“It is possible to lose yourself there,” he said softly. “Be careful.”
She opened her eyes and nodded slowly. She couldn’t help herself. Couldn’t help the brief flash of insecurity that flashed through her. She had to ask him. But he stole her thoughts again before she could, and quietly dropped his hand.
“There is a quiet dignity that surrounds you, Auri, and a strength that amazes me. You have a purity of spirit that I’ve never seen before. I’m grateful to be in your life. Nothing you ever show me will change that.”
It was said so simply, so quietly, but she knew without any hint of doubt how much he meant it. She stowed it in a secluded corner of her heart and changed the subject.
“Nachal has invited me to dine with him in his cabin tonight.” She smiled. “I’m inviting you.”
Liran looked up, past her, almost as though he were seeing into the bowels of the ship. He looked back at her with a look that she found hard to decipher. She wished sometimes that she could see into his thoughts as easily as he seemed to be able to see into hers.
“I think I’ll sit this one out,” he said quietly.
Auri nodded and turned back to climb the rungs. When they reached the deck, Liran handed her the things that had been emptied from the pull-net, and then they separated and went to their own cabins to clean up.
By the time dusk had fallen, they still hadn’t crossed paths again.
She knocked on Nachal’s cabin, Wolf by her side.
Nachal opened the door and smiled warmly. Then he looked down at Wolf and the smile instantly disappeared. He looked back up at her. “Doesn’t he need a nap or something?” he asked with a mischievous glint in his eyes. Wolf growled. Nachal chuckled as he held the door open wide enough for them to enter. “I’ll take that as a no. Welcome to my cabin. Please don’t chew on the furniture.”
Auri smiled. “Me or Wolf?”
Nachal grinned. “You, of course.” Then he laughed and shut the door.
Chapter Twenty-Two- Ominous
The ship rocked as it crested a high wave, dumping her from her bed. She hit the wooden floor with a dull thud at the same time that a fist pounded heavily against her door. “Auri?”
She regained her feet, staggering only slightly, and made her way carefully to her cabin door. By the time she reached the latch, she had to grab it quickly to avoid being thrown back against the opposite wall. The person on the other side of her door seemed to be having the same problem because they slammed into the still closed door hard enough for it to rattle in its hinges. Growling and muttering followed. Nachal.
She clutched at the latch with nimble fingers, released it, and tried to move out of the way quickly. But she wasn’t fast enough. Nachal tumbled into her room at the next wave crest, and landed on top of her.
She immediately started pushing against his soaked chest to get him off of her. He rolled, breathing hard, still mumbling something acerbically underneath his breath. Blood was trickling down from his nose, and a vivid bruise was already beginning to show against one side of his face, high on his cheekbone.
“Are you alright?” she shouted over the sound of the howling wind.
He opened an eye that was rapidly swelling shut. “What?” he yelled.
“Are you alright?” she shouted again.
He gave her a dark, disgruntled look. “Do I look alright to you?”
She glanced at his face again. Point taken. She crawled—it was impossible for the moment to stand amidst the wild heaving of the ship—over to the door that slammed again and again against her wall. She shoved it closed, latched it again, and leaned her head heavily against it for a moment before turning around and crawling back toward Nachal.
The sound of the wind was partially muted now that the door was shut, but she could still hear it rampaging through the ship. Shouts sounded distinctly within the din: Liran’s voice, the captain, a few members of the crew. She couldn’t make out their individual words anymore, just the sound of their voices.
Wolf crawled toward her and put his head in her lap. She ran her fingers through his fur as she looked over at Nachal again. He was watching her intently. What was it with people doing that lately?
“What happened to you?”
He smiled slightly. His lips seemed to be the only thing on his face that wasn’t damaged. Yet. “Nice day for a leisurely sail through the Eldrian Sea, huh?”
She frowned at him.
“Sorry.” He sighed, closing his eyes. “We’ve been trying to ride out this storm for what? Three days? I think I should consider sleeping sometime soon.”
“What happened to your face?” she clarified.
“Why? Is there something wrong with my face?”
She sighed. Apparently he didn’t want to talk about it. She stood slowly, acclimating herself quickly to the rolling and jerking of the ship, and made her way to the chest that was bolted against the floorboards. In it, she searched for a piece of cloth. When she found one, she slammed the lock back into place and made her way slowly back to Nachal. He had opened his eyes and was watching her every move again.
“Amazing,” he breathed when she reached him.
She touched the cloth to the blood on his face that was already beginning to dry. “What?”
“You,” he said simply.
Her fingers halted briefly in their dabbing then resumed again tentatively. “Why are you here?”
“Sick of me already?” he said with a slight smile.
She didn’t respond, refusing to be baited this time, and he sighed again. “Liran asked me to come check on you,” he said quietly.
“Is he alright?”
“He’s fine. He’s been up in the rigging for most of the day. When the storm first hit, it hit suddenly. We didn’t have time to secure the sails or prepare. One of the main masts broke, and several other things were damaged, so he’s been up there working almost without pause.”
“Are any of the crew helping?”
