Dream Storm Sea by A.E. Marling Read Free Book Online

Tethiel. He’ll want to know this. Tell him Enchantress Hiresha is in trouble.”

7
    Descending
    A desert fox sniffed the bandage on Hiresha’s hand. His black nose grazed the linen twined around her knuckles. Dark whiskers curved downward from his petite snout, and they twitched as he explored.
    The fox chattered in a variety of high noises, some chirps, others mews. He yipped and hopped around the bed as Hiresha stirred. His tail was a puff of white, its tip black. With a muffled bark he began what sounded like an urgent dialog of squeaks.
    “Fennec.” Hiresha’s hand swayed as she reached out to the kitten-sized creature.
    His cone ears were each larger than his head. They shifted and perked up at the sound of her voice, and he bounded to stand on her bandaged chest.
