Princess at Sea

by Dawn Cook

  He grunted in surprise, and my shoulders eased in the familiar sound of it. “You didn’t let it go,” he accused.

  “I tried,” I said breathily, feeling the weight of the entire day fall on me. “I thought I did, but it’s still there, in my head, talking to me, telling me to let it go.”

  “So let it go.”

  This wasn’t what I had wanted to talk about. I pulled my gaze up, and his eyes widened, making me wonder just how bad I looked. “If I free it, it will kill me.”

  “If you don’t, it will do the same thing,” he said, his gaze unblinking on mine.

  I took a bite of my last biscuit, pretending I didn’t care and wondering how he had guessed it. “Probably.” I could feel it simmering in my head. It would be whispering to me if Jeck’s voice hadn’t frightened it into silence.

  My shoulder throbbed, and I massaged the healed tears with my free hand. Though it was no longer the debilitating pain of four days ago, my bite hurt. It ached, the pain mixing with the wind in my head. Venom had given me the strength to chain the wind to my will, the punta had given me the wisdom to call it, and my pride had given me the way to destroy myself.

  “Would you like me to warm your shoulder?” he asked, holding up a strong, salt-reddened hand. “It probably won’t do much for healing it anymore, but it will feel better.”

  I stared at him in disbelief. He thinks I would let him touch me? “I think you’ve already done enough damage, don’t you?” I said caustically, and picked up my wedge of cheese. “You just want to see how close we are to that dream,” I said hotly, thinking I hadn’t been able to stop the first one despite my efforts. I estimated my shoulder had about a week more of natural healing to look as it did in that punta dream, and I wasn’t about to hasten it along with a little extra magic from his hands. “I’ve seen that dream,” I added, “and I won’t let it happen.”

  “Probably,” he admitted with a calm certainty, a hand running across his bearded chin. “Not if you’re working against it. But I can’t make anything worse, and if you’re right that it’s only old venom working itself out, then it can only help. You might even figure out how to use your hands to heal. You’re very clever that way.”

  I sneered, my royal upbringing falling away to let my disgust show. His flattery fell on deaf ears. He knew it wasn’t old venom working itself out; it was fresh and potent, robbing me of my future. “No.” Appetite gone, I ate the cheese, not tasting it. What did it matter anymore?

  Jeck bent his knees to sit cross-legged with the canvas sail draped over him. I glanced up, becoming sullen when I realized he had slipped a hand under his bloodstained shirt and was holding his hand to his side, right where he had been cut. His gaze took on a distant look, and his shoulders slumped. It was obvious he was using his magic to speed its healing and make it feel better.

  My jaw clenched as I remembered the sensation of his hands on me, magic flowing from them to heal me from within. He could ease the numbness from me, melting the aches into a slurry of warmth and comfort. Better than a hot soak in water. Better than a fire on a winter night. Better than . . . anything.

  His eyebrows rose when he saw me eying his hands, and I forced my gaze away, stifling a surge of jealousy. He would teach me to kill, but not heal. What a dung flop. “It must bother you I know how close we are to that dream and you don’t,” I said, satisfied when his eye twitched. He couldn’t force his will on me anymore, treating me like a dog or whore. He had to ask, to treat me with the respect I deserved. I wasn’t going to show him my shoulder, and he couldn’t touch me without running the risk I might try to kill him with my hands.

  “What is a pain-free night worth to you?” he said. His face shadowed by the come-and-go light from the fire, he took his hand from his side.

  Shivering and miserable, I tucked a curl behind my ear and looked away. The lure of comfort wasn’t enough to let him put his hands on me. But there was one thing I wanted from him. Pain couldn’t move me, but shame could, and to avoid that, I would sell a look at my shoulder. My pulse quickened, and before I could change my mind, I blurted, “I’ll let you heal my shoulder if you don’t tell Kavenlow.” Then I flushed and added, “If you don’t tell him of my punta bite and that I called the wind or that my residual toxin levels are high.”

  He seemed to freeze, his brown eyes fixed on me in disbelief. “You want a dose of healing and my silence for a peek at your shoulder? You overestimate your charms, Princess.”

