by Ann Aguirre
Tegan could tell everyone had so many questions, but she didn’t mean to repeat the story. She led the way back to the dock, balancing Lucilla on her hip. Once they reached the street, she put her down and took her hand instead. The little girl was all big eyes, studying the strangers.
“Who’s this?” Millie asked.
“Lucilla, ma’am.”
“I just aged twenty years.” Cheerfully, Millie locked arms with James.
Sending a message, Tegan suspected.
But it was unnecessary. No matter what James may have thought or wanted, she’d never seen him as more than a dear friend. Until Szarok, she’d suspected that she was incapable of forming such bonds. But he’d broken down walls she didn’t even know existed, and when he marched out of the ruins of her heart’s fortress, she sat among the fallen stones. Instead of weeping, she marveled at the breeze.
“I suppose you could say she’s my apprentice. But she has a few years of studying with Khamish before she’ll be able to travel with me.”
Alarmed, the little girl wrapped her arms around Tegan’s neck. “You’re leaving?”
“Yes, love. There are friends I wish to see. But I’ll return.”
“Liar,” said Lucilla. “People only go; they don’t come back again.”
For the first time since they’d left the Catalina, James spoke, and it was in a different tone than she’d ever heard from him. “You’re being disrespectful, young miss.” He tapped Lucilla lightly on the head, then went on, “Besides, my friend wouldn’t lie.… She keeps her promises.”
“How do you know?” Lucilla asked, startled out of an impending sulk.
Tegan regarded James with fresh approval. Whatever he’d been doing, it had transformed him from a good-hearted clown to a man worth taking seriously.
“I saw this woman dive over the rails of a ship into a stormy sea. And yet here she stands before me. Don’t you think if she can survive that, she can survive anything?”
Yes. I can.
“Did you really do that?”
“As it happens, yes.”
“Why?” Lucilla demanded.
“You’ll have to wait for the captain and first mate before I start talking.”
Though Lucilla protested, Tegan held firm. After they got to the cottage, she set the girl to helping Khamish prepare refreshments. Since the house was small, she spread a blanket on the grass in the shade and created a makeshift picnic. James and Millie offered to help, but she declined. Tegan rushed in and out, carrying food, so everything was ready when the last two guests arrived.
“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” the old healer exclaimed.
She and Advika hugged, and Sung Ji settled next to James, on the other side of Millie. Tegan chose a spot between Lucilla and Khamish, but the little girl soon squirmed into her lap.
As they ate, she told her story, punctuated with interjections from her rapt audience.
James feigned an angry stare. “You rescued the vanguard, eked out a living on a lonely isle, and then dispatched a band of ruffians. If that’s not enough, you also commandeered their vessel, encountered a sea monster, and dealt handily with sudden yet inevitable betrayal.”
She giggled at his summary. “When you put it that way, it does sound like quite an adventure.”
One I can hold in my heart until it stops beating.
“Never say you encountered the Behemoth,” Sung Ji breathed.
The first mate looked as if he wanted to pinch Tegan to make sure she was human and not a maritime chimera sent to steal their souls. Even Captain Advika seemed impressed, and she asked a whole bunch of questions about how the thing acted as it chased the whales. Tegan tried her best to recall but eventually admitted, “I was pretty terrified. You’d have to check with Szarok for more details. I’m sorry.”
The quiet that fell over the group unnerved her. At last she prompted, “What?”
“Isn’t he…?” James wore a sorrowful, hangdog look.
That assumption startled a laugh out of her. “See, this is why you’re the storyteller, not me. I got shot, not him. Received a new scar, too. He’s fine. Once I healed a bit, he headed for Appleton by way of Rosemere to take care of his people.”
“Oh. I had the impression that the two of you would never part,” Millie said softly.
Tegan’s smile tightened a little but didn’t crack. “You were wrong.”
