Page 75 of The Stolen Crown

“Mira!” Tait sprinted into the pool, water splashing around him, and scooped me beneath my arms.

I swallowed another garbled shout when my leg shifted and it felt as though molten heat made up my bones.

“Shit.” Tait tugged me from the water and gently urged me back onto the sand. He shoved the hem of my skirt up my shin and cursed again. “Yellowfins stung you. I told you to stay out of the tide pools!”

Bleeding hells. I’d been so desperate to soothe the desire for this man, I’d not realized I stepped into the exact pool he warned me to avoid. Teeth clenched, I glared at him. “I didn’t mean to. I made a mistake.”

“I need to slow the venom. It can kill the flesh.” Tait’s eyes were alive with a new sort of fear. He was keeping something back.

“Then what? Then what happens, Tait?” I asked through gritted teeth.

“You could lose your leg.”

“What! Why the hells would you tell me that?”

“You bleeding asked! Hold still. I need to slow it from spreading.” Tait did not waste time. Like I’d witnessed Erik Bloodsinger do many times, Tait scraped his palm across the sharp tip of his elongated canines until blood bubbled over his palm.

The difference between the Ever King and his cousin was that Tait did not carry poison blood in his veins.

“What…what does blood do?”

“Sea Folk are more resistant to yellowfins.” His palm trembled when he touched his blood to the cluster of welts on my leg. Tait paled. How much blood was he losing? He pulled back and widened the gash on his hand.

With a gasp and a grimace pinched on his face, Tait held his palm to the wound again. After a moment, he yanked his hand away. “Hold the wound. Some sea flora can help break up the venom.”

He hurried back to the water, frantically scooping up thin, slimy reeds from the shallows. Already the bite did not burn as fiercely, but when Tait knelt beside me again, the chilled reeds against the wound brought such relief, like sinking back into the soothing heat of a milky bath.

Tait smashed more reeds against my skin and added more of his blood to the swollen lump.

The longer he worked, the harsher his breath grew, the more blood drained from his features. Sweat beaded on the side of his face. Tait’s fingers trembled when he shredded a bit of the hem on his trousers to tie the cooling reeds in place.

“Gods.” He bolted to his feet and shook his hands out at his sides. “That should…that should hold.”

I did not have time to utter a single word before Tait fled the shore for the lush trees.

No. He fled from me.

23

The Illusionist

I followed. The man had used a self-inflicted wound to slow the venom. For all I knew, poison had entered his blood and somewhere in the trees, he was about to greet the gods.

Each step was more like a rough limp. Pain eased in my leg, but the muscles were stiff. From what I knew of toxins, it was not uncommon for muscles to seize and tense after contact. The reeds wrapped around the sting held firmly, and I managed to hobble through the thick brush without much trouble.

Inside the tree line, a path carved through the shrubs like someone had torn through without care for snapping branches or bending hedges.

I took the same route.

Another few steps and I heard his gasps over the slow trickle of the pond we used for washing. There, on the bank, Tait leaned forward, scooping handfuls of water in a frenzy.

Teeth clenched and bared, Tait scrubbed his arms, his face, his middle like he could not wipe away something painful and was desperate for the ache to end.

What the hells?

Tait hissed through his teeth, vigorously rubbing his palms up and down one arm until his skin grew raw and irritated. This wasn’t because any venom flowed into the wound on his palm.

This was worse.