Forbidden (A New Adult Paranormal Romance) (20 page)

They had been at sea for a week already, and Snow White still had not awoken. Aein spent most of his time keeping vigil in her cabin, waiting for the moment she would toss and turn in her sleep, mutter, and perhaps open her eyes. But Snow White was as still and pale as a corpse. Her chest rose and sank rapidly, the bellows of the grievously ill.

He could tell. His own father lay abed in such a manner after the Battle of Erisik. Four Sporadean days later, he was dead.

Aein reached out to touch Snow White’s arm. The heat of her skin caused the lump in his throat to sink to his unshod feet. His eyes stung with exhaustion, and he clutched at her, willing his own strength to flow into her. He gazed down at her in equal heartache and adoration, but the smell she exuded was one of decay.

He didn’t know how long he stared at her, or even if he fell asleep. But he was back in his old lecture hall in Spora. The walls and ceiling, made from the extremely common beaten gold, shimmered in the scorching afternoon sun that filtered in through the apertures. Supreme General Thulrika stood upon the dazzling dais. Her voice was magnified by the structured acoustics of the stage.

“Annihilation of the indigenous people,” she boomed, “is desirable in any colony you wish to make. Refer to Chapters 34 until 42.”

Aein thumbed through his crystal tablet, scrolling to the aforementioned chapters. His eyes glazed at the many textbook examples of uprisings and rebellions.

“They will form armies against you and you will regret the day,” Thulrika went on. “It’s not as if these natives are real Sporadeans. They’re nothing but a protein source.”

Aein opened his eyes in fright.

He had fallen off his chair at the side of Snow White’s bed. The dream fragments fled, but Thulrika’s pronouncements still rang in his head.

Snow White, he thought, his heart hammering loudly. A protein source.

It was almost pitch dark in the cabin, with not even a sliver of moon in the porthole to guide him. He was extremely thirsty. When he reached for the jug of water, it was empty. So he made his way noiselessly out of the cabin, afraid to wake Snow White from her possible healing sleep. The wall sconces were alight, but the passage was completely empty.

Aein padded out onto the deck. The smell of the sea and the pounding sound of waves against the ship’s hull immediately gusted over him. The moon was obscured by gathering clouds. He welcomed the cool breeze upon his unwashed cheeks. How long had it been since he had taken a bath?

Loud voices floated to him from aft.

“Coward. Liar. Eavesdropper.”

Whimpers. The sharp sound of a fist against flesh.

Unable to shrug the strong feeling of déjà vu, Aein peered behind a wall. The young crewman with the pimples who had earlier mopped the deck was being held down by Ivar and three others. The pimpled youth struggled in their grasp.

Ivar struck him on the face. “You planning on tattling to the captain? Huh?”

“No,” the youth said weakly. He flinched as another blow caught him under the eye.

Aein bridled.

Before he could pounce onto the scene, full of righteous rage, another figure beat him to it. Ravanne strode onto the deck, her bare feet padding noiselessly, and her black robe whipping like a death flag in the wind. After a moment’s hesitation, Aein crouched in the darkness to watch.

“What are you doing?” Ravanne demanded. She carried no weapon.

Aein tensed, genuinely afraid for the diminutive woman. Although he had witnessed her fighting prowess firsthand, the very idea of a pygmy woman against four huge louts twice her size made his skin crawl.

Ivar and the others dropped the pimpled boy. He landed on the deck in a tangle of limbs, and then scurried away crablike.

“Begging your pardon, Mistress,” Ivar said, insolence brimming in his voice, “but it’s really none of your business.”

“I own this ship, so everything is my business.” Ravanne reared herself to her full height.

She does? Aein wondered.

“You may own the ship, but you don't own us.”

“I pay your wages. If you don't like the way my ship is run, you can either get off in the next port or jump into sea. There’s a gangplank over there. Feel free to walk it anytime.”

Aein marveled at her courage. Something hard and mean flitted over Ivar’s face. The fists of his crew members were clenched and their postures defiant. Their eyes glinted in the single flickering lamp. Ravanne held her stance. Her feet were set apart, braced for action, and Aein had no doubt she could catapult into a whirlwind of deadly motion at the first sign of danger. Her backbone was straight and proud.

She was so tiny. So . . . some might consider . . .
defective
.

His legs suddenly felt wobbly and he had to clutch at the wall for support. His lungs felt deprived of air. Somewhere in the cavern of his skull, he heard Ravanne’s voice echo: “Go sleep off the wine, Ivar. Don't do anything rash. You’ll thank me in the morning.”

Aein turned his back against the wall and stared out into the night sky. Clouds obscured the stars.

The good, the bad, the proud, the spirited. The dreamers, the seekers, the scoundrels, the murderers. The Blue Planet was an exact mirror of Spora.

Denial was a terrible thing. It was the softest of non-actions, but as bad as hewing the axe himself. It justified terrible deeds, like genocide.

He heard the scrapes of shoes on the deck. Ivar and the others were walking off. Ravanne had won this round. Perhaps she would win another one. Perhaps she wouldn’t. But it only mattered that she stood up for what she believed in.

Heart pounding, he gathered himself and ran lightly down to Snow White’s cabin.

#

In the soft lamplight, Snow White’s skin was as white as the sheets around her body. Aein gazed upon her, his fervor causing him to clasp her hand tightly against his tie bone.

“Snow White,” he said urgently, “I know what I have to do, but I want you there with me.”

The flickering light danced upon Snow White’s cheeks. It was a hellish image, a premonition of things to come. She did not stir.

“Please.” The fear so palpable in his head now it was like a helmet of thorns. “Wake up!”