James stepped into the breach; rescuing her had become a habit he couldn’t break, it seemed. Glancing around, he donned his storyteller demeanor like a colorful cloak. “You didn’t corner the market on excitement. We fought off raiders.”
While snuggling Lucilla, Tegan listened to their story, and it was quite late by the time everyone finished talking. Farrell Gwynne came looking for his little girl around that time, so Tegan sent her off, and the rest of their visitors took that as their cue to depart as well. Tegan cleaned up the picnic remnants and then fetched the knitting basket. She had her own tube, but someday she might turn it into a scarf.
For the right person.
“You’ve got a faraway look in your eyes, me duck. Does that mean you’re shipping out when the Catalina sails?”
“Will you be all right without me?”
The older woman laughed. “Did I build a fence around your life? Whatever you want, you should have it. I’ll be fine. Lucilla will come, just as her mama did before her.”
“As I told Lucilla earlier, I will be back. Because I was happy here.”
“Was,” Khamish repeated with a faint smile. “That means your heart is already gone.”
A flood of warmth surged through her, remembering Szarok. “It’s never really been here with me,” she admitted softly. “But I’ve learned to live without.”
“Ah.” Just that. It was an acknowledgment but also a brief invitation to speak on, leaving the choice in Tegan’s hands.
Where it always should be.
She spilled everything to Khamish and then finished with, “I’m not even sure why I’m telling you all this, except … that I want someone to know that I love him.”
“You speak as if you’ll never see Szarok again.”
“Perhaps not. I don’t know what the future holds. Part of me thinks I should stay where he left me and wait for him to come home.”
Khamish was far too clever not to put the pieces together. “That’s why you walk up to the bluff and watch the sea?”
“I suppose.”
“It’s your life. Do you want to spend it here?”
She thought about that long and hard as she washed the last of the dishes. In time she said, “No. Not now anyway. I’m not ready to settle down yet.”
“Then sail with Advika. See other friends and heal the sick as you go. If your man’s meant to find you again, he will.”
“You put more faith in fate than me.”
Khamish shrugged. “In my time I’ve seen stranger things. But … even if you do meet up, your path probably won’t be smooth. Folks won’t see the two of you together and think it’s beautiful that you got past your differences.”
“I know,” she said. “But I’d rather climb a mountain with him every single day of my life than sit on a featherbed with anyone else.”
“That’s love, me duck. I’ll keep a fire burning for you both here, and if he happens to come home while you’re away, I’ll tell him you’ve gone looking.”
Tears came upon her like a spring storm, sudden and hard, and the healer stroked Tegan’s hair as she wept. “You c-can’t make that promise. Before, you said you’re too old for that.”
“Pish,” said Khamish. “These bones are made of promises. To see Lucilla raised proper, I need to live at least another ten years or so.”
“I’ll be back before then.”
“Then stop your bawling. That’s what the knitting is for.”
Half laughing and half crying, Tegan mopped her tears and worked on her own tube until she calmed enough to sleep. The next few days, she alternat
ed between seeing patients and wrapping up her time in Peckinpaugh. On the fourth day, she was ready to travel. She gave hugs to Khamish and a sniffling Lucilla at the dock, but it did feel as if she’d left a sliver of herself behind as the Catalina caught the tide, sails billowing free.
“Well, this is a good feeling,” Advika said, propping up beside her.
Sung Ji had the departure well in hand, so the captain was taking a break. Tegan smiled at her, waving madly at the ones she was leaving behind. It occurred to her then: Khamish is a teacher who’s survived me. Maybe the curse is broken. Or maybe there never had been one at all. But thinking of Dr. Wilson reminded her—
“It is. But I need to ask you something … and I can’t believe I forgot for so long.”
“Have at it,” Advika invited.
“Before, in Winterville, I studied with Dr. Wilson.” She repeated his dying words as best she could remember them. “Does that mean anything to you?”
“Oh.” The other woman’s face went dreamy and distant. “He’s the one who saved me, you know. He was working as a ship’s doctor then, and he patched me up when they picked me up outside Saint City. I guess you could call him my first love.” She slid a look at Sung Ji, who was too busy to notice her melancholy. “Not my last.”
