Voyager of the Crown

by Melissa McShane

  “Out of the way,” Ransom said, shoving Belinda to one side. He grabbed the snake at the base of its jaw and tore it off Zara’s wrist, flinging it far away into the bushes. “Keep your arm low, and don’t panic, you’re going to be fine,” he said. He prodded at the two deep gashes on the side of her wrist, crouching to look at them rather than lifting her arm. “You’ll be fine.”

  “What kind of snake was it?” Zara said. Her heart was beating too fast. That would bring the venom racing through her veins to her heart and lungs. She needed to calm down, but what made her heart race wasn’t fear of the venom, but fear of Ransom learning her secret. He was going to try to do something about the venom, it would fail, and that would be it. “What kind?”

  “It wouldn’t mean anything to you.”

  “How serious?”

  Ransom looked up at her, and she recognized the look on his face. It was the look of someone who had bad news to deliver and wasn’t sure where to start. “You’ll be fine,” he said.

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  “All right, I hope you’ll be fine. Does that satisfy you? Now, stop talking, it makes the venom spread faster.”

  “Shouldn’t you suck the venom out?” Theo said.

  “Swallowing this venom by accident could kill me, and I’m no good to anyone dead.” Ransom gripped Zara’s hand in his. His palm was smooth but hard, the hand of a man who worked for a living. “Hold her. She can’t lie down for this.”

  Arjan and Theo took Zara’s shoulders. Theo held on too tightly, but Zara didn’t care. Her limbs were growing heavy, and she felt cold. Could she pretend his healing was working? No, she didn’t have any idea what the effects were, and he could probably tell the difference. She concentrated on breathing slowly. She’d been poisoned before, not that it was the same, but—

  All her muscles convulsed at once, and against her will she screamed at the sudden pain, like having talons embedded in every part of her body and pulling in different directions to rend her into a hundred pieces. “It will pass,” Ransom said, but he didn’t sound certain. No. He knows. Then the pain struck her again, and she no longer cared what Ransom thought, or what he might discover. She couldn’t control the spasms, which tore her out of her helpers’ hands and made her collapse, thrashing, on the jungle floor.

  Cold sweat built up on her face, her scalp, and all she could feel was Ransom’s hand anchoring her to reality. She couldn’t keep her fingers wrapped around his, but he held on to her tightly. She could hear him talking a great distance away, words she couldn’t understand. Someone was crying loudly nearby. It sounded like the monkeys chittering. Then, with a final erratic thump, her heart stopped. Her muscle spasms slowed, then ceased entirely, and in the blessed relief of painlessness she let herself fall into death.

  When she came to, her heart was beating, and she felt as if she’d been wrung out by a giant hand, all her muscles aching from the convulsions. She raised her hand to wipe the sweat from her forehead, and a terrified scream shattered the peaceful background noise of the jungle. Then Belinda was kneeling beside her, reaching out to touch her, then jerking her hand away. “You’re dead,” she said, “you can’t be alive, you’re dead.”

  “Move back, please,” Ransom said, and Zara realized she was lying on a bed of something soft and squishy. “Miss Farrell, can you hear me?” Zara nodded. “The venom’s worked its way through your system.”

  “Thank you,” Zara said. Might as well try to brazen it out. “Your healing must have been effective.”

  Ransom’s expression was carefully blank. “I suppose it was,” he said. “You’ll feel some lingering nausea and weakness, but otherwise you’re fine. You’re unexpectedly…hardy.”

  “Meaning I’m tough and hard to kill?” Was he playing along, or genuinely ignorant?

  He favored her with one of those sardonic smiles. “Maybe it’s not so unexpected. I think you could coerce Nettles into rearing onto his hind legs and dancing a jig.”

  “Easily. He’s more sensible than his master.”

  “That’s true. You won’t catch me dancing a jig no matter what you say.” He offered her his hand and helped her rise. Zara brushed fallen vegetation from her back and her head. Why couldn’t they have found her a less filthy place to lie? Her legs were rubbery and her head and stomach ached. She tried to take a step and found Ransom supporting her. “Steady,” he said. “Take short steps and give yourself time to regain your strength.”

