Beneath the Thirteen Moons by Kathryne Kennedy Page B

go against the natural flow and felt the enormous drain of Power.
    This is what Royals do all the time, she thought. Shape things to their will regardless of the natural order. No wonder they require so much zabbaroot.
    The sun crawled higher into the sky and she armed sweat from her face. Korl had taken up permanent residence behind her, as if he thought she’d collapse at any second, and only tore himself away to bring her a drink. At noon he forced her to eat and Mahri kept it down by sheer force of will, the normally bland dried fish andseaweed nut-cakes now too potent for her heightened taste buds.
    She fought the current with the Power and her will, created wave after wave that flung them through the channels like porpoises arching above the water. They flattened to the deck several times to avoid low-lying tree limbs and Mahri spun the waves higher to flow over those they couldn’t squeeze under. The Power drained from within her at an alarming rate, but when she tried to ingest more zabba her throat tightened up and she gagged it out.
    The rays of sun that filtered through the canopy had begun to fade when they reached a passage thickly webbed with vines. Afraid to drain any more of her root reserves, Mahri fought an opening through the curtain by physical strength alone using her bone staff, almost crying with the need to get them through, for the boat had slowed against that barricade of plants.
    Korl laid a gentle hand on her arm and grasped the staff, his forehead wrinkled with concern. “You look awful.”
    “Thanks.”
    “I meant tired. Let me help.”
    “No thanks.”
    “What’re you trying to prove?” Korl’s face flushed with exasperation, his mouth turned down and his eyebrows lowered. “Much to my father’s regret, I consider myself a Healer first, prince second, and I’ll be drowned before I’ll watch someone kill herself, no matter what the reason.”
    Mahri stared at him through eyes dreamy with fatigue. His anger didn’t bother her; if anything, it made her want to touch his brow to smooth away the lines, kiss his lips to take away the frown, caress the skin that flushed with such color. She sighed and lowered herhead, knowing not to argue while she looked at him. Her mind always seemed to turn to mush.
    “I’ll atone for my sins in my own way,” she said.
    His voice softened to that husky timbre and her heart skipped a beat. “What sins?”
    She felt the coiled strength in his fingers as he laid them under her chin and raised it, focused his brilliant gaze on her and seemed to see into her soul.
    “Brez and Tal’li, my lifemate and child, died of a plague.”
    He sighed. “I see.”
    “No, you don’t,” she snapped. “You still don’t get it. Just because I want to… just because I want you, doesn’t make you any less an enemy. I don’t need your help.”
    His brows rose nearly up to his headband with surprise. “Without my help you’d be fish-monster food.”
    “You saved me because you knew you needed me to get back home.”
    “And Jaja?”
    Mahri pulled away from the heat of his fingers beneath her chin. “I haven’t figured that out yet.” She turned and started smacking away the vines, cursing between each blow of her staff. Everything between her and Korl had gone terribly wrong. They’d had to rely on and take care of each other and it’d created some kind of responsibility between them that she’d never desired. Now that they neared the end of their destination she needed to break that confining tie. But she didn’t know how.
    Mahri’s arms had begun to tremble when Korl gently pushed her aside and fought the plants with the paddle, not even bothering to argue about it. She felt the onset of withdrawal like the weight of a narwhal dropped onher shoulders and sagged against the side of her boat. The root had almost wrung her dry, she could feel her very life force start to fade, and realized that Korl could be right. If the poison overwhelmed her immunity