Chapter 13
Thirteen
Neal
Ansel only slept three or four hours on any given night. So I took first watch while he rested, then slept through until morning while he stayed awake and worked. It was a good system. It capitalized on Ansel’s supernatural resiliency, and it let Sorcha get a full night’s sleep.
At least usually. Tonight she crept up and sat down beside me.
“I hate sleeping out here,” she said quietly.
“You ever camp with your parents?” I asked by way of reply.
She shook her head, gaze fixed on her hands clasped in her lap, very pointedly not touching me.
“Has it occurred to you that maybe you hate sleeping alone?” I asked.
I’d sworn to myself I wouldn’t push her to forgive me before she was ready.
But this wasn’t a vie for compliments or affection, it was an observation, backed by weeks of hearing her wake up startled and crying in the next room, followed by weeks of her sleeping hard and steady in my arms.
“Ansel will see.”
She didn’t look at me.
“Ansel knows you’re carrying my baby,” I replied. “You want me to hold you?”
Sorcha bit her bottom lip, still looking anywhere except at me. Then she nodded.
It went like that for weeks. The longer we were on the road, the sicker Sorcha got. Not that it mattered. We had to keep moving. Eventually, we fell into a kind of awful routine.
She’d throw up her breakfast, try to keep down the pine needle tea, and get on the horse by dawn.
Chuckles, loyal to a fault, fussed over her every time Sorcha was sick—ears flat, nosing along Sorcha’s spine.
Well before noon, the motion and the altitude would have her nauseous again.
She’d struggle through lunch, throw it up in the afternoon once she was back in the saddle, and pass out asleep well before she had a chance to eat dinner.
Nothing seemed to prevent it, so I just helped her clean up every time she vomited and handed her water when I could tell she was getting dizzy. Half the time she thanked me with eyes so wide and trusting I almost thought she was ready to forgive and move on. The other half she glared like a viper.
It was three weeks before the weather really warmed and we were over the mountains into Texas, tracking along the banks of the Colorado River.
Texas spring, it turned out, was warm and humid.
And very, very muddy. We spent the better part of two days trudging through the grass on foot.
And when we made camp that night, Sorcha would not settle.
She was trying to act calm, failing abysmally, fingers knotting in her skirts as she fidgeted in place.
“What’s wrong?” I asked eventually, crouching in front of her.
“Something bit me.” Sorcha pulled up her skirt and down her stocking—revealing an engorged tick embedded in her calf, bulls-eye rash already emanating around it.
I felt panic flash across my face before I managed to compose myself, getting to my feet quickly but not frantically and going to search through our medical kit.
She was going to hate me for this. Hate.
“How long has that been there?” I asked.
“I don’t know? We’ve been walking through this grass for days,” she replied.
“Ansel!” I called. “You got that fire going yet?”
“Sure. Why?” Ansel asked, getting to his feet and coming over to join us.
“She’s got a tick bite,” I said. “I don’t want it staying in there.”
“So pull it out?” Ansel said, clearly nonplussed.
“Infection risk goes up then.”
“She’ll be fine,” Ansel said. “She’s an Elf. But if you’re that worried, do whatever you think is best. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“She’s twenty-seven. Have you seen the reports from Inner Court healers on how abysmal Elven infection resistance has gotten in the last century? She’s at risk for a dozen tick-borne diseases, would you like me to continue the list?” I said bluntly, slowly heating my knife blade over the fire.
“Eh,” Ansel shrugged, “fever won’t hurt an Elf.”
“We’re not risking it.”
Guilt knotted in my chest as I looked back at Sorcha. She was pale and shaking—clearly terrified. And now I was about to dig a tick out of her leg with a hot knife. I figured this little incident would set back any hopes of proper marital reconciliation by at least a few weeks.
“You’ll be fine,” I said, keeping my voice low, soft, reassuring. “Hold still.” Then I pressed a piece of leather kit into her hands. “Bite on that.”
My hands felt unsteady. I’d done this half a dozen times last summer—for the youngest son of the family I’d worked with in Bratislava. I knew how to be fast and clean. But I’d never done it for her.
“This’ll hurt?” Sorcha asked.
“This’ll hurt.”
I took a deep breath, steadied myself, and put the hot blade to her leg.