  The others were huddled together, staring at her. “You dead were,” Cantara said. “How can that be, that you now alive are?”

  “It’s not that unusual,” Ransom said. “Once the venom had spent itself, her heart could start beating again. I realize it looks like death, but it’s only a death-like state.”

  “You could have warned us,” Theo said.

  “Sorry, I thought I did. Well, Miss Farrell? Are you ready for us to proceed?”

  Zara nodded. She still felt like vomiting, and her bitten arm was sore and felt twice its usual size, though it looked normal. She took a couple of wobbly steps, becoming gradually more sure of her footing, and soon was able to keep up the pace Ransom set. He certainly wasn’t going to coddle her, not at that rate.

  She ignored the continuing stares of her friends—were they friends, now? Could shared danger really be enough to build friendships on?—and followed Ransom deeper into the jungle. It was easier not having to meet their eyes, with all those remaining questions, but she could feel them watching her, and it was unnerving. She was certain Ransom knew her secret, and he clearly hadn’t told the others. She disliked him, but she didn’t think he was the type to pretend his healing talent was better than it was for his own aggrandizement. So he’d kept her secret, but why?

  Chapter Seven

  By the time the sun began to set, things had returned to normal—at least, no one was looking at Zara sideways. All of them stepped wide of the vines, the bushes, the trees, even the rotting leaves thickly coating the ground, which they shuffled through, hoping to scare away anything that might be hiding there. Zara kept up a normal pace, but all her attention was reserved for Ransom, striding along in front of the donkey as if nothing unusual had happened that day. It unnerved her more than the thought of more snakes hidden in the trees.

  They made camp in a place off to one side of the trail where there was something of a clearing, and Ransom went around with his blade to widen it further. While he was doing this, Arjan gathered sticks and built a lopsided but serviceable fire, which he lit by some mysterious process Zara couldn’t see. The fire smoked a bit at first, making Ransom say, when he rejoined them, “If we were at all interested in drawing attention, you’d have succeeded magnificently.”

  “Protection,” Arjan said.

  “I didn’t say it was a bad idea.” Ransom hauled a few boxes off the donkey, then the bundle that was his tent. “You could all help me get Nettles unloaded, you know.”

  “I was under the impression you didn’t want our help,” Zara said.

  “I don’t. But it’s better than having you stare at me. And you, Miss Farrell, might start sharing out food. Who knows what might happen if you don’t keep busy?”

  “Total anarchy, no doubt. Or you might relapse into self-centeredness.”

  Ransom sighed, an exaggerated sound of despair. “Food, Miss Farrell, and don’t make me reflect on the moment of insanity that brought us all to this point.”

  Zara didn’t see the need to respond to that. She removed the net bag still full of fruit, most of which had gone mushy during the day’s heat, then began rooting around in the boxes. Suddenly Ransom was at her side, gently but firmly closing one of the boxes. “Medicines,” he said before she could do more than open her mouth to protest. “Anyone eating some of those would get a nasty surprise.”

  “It’s not as if I knew that.”

  “Which is why I’m not calling you a fool. I’m not as sour-tempered as you seem to think.”

  “You haven�
�t gone out of your way to prove otherwise.”

  “I might say the same of you.” Ransom prodded a different box with his foot. “Staples. You could start chopping some of the roots, and we’ll boil up a soup as soon as I have time to go for water.”

  “I—all right.” That had been an almost pleasant conversation. Zara took handfuls of slightly dry squash and yams and went looking for a knife larger than the one she carried.

  “He’s not as bad as I thought,” Belinda said in a low voice. She took some of the food from Zara and handed her a knife. “Here, I’ll help. Chop them small or they’ll take forever to cook.”

  “I had to make him feel guilty to get him to agree to take us,” Zara said. “If he were a decent man—”

  “He saved your life, Rowena. You didn’t see—” Belinda’s hand paused in her chopping. “Your arm swelled up to three times its normal size, and the wound was green and dripping. You would have died if not for him. Doesn’t that entitle him to some credit?”