“Why didn’t it work out?” Tegan asked. “If you don’t mind.”
“He was tired of the roving life, and I’d just begun. He was born to science folk in Winterville, and he learned all he could until his father passed. Then he took a notion to see the world … and found me. Later he wanted to settle down, but I didn’t want to stay and he couldn’t go. His bloodline was bred and buried there, he said, and he needed to help them deal with the mutant threat. But me…? I wanted to see the world.”
“He was widowed when I met him,” Tegan said.
“I’m glad he found someone … and that he’s at peace. Thank you for telling me.” The captain broke her usual protocol and strode toward the first mate and took him in her arms right there on deck.
The sailors whooped, but Sung Ji shouted for them to get back to work. He aimed a confused look at Tegan, over Advika’s shoulder, but she only pantomimed that he should keep holding the captain tight. I guess when you truly love someone, you always do, at least a little. And it’s hard to hear that they’ve gone. But unless Advika was much older than she looked, Dr. Wilson must’ve been close to twenty years her senior.
Still less of an obstacle than a lasting love between human and Uroch.
Eventually the captain tired of the staring, and scolded her crew. Sung Ji came over to Tegan at the first chance. “Something happen?”
“I gave her some news I should’ve delivered long ago.”
The first mate raised a brow. “Anything I should know?”
“Ask her.”
Visibly disgruntled, he returned to work. It was a clear, warm day, with a sea like glass. The light wind aggravated the crew, and it took longer than usual to reach their next stop on the way south, which was Port-Mer in Antecost. At night Tegan didn’t bother James and Millie when she saw them settled in the infirmary. She just got blankets and curled up on deck. Night after night she drifted off beneath a crowd of stars. A sliver of a poem James had read to her once bobbed like a fishing line in her mind, something about how love fled. But if she’d learned anything from Advika, it was that love never left. Not really. Not when it was true.
I am always there, she told the night. Even if I am not beside you.
The Catalina reached Port-Mer around noon the next day, successfully navigating the dangerous shoals. Anticipation percolated through her. Maybe nothing as drastic as raiders or sea beasts, but Tegan could use a little excitement. But the town looked more or less the same, and she remembered how a girl named Malena had died the last time she’d passed through. That dimmed her sunny mood.
Yet the village chief, Little-something, greeted the captain like an honored guest. “So good to see you, Captain. You’re always welcome.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“Any news?” Advika asked.
Whatever he might’ve said, Tegan never discovered. For a lone Uroch—not one she recognized—raced into town, snarling in their native tongue. From his flourish of claws, alarm drove his urgency, nothing more. The others clearly had no idea what he was saying, but drawing on lessons that seemed so long ago now, she puzzled out the gist.
“A healer. Please! We need a healer. The consort is deathly ill.”
For All Things a Season
Judging by the runner’s agitation, there was no time for questions. A sailor brought Tegan’s medical bag, now augmented with supplies she’d acquired in Peckinpaugh. She had Dr. Wilson’s precious book again, but she’d replaced her old staff permanently with the one Szarok had crafted for her. With it in hand, she followed the scout to the stable, where she borrowed a sturdy pony. She wasn’t a good rider, but better that she jostled for a few miles than try to keep up with the Uroch moving at top speed.
The flight through the forest gave her no time to wonder. Within the hour, she reached the settlement, and it was wondrous. Though they’d just begun, the houses that had been built integrated beautifully with the surrounding woodlands. Most of the People seemed to be living in tents for the moment, but it was obvious the Uroch had, at last, found their permanent home. Tegan dismounted and a youngling took the pony’s reins.
“This way,” the messenger snarled.
