“Stay in the carriage,” Lachlan said as he slipped his gilded helmet back on. He peeked around the window curtain, but all I could see from my vantage was darkness. He threw the door open and slipped out. Theodore closed it and turned the puny lock. He lowered the flame in the small lantern that swayed from the ceiling until we sat, breathing tightly, in the dark.

Our sides were pressed against each other’s. “Should I go out there?” I whispered. “If there’s a threat I could help. My lure is better than shooting an arrow into the dark.”

“No.” Theodore sounded immovable. “They’re more skilled than you are, and you’re safest in here.”

I bit into my lip. “I used both your power and mine well enough when you were unconscious after the prophecy.” He shook his head, but I scolded him before he could tell me no again. “I’ll be in danger, Theodore. Over and over again, death and danger will cross my path, and you cannot be the one to beat them back every time.”

I couldn’t see his face in the darkness, but I could hear the long breath he pushed through his nose. The soldiers’ voices were muffled through the carriage walls, the clinking of their armor dampened, but I could still make out their every sound.

One of them called into the vineyard. “Come out. Weapons down.”

There came a ping and a whistle of air followed by a dull thunk. A groan rang out, followed by the heavy, metallic crunch of an armored body falling to the ground.

Then all hell broke loose.

Shouts rang through my ears. Clanging metal and whinnying. Theodore swore as I dove past him. I twisted the little lock and threw the carriage door open. My boots slipped over the mud. Theodore gripped my elbow to steady me. His soldiers looked like beacons, gold glowing in the moonlight, and in their midst moved a handful of wraith-dark figures. They were merely men, but they moved with treacherous grace, quick and nimble amid the metal-clad soldiers.

Theodore stood at my side, sword at the ready. I kept my back to the carriage, inching around it until I was close enough to one of the men clad in black.

I sent all my focus to the center of my body. To the place where my power sat, where my sick bond with Eusia stuck to me like a parasite. I latched onto it, felt the place heat and open like a ravenous, unhinging mouth. A frisson of power crept up my chest, into my throat, and in a blink an invisible lure flew forth, hooking right into the man’s spine.

He froze. His back arched. He took an unsteady step backward, boot splashing through a puddle. As if he were puppeted by strings at the tip of my fingers, he turned with jerking movements to face me. A shock ran through me. It was one of the men Theodore and I had met at the caretaker’s cottage. I recognized him—the handsome one. Blond, waving hair, and eyes so light I could see them in the moonlight.

“Im, get back.” Theodore’s grip was protective and strong on my arm. He tried to jerk me away, but I resisted him.

The man’s jaw fell open as he tried in vain to suck in a breath. My panicked gaze tripped down his body, over his black, worn clothes, to the bandolier slung over his chest, then to the red band that was wrapped around his biceps.

A twisting eel, fangs bared, wove around the edge of the band. “You’re a mercenary?” I asked. “King Nemea hired you?”

He was shaking, his face reddening with strain. I eased my lure, allowing him one quick breath.

“Answer me.” I pulled a dagger from his bandolier and held it to his throat. Metal clanged around us, shouts rang out, and fists landed blows on flesh behind him. Theodore set his sword arching toward a mercenary to his right with a grunt. I tightened my lure on the man before me once more. His eyes bulged. He gave no answer.

But the band on his arm was answer enough.

My rage rose in a wave, and I slashed the dagger across his throat. Blood spewed from the cut in a curtain of red, spraying over the front of my shirt. Theodore winced at my side. I released my lure the moment the man fell to his knees.

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 my stomach 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.