Freyja's Fire - Chapter 7 - A'mara Books

7

(Fenjaday, cont.)

Erion Sands

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Gemina was up instantly, hearing her brother and others outside.

“Aurelia!” she hissed to her cousin, but apparently, she was too knocked out, perhaps having had one too many drinks that evening.

Quickly, Gemina dressed and went outside to find half the camp deserted. A guard stood outside her tent. She imagined herself invisible, then snuck past the guard without incident. Outside the camp, she mounted her favorite horse and hurried to catch up with the others who were on foot.

Before long she had caught up with her brother.

“You should have stayed in bed, Gemina,” he said gently, looking up at her.

“What’s happening?”

“A ship has run aground. The Sisters think it’s a ghost ship, sick with dying men. We have come with Doc and half the guards to see.”

“Maybe I can help.”

“Not if they’re diseased. It would be better if you didn’t come into contact with them… just in case.”

“I still want to come,” Gemina said stubbornly.

“Stay on the horse then,” Breyind insisted.

“If I must.”

“You must!” He stopped and grabbed the reins. “Remember when we were sent away to the seaside?”

“How could I forget?”

“Many died in that plague,” he reminded her. “Our father and younger siblings died… Aurelia’s younger siblings too. Half the children in Castel Velantia. They sent us away to keep us safe. Promise to stay on the horse.”

Gemina nodded tearfully. She didn’t often think about the younger brothers and sisters who had been lost.”

“Sorry, Sis. I didn’t mean to make you sad. I just wanted you to understand that I don’t want to lose you too!” Breyind said softly. “I love you, Gemina.”

“I love you too, Breyind. I love you, Rachel and Bridget. I know I will love Herne as well.”

He patted her hand, then started walking again. Gemina followed on the horse until she crested the ridge over the beach.

Whatever Gemina had expected it wasn’t the size of the wooden hulk below the bank as she sat astride her horse. She saw the crumpled forms of men scattered on the deck. Some had fallen against the gunwall when the ship had come to a rest. She couldn’t see whether any had fallen off the ship onto the rocks below, but she didn’t want to.

The guards waded out to the ship and swung up the ropes to the deck. Gemina watched everything happen in a sort of slow motion. One by one, each body was piled at one end of the ship while others began floating flammable materials up to the broken hull.

Doc Rod was right down by the ship, a mask tied around his mouth and nose. He often did that when treating infectious patients, Gemina had long noticed. Clearly, he was taking no chances. Gemina pulled her cloak around herself, feeling the night chill.

♥

Kolt Rain felt the trembles on the listing ship. Those, plus the shouts he could hear gave him some hope that help was at hand.

The night air on his naked body should have made him cold, but he was still too warm. The sweat on his brow told him he was very sick. He wanted to sit up, but he couldn’t. He put his aching head back to the deck and tried to take a full breath of air, but his chest hurt as well. Regardless of what Çtara might have said in a moment of delusion, it was clear that he was well on his way to meet her in person.

The first people to reach the deck looked more like soldiers or guards, not sailors. Maybe they would ensure his death would be quick.

One knelt next to his brother, noted that he was still breathing and lifted him over his shoulder like a bag of grain.

Then a man knelt next to him as well. Then he was putting his arm under Kolt, helping him to his feet.

Kolt found it hard to focus his eyes on anything. After he stumbled the second time, the man hauled him over his shoulder.

♥

Still on her horse, Gemina watched as one man, then another were carried off the ship. Her heart soared, hoping that it meant there would be some survivors. Even in the dark, the double moonlight revealed that the sailors wore little clothing. The one now being carried off wore nothing at all. His skin glistened as if he’d just run from a swamp wolf. He was sick, very sick.

“Please, Vasana!” she cried out as the man was lifted between two guards and carried towards her.

Breyind tried to go near, but Doc Rod stopped him. “Thank you,” Gemina murmured. Sometimes, Breyind seemed to forget that he was mortal.

Breyind shouted something again.

Doc looked over at Gemina, then manifested a cloth to set quickly in the man’s lap as he was carried.

They reached Gemina a few minutes later. “You could use my horse,” she offered.

“Thank you, m’lady, but you are to stay away from the survivors,” one guard replied.

Gemina accepted it and looked the man over a moment. In the double moonlight, she could see his olive-brown skin glistened with sweat, but underneath the fever, he was as handsome a man as she’d ever seen. The cloth the Doc had put in his lap scarcely protected his modesty, but everything else exemplified the finest male specimen she recalled seeing.

The man’s black hair was waist length and flowed freely, tangled by the wind. She instantly wanted to help him brush it. As long as his head hair was, his face had only the faintest stubble and his chest was mostly free of hair.

She looked at his face, which was strong and emotionless. She met his dark eyes, wondering how much he could see right now through his illness. Still, they seemed to meet hers. There was almost a smile in them despite his weakness. Her chest tightened with worry and she licked her lips, wishing she could kiss his sickness away.

A moment later, the group had passed her.

She let out the breath she hadn’t known she was holding and turned her horse around to follow the man to wherever they were going to handle the patients.

“Please let him live, Vasana!” she cried out as she rode calmly behind the handsome man.

She was only scarcely aware of the ship, now burning behind her.