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At once, the worry turned to icy cold fear, and that feeling was only amplified when the woman’s dark features were drained of much of their color.
“I… I don’t know.”
Suddenly, an alarm sounded from the docks, and both Aodin and the woman let out a stream of curses while kicking open the door. I exchanged a glance with Kai, and we rushed off after them.
Well, we tried to rush off after them, because suddenly the boat canted to one side, then the other, forcing me to scramble to stay upright.
“That means we’re moving, right?” I asked.
“As far as I know.” Kai had managed to stay more stable, but I could tell it was taking more effort than usual.
“Come on,” Darla said, rushing past us like she’d spent her entire life on boats. “If this ship is about to be swamped by capital guards and soldiers, they’re going to need our help.”
She had a point, but it didn’t get any easier to move along as we picked up speed.
By the time I made it onto the deck, I was properly nauseous, and I was surprised to see we were a significant distance from the shore. I would have thought that’d have us fairly in the clear, but no, there were several smaller boats rushing toward us, and I could see a gaggle of guards on them with ropes.
It was bewildering until I saw a just barely familiar face standing at the forefront. It took me a moment to place her, but then I realized that it was none other than the psychic woman who’d first scanned us when we’d entered the palace.
Her eyes locked on us, and she pointed, sealing what I already knew, and by the stream of fucks Darla let out beside me, she recognized her, too.
“Can they catch up with us?” the smuggler asked one of the sailors, shouting over the slosh of the waves and whatever clanking old engine powered our vessel.
“It’s not likely, ma’am, but they’re going to know that whoever they’re looking for is on a trading vessel. If they’re desperate, they’ll start paying visits to every major trading port.”
Well, shit.
That certainly wasn’t the best news, but once Kai officially petitioned the Verdana elders to abandon their alliance with King Nathaniel, it was inevitable that the crown would find out exactly where their errant son was.
“Fuck it. Since security is out the window, I may as well show you some actual quarters. You lot follow me and then you can pass out. I’m sure you’re tired.”
I was most certainly exhausted, but after the woman led us to some fairly nice rooms, for being a smuggling vessel, I found I couldn’t settle down into sleep. I wanted to, snuggled as I was into the bed next to Kai, with Oren and Darla in the one across from us. Other people would be uncomfortable sleeping in such a situation, but being in the military, I was rather used to having less than comfortable accommodations. My position as a healer had afforded me my own room for most of my time at Fort Canid, but that didn’t count missions and basic training, which weren’t as cushy.
“What’s on your mind?” Kai asked after the third time I shifted my legs.
“Sorry, I just can’t settle.”
I heard him take a deep breath then roll over to face me. “It’s not your curse’s fault, you know. What happened today.”
“Oh, uh, I actually didn’t think I was.” I tried not to be insulted by how surprised he looked. It was a fair assumption given my track record.
“That’s a good thing, then. What’s troubling you if not that?”
“I don’t know if it’s so much troubling as a… a mind worm I can’t quite pull my thoughts away from.”
“Gross mental imagery, but I understand what you mean.”
Part of me was nervous to continue. I felt like my thought weren’t fully formulated, just a loose conglomeration of theories strung together by either hope or desperation.
“Care to share with the class?”
“It’s just something that’s been on my mind. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“You don’t need to couch your language. If you’ve got a theory, I wanna hear it.”
That was my Kai. Always so incredibly supportive in a way I didn’t always feel like was deserved.
“It’s just that seeing my curse take physical form, and seeing it be malicious in incredibly specific ways made me think if I should stop thinking of it as some targeted force with one purpose. It’s more like a living entity that’s…feeding on whatever it’s doing.”