  She’d forgotten how her healing must have looked from the outside. “I just don’t like him, that’s all. But I’m grateful.”

  “I think the two of you might be a little too much alike for comfort. There’s only room for one queen in a hive.”

  Zara fumbled her knife and had to snatch at it to keep it from landing in the dirt. “We’re neither of us queens, and this isn’t a hive.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I suppose I do.” She looked over at Ransom, who’d picked up the cookpot and was heading off into the bushes. “And it wouldn’t hurt me to be nicer. But not much nicer. I think, if we’re not careful, we’ll end up doing what’s convenient for him and not what’s best for us.”

  Belinda shrugged. “He’ll get us where we need to be, and that’s all I care about.” She took another yam and began chopping small, regular pieces much nicer than the chunks Zara was managing. “You really aren’t much of a cook, are you?”

  By the time the soup was ready, it was full dark, and they sat close around the fire and passed the bowl between them. Fortunately, soup was something Zara had learned to cook over the years, and between that and the fruit she felt full when the last drop was drained from the pot.

  She sat cross-legged, soaking up the fire’s dry heat that smelled deliciously of smoke and some spice that came from the wood itself. Humidity aside, she was glad she’d gone south rather than north to the Eidestal. She didn’t really care for the cold. Was there someplace that was dry and hot? Haizea, the capital of Veribold, perhaps? She’d only ever been there once, when she was a child; maybe she could go there next. She smiled at herself. Lost in the jungle, and already planning a new trip. She probably ought to wait until she was safe on Goudge’s Folly before she thought that far ahead.

  “Miss Stouffer,” Ransom said, “you’ll take my tent again tonight.” He was sitting on the ground rather than the stool, a show of egalitarianism that made Zara feel guilty at her annoyance with him.

  “Maybe Cantara should take a turn,” Belinda said.

  “It’s a one-man tent. I think Mistress Zakhari would prefer not to be separated from her husband.”

  “You should take the tent,” Theo said. “I wouldn’t feel right about you sleeping on the ground.”

  “I’m forty-four, Theo, not eighty-seven,” Belinda said irritably. Zara successfully kept from choking on her last bite of papaya.

  “And not terribly strong,” Ransom said. “You’ll slow us down if you don’t get proper rest. If it helps, this isn’t chivalry, but a doctor’s opinion.”

  Belinda looked at Zara, who shrugged and shook her head. “All right,” Belinda said. “But don’t think I can’t keep up, because I can.”

  “You’ve done well so far,” Ransom said. “And speaking of rest, we should probably settle in for the night. I want to make an early start so we can reach our destination before nightfall tomorrow.” He stood and began banking the fire. “Stay close to the fire, though. No sense making ourselves more of a target than we already are.”

  Zara once again settled herself far from Nettles—she didn’t like the way the donkey looked at her, as if he liked the way she tasted and wanted seconds—and tried to calm her thoughts. She raised her arm and looked at her wrist in the fading light. Two light dots of scar tissue, slightly raised, lay parallel to each other on the curve of her arm. No healing was perfect, and serious wounds left scars. With her other hand, she reached behind her head to finger the round circle of scarring beneath her hair, where Alison’s pistol ball had shattered the back of her skull. It seemed like so long ago—well, it had been almost sixty years, but from her perspective that was almost no time at all.

  “Let me see that arm,” Ransom said in a low voice, sitting down beside her and taking her hand without waiting for her permission. She snatched it away from him, then felt ashamed of her abruptness.

  “Sorry. I’d rather you didn’t,” she said, matching his tone.

  “Because you know what I’ll find?”

  His hazel eyes were once again dark in the dim firelight, but for once he didn’t sound sardonic, just amused. “Then there’s no point to it, is there?” she said.

  “I thought at first my magic had failed,” Ransom said. “Then I realized what was happening. You heal yourself, don’t you? Probably not consciously, either. I’ve never heard of anything like it.”

