SUBJECT // gideon fate // citizen accountant //

THEORY POTENTIAL // dull //

I can't stop looking at her. The girl Vee, all flushed and blistered and disgusting, sobbing with each pained breath. Myriad was sitting with her before, now it's Astra's turn. I'm doing nothing. Gillian said we have to move soon, keep trying to find something dry enough to burn. Get to the river maybe, because we're all getting thirsty. Everything's wet but there's nothing to drink. Nakob says there's nothing too dangerous around. At least, I think that's what he said. He's off gathering food now. Doing his best to keep us all alive. If I met him before I'd think him a horror. Ugly and coarse and stinking and brutal. Here in this place he's the best person I ever met. We haven't seen any lizardmen. Or insects. Or anything, really. Just these trees surrounding us like they know something we don't. Does that even make sense? I wonder if I've gone mad. I don't exactly feel calm. I don't exactly feel scared. I don't even feel numb. I wonder if maybe some part of my mind has made a decision; it wants to exist. It wants me to continue. Feeling scared or desperate or really anything isn't particularly helpful, towards that end. And so this state of, for want of a better term, survival. That's my theory anyway. I'm not questioning it too much. I'm just hopeful that perhaps I'm better and stronger than I ever suspected I might be.

I do wish I had proper trousers, though.

North stops his pacing. No, just turns to follow a new trail. Trail. Probably the wrong word. Depressions in the earth. Odd, seems odd, I have no bushcraft in me but the ground here, this dark damp earth, why would there be depressions? Any part lower than any other part? For that matter, why a clearing? Why do no trees grow here in this wide clear spot? But they're not even trees, are they. That's what the others said. Just vines in tree-shapes.

I don't know anything, it's pointless to speculate. I questioned why we stopped here, this open area, but of course it's so nothing can sneak up on us. My instincts are all wrong, I feel exposed and vulnerable but in this place I am always exposed and always vulnerable. But so what, really? What could I do, even if I noticed a threat before it befell me? I have no strength. Maybe I understand now, why people choose to be cursed. They say witches take whatever is most dear to you, but what does anything matter if you're dead? If there were a witch here among us, I would beg her to curse me. I would give anything, to have strength.

North has stopped again. He must be cursed. He killed lizardmen with his bare hands. But then what did he give in exchange? He seems perfect. What could he have possibly lost?

"Good looking out!"

That's Tro. Just his voice from the jungle. Coming back with the boy Finn, and a mud-covered child, and the ambassador and the scout. Huh. It's the gentleman and the murder girl. I saw them back near the arena. She looked at me and I wet myself. I don't feel much about her now. I'm not scared, not any more than I'm scared of everything here.

I look away. Gillian will deal with them. Judge them and accept them, or not. I'm qualified for nothing. Just follow as long as others will let me follow, and do my best to—

There's something out there.

Through the trees.

Watching us.

I blink and it's gone. It was big, whatever it was—but no, that's just me being foolish again. Can I see it now? Of course I can't, because I imagined it. There are things out there, of course there are. But to think that I might notice before any of these others, before North and Gillian and the murder girl, and Nakob is out there scouting and hunting and protecting us, even Astra and Myriad are more sensible and useful than I am, there's no possibility that I'd spot something before them.

The others are talking. More people the better? Seems sensible but what do I know. Vee's moaning again, Astra's shushing her. Vee, Vee, Vee, that'll be all of us. Why are we looking after her? What can she offer? Is that how I should be thinking now? Maybe what I should be thinking about is the woman who gave me that tea and those roots. Stoxan magic is strong, I've heard. The best healers in the world, if you can pay the price.

Vee wails, cut off by Astra. I don't know how she does that. Stops her from making noise. Now Vee's just lying there, heaving and whimpering and swollen and sick.

That Stoxan woman's still out there. They hunt dragons, in Stox. She'd probably laugh at lizardmen. And she found me when I needed help.

So maybe.

Maybe.