In the Veins of the Drowning (The Siren Mage, #1)

by Kalie Cassidy

I averted my gaze quickly, feeling the heat rise in my cheeks, and sank into a low curtsy before the king of Varya.

“I’m not sure. Perhaps the captain is hiding away with cold feet, preparing to beg His Majesty to be released from our engagement.” “Is the captain an idiot as well as a murderer?”

“Can you keep a secret?” he said, his graveled voice filling only the small space between us. Startled by his question, I looked up into his desperate gaze. I felt as if I were made of secrets.

It felt like blood, hot and pulsing, flooded my back, deep around my spine. My body tensed. He slowed our dance. “What’s wrong? Are you tired?” I could only nod.

With evander

I breathed in the hot metal scent. “You’re scared.” I’d never felt so powerful—so unlike myself. He shook his head, but I could see the whites of his eyes. I sank my fingers in deeper.

I’d been forced to give my blood since I was small. Denying Nemea and his deity an offering meant death.

wounds at my shoulder blades. “Did you know…” His lips brushed my shoulder. “… that if you were down by the water this would have healed almost instantly?” His knuckle bumped over the bones of my spine. “I could take you down there with me, when we’re blood-bound.”

Manipulation!!!!!

“It is easy to be good when you’re blessed by the bloody fucking Gods. It’s when you are lowly, when you are nothing—like I was—that you learn to make your own power. And with it, you take what you’ve been denied.”

He was everything Nemea had always said he was—haughty and honorable and righteously indignant—but I did not wish to break him of those qualities, like

Through the hum of coursing power came a voice so soft, I thought I imagined it. The water’s words were frail and distant, like a breeze whispering round the shell of my ear, fighting to be heard. There you are, dearest. I’ve waited so long.

Is this truly the sea or is this a “mate” possible king Theo??

“You denounce Nemea, and you swear fealty to me as your new king. Then, when we arrive in Varya, you go directly to the Mage Seer and have our blood bond severed in a ritual there.”

First and second condition

“When you return from the Mage Seer,” he said, “you will complete one task of my choosing.”

Third condition

No good and fair and just king—no king who was duty-bound to his core—would do something this foolish. A king as virtuous and powerful as Theodore would let me, an orphaned ward of a vicious and lowly king, die here because his reign demanded it.

Theory: king Theo has a secret! There is more here, possibly fated mates, reincarnated lovers, more than a king but a god?

Shadows tucked themselves beneath his golden-brown cheekbone, into the hollow of his neck and the furrow of his brow. I could see the shape of his ancestor in him. The Great God Panos had been strong and indominable too.

But I thought of him in Nemea’s ritual room, spun through with fury over my blood. He’d told me with surety, I do know you. Who do you think I am?

His blood felt like starshine. Bright and boiling, it climbed up the veins in my arm, into the pulse in my neck. It blistered me from within as it spread and spread through my body.

Theodore lowered himself to his knees before me, his eye to mine, and my every thought dissipated. He was close enough for me to whisper and still be heard. My brow buckled with confusion at the gesture.

Theory: While she pledged her loyalty to him aloud, he pledged to her silently

I couldn’t decide if knowing that he, the descendant of a Great God and king, was also scared made me feel better or worse.

Every kindness, every favor, was a debt to be repaid, and I already owed so much.

I pushed up onto an elbow and scowled. “And why can’t you send a rider?” He kept his gaze on my wound. “Because it’s not just the severance you need while you’re there. You need a prophecy too.”

“Because I am your king, and you swore fealty to me. And because the third condition, which you have already agreed to, hinges upon the prophecy.”

Third condition has not been determined at this time!! Prophecy was she would be king Theo’s undoing. She would bring war. The Mage “loves them together” and thinks Imogen should keep Theo.

“Your purpose—the reason I agreed to bind myself to you—is to ensure that you will help me track down and kill King Nemea’s water deity, Eusia. And it’s your power that makes me believe you can. That silent lure you possess is Gods’ power. It’s beyond what a normal Siren can wield.”

“I believe you’re the daughter of the Great Goddess Ligea.”

“Every God’s power is different, but it’s always the greatest among the descendants who can wield it with ease. I have to sing to lure, but you do not.” She looked to Theodore. “And the king—he doesn’t need to touch to heal flesh or to make plants flourish.”

Theo is also a god?

“You speak of desire like it’s an illness. Like I have infected you with it.”

“There you are, dearest. I’ve waited so long.” The nekgya’s flat words came from its black-lipped mouth, but there was a second, identical voice that echoed the same words within my skull. The power in my chest blistered. “What did you say?” Those words. I knew those words.

She moved toward me with hiccuping steps until she was close enough to set the girl into my outstretched arms. Her eye locked with mine. “There you are, dearest,” she repeated in a slow, awful voice. “I’ve waited so long.”

A voice came from the nothingness. A young woman’s, deep and melodic and lovely. Her croon was so encompassing it seemed to vibrate through my chest. “There you are, dearest. I have waited so long.”

“Tasting that brew again reminds me of death, Imogen.” He pushed back a burgeoning emotion. “You remind me that I am alive.”

“I cannot even see her for the way you encompass me.” Emotion etched his face. “You fill my every sense. You stalk my waking mind. You make up the entirety of my dreams. I couldn’t speak to you after what Lachlan said because it shocked me—that he was right. About what I feel—”

“What I feel for you is beyond reason—beyond duty and desire. You have tipped my whole world on its side, and you are the one clear thing in the chaos.” His nose brushed the end of mine. “You. I want you.”

“If you are selfish”—he gave me a deep, luxurious kiss—“then I am a gluttonous, greed-riddled fiend for how badly I want you.”

“You are so determined to believe you are some dark harbinger, some monster. I cannot believe—I refuse to believe that knowing you, that binding myself to you—” He swallowed hard. “That… that caring for you could possibly be the cause of my ruination. But if you are to devastate me, then let it be completely. Lay waste to me and everything that’s mine. A life without you in it is not one I wish to lead.”

For now, I must do terrible, punishing things to keep my people and you safe. Come back to me and absolve me of them.

“I’m sorry, Imogen. I was content. I was satisfied and enamored. But I was never happy like I was with her.” He gave me an apologetic shrug. “But you’re not me. Plenty of us fools move on to find better love. Perhaps there’s hope for you yet.”

Foreshadow?? Will a third second love interest come into play?

I’d inherited so much from my mother. Her features, the shape of her body too, were nearly identical to mine. But I feared I’d inherited my father’s heart. All the deaths I’d caused did not pierce me like they should.

“In the wake of the ruined, when the spirit rends, mend and loop and seal. In the veins of the drowning, when blood fills the throat, clear and wash and heal.”

Spell said to Eusia