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“I know.” I hoisted my clinging skirt and turned toward the shore. The water curled up my shins as I strode out of the sea. The nekgya still chanted their taunt, even as my wet slippers met dry sand. Everyone gaped, Theodore included, as I kept moving up the beach. When I reached Lachlan, I stopped. “I’ll need a ship to escort me to Seraf when I wake.”
“When you wake?”
“Yes.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the severing draught so only he could see it.
He gave me a grave nod. “I’ll see it done.”
Head hung, I moved past Eftan and Agatha, clutching my dripping skirt in my hands. Eftan made a sound of protest as Theodore crossed the sand after me. “Your Majesty, leave her.”
Theodore had left Halla drenched and shaking behind him. “We need to speak.” He reached for me, and though it cracked me in two to do it, I stepped back from his touch. “Will you come with me, Immy? Please.”
“Go to your fiancée.”
“Eftan will look after her.”
“She’s yours to look after,” I said. “See to your duty, Theo. And I will see to mine.”
Theodore flinched like I’d struck him across the cheek. “Imogen… I refuse to lose you—”
“You were meant to lose me from the start.” My voice was shredded and weak. “I gave you my word in Nemea’s fort. Please, let me keep it.” I clutched the draught in my fist and turned away from him, hurrying toward the stairs to put distance between us.
This isn’t the end, I lied to myself as I wrestled the cork from the vial. We’d have more time. We’d tease one another again, and fight, and I’d feel again the deep timbre of his voice reverberating through me when we lay chest to chest. I told myself he was still mine, even as I set the bottle to my lips and tilted my head back.
“Imogen?” There was anguish in Theodore’s voice. “No.”
I picked up my speed. The sludgy draught slid over my tongue and stuck in my throat. At the stairs that led up to the garden I fought to swallow it down. It tasted like rot, black and thick as tar. The pain came a beat later. A hot dagger that sliced slowly through the middle of me. My knees buckled on the first step. My vision blurred. My head rocked like a club had struck it.
There were strong hands on me. Sounds that were muffled by a high ringing in my ears. I could only focus on the rushing ache in my chest. The liquid that was filling my lungs.
I tried to breathe in and a gurgling sound came from my throat. “I can’t… I can’t breathe.”
“Imogen.”
I knew that voice. It pierced through the pain, through the heartache.
My chest burned and swelled. You ca
My body jostled, cradled within those strong arms. I coughed and felt the liquid spray and fall over my cheeks. As my vision left me and my lungs scorched with the anguish of drowning, I felt the sun.
Theodore.
His power.
Hot and unwavering, it poured through me like molten gold. It tried desperately, determinedly to beat back the darkness.
But the darkness won.