After crying her eyes out on the palace steps, Imogen fled into the city’s heart. Two months in Tineroth and the eerie hush no longer bothered her. Now, it was a boon. There were none to wonder or remark on her flight as she made her way to the library and sat down on the toppled column Cededa had used as a seat when he first brought her here.
Imogen gave a humorless chuckle at the sight of the omnipresent mist drifting toward her. Tineroth’s spectral custodian, and Imogen’s watchful guard. It blanketed the steps, pausing at her feet. A sudden pressure rested against her ankle. Imogen looked down to see a full water skin next to her. She lifted it, took a healthy swallow of water and rinsed her mouth several times.
“My thanks.”
She didn’t expect an answer and jumped when the mist suddenly rose higher, separating itself into distinct forms that shifted and swayed with the steady breeze.
Imogen scrambled to her feet. Before her stood a virtual crowd of wraiths, their pellucid features obscured by the play of shadow and moonlight. Still, she made out what looked to be an army. Men armored for battle, helmeted and carrying both shield and sword. They hovered behind a small group of women with children at their side. A stately figure, pride evident in the set of her insubstantial shoulders, drifted closer to Imogen.
She raised a spectral hand and pointed to the side. Imogen followed her direction. The air rippled and shadows realigned themselves, lightening to become floating images of things that once existed in Tineroth.
Cededa as he’d once been—darker-haired and blue-eyed with sun-bronzed skin. Haughty, merciless, scornful. Each trait was stamped on his sublime features. The scene changed. Tineroth, still whole but falling, her streets teeming with angry mobs and fires in the distance. Another city, razed to rubble. Blood ran in rivers down streets littered with broken bodies. A crowd of women and children huddled in a room with a vaulted ceiling. One, a stunning woman with the bearing of a queen, stood defiant before a murderous army.
The images flickered, changing twice more. Tineroth as she was now; Cededa, pale and altered by the Waters, reclined on a broken throne. The last scene had Imogen moaning behind her hand. A great bonfire with Cededa at its center, lashed to a cut timber. Silhouettes danced around the pyre, swaying drunkenly as the Undying King burned and shrieked his agony to a deaf heaven.
New tears coursed down Imogen’s cheeks as the images faded. The ethereal woman raised a hand as if in farewell. The figures behind her bowed. They all shifted, losing form until they were once more a single vaporous shroud.
Imogen trailed after the mist as it led her back to the palace. Cededa waited on the lowest step, haloed in moonlight. His still features revealed nothing of his thoughts. Imogen wished she could be so unflappable.
“Who are the people in the mist?”
He gazed past her to the mist drifting away from them. “I see Gruah has revealed herself to you.”
Imogen started. The last wife. The one he called his judge and punisher. “I saw soldiers, women, and children. A woman of distinction stood foremost among them. Was that Gruah?”
His mouth tightened. “Aye, it was. It is. She was a princess of Mir whose first allegiance remained with Mir. It was she who raised the rebellion against me and consorted with the Tineroth mages. Her sorcery and theirs made Tineroth as you see it now and imprisoned me here. The others were the women of her court and their children.”
“And the soldiers?”
“Those who cut them down. They followed me into Mir and did my bidding. They remain in Tineroth, restless spirits who still do my bidding.”
Tineroth, broken and but not entirely abandoned, only haunted. “Why do they linger here?” She scowled. “Did you raise some spell to trap their spirits?”
He matched her scowl with one of his own. “No. Before she died, Gruah cursed us all. The men loyal to me will find no rest until I do.” He sighed. “But a curse demands a sacrifice of its wielder. Gruah remains with me as well, as do the women and their children who died beside her. A bargain made to insure I’d never forget what I once did.”
The revulsion and horror that had consumed her earlier lessened. Cededa’s light eyes almost glowed in the night’s gloom. Dispassionate before, his expression was now one of abiding sorrow and regret, acknowledgement of an act that left a permanent stain on his soul. Sudden insight made her heartbeat stutter.
“My bane. You draw it from me as poison from a wound and take it onto yourself.” Her eyes narrowed. “You aren’t immune as you say.”
His soft chuckle lacked any humor. “I didn’t say that, Imogen. You did.” He crossed his arms. “No, I’m not immune, only resistant and only by the Waters’ grace. I die a little more each time you touch me.”
“You bastard,” she whispered. “You would make me your redeemer.”
He’d likely been called names far fouler than “bastard” in his long life and in circumstances far more hostile, but he flinched for a moment at her insult, or maybe the betrayal in her voice. An echo of all the betrayals he participated in over the years.
“Don’t flatter yourself, Imogen,” he snapped. “No man, woman or god can redeem me now. Even if I’m to die, it will simply be to escape the prison of Tineroth. However, the wraiths who wait in twilight with me will find peace once I’m dead.”
Imogen rubbed her eyes and looked to where the mist hovered nearby. She remembered Niamh, the silent pleading in her eyes that Imogen end her suffering with a merciful yet fatal touch. Was this so different?
She stared at Cededa, a king immortal but not invincible. A flawed, weary man. A man she loved despite all she’d just learned. “I want to go to my rooms.” He stood and bowed as she passed. The weight of his gaze rested on her back long after she left him on the steps.
As usual, warm water and freshly laundered cloths awaited her. Imogen shed her skirt and tunic, bathed and slid naked beneath the bedcovers, almost numb with grief. She fell asleep, clutching the pillow Cededa had used the night before.