“Then keep trying.” I wasn’t sure if it was sound advice or not, but I wanted her to have what I couldn’t. “Perhaps you’re trying tomake things look the way they used to, but you are different people now. You need time to relearn, to explore what you have each become.”
Agatha looked at me with teary, blinking eyes. “All right.” She gave me a grateful half smile and I could see a prickling of hope in her look. “That’s enough of that.”
I peeked over my shoulder to see if the ceremony was to begin, but the Obelians still rifled through an array of small wooden boxes.
My breath hitched when I realized one of the women among them was Princess Halla. She and the two others, her ladies-in-waiting, wore identical robes in a light, fleshy pink. Halla’s pale hair hung straight and unadorned, slipping around her shoulders in the breeze. Her angular cheeks were without any rouge, and her lips lacked their usual petal-pink coloring too. When she turned, I stifled a jolt. From her neck to her hem hung a deep red sash the precise color of blood.
The effect was so stark, so jarring, that I had to fight to smooth my features. I could only think of the empress’s story of the night the Nels had been slain. Sliced open from nape to groin, bowels spilling to the rug, no doubt by one of King Nemea’s men. All so that he might snatch some jewels. It had the mark of him—of his contemptible, craven scheming.
I leaned toward Agatha. “Where is the empress?”
She gave me a troubled look. “She told Lachlan she refused to speak to or be around the king until he apologized for slighting her daughter last night.”
“Fucking Gods.”
One of the ladies took a tapered crystal stake from a wooden box. It was smooth, flawlessly clear, and its point was terrifyingly sharp. Upon inspecting it, Princess Halla turned to face the small group ofus that had gathered on the beach. When her eyes landed on me, they went wide. “Lady Imogen, what a surprise to see you here.”
I dipped into a curtsy as her blue gaze darted over my rumpled dress, then up to my unsecured, waving hair. I wore no jewels save the spinel on my finger, no color on my face. I looked like I’d risen directly from a fitful sleep.
Halla sent her attention over the beach once more and said, quietly, sternly, “I’d like a word.”
I squeezed Agatha’s hand from nerves. “Of course, Your Highness.”
The princess started down the beach in a stroll, her arms clasped before her, head bowed. The sand and the water and the sky were all a melding shade of cloudy gray. I couldn’t walk much farther, and stopped just as the bond in my stomach began to twist with discomfort. “Your Highness, what would you like to speak of?”
She stopped and spun. “Do you know what the ritual I’m about to perform is for?”
“I was told it was for a blessing.” I kept my voice even. My face still. “For your forthcoming wedding. And the war.”
“Yes, that’s correct,” she said, in her lilting way. “I expect you can understand why I would want such a thing.”
My brow creased. “Of course.”
Halla stepped closer, her white hair pulled back from the breeze, her death-pale face pinched. “Then you will not interfere. I have been tasked with a job here, and I believe that your presence, and the… ample time you spend with the king, will prevent me from accomplishing it.”
I held her stare, unable to determine if that job was simply to make an heir, or if it was something more sinister, but both prospects made my insides churn. “What is the job you are here to do?”
Her brows lowered. Her soft words came clipped. “That question is out of line—”
I spoke on undeterred. “I know you have lost favor with your mother, Halla. You have done something to make her pass you over as her heir. I expect you want desperately to find her favor again, but I do not trust her, and by proxy I do not trust you. I need to know if you intend to hurt Theodore or his kingdom to get back in her good graces.”
I waited for fury, for her to rail over my defamation, but she only looked at me with welling tears. Her silence stretched.
“Answer me truthfully,” I said over my thundering heart.
“I have no intention of hurting him.” She blinked her tears away and looked out at the roiling gray waves. “I just need to give my mother a grandchild.”
There was no comfort in knowing that I would leave both Theodore and Halla to do their duty in providing their people an heir. I should aspire to it as well. To carry on a line, a kingdom, but I could find no purpose in it. No fulfillment or joy. I could not fathom such a thing in a world where I had no safety, no home. I could not fathom carrying on Nemea’s line. The prospect smarted like a beating switch.
“Very well.” I gave her a sharp nod and made my way back over the wet sand, toward Agatha and Theodore, who both watched me with attuned stares. I avoided each of them with determination.
Princess Halla hung back for a moment, collecting herself. Finally, she made her way toward Theodore, and her diaphanous robe billowed behind her. She lowered herself before him with a flourish. “Your Majesty, I’m grateful for your presence,” she said in her winding voice. “Blessing our union is very important to me.”
Theodore clenched and unclenched his jaw and stared down at her with unreadable eyes. “It’s my pleasure.”
She took a step nearer, tilting her head back flirtatiously to look up at him. “The ceremony tends to make me feel ill,” she said, hervoice turning sweet. “I ask that you do me the honor of standing beside me, as my future husband and king, to catch me when the sickness strikes.”
Theodore straightened. “Wouldn’t simply kneeling better suit?”