He gave her another disgruntled look. “Of course they are. But Liran is quicker and more agile. Even in the gale-force winds out there.”
“You sound like you admire him.”
“What’s not to admire?” he said with a small smile. “He’s capable and doesn’t complain. Unlike Dhurmic,” he added with a laugh. “Dhurmic’s been complaining almost constantly.”
She smiled. “How is Dhurmic?”
“Losing his lunch.”
She winced in sympathy. The storm had briefly unsettled her stomach for the first hour or so too, but after that it had seemed to right itself and she had been fine since. “Sorry to hear that.”
“So is he. So is everyone.”
She laughed. The sounds coming from outside were constant and loud, but inside her cabin there was quiet. She finished dabbing away what blood she could from his face and then left it alone. “The rest will take soap to get off,” she said softly.
He was watching her again . . . or still.
“What?”
He shook his head as he closed his eyes.
Her heart thumped out a warning, urging her to be cautious. There seemed to be restlessness in Nachal today. Dangerous restlessness. Restlessness that she knew instinctively that she was at the heart of.
Was this why Liran had asked him to check on her? Was this why she hadn’t seen much of him during the last few days? She knew that everyone was working almost constantly with little sleep to keep them afloat. Tempers were fraying and flaring all over the ship. But since she had been ordered below deck by a stone-faced Liran, most everyone else had made time to stop by, keeping her updated on everything that was going on topside. Except Nachal. He had been avoiding her.
She punched him.
He grunted as he caught her fist against his stomach on the rebound. “What was that for?” he growled, his eyes opening a tiny slit.
She jerked her hand away to shake out the sting. “For avoiding me. Don’t do it again.”
His eyes went from pl
ayful to intensely guarded in an instant. She glared and punched him again. A small smile quirked his lips and some of the intensity bled out of his eyes. “I think I miss you being uneasy around me,” he said with a sardonic twist of his lips. “You were nicer then.”
The hand that had caught hers fastened around it and held it tightly against his chest. He opened his good eye wider to watch her reaction. She didn’t give him one. She just left it there as her heart continued to thump out a caution to her. Thump. Thump. Conversely, it slowed down instead of racing faster, pulsing thicker through her veins with its soft de-dump.
Finally, she withdrew her hand, and Nachal closed his eyes. She knew he did that when he was hiding something from her. “Is there anything you need?” he asked huskily, almost dutifully.
“No,” she whispered.
He nodded.
Wolf got up a little unsteadily and went over to the bed to lay down on it again. When she had been dumped onto the floor earlier, so had he. His nails clicked on the wood as he walked the few paces, and then he sprung up and settled himself in amidst her blankets.
She looked back down at Nachal who seemed to look worse by the minute. “Why don’t you take my bed for a few hours? You look like you need it.”
His eyes turned tender for the briefest of moments, and then they were back to guarded. “I’m not fighting Wolf for your bed,” he said with a slight smile.
She laughed. “Afraid to lose?”
He chuckled and then was silent. Restlessness tightened his eyes. His face. He looked away from her probing gaze and pulled himself to a sitting position. She reached out to help him, but he waved her away. “I’m fine,” he said curtly.
“You don’t look fine,” she said quietly. “And you’re moving like you have a few broken ribs.”
He sighed as he finally got himself upright. “I’m fine, Auri.”
She kept watching him, trying to read him. After the first little while of their acquaintance, things had become easier for her. It had become easier to talk to him, to laugh with him, to be around him without feeling awkward or out of place. Technically, the time that she had known him added up to a little less than a month, but, in reality, Nachal had known her for much longer because of his dreams. And in all of that time, the countless hours that she had spent in his company, he had never rebuffed her. Never made her feel like she was feeling now. Like he didn’t want to be around her.
She moved to stand, but he caught her arm and pulled her closer to him. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “It’s not you.” He sighed. “I’m just having . . . a hard time right now.”
“Can I help?”
He laughed once without humor then sighed again and leaned his head back against the wall. “No, Auri,” he said softly. Distinctly. “You can’t.”
She watched the rise and fall of his chest and the hand that he was carefully holding his right side with. Every time he breathed out, his breath hitched a little. Probably from the pain.
“I can wrap your ribs.”
He opened his eyes, or rather eye, slowly. “Do you know how?”
She smiled. “Valdys has had a few cracked ribs in the time that I’ve known him. I had to teach myself how to treat him because he won’t let any of the city’s healers near him.”
Nachal smiled slightly. “Sensible.”
“Ridiculous,” she said dismissively, getting up carefully and making her way again to the bolted-down chest against the far wall. She grabbed what she needed and made her way carefully back to Nachal. The ship was still reeling as though drunken, but everything in her cabin was locked inside of her chest. There was nothing to scuttle across the floor and crash against the wall.
When the storm had first broken down upon them three days before, most everything, indoors and out, had been secured, though there were a few things up on deck that broke loose with the constant strong winds. Those were the things that were the most dangerous because the crew was busy elsewhere, not looking and therefore unprepared for something to suddenly fly loose and come crashing into them. So far they had been lucky that there were no serious injuries.