Heart pounding wildly, she followed him to the largest of the homes, a three-room structure built of split logs. Inside, she smelled infection and herbed smoke. Despite the warmth of the day, a fire blazed in the hearth. There were three people present, two females, including the one prone on a pallet, and … him. Her gaze locked on Szarok; the situation was too dire for a smile, but pleasure overwhelmed her just the same. In their time apart, his sharp features had drawn even tighter, etched at chin and jaw, thin mouth, golden eyes.… She catalogued his face like a treasure she meant to auction.
It’s fate, she thought. Khamish was right.
Without needing to look for him, here he was. And in need of a healer, too. Her smile brightened by degrees, despite the circumstances.
“I give greetings,” she said in passable Uroch.
The elder started. Yellow eyes searched her, and then the female offered a half bow, reminiscent of Szarok’s early days. “Save the consort, please.”
She nodded, but before she could reply, Szarok spoke. “Leave us, Rzika. The healer needs to work.”
From the look of her, the Uroch female had been ailing for a while. Briskly, Tegan sterilized her hands and then checked the wound. Infected, as I thought. The consort must be uncommonly strong to have fought for so long. As Tegan set out her supplies, she had to ask.
“Who is she?”
That wasn’t what she truly wanted to know. Other questions fought for supremacy. How have you been? Did you think of me? Her hands shook a little until she controlled them. No, I can’t think of that. The patient needs me. Szarok stood with his back to her, and she drank in even the forbidding line of his unyielding spine like he was a clear mountain spring that could quench her thirst. For a long moment he didn’t speak.
When he did, his voice sounded rusty, as if he hadn’t used human words since the day they’d parted. “My mate.”
Those two words eviscerated her.
Her hands stilled on a bottle of dried comfrey. “I’ve been summoned to save your…?” Tegan swallowed hard and breathed through sharp, shocking pain. I had no idea you could be this cruel. “Ah. Well, that is my job, after all.”
She focused on her work then, because seeing him hurt too much. The wound had gone putrid, so she had to cut away some dead flesh. Her patient snarled, but she seemed too deeply unconscious to suffer fully. It would be better if Tegan had maggots, but they weren’t feasible for her med bag. The puncture wounds were deeply infected, though Uroch skin didn’t show the same streaks as humans. Yet the stench was unmistak
able, as was the material she expressed from the wound. Two separate abscesses had formed, and she worked feverishly. At first the Uroch female thrashed, but the longer Tegan prodded, the weaker she got.
Stitches would help nothing in this situation, as the wound needed to drain. At last Tegan finished and packed the wound with medicine to fight infection. Finally she brewed a tea and fed it to the sick Uroch in slow spoonfuls, one by one. Since the blend had a soporific quality, the patient settled. Her fever still seemed alarming, but there were temperature differentials, variations in Uroch and human physiology.
“That’s all I can do for now.” As Tegan packed her bag, Szarok cleaned up the mess. “I’ll leave a supply of the tea for you. That, along with the medicine for the bandages, may be enough to save her, if she has a fighting spirit.”
“She does,” he said.
It hurt to breathe. I never knew … never guessed. That I was just a distraction from his real life.
“Good, then.” Her motions were jerky as she turned toward the door.
“Tegan.”
She clenched her fist on the handle of her bag so hard, it hurt. “Don’t call my name like you know me. From this day on, we’re strangers.”
“Please stop.”
“If there are complications, you can send for me. I won’t be in Port-Mer long, though. I’m with the Catalina again, so I’ll be sailing soon. You don’t need to worry that … that I’ll linger or make things awkward.”
“What are you saying?” he demanded.
“I understand.”
“What?”
“That I was a … a test. Or a game you were playing. Maybe you wanted to see if you could make a human feel something for you. Well, congratulations, your training was a complete success, vanguard.”
With a snarl, he crossed the room and cupped her shoulders in his hands. “Not another word. If you think this is easy, you’re mistaken. You force me to admit—in her hearing—that the consort means nothing to me? Will it comfort you to know that I’m like an animal in a trap? You are, and always will be, the one choice I ever freely made.”
