebag that had held my spare clothes had fallen from its restraints, left behind among the bodies and blood. The dress Antonia had gifted me had been in that bag. It brought a strange sadness over me to think of it lost—one more thing I’d ruined.
I looked down the front of my body. I wore Theodore’s ill-fitting trousers, tied with a frayed rope. Mud caked my boots. My hair was stiff in places with mats. At least Theodore had taken a moment to bathe in the shallow stream beyond the city boundaries that afternoon. I watched him cross the gravel drive. Even with his threadbare shirt rolled to the elbows like a worker’s, even exhausted, there was no mistaking precisely who and what he was. He stood at the base of the marble palace stoop, chin tipped back regally, shoulders square and strong.
I’d not realized just how much of his armor he’d let fall away while we’d traveled. Alone with me in the wildlands, he’d been someone else entirely. Now, all the soft, vulnerable pieces of him were suddenly hidden away.
I stopped at his side. “I’d like to bathe.”
He gave me a quick nod. Something had shifted between us since I’d lost my control. Since I’d nearly killed Lachlan.
It made me certain of at least one thing: The king of Varya could not allow himself to love me. Here, in his world, we could never be. I was something fearsome, untrustworthy. And he… he wore his crown so well.
The severing draught sat heavy in my pocket. “Tonight, we should—” I started, but Theodore’s attention was elsewhere.
“We should what?” he asked, absently. A deep line creased his brow as he took in a long line of opulent carriages, tucked one after the other down the long drive like a string of gaudy beads.
“What’s the matter?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know why all these carriages are here.” He turned and took the stairs two at a time. I moved quickly to keep up, racing behind him down the middle of the entry hall. Ghostly music echoed off the walls, the tune delicate, almost melancholic. Theodore followed the sound all the way to the ornate door situated at the palace’s back wall. He heaved it open and halted right upon the threshold.
It was his throne room. It was a soaring space, drenched in crystal and gold, and brimmed with extravagantly attired guests. It was as if Theodore had lifted the gilded lid of a jewel box that held the brightest of stones. Varya’s nobility had a wealth that Seraf’s could only dream of.
Theodore took a rigid step into the room and the herald’s voice boomed over the violins and murmurs and laughter. The music cut out as every guest bowed. I wanted to bolt behind the door, but Theodore plodded farther into the room, eyes scanning the scene in shock.
“The bridegroom has returned.” The empress appeared from the center of the crowd, arms spread wide in benevolent greeting.
I lingered as far behind as I could without our bond cramping with sick. Boots scraped behind me and Lachlan was there, helmet in hand.
“Fuck me,” he mumbled when he saw the way Theodore’s anger had rounded his wide back and curled his hands to fists.
