Page 61 of I Summon the Sea

The part where I get to meet the king and fulfill my fate.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Tru doesn’t return, and neither does Jai. Instead, a trio of fae healers come to fuss over me as I struggle to sit up in the bed.

“No, stay down,” one of them says, an old, stern-looking fae man in a brown toga, his pointy ears drooping through his silver hair. “We’ll be the judges of whether you are ready for any activity.”

“In my opinion, she should stay in bed for another day,” a fae woman says. She’s dressed in colorful skirts and shawls, sparkling stones hanging in a long necklace over her chest. “She’s too weak.”

“I believe she’s fine,” another woman says, this one clad in gray robes wound around her body like a mist. “Mark my words. The antidote worked a treat.”

I recognize their voices from the snippets of conversation I caught while in the grip of the strange, venom-induced delirium. It sounds like they enjoy bickering with one another, reinforcing my impression that the discussion I overheard hadn’t been a dream.

And Tru had been here when I woke up.

But Jai had not.

These are the facts. Even though Tru said that Jai had been by my side all night. He had no reason to lie, did he?

“Let me see now,” the gray-clad healer murmurs, gripping my face in a hand like an iron claw, turning it this way and that. “Her color is good…”

I bat at her hands and hiss.

She releases me and takes a startled step back. “Feeling better, are we? See? I told you so.” She seems to regain her courage and approaches again. “Let me see your tongue.”

So I stick it out at her, since it’s what she wants.

Unperturbed, she squints at it and pokes it with her forefinger.

It tastes vile, and I gag. I almost bite her finger off.

She snatches it away with a yelp. “Yes, so much better. Fine by me to let her go, if you ask me.”

“But did you check her eyes?” the healer in the toga asks. “Did you notice any black or yellow spots?”

I lift a forbidding hand when the man bends over me, inserting fire into my glare. If he dares…

“Right, she looks fine.” He sounds disappointed but moves away. “Call the servant to take her to her room. She has to be fitted for the ball anyway. And tell them to feed her.”

“She’s so scrawny I wonder if anything in the palace garderobe will fit her,” the woman in the multicolored shawls says mournfully. “Feeding her now won’t change that.”

“But it may prevent her from passing out during the ball. The fewer scandals we have during the ceremonial events, the better. You know they’ll blameusif that happens.”

“Always blaming us,” the multicolored-clad healer mutters, “true, true. Can’t let it come to that. What are you called, girl?”

Rae, I mouth the name.

The woman frowns. “Can’t she speak? Are you mute, human?”

I glare at her and mouth,Yes.

“That’s not a side-effect of the venom, is it?” The man blanches. “They can’t pin this on us, can they?”

“About as much as they can pin on us her feral nature,” the gray-clad healer says drily. “I’m pretty sure venom didn’t cause her muteness. That must be a permanent condition, right, human girl?”

I nod to get them off my back.Sure, fae healers, that’s right. Now let me go.

They turn the other way, continuing their conversation in vehement whispers. It looks like I’ve already been dismissed.

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