  “No one has.” She hesitated—but she’d already put herself in his power, hadn’t she? “Thanks for keeping my secret.”

  “By the looks of your friends, none of them knew, so I guessed you wanted it kept. And you can think what you like of me, but I know what it’s like to have inherent magic in Tremontane, and I’d never betray one of my fellows.”

  “You can heal others. It’s hardly the same.”

  “I still used to get suspicious looks from people, as if they expected me to turn into an Ascendant in front of them. So no, it’s not the same, but I still understand. Somewhat.”

  Zara sighed and sat up to face him. “It’s usually not an issue. I don’t live a very dangerous life.”

  “And yet you’re here in the jungles of Dineh-Karit.”

  “It’s not where I wanted to go.”

  “Right. You were headed for Tammerek. That’s its actual name, Goudge’s Folly, that is.”

  “Still am, as long as you’re willing to help us.”

  “I said I would, didn’t I?”

  “Your lack of enthusiasm doesn’t fill me with confidence.”

  “You expect me to be enthusiastic about being thrown off schedule? People’s lives depend on me, Miss Farrell, a lot more people than you five, and they won’t be so understanding about the delay as I am.”

  Annoyance warred with guilt over feeling annoyed and won. “Then maybe you should have left us—”

  “Stop.” Ransom put his hand up between them, a barrier against her words. “You’re angry, and I’m…difficult to get along with, and there’s really no point to us fighting. I said I’d take you, but I thought you’d prefer honesty to me pretending this isn’t a sacrifice that, by the way, I’m making on others’ behalf. Can we call a truce between us?”

  He didn’t sound sarcastic or amused anymore, and Zara said, “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  “So am I.”

  She waited for him to leave, but he just sat there, half turned away from her, looking at the embers. She lay down, hoping that would encourage him to move on. Instead, he said, in an even lower voice, “So…how old are you?”

  Her heart began pounding as if the venom still poured through her blood. “Didn’t your mother tell you never to ask a woman’s age?”

  “My mother is a gossip. If she’d ever given me any advice, it would be to never let polite behavior get in the way of a good story.”

  “That’s no way to talk about your mother.”

  “There’s no other way to talk about her. How old?”

  His persistence sharpened her tongue. “Why should I te
ll you?”

  “No reason. I just want to know.”

  “Then how old are you?” She threw the question at him like a dare.

  “Twenty-six. There, now it’s your turn.”

  “I’m thirty-two.”

  “That’s what I thought. How old are you really?”

  “What makes you think I’m not thirty-two?”

  “I’m not stupid. I know what the implications of your magic are. Anyone with my magic would.”

  “That doesn’t mean you know anything about me.”

  Ransom turned and lay down next to her with his head propped on his arm. “Then don’t tell me. You don’t owe me anything.”

  “You’re right. I don’t.”

  Ransom was silent, his eyes fixed on her. He’s going to wait all night, and what will it hurt? And maybe it will stop him looking at you like…she didn’t know how to finish that sentence, except that his regard made her uncomfortably exposed, as if he could see through her skin. “I’m eighty-seven,” she said.

  His eyes widened. “Good heaven,” he said. “A much older woman.”

  “Older than what?” She felt irritated all over again.

  “Older than I thought. Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so surprised. It makes sense, actually. You act like someone who’s had a long lifetime to become who she is.”

  “Oh.” That was better than she’d expected from him. Maybe he really did want a truce. “Well, now that you know I’m so much more mature than you are, maybe you’ll take my objections more seriously.”

  “Not likely.” Ransom grinned at her. “You’re still an infant as far as this jungle is concerned. If anything, you should have the wisdom to listen to what I tell you.”

  “Sounds like we’re just going to go on clashing, then.”

  “Keep each other humble, rather.”

  “That sounds more mature. I can live with that.”

  “So can I. Good night, Miss Farrell.”

  To her surprise, the fact that he intended to sleep nearby didn’t irritate her at all. “My name is Rowena,” she said. “You know everything about me, you might as well call me that.”