The thrashing seemed to go on forever. Niamh finally calmed, her sunken eyes still closed in a face made cadaverous and paler than marble. Her breath rattled, pausing in spaces of silence so long Imogen wondered if she had finally slipped the bonds that held her spirit to earth. But Niamh held on—long enough to open her eyes and gaze at her daughter with a pleading expression that made Imogen flinch. “Forgive me, my darling girl,” she rasped.

Imogen stared into those dark, dark eyes with all their memories and secrets and saw surrender. Death was a shadow on the doorstep, one foot already across the threshold, held at bay only by the pain that gripped her mother. Tears spilled down Imogen’s cheeks, dripping on to their entwined fingers. “Oh Mother, there’s nothing to forgive.”

“Help me, Imogen. I am so very tired.”

Imogen gasped out a sob. She released Niamh long enough to remove her gloves. Ivory hands, smooth and unblemished by scars or the sun lifted and meshed slowly with Niamh’s own wrinkled ones, their clasp as lethal as it was merciful.

The older woman smiled gently. For a moment her gaze sharpened, grew clear with wonder. Imogen, caught in that same wonder and bittersweet sorrow of touching her mother’s skin for the first time without gloves, leaned forward and kissed Niamh’s cool forehead. When she straightened, Niamh still wore the smile, but her eyes were blank.

Heedless of the bloody linens, Imogen gathered the limp, fragile body into her arms and greeted the dawn with quiet sobs.

CHAPTER TWO

The descending sun lacquered the Adal harbor in crimson and orange light. From his place at one of the high windows in his library, Prince Hayden watched ships sail slowly into the harbor, accompanied by playful dolphins that rode the slow-treading bow waves. Dwellings clung to the cliff walls on either side of the harbor, their walking paths snaking down the worn rock like ribbons in a woman’s hair. The white-washed walls of houses gleamed in the dying light, and lanterns flickered to life amidst the rise of shadows.

The young prince ignored the picturesque scene before him. He’d viewed it a thousand times, and its glory was lost on him. Instead, he looked beyond the harbor, to the vast sea that swelled with the rising tide and the coming of nightfall. There, past the horizon and out of his reach, were the shipping lanes that provided wealth and riches untold to the neighboring kingdom of Berberi. Hayden’s hands clenched into fists. Those shipping lanes rightfully belonged to the kingdom of Castagher, and if she had the martial power Berberi did, Hayden would wrest them from Berberi by force.

His hands relaxed. There were other ways to gain back what was lost, ways that didn’t require war and bloodshed. He had no wish to be the king his father had been, bankrupting his country to finance wars that only weakened Castagher in the end.