Page 1 of A Promise of Peridot
1
arwen
I’m going to be sick again,” warned Ryder as he hung his head over the wet steel edge of the ship. Angry droplets of rain pelted us both as I rubbed soothing circles into the damp fabric clinging to my brother’s back.
“I’m here,” I said, trying to send lighte into his knotted stomach. I waited, and waited some more, until I couldn’t help but tense my fingers against the void I felt where my lighte should have regenerated days ago.
Nothing.
Still nothing.
Ryder retched into the churning sea below us.
In the ten days since the battle of Siren’s Bay, I had healed the entire ship of all their wounds without my power. The injuries inflicted by Lazarus’s army, burns singed and gashes slashed by both lighte and Fae weapons, were more damaging to the Onyx and Peridot soldiers than any mortal steel. It had been the most taxing work I’d ever done.
And all the while, elbow-deep in bandages and sickly, fevered sweat, I tried to grieve.
We had held a small, makeshift funeral for her—the woman I had always thought was my mother. Against the rhythmic creaking of ropes and the quiet flapping of sails, the unscathed soldiers aboard had lowered her body into the sea beneath us. I said a few words, all of which felt flat and foreign in my mouth. Mari sang a hymn. Ryder cried. Leigh didn’t look at any of us, and then slunk into our cabin belowdecks before we even finished.
It had been awful.
Kane had asked if he could join us. I believe his words were,“I’d like to be there for you, if you’ll let me.”As if his presence might have somehow made me feel better, instead of infinitely,infinitelyworse. I hadn’t wanted him anywhere near my family. Or what had been left of them.
Then, the storm came.
A thunderous assault of rain, with waves that sloshed against the ship like battering rams. It raged and raged throughout our entire journey. Those who sought even a minute’s reprieve from stale cabin air were immediately soaked in a frigid deluge. Yesterday the captain had rationed the ship’s coals, leaving us without hot water. I already couldn’t stomach any more lukewarm porridge.
I looked down at my fingers on Ryder’s back. They were eternally pruned, like little raisins. He heaved again, and down the bow a couple feet, a Peridot woman in a weather-beaten wool cloak followed suit.
Though I was lucky not to suffer from seasickness, the same couldn’t be said for the rest of the passengers. The stomach-turning sounds of retching echoed at all hours of the day and night. Ioffered care to whomever I could, but without my lighte there wasn’t much to do.
I hadn’t offered any help to Kane, though.
I’d watched him climb a rickety set of stairs with ease a single day after being pierced through the chest by a spear of ice. He’d scaled them two at a time—nimble, strong, lively even.
And yet, he had needed me to heal him so critically that day in the Shadowhold infirmary?
All lies. More and more lies. My head swam with them.
I waited for the instinctual rush of fear to ripple through me when I thought of the fate he’d kept from me all those months. The prophecy that foretold my death at Kane’s own father’s hands. But I felt nothing.
I had felt nothing for days.
After a lifetime of too much fear and tears and worry—now I couldn’t muster anything at all.
With one final dry heave, Ryder slumped down against the metal and sucked in a deep breath. “That has to be the last of it. There’s nothing left in my stomach to vomit up.”
I frowned. “A lovely mental image.”
His answering smile was weak.
But in my mind a memory was unfurling. One of a slow autumn evening—silent save for the sounds of wind rustling among the weeds outside my home. I’d been sick after eating something moldy—Powell’sleave no scrap behindmentality at work—and my mother had rubbed my back in steady sweeps, calming me as I purged. I could have healed myself then, but chose not to. I liked how it felt to have her comfort me. I liked her hand on my shoulder, her quieting words. Leigh had been born recently, and both Ryder and I missed being the sole objects of her affection.
It was such a selfish, childish thing to do. To retch for an hour rather than heal my own illness just to keep her by my side in the chilly evening air, away from her new baby, husband, and son.
But it felt so good to be cared for.
And now—
