He spit out words I couldn’t comprehend, and then he released me, his head falling back, eyes closed.
“All right.” I sighed. “You aided me once, so I’ll return the favor. At least until I figure out who in the bloody fates you are.”
I’d nearly forgotten the lammergeier perched on the spar. As if satisfied, the raptor burbled and took flight, circling high above us, soaring over the living and the dead.
I steered clear of the sentries, circling the village by way of the forest, over to the stables to fetch Winter, creeping with her back along the same route to the harbor. Motioning for Winter to kneel beside the man, I grabbed his arms and pulled. He was too heavy.
“Hey.” I shook him. He didn’t move. “Hey!” I slapped him, and he wheezed, his eyes snapping open. I gestured to the horse. “I can’t lift you. If you want to live, you must help me.”
I thought it pointless to explain, but I saw a glimmer of recognition at my words. I pulled his arms, and he pushed with his legs, until he was draped over Winter’s back. The effort exhausted him. Within moments, he was unconscious again. Winter stood slowly beneath her burden. I led her up the sloping path from the shore to the top of the cliffs, making it into the forest just as I heard the shout of a sentry.
The bodies had been discovered, but by fate or the will of the gods, we had not.
Winter reached the old hovel—a shed once used for storage, now abandoned—and knelt beside it. An inch at a time, I managed to drag the man off my horse and inside the shed. The floor was dirt, the wooden walls and roof filled with holes that did little to keep out rain or cold, and the hovel crawled with vermin, but there was nowhere else to hide him. I laid out the supplies I’d taken from the stables: woolen blankets, candles, flint, a waterskin, liniment that healed men’s wounds as well as horses’. I stared down at his shivering form. He wouldn’t last long if I didn’t get him dry.
I unlaced his leather jerkin and his tunic, pulling off the soaked garments. Though his face was boyish, his powerful build was that of a grown man, and his flesh was etched with blade-shaped battle scars that marked him as a warrior. But all my attention was drawn to the arc of blooming bruises that curved along his collarbones, over his ribs, across his waist. The bruises flared around small, spear-shaped gouges in his skin. Teeth marks.
He’d been inside the Brine Beast’s mouth. It should have ripped him to shreds like the others. Instead, it spared him. The same way it had once spared me.
There wasn’t time to ponder this. I pulled off his boots, his trousers, and finally his breeches. I’d seen men naked—the men of clan Stone weren’t shy about shedding clothes after a long day’s work or to bathe in the sea—but this was different. He was not of my clan, and he was unconscious. Stupidly, I felt myself blushing.
“Pity I can’t build a fire,” I said. I couldn’t risk the smoke being seen in the village.
I eased one blanket beneath the man, wrapped another around him. I wrung out his wet clothes and hung them to dry, scattering spiders hiding in the eaves. I shook him awake and held the waterskin to his lips, forcing him to sip, but he retched the water back up.
“Determined to die, are you?” I asked, scowling through my worry.
Why should I care if he dies? He’s a stranger. He’s nothing to me.
Except no man was a stranger after I’d touched his soul, and my experience touching this warrior’s soul was unmatched. We’d shared something beyond physical touch, deeper than heartfelt conversation. With him, for the first time, the soul I touched had felt what I felt. It left me shaken.
His trembling worsened. His breathing was sluggish.
Concern made me bold.
“I went through the trouble of saving you.” I pulled off my damp dress and slid beneath the blankets in my smallclothes, cringing at the coldness of his skin. I couldn’t build a fire, but I could lend him my body’s heat. “You owe me answers, and you can’t give them if you’re dead.”
He shifted onto his side and huddled against me, pressing his face to my breast.
“Mordir,” he murmured.
My body was on fire.
Flames crept along my skin. Soft thread tickled my cheek, smelling of salt and earth. I heard labored breathing next to my ear, and my eyes opened to a flash of gold.
I didn’t know where I was. Someone lay next to me, an arm slung across my waist—a heavy, muscled arm. I gasped, sitting straight up. The person next to me jolted up too, startling me. Instinctively, I swung my fist out, and my knuckles met bone.
With a grunt of pain, the gold-haired stranger scrambled away.
I drew my knife; Garreth had given it to me years ago, trained me how to use it. Slowly, my mind extracted itself from the mist of sleep. I was in the hovel. Across from me, crouching defensively, was the young man I’d pulled from the harbor.
He snarled, glaring at my knife.
“I am Lira of Stone, granddaughter to the chieftain. You’ll treat me with proper respect or I’ll turn you over to my father and his warriors to punish as they see fit.”
His brows rose. Crouching seemed too much effort for him, and he slumped to the floor, holding his head. He coughed, the force of it racking his body.
“Do you know where you are? Do you remember what happened?”
He glanced up sharply, rubbing his jaw where I’d punched him.
I bit back an apology. “Don’t give me that look. My fist feels worse than your face.” I gestured to my swelling knuckles.
As we eyed each other, I noticed the flush in his skin, the glassiness of his gaze. Another coughing fit overtook him.
I slid my knife back in its sheath. I was no healer, but I knew what lung-fever looked like—Rhys had nearly died from it as a boy. A nasty illness, reducing even the strongest man to a shivering waste. I held my hand out. “Come here. You need to lie down.”
He didn’t move. He glared at my hand like it offended him.
“Stubborn, aren’t you?”
I shoved him onto the blanket. Between coughs, he unleashed what I assumed were vile insults. I wet strips of cloth, arranging them over his chest, neck, and forehead. “Calm yourself. I’m trying to help.”
It wasn’t my body that had been on fire when I woke, but his, pressed against me like smoldering coals. The fever struck quickly. Hours ago he’d been freezing, and now he burned. Pale and drained, he stopped fighting and settled into the blankets, closing his eyes. I coaxed some water into him, relieved when his stomach didn’t reject it.
It seemed cruel to leave him, but I had to return to the village. Rhys would assume I went riding and cover for me as long as he could, but I needed to get back before Father noticed my absence.