Snow White’s chest rose and fell. Was it his imagination or did her breathing turn more labored? He placed his ear against her heart, and he couldn’t be certain, but he thought her heartbeat was fainter than it had a right to be. Her skin was so hot that he gently prized open the collar of her nightgown, exposing the ugly new scar above her breasts. It was a deep purple and brimming with yellow and green pus. Again. After he had cleaned it.

He had to do something. He didn't know if it would work. It was something Sporadean mothers did back when they were uncivilized a thousand generations ago, back before modern herb lore and medicines and extrasensory healing. Way back before they colonized other people.

But the consequences might be dire for a non-Sporadean.

Aein took a deep breath. Once again, he had to make a choice. A trickle of pus oozed from the wound in Snow White’s breast. The infection was sinking in, or perhaps it was breaking out, having reached fever pitch in her blood.

There wasn’t much time.

Aein raised his right wrist to his mouth and bit into his flesh. He tore at the skin with his teeth, and when the blood was not forthcoming, he further dug into the new wound and ripped open the artery. The flimsy vessel’s walls, made via metamorphosis in a fledging Wormhole, shredded. His blood spurted in bright gusts onto Snow White’s flannel nightgown and spattered it with a violent patchwork of red.

Wincing at the pain, he held his opened wrist above the infected wound in Snow White’s breast, and watched his blood sizzle as it melted into the pus and raw edges. The wound lapped greedily at his blood. When he was satisfied that he had filled it to the brim, he did the same for the wound on her scalp.

The scene was grisly. Snow White looked as though she were a murder victim.

Aein sank back onto his haunches, drained.

What have I just done?
he wondered despairingly.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

For a long time, Snow White floated in and out of sleep. Whenever she opened her eyes, she was lying on a bed in an unfamiliar room. The ceiling was low and the window round. Every time she tried to look at the window, it receded, like a telescoping eye.

Figures and voices clamored around her. She heard fragments of conversations that sometimes made sense, and oftentimes didn’t. Most of these conversations were in the same foreign tongue. Sometimes she heard Aein’s voice clearly, like the clanging of a bell.

A hand clasped hers. Icy to the touch. Or maybe her own hand was burning up.

The dreams merged into waking images. Gretel standing beside her with a carving knife, her features once again granite. “Your heart for my place as First Chef.”

Gretel vanished and in her place was Gustav, eyes reddened, teeth on his chewed lower lip. “I didn't mean to cry. But I didn’t think she would leave me after I’d found her and all. She wasn’t there completely as a mother, but she wasn’t somewhere else either. Do you I understand what I’m trying to say?”

Snow White tried to say, “I understand,” but the wind stole her voice and brightness at the window consumed her.

Then one day, she woke up, and stayed up. Daylight flooded the porthole. She looked down at herself. Her arms were limp sticks. Her nightgown was open at the neck, and the skin just above the swell of her breasts was marginally red, but otherwise unblemished. She remembered the tip of the knife scoring it. Her hand crept to her scalp. Not only was there no scar, but her hair was lush and full.

How long had she been out?

She began to feel the stirrings of panic. There were things she had to be doing. But what, what, what? She felt as though she were a feather – floating in a large, white void that masked as her bed. But there was no gravity, and she was adrift, unable to cling to anything.

The door opened, and the smell of the sea wafted in. Aein paused at the doorway, smiling. She looked at him in wonder. Her throat caught. There were dark circles around his eyes, and his clothes clung to his frame, but he was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Suddenly, the room had an anchor and the pieces began to fall into place. She did not allow herself to pull her eyes from him for fear that he might be an apparition.

“I knew you would be awake today.” He beamed. “We have so much to catch up on.”

#

There was a lot to catch up on, Snow White found out. The introduction of Bambenga names left her in a whirl. Her world was turned inside out, and outside in, and she wasn’t even sure she was herself anymore. Now and then, she had to grab the ship’s railing to catch her breath in more ways than one.

I’m Snow White, she repeated like a mantra to keep herself sane. I’m a princess. My stepmother wants me killed. I’m going to Lapland.

I love Aein.

This last stopped her.

He had given her space the past few days. Space to get her sea legs. To wander the deck to breathe in the healing salt air. To learn the names of the Bambenga. To get acquainted with the ship‘s crew, who all ogled at her as if they had never seen a woman before.

At the same time, she could not help but marvel at her own recovery. She had been easily fatigued for most of her life, unable to run long distances without going into punishing wheezes. But now, health coursed in her veins. Her lungs had expanded. She slept much better and felt more invigorated, more alive than she had ever been.

What happened during her convalescence? Did someone give her a new tonic? She asked the Bambenga, and they showed her their pounded medicines.

“We had given you up for dead.” Maise shook her head. “It’s a miracle.”

“Did Aein do anything?” Snow White asked.

“He rarely left your bedside.” Maise took Snow White’s hand and gently squeezed it. “Perhaps he gave you his strength.”

He’s a god with the power to heal himself, Snow White thought slowly. Perhaps he healed me. But how?

That night, Snow White and Aein went out onto the deck. The stars burned overhead, but not as furiously as the turmoil within her. She remembered very clearly how she had gone up to the barmaid to betray Aein.

Shame coursed through her.

Here he was, once again her savior. That would be three times now. She owed him plenty, and she had nothing to show for it but deceit.

Aein stood beside her, his hand resting lightly on the rails. His legs were apart, tensed. She was unable to look him in the eye. There was a restless hole in her chest she ached to fill, and never had she felt more alive, or more fearful.

“Snow White,” Aein said in a low voice, “there is something I need to tell you.”

Here it was. The moment of accusation. She felt its blow as keenly as a fist to her gut. Did he know what she had done with the barmaid? Was he angry? She sucked in her lower lip and tried to pretend to be nonchalant.