Voyager of the Crown by Melissa McShane

Author:Melissa McShane
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: magic, queen, fantasy romance, pirates, fantasy adventure, quest, female protagonist, voyage, immortal hero, immortal woman
Publisher: Melissa McShane

Chapter Fourteen

“All right,” Zara said. She pretended not to notice the female nakat, who was still watching their exchange.

“But—we can’t!” Belinda exclaimed.

“Of course we can. It’s not important,” Zara said, flicking her gaze at the Karitian and willing Belinda and the others to take the hint. The last thing they needed was to suggest this Device was anything out of the ordinary.

Ransom was nodding, slowly. “They’ll lock them up and return them to you when you’re on the transport to Tammerek,” he said. “The idea is to avoid cheap, inferior Devices polluting the market.”

“Our Devices—” Theo began hotly.

“Are nothing like the ones the Karitians have,” Zara said. Sweet heaven, could no one use simple reason anymore? “We don’t want to interfere, do we?” She extended the Device, and then the pistol, to the female nakat, who put them into a metal box under the bow seat of the boat and locked the box with a tarnished key she put into a pouch at her waist.

Theo opened his mouth, then, puzzled, subsided. The male nakat brought out a grappling hook that looked like it might be a weapon itself, with heavy barbs on all three points and a spike at the place where they joined, and his companion steered their boat around until he could hook it to the bow of Ransom’s boat. With a jerk, the crippled boat leveled out, and the nakat paid out line from a winch so they could be towed, gently but inexorably, into the harbor.

When the distance was great enough between the two boats that they couldn’t be overheard, Ransom said, “Quick thinking.”

“I don’t want them to search for an excuse to look at it closely,” Zara said in a low voice. “Am I right that the woman speaks Tremontanese?”

“I think so. The nakati have to be at least bilingual to handle clashes between the northern savages and honest Karitian sailors.”

“But what happens now?” Belinda exclaimed. “We don’t have any way to pay for transportation, let alone a fine!”

“I think I can talk them down to a stern warning, especially if Ghazarian makes enough of a stink to be truly obnoxious,” Ransom said. “They might have sympathy for anyone she was pursuing, northerner or not.”

“And I can promise Falken & Daughter will pay our fare to Goudge’s Folly,” Zara said, but she felt less confident than she sounded. Whatever had happened to the Emma Covington, the Falken cargo was certainly lost, and Mistress Falken Senior might not be thrilled at the prospect of bailing out an employee she’d never even met.

“We don’t have to,” Theo said. “Where’s the scalpel?”

“Theo—oh!” said Cantara as Theo scooted back so she sat between him and the nakati in their boat. He pulled off his belt and began feeling along its edges.

“That’s not your money, Theo,” Belinda said.

“My aunt won’t begrudge me,” he said, accepting the scalpel from Ransom and carefully cutting the threads at the inner seam. “Besides, even if she did, she doesn’t know how much money is coming to her.

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