Beneath the Forsaken City Read Online Free PDF Page A

but a woman, snagged on a piece of wood that might once have been a barrel or a crate.
    “Lower the dinghy,” he ordered. “She’s probably a victim of the storms.”
    Miach called for three men, and within minutes, the dinghy cut through the water toward the victim. Cass watched as the men retrieved the corpse and hauled the waterlogged woman into the boat. They rowed back quickly   —too quickly   —and when the boat neared, Miach shouted, “She’s alive!”
    Cass snapped his fingers at the cabin boy. “Prepare my quarters. Plenty of blankets.”
    Crewmen lowered a sling to haul up the woman, and then more men helped lay her gently on the deck. The way they immediately stepped back to give her room prompted Cass to take a closer look. She was young, her skin pale and translucent, her lips tinged blue from exposure. With her hair splayed out in a wet tangle on the deck and her tattered dress clinging to her body, Cass could nearly believe she was a selkie in her human form.
    But that was ridiculous. A human woman she was and, by the barely perceptible rise and fall of her chest, alive by only the thinnest of threads.
    “Take her to my cabin.” Cass looked at Miach, who wore the same stunned expression. “It looks like we’re back into port after all.”
    Miach dragged his eyes away from the girl and then called for the oars again. As the galley crawled toward shore, Cass followed the man who carried her back to his cabin. He was not given to flights of fancy, but even he had the feeling there was more to this than a mere shipwrecked survivor.

    Aine was cold   —bone-deep, shivering, nauseatingly cold. The water relinquished its grip, bringing with it the weight of gravity as she was lifted from the buoyant swells of the sea. But her eyes would not open and allow her to see what had plucked her from the waves.
    Then something warm and dry wrapped around her, and someone rubbed her hands and feet. They stung as feeling returned to them. She wanted to cry out, but her mind and voice were still buried beneath half-consciousness. She had no choice but to endure the torment, shuddering as warmth returned to her chilled body. Then the sensations finally subsided and she slept.
    Aine’s next conscious sensation was the gentle sway of a ship, comforting like the rocking of a cradle. Had she just dreamed it all? Were the storm and her near-drowning and the piercing cold merely figments of her imagination?
    She pried her eyes open and found herself staring at a wood-paneled ceiling. A wool blanket scratched her chin. She was in a bunk somewhere, but it was not the cabin on the Resolute .
    “How are you feeling?” A man’s voice, soft but colored with a distinct Lowland accent.
    She turned her head and tried to focus on the speaker’s face. Red hair, close-cropped beard, kind brown eyes. She remembered the question and whispered, “Thirsty.”
    He filled a cup from a pitcher and pressed the rim to her lips. She drank until he took it back. “Not so quick. You’ll make yourself ill.”
    “Where am I? Who are you? How did I get here?”
    She tried to sit up, but he placed a hand on her shoulder and pushed her back against the pillow. “My name is Cass MacOnaghan. You’re aboard my ship, the Beacon . We pulled you out of the water a few hours ago.”
    “Who’s your lord?”
    “Lord Riagain of Ionbhar Dealrach. He’s the chief of   —”
    “Clan Comain, I know.” The words came automatically. The captain’s expression changed.
    “You know him?”
    Aine didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The coincidence was almost too much to bear. “He’s my cousin.”
    “But that would make you   —”
    “Aine Nic Tamhais.”
    Cass paled. “You’re supposed to be in Faolán. We’d assumed you were dead!”
    “Nearly. My companion and I escaped. Did you . . . did you find anyone else among the wreckage?”
    “No, my lady. Just you. And there was no wreckage.”
    Perhaps the Resolute had survived