  My face warmed even more. I felt like a dock whore, teasing with a flash of skin to get something I wanted. “You want a good look at my shoulder to estimate the time to the vision? This is the only way you’re going to get it.” Pulse quickening, I licked the strong taste of cheese off my fingers, finding the flavor of dirt underneath.

  Jeck shifted his weight slightly, looking embarrassed, if I thought he could manage that particular emotion. “What makes you think once I get a look at it, I’ll make good on my offer?”

  I haven’t really thought about that. “I guess I’ll have to trust you.”

  His lips pursed, and he moved to put another stick on the fire, stirring it up before leaving it to burn. I watched him, edging closer to the flush of heat he had created. “Do you?” he asked, and I thought his voice carried an odd, questioning hesitancy under the surface scorn.

  Pulling my cloak tighter, I soaked in the heat, shivering. My thoughts went back to his decisive action when we found ourselves on a burning boat, and the way he pulled me the last few feet to shore when my muscles started shaking, exhausted from dragging my waterlogged dress. I remembered the pain reflected in his face later that day, when he admitted he had accidentally killed a woman he had loved. I thought of his tight words and downright meanness when he walked away from the raft and left me with Penelope.

  “No,” I said. “But it’s not going to cost you anything to heal my shoulder, so I think you will. I can’t be a player anymore; you have nothing to lose and everything to gain if I fall asleep faster. You won’t have to talk to me for so long.”

  He grunted and drew back slightly. “I don’t have to talk to you at all.”

  Miserable, I stared at the fire, finding a spot of gold where there ought to be shadows, a bubble of trapped heat under a leaning log. It burned brightly in the protected space, but it would dissipate to commonality if out in the open. I didn’t want to admit that Jeck’s voice was keeping the voice of the wind in my head at bay, giving me the strength to fight it off. “Do you want to see it or not?” I asked, angry with myself.

  I could almost see him thinking when I brought my gaze up. His lips were pressed tight so that his mustache and beard all but hid them. My breath caught when he placed his palms against the ground to rise. I put out a hand in warning, not wanting him to come to me, and he exhaled in a long sigh, falling back to the earth. “Fine,” he muttered. “You come over here.”

  Suddenly I was a lot more nervous. I collected myself, feeling my legs ache as I stood, not realizing until now how intimate it was going to feel to cross those few steps and voluntarily put myself so close to him. We’d been closer when tied to the raft, but that had been against my will and necessary. This wasn’t. Seeing me shifting awkwardly from foot to foot, Jeck arched his eyebrows in amusement.

  That did it, and, gathering my resolve, I untied my knife from its string. Leaving it with the water, I moved slowly around the fire, settling where he pointed, beside and a little in front of him. The ground was damp, and before I turned my back on him, I saw him eying my abandoned water flask. I almost changed my mind, but deciding I was more curious if he would steal the water from me or hold to his word, I settled myself.

  His bulk rose behind me, instilling me with an odd feeling of both protection and vulnerability. He was like a horse, all sweaty warmth and size. Maybe if I think of him as a big sweaty animal, it might help, I thought, then quickly dismissed the idea when it only made things worse.

  From behind me, Jeck cleared his throat impat
iently, and I shrugged both my shawl and my cloak from me. They puddled about my waist, and I felt like I had taken off all my clothes. I couldn’t stop my shiver in the new chill. He leaned past me to build up the fire further, and I found myself at a wary stiffness, listening to him exhale when he reached, and inhale when he straightened.

  “You first,” I said, when he settled himself. “You can warm my shoulder through my dress, and when you’re done, I’ll show you my shoulder.”

  Jeck sighed. “Princess . . . Healing doesn’t work through clothing. I have to touch you. But if you want to forget the entire thing . . .”

  “No,” I said quickly, then felt myself warm. “Don’t watch me.”

  He almost laughed, catching it and turning it into a cough. I turned where I sat, my brow furrowed. I didn’t want him watching me loosen the rude lacing holding my dress together at my shoulder. Seeing my peeved expression, his face suddenly went empty of emotion.