I flushed the burned area with water from my canteen, wishing I had an actual disinfectant and wasn’t relying on something I’d gotten out of a spring, and reached up to take the piece of leather tack Sorcha still had clenched between her teeth.
“I’m done,” I said, handing her a rag doused in cold water from my canteen.
“So why does it hurt more now?” Sorcha asked, dabbing the cold water on the back of her neck.
She was sweating, shaking all over. I fought back the pang of guilt and anxiety in my gut, then the accompanying urge to pull her into my chest and hold her until it stopped hurting.
Right now? If I tried that, she’d be livid.
“Because that’s how burns work,” I said instead. “I’ll get you some willow bark for the pain.”
“Laudanum,” Sorcha countered.
“Bad for the baby,” I reminded her. She glowered but didn’t protest further.
“If that burn slows her down I’m blaming you,” Ansel drawled as I returned his flask and went to boil water for tea.
“And if she dies of fever out here because of your ‘shortcut’ through the grass I’m blaming you,” I muttered.
“She won’t,” Ansel said simply. “She’s not made of glass.”
Late that night, just before I was due to wake Ansel and change the watch, I heard something strange and incongruous out in the scrub.
I brought my lantern up to get a better view and saw the predatory glow of cat eyes gazing back.
I reached for one of the revolvers at my waist as a bobcat slowly emerged from the shrubs and stalked toward the fire.
It didn’t show any signs of aggression and padded over to Sorcha and lay down like a lapdog, curling around her.
I knew about Sorcha’s animal magic.
Everyone knew.
At least everyone knew how people talked about it.
The nonchalant stories about bears and jaguars had to be an exaggeration though.
Didn’t they? I’d watched her with the birds and house cats, which was impressive but hardly proof.
I looked at the bobcat sleeping on her feet, and thought back to how bizarre it was we hadn’t seen a single venomous snake since we left Santa Fe.
Maybe we were all underestimating just how much power she could summon.
She was sweating in her sleep, trembling slightly. She was getting worse. So I let the cat be. Maybe it would help.
Ansel woke half an hour later, ready to take over and keep watch until dawn.
“Why is there a bobcat in my camp?” Ansel asked near immediately on waking.
“She called it.”
“She did what?” Ansel deadpanned.
“She’s got animal magic,” I explained. “Apparently, she’s sick enough tonight that it’s going haywire and summoning things while she’s out.”
“Is that how it works?” Ansel asked.
“You think I know?” I shrugged.
“You spent how many weeks in that girl’s bed? How am I to know what you two have and haven’t discussed?” Ansel replied.
“Aren’t the nobles supposed to be healers and seers?” I asked.
“Her mom had power like that,” Ansel replied. “I always assumed Cormac was exaggerating about Sorcha. Grieving Ebba’s death. Projecting onto Sorcha to self soothe. Making up stories how she was just like her mother.”
“From what I know of Ebba they’ve a lot in common,” I told him. “Besides the magic. Sorcha’s such a pragmatist, so unlike the noblewomen I worked for back in Europe.”
“Ebba was the same,” Ansel agreed. “Hated the title. Hated being pampered. Granddaughter of a lesser Steward line and a florist for one of Iksura’s high-ranked nobles. She wanted her flowers and to love her children and be left alone.”
A long moment passed in silence as the bobcat closed its eyes and purred itself to sleep, still nestled on Sorcha’s feet.
“Will it bite?” Ansel asked.
“You’re welcome to try and find out.”
Sorcha was worse in the morning. Pale and sluggish before she’d even properly woken.
She spent the hour leading up to dawn with her face buried in the bobcat’s fur, practically unresponsive. But as the sun crept over the horizon and we had to break camp I finally, reluctantly woke her entirely and shooed the cat away. It hissed and swatted and very nearly bit me.
Her hands were shaking as she tried to pack. She didn’t even try to eat breakfast. I noticed. Of course I noticed. And at first I tried to keep my distance. The tick last night hadn’t warmed relations. I didn’t want to push.
But I couldn’t just ignore her. And so I packed her things, helped her up, put a hand on her back when it looked like her balance was about to give out. I expected a reprimand, a snide remark, but she leaned in, head on my chest, soft for once.
Still not a word.
“You summoned the cat?” Ansel asked as we ate and Sorcha stared at her mug of pinon tea.
“I think so,” Sorcha replied.
“That happen often?” Ansel pressed.