Page 69 of Dare
“Focus elsewhere,” I tried again. “Concentrate on the jaguar or the flowers.”
She did nothing of the sort. Instead, the beast watched me raise the blade, her intakes growing shallower. Because the scent of hibiscus impregnated the forest, I debated if she preferred that botanical aroma or the sweetness of mangoes.
In short, I was behaving like an amateur. Instructing myself to wake the fuck up, I angled the scalpel. “Hold still.”
But as an afterthought, I added one word. “Please.”
“Please?” she quoted. “Am I imagining it, or did you beseech me? I can’t tell if you’re in earnest or if you’ve been influenced by a certain court jester who knows his way around a farce.”
My jaw hardened. “Never compare me to that cocky, gaudy, fucking—”
“Not a fan of Poet? That would put you in the minority.”
“Trust me, I’m aware of his overhyped popularity.”
The blade grazed her flesh. She gnashed her teeth.
“You’ll feel a pinch,” I lied. “Some discomfort.”
Her eyes clenched shut, and her left hand choked the rock. Her shoulder had blossomed a sunburn, then dripped crimson once I began to cut. As the blade slid across her skin, I pressed in deeper, slicing through a layer of tissue.
The veins in her throat inflated. The vibrations of her mouth signified whimpers, though she tried to visibly conceal the pain. In truth, the female’s resilience was impressive.
Many physicians sought to distract their patients during arduous procedures. I had never been among those doctors. All the same, her wincing expressions did something … unusual to me.
“So what do sand drifters do?” I inquired.
“H-huh?” she stammered.
“Tell me about your trade.”
“It’s not just a trade. It’s a lifestyle.”
“I’m listening.”
She hedged. “We’re voyagers. Free spirits of our Season and merchants of the sea. There are prizes that can’t be found near the mainland, so we sail to the ends of Summer, to the distant wilds and outer regions, to find them.”
“Prizes such as?” I prompted when she hesitated once more.
After another moment, she continued. “The plume of a ripple lark—it’s a bird that lives on the water’s surface. They’re hard to spot at sea, but they come ashore to mate, which causes them to lose their features during the act. Salt lilies—those are flowers that float in pockets of water under the sand, and nobles like to feast on the buds. A corroded trident from a past century. Ink from a silken octopus. It’s also a sand fish, so it has rich meat, but you have to dig deep to get to the dweller, and you need a sand net.”
Her blood dribbled onto my fingertips. “I assume you’re referring to the apparatus you rescued from the wreck. The hooped one with a handle and bristles like a comb. It has a different appearance from a common water net.”
“I haven’t caught anything with it yet. Not here, I mean. But maybe when I bond more with the rainforest, I’ll know how.”
She spoke of swamps and islands, then of her parents and life at sea. Nights on their tidefarer. Mornings catching water and sand fish. Wistfulness and devotion filled her voice.
To earn an income from traveling, sand drifters periodically returned to Summer’s mainland. Having acquired rare fish and trinkets, they docked to sell their wares at the markets most frequented by nobles. Some drifters also earned commissions from the upper classes, who hired them to extract priceless artifacts.
This clarified how she’d learned to read, write, and speak with a refined tongue. Being sand drifters—therefore, of the merchant class—her parents had educated her. Moreover, treasure hunting had given this female elevated knowledge about riches.
A frown crimped my eyebrows. My mind veered back to the one memory of this woman I hadn’t yet revealed.
Feigning nonchalance, I asked, “Your parents took you with them? To the markets?”
She winced. “Rarely. They said I behaved too fiery for those excursions.”
“As in mercurial,” I interpreted.