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 of us 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, her voice 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?”

“Not in the least, Your Majesty. I must stand with the sea to my ankles.” She lowered her voice. “And I must confess, I fear it.”

His lips flattened and he offered her the barest nod before she wove her fingers through his and led him toward the edge of the water. She took slow steps in, waves biting at her hem, weighing it down. Theodore stood behind her and she guided his hands up, so he held her waist. She looked over her shoulder at him, a curving smile on her lips. “Just so.”

Writhing possessives overtook me. There was no need for it, but our blood bond lit in a painful, sparking protest. Agatha came to my side and tugged me back. I’d stepped closer to the sea without even realizing it, as if beckoned.

“Deep breath,” she said, so only I could hear her. “If we’ve learned one thing, it’s that your control is poorest when your emotions are high.”

I sucked in the salt air, but it did little good.

Princess Halla turned in Theodore’s hold and gave us gathered on the beach a beatific smile. Her voice rose above the roiling waves. “I know you do not pray to my saint, as I do not worship your Gods, but I ask that you all kneel during the ceremony out of respect.”

We lowered ourselves to the sand. I spun through my memories of Agatha’s lessons from when I had been a girl, searching for what I’d learned of the Obelian saints. All I could recall was that each family chose their own. The two other robed women walked into the water. They faced the princess and lowered themselves to their knees. The red sashes down their centers floated over the white foam, a thick stream of deep red.

Halla’s voice wound through the damp air like a song, reaching high, then dropping low into her chest. It was filled with heart and adoration. “I come with gratitude, with praise, with unending reverence. I come to keep our counterpoise. To take and to give in equal measure.”

One of the ladies in the waves raised the crystalline stake and Halla cradled it in both of her hands. “I ask for a happy marriage. I ask for a union that begets many children.”

My stomach felt slimy, flipping with sick. I dropped my gaze to my lap, where my interlaced hands had gone white.

Halla’s voice softened. “I ask that you strengthen the waters with your power. I ask that you aid King Theodore’s fleet. Twist the currents in his favor, fill them with your minions, so that the enemy may be lowered to your devouring dark.”

My gaze shot to Halla like a loosed arrow. Cold crackled through me as she twisted the stake and gripped it in one hand. Halla held her other hand out, palm up. “I give you my blood as payment for your blessings.” Halla’s eyes closed, and she whispered, so quietly I could hardly hear the words over the breeze, “I remember your body sliced open, and your blood spilled.” She set the sinister tip of the stake to her index finger and sliced the end of it clean open. Red dripped into the waves. “I give to the sand. I give to the water. Hear me, heed me. Cleanse the sea.”

Panic slammed me in the chest. “No.” I was on my feet to a chorus of gasps. I strode into the waves, water flying through the air in a wide spray.

Lachlan’s sword rang in my ears as he pulled it from his sheath and raced after me. “What the fuck—”