Until Nachal. Maybe something had broken loose and smashed into him—like one of the booms.
She knelt down beside him on the rough wooden floor. He was watching her again. His eyes were even more restless, even more guarded. He pulled his shirt over his head with one hand. She avoided his eyes and worked quickly, forcing her actions into single-mindedness. When she finished, she leaned away so that he could replace his shirt. His movements were easier as though the pain had already lessened.
“Thank you,” he said softly.
She nodded. “How did one of the booms hit you?”
He sighed. “How did you know it was one of the booms? It could have been Dhurmic.”
She shook her head. “Dhurmic is indisposed right now,” she reminded him.
He leaned his head back again, closing his eyes in what seemed outright exhaustion. “I wasn’t paying attention,” he said quietly.
“And after you were hit, Liran asked you to come check on me?”
“Something like that,” he mumbled underneath his breath.
She smiled, got up briefly to replace the scissors and the rest of the ripped up sheet, then sat down next to him and leaned her head against the wall next to where his lay. They were only inches apart. “I hope the storm breaks soon,” she said quietly.
He kept his head resting against the wall, but turned it so that he could see her. “Have you been afraid?” he asked softly, searching her face.
“For those of you who are out there in it trying to keep us afloat I have been.”
“The good news is that we haven’t encountered any more ships.”
She tensed. Although their route had been mostly clear so far, there had been a few close calls. If Liran hadn’t been with them, they would have had to fight off more of Obsidian’s ships. They seemed to be everywhere, clogging the waterways with their sleek, black wood and their blood-red sails. But Liran, sensing them early enough every time, worked with the captain in plotting a cleaner, less dangerous course through the waters.
She thought of the ship that they had encountered. The letters. The desperate men willing to do anything to save their families. “Wasn’t one enough?” she whispered painfully.
Nachal was watching her again. He moved his head so that there was almost no distance at all between them. “Yes,” he said huskily. “One was enough.
Auri?”
“What?”
“I’m going to—ˮ His lips against hers cut off whatever it was he was about to say. She stilled, completely frozen as his lips moved against hers coaxingly. She couldn’t move. Her eyes even stayed open. Suddenly, it was over, and he lifted his face a fraction of an inch away from hers.
His eyes grew shuttered at whatever expression was on her face, and he leaned his head back against the wood, watching her carefully.
Several things flashed through her mind. The last was Liran. Liran with his intense, golden-amber eyes and his half-smile.
“Let me in just a little, Auri,” Nachal pleaded quietly. “I’m not asking for you to stop loving him, I’m just asking for the chance to love you.”
“That wouldn’t be fair to you.”
“I don’t care.”
“I care.”
He looked at her in frustration. “Did you feel nothing?”
She hesitated, her heart thumping out the same caution again. “I felt . . . frozen and unsure.”
He sighed, closing his eyes. “Maybe I forgot how to do this,” he murmured caustically to himself.
She rested her head on the wall again, trying to force her sluggish brain to think clearly. “I doubt it,” she said with a slight smile, despite the seriousness of the situation. “In any case, you’ve probably had more practice than I have.”
He tilted his head toward her, and opened his eyes curiously. Their gray depths studied her face, but he didn’t say anything. Di
dn’t ask. She was pathetically grateful for that. After a few more minutes, he rose slowly to his feet.
“Well,” he said quietly, “I should get back out there. Thank you for binding my ribs.”
He waited for her to say something in response. When she didn’t, he turned and headed for the door, staggering slightly against the pitch of the ship. When he reached the door, she called out to him. “Nachal?”
He turned, steadying himself against the frame of the door.
“How I feel about Liran . . . it doesn’t bother you?”
“Of course it does,” he snapped angrily.
“Then why?” She was genuinely trying to understand this time.
“Because I don’t care enough. I wake up, Auri, and you’re the first thing on my mind. I spend all day trying not to think of you and failing, endangering myself and the rest of the people on this ship because I can’t keep my mind on the task in front of me. I go to sleep, still trying not to think about you, only to spend the rest of the night dreaming about you. I can’t stop thinking about you. Do I care? Yes. It tears me up inside that you love him and not me. But like I said at the beginning, I’d rather have part of you than nothing.”
He turned away and reached angrily for the latch, throwing it open. Her heart pounded, but it wasn’t with caution this time. It was with something else. “Nachal?”
He turned.
She hesitated. “Can you . . . try again?”
He froze as solidly as she had only moments before. His eyes went wide as they quickly searched her own from across the room. Then he quietly closed the latch again and made his way slowly toward her. He knelt in front of her, his eyes still searching hers. She couldn’t figure out how to say what she wanted to say. It all became tangled inside of her when he looked at her like that, but she tried anyway. “I want to try to let you in,” she said softly.
His eyes flickered, darkening to a deeper smoky-gray charcoal color. He slowly lifted the hand that she held, releasing it, and caressed her cheek with his fingertips. The other hand he raised to steady himself against the wall as he leaned in closer to her. “Are you sure?” he asked huskily, his lips inches from hers.