  “My apologies,” he said, apparently realizing he was coming across as a voyeur.

  I remained twisted at the waist, fingers fumbling as I undid the lacing and bared my shoulder, awkward since I wouldn’t look from his eyes to see what I was doing. My pulse was rapid and my stomach uneasy. I felt like a seed-fluff-headed fool girl, letting him get to me. He was a rival player, and I had a right to be nervous.

  I let my hands fall to my lap, and he turned from the dark. A small part of me eased when his gaze went to my eyes, not my shoulder, bare to the night and making me feel more exposed than I really was. God help me, he was only going to ease my pain, not kiss me. It would only be his hands on my shoulder, not his lips. Only his hands, sending a wonderful warmth through me, touching me more intimately than anyone else ever had. Maybe I trusted him more than Duncan? Maybe I’m simply foolish.

  He reached out, and I stiffened. “Promise,” I said. “On your word as a player.”

  Instead of laughing at my worry or getting smug that he could use me if he wanted, he surprised me by nodding. “I won’t tell your master you were bitten by a punta and what it did to your toxin levels, provided you promise me to tell him yourself.”

  Reassured, I let my body untwist, feeling my neck ease and my chest loosen. “All right,” I said, not sure if I was lying to him.

  I couldn’t help but jump when he touched me, even though I had heard the sliding of his salt-stained coat against itself and knew it was coming. “Sorry,” he muttered, making me wonder why he apologized, unless he thought he had hurt me. That went along with the lightness of his touch, which was more disturbing than a firm grip. My pulse was fast, and I keenly felt the roughness of his fingers, damaged by salt as he first traced the new lines of flesh.

  “How does it look?” I whispered, trying to find a more comfortable position.

  I heard him pull away, and his moving fingers vanished. “It looks fine. No infection.”

  My head moved in acknowledgment. I wasn’t surprised. It hadn’t been warm to the touch all day. “No. I mean, how close are we?”

  He was silent, and I heard in it his pondering of what he should tell me. “A week,” he finally said, and I found myself exhaling.

  “That’s what I thought, too,” I said, then jerked when his hands came back. Firmer, and a great deal warmer, he pressed my shoulder gently between his palms. A sigh slipped from me, and I didn’t care that he could hear my relief and that it sounded like a sigh of pleasure. I didn’t care at all. It felt that good.

  A pulse of heat sifted through my sore muscles like water through sand, seeping deeper, unknotting the pain. I slumped only to jerk upright when I realized I was almost falling over. My stomach eased, and a tension I hadn’t even realized I had been holding vanished. He couldn’t see my face, so I let my eyes close.

  Immediately his presence became shockingly more substantial: the sound of his breathing slow and sedate, the scent of his sweat and wool coat, the radiant heat on my back from his body behind me. I tried to remind myself that I was out in the woods, miles from rescue, vulnerable, that he was lulling me and that I should be more alert and wary for betrayal. But I couldn’t find the strength for it.

  It was the wind in the trees that snapped me awake, and Jeck must have felt it as his palms pressing into me shifted. It was then I realized that the zephyr in my head had gone completely silent in the short span that we had been talking. But now it was back, an unwelcome companion gibbering and trying to get me to listen to it.

  “Please talk to me,” I whispered to Jeck, desperate to get the wind to stop.

  “Why?” he asked, clearly surprised.

  I bowed my head, trying to decide if I should tell him his silence made me uncomfortable because I felt his hands on me more strongly, or if I should admit his voice drove away the wind in my head. The first made me sound like a silly woman and the second as if I was insane. I’d rather him think I was insane. Licking my lips, I said, “It helps keep the wind out of my head.”

  “Talking?” he questioned, not knowing that just that little bit had sent the zephyr into pathetic whines that held the promise of a quick departure.

  I nodded, unable to stop my intake of dismay when he moved his hands. But he was only shifting his grip, and my shoulders eased back down. The heat returned, but he didn’t say anything, so I listened to my breathing and said, “Thank you for not telling Kavenlow.”

  “Don’t thank me yet,” he said, and a trickle of tension started filtering back in. Was he changing the deal? “I think you’d rather lie to him yourself than risk him telling you that you can’t be his apprentice anymore,” he finished, and I pulled away, alarmed.

  “That’s not true,” I countered, as his hands fell from me. Frightened, I scooted back even more, forcing my breath to stay even lest he realize he might be right. Holding my dress closed with one hand, and drawing my shawl and cloak up around my shoulders with the other, I moved back another two feet, then stumbled to stand. “You promised you wouldn’t say anything.”

  “If you don’t tell him, I will.”

  He looked up at me from where he sat, an obvious empty spot where I had been. Helpless, I turned away and went to my side of the fire, thinking it was colder than it had been when I had left it only a moment ago. There was nothing I could threaten him with to make him keep his mouth shut if he wanted to go back on his word. Damn him, why had I trusted him?

  Unable to look at him, I sank back to the earth. My shoulder felt cold, the lingering warmth from his hands existing only in the deeper tissues. Across from me, Jeck rearranged himself, erasing every hint that I had been there. Frustrated, my thoughts whirled. I wanted to stay Kavenlow’s apprentice. But if I couldn’t, I didn’t know if I could take a half life with Duncan. “Please,” I asked. “Don’t tell him. I promise I’ll leave with Duncan as soon as I know my sister is safe. You’ve already destroyed my future. At least give me the time to end this with dignity. He doesn’t need to know if I just leave.”

  Jeck met my gaze across the fire, his angry expression that I might have lied to him easing. “You’d leave Kavenlow for Duncan?” he questioned. “You’d abandon the game and never tell Kavenlow why?”

  Depressed, I reached for a stick and pushed on a burning chunk of wood. Sniffing loudly, I wiped my cold nose, feeling my back go cold. I didn’t care anymore if he saw me cry, but there was nothing left. Slowly I nodded.

  “I won’t tell him providing you leave,” he said. “But if you take too long, or I think you’re going to hurt my game, I’ll tell him sooner.”

  My eyes flicked to his. It was the most I’d get from him. “Thank you,” I said, not understanding his change of heart. Perhaps there was a thread of humanity in him after all.

  Jeck settled himself deeper onto the earth, looking as cold and uncomfortable as I was. It was a new look for him, and I wondered why he had dropped his stiff persona of stoic endurance. It made him look almost human. “I’m thinking we will find the capital tomorrow evening,” he said, turning to a more benign topic. My
eyes followed his to my water flask, and I took a swallow of it, trying to drain enough of it so I could give the rest to him and call our bargaining done. It was still tepid from lying next to me all day, and tasted flat.

  “Late morning,” I said softly as I wiped my fingers dry, dismayed when I made a clean spot and realized how dirty I was.

  His eyebrows arched in disbelief, making deep shadows on his firelit face. “How would you know?” His eyes lingered on the flask. “You were out of your mind the entire night.”

  I pulled my cloak tighter, tired. Was he trying to irritate me so I’d give him the water just to get him to be quiet? It was working. “We could have rafted right into the capital,” I said. “Why did you keep forcing me to angle south?”

  “I didn’t know the size of your storm,” he said, his brow furrowing. “Can you imagine the damage you would have done to the ships at anchor and the dockside buildings had you blown in like that? Besides, if the pirates were ahead of us, it would have done them just as much good as us. This way, we have a chance to get there before them, not after.”

  We? I thought, deciding not to point his word choice out. But he was right. I would have destroyed everything three streets up from the docks. A day out was an acceptable compromise. I moved my shoulder experimentally, feeling it shift without pain.

  “Early morning?” he questioned.

  I nodded, hesitated, closed my eyes, breathed deeply. I had made out the better of this deal. “I can smell the filth in the streets,” I said, my eyes flashing open at his snort of disbelief.

  “I can’t,” he scoffed.

  “You don’t have the wind whispering in your ear, either.” I was done with him. The wind was gone from my head, banished by his voice. I had wormed a promise from him that he would not tell Kavenlow how I got it there to begin with. Picking up the water flask, I jiggled it to get his attention, then tossed it across the fire to him. It was awkward since I used my left hand instead of my right, but he caught it.