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My entire body stung from the onslaught of shame and worry, from the responsibility she was asking me to bear. Dark, sticky blood stained my vision. The Hercule’s captain’s death screams echoed in my ears. I knew nothing at all of my mother, and my power was anything but precise. I was certain, too, that Eusia would relish an offering as grand as an entire warship of Varian bodies. But despite all that, I opened my mouth and said, “I am.”
The captain gave me an approving nod. “Then welcome aboard.”
The ca
The wind was rough and dragged hair loose from my braid. I firmed my stance, despite how I felt like I was tipping. The captain’s voice rang out behind me. “Trim that sail. Ca
I stared out at the Serafi ship, taking in the black leather armor I knew so well. My fear felt like fingers curling around my throat, stifling my breaths. Across the narrow strip of water, I spotted the Serafi captain, foreboding in his dark helmet. For a moment, I thought of Evander.
I pictured his face, stretched with disgust as he beheld me. I pictured Nemea’s throne room and my mother’s wing on the wall. I pictured the words below it carved proudly into the marble.
THE MONSTER IS ALWAYS SLAIN.
Black, burning power ruptured through my chest at the memories. I wanted the Serafi crew to freeze, and a wave of lures shot from me, spa
The Varian captain’s voice boomed. “Fire!”
My ears ached from the cracking of gunpowder, but I stood unmoving. I watched as the Serafi ship suffered our assault. Ca
With all of them speaking as one, I could just make out the words.
I give to the sand. I give to the water. Hear me, heed me. Cleanse the sea.
“No.” Eusia was ravenous. Since her creation she had starved for power, for recognition in the shadow of her sister. For years and years, she’d sought a way to fuel her insatiable magic. And now, she’d found a way to keep herself fed.
Me.
My mind sat in a grief-stricken fog by the time we came alongside the next Serafi vessel. It was badly damaged already; massive holes had been blown through its upper hull, but it took on no water.
The captain patted my shoulder proudly, nostalgia and pride deepening lines around her eyes. “Once more, shall we?” she said, inclining her chin toward the Serafis.
I nodded absently. “Of course.” I gripped the ship’s rail, resigned to the awful reality of it all. There was no way to keep Varya and its people safe without giving Eusia the bodies she so yearned for. I focused once more on that sickening, oily power in my middle when I realized what ship sat before me.
It was Seraf’s flagship. I recognized the squared-off stern, the four tall masts. The fanged eel painted on its largest sail. It had been Evander’s ship, and decades ago, when Nemea had been a seafaring king, it had been his. He had pushed it to the farthest edges of the world, to every island, and the northern continent too. There were stories of the haunting collection of Siren bones that decayed in its hull, of the Sirens who had been tied to its masts, left to blister in the sun for days on end.
The fabled ship belonged at the bottom of the sea. The ca
I froze as I made out the shape of that old, crenellated crown. It was Nemea. Here. He had not been on a ship in nearly thirty years. He’d refused, keeping himself safe from all its threats by remaining cloistered in his mountain fort.
His unfeeling gaze seemed to sense me through the smoke. A dark apparition, he stood in the middle of the deck, wearing worn, ill-fitting black armor. Those stabbing gray eyes locked with mine.
My mind couldn’t process the sight of him. On a ship. In Varian waters. I was supposed to go to him. Rohana had told me as much. Eusia had taunted me with it, pointing me home, home, home.
Power swirled through me, surging like a storm, but I held it in. I pulled at the buttons over my spine and ripped them open, one by one. The captain’s order to fire sliced the air. Ca
I fought to keep my mind clear, then set my intention on the water and ordered a deep current to slice between our ship and Nemea’s. In two beats, the Serafi ship careened, forcing their ca
“What the hell are you doing?” the captain yelled to me as I pulled the back of my tunic even wider. “Freeze them! Lure them into the water!”
My wings broke through my skin. I stretched them wide and tried to keep my balance with the new weight tugging me back. Our ship was badly beaten, splitting further with each blow. But the Serafi flagship had not been able to overcome my current. It listed, its sails going slack.
“I’m boarding that ship,” I called back to the captain.
Her face was red, spittle at her lips. “Get them in the water first, Gods damn it.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t risk accidentally luring Nemea over the side of that ship.
She drew her sword. A ca
“Tread carefully.” My body had grown taut—my power tremulous. “I have a poor history with captains.”
The lines on her face deepened with my threat. She bared her teeth, her nose wrinkling with disgust. “Get off my ship.”
The strike of her enmity felt familiar, and I bore it well. I held my chin high and got my footing. Nemea’s ship was close enough for me to glide across. When I called it, a gust blew under me, and I stepped off the ship with my wings spread wide. My stomach flipped at the sensation of moving over the air. Ungracefully, I landed on the Serafi ship’s shroud and held tight. The square-hatched ropes burned my palms, my knees, my shins.
My presence unsettled Nemea’s crew. My dark wings set them on edge, like hounds scenting their quarry. They nocked arrows and prepared ropes as they dodged the ca
Nemea didn’t fight them; he didn’t rail and scream. I kept moving, trying to keep myself from arrows’ paths, trying to keep my hold on my power, and watched through the ropes. I waited for his face to redden and his eyes to bulge as they always did when his ire was up, but he only leaned back, head tipped against the mast as they tied him to it. He looked me directly in the eye. His graying hair whipped, and he held my stare even as they took his sword from his scabbard. They bound his hands and pulled the wax from his ears. And as my body began to drain of its warmth, they took the dented gold crown from his head.
The sword and crown clattered to the deck as the three men turned toward the port side of the ship. I’d sent no command. I’d not even felt when the lures had putrefied, but Eusia now tugged on the strings. The three men mouthed the prayer as they stepped over the deck with jerking movements and threw themselves into the sea.
Arrows whizzed past me, and I climbed up, fighting to keep my balance, when Nemea called up to me.
“You’re tarrying, girl.” The slice of his voice through the din made my body lock up. I felt like a child, small and powerless and in want of discipline. “I thought I taught you better. We die when we tarry, Imogen. Do what you mean to do before we both meet our ends.”
He was right, and it anguished me to admit it. It anguished me to do what came next. I closed my eyes and let my power fly. I could not count how many lures, but my power—or Eusia—knew what was required. They hooked in and the sailors on the deck all let out a breath at once. I whimpered at the searing pain in my throat and the chills that broke out over my skin. Bodies went limp, weapons clamored to the ground. And then they all began to climb over the edges of the ship. Like a wave of tar, they slowly crested the rails and spilled into the briny water.
I looked to Nemea. I’d set all the focus I’d possessed on keeping him safe from my lure. The wind rolled over the deck, carrying with it the incessant splash of bodies and the mumbled prayers of the crew up to me on the shroud. Our gazes locked.
When Nemea heard his crew speak the familiar words of Eusia’s spell—the one he’d taught me so long ago—a slow smile curled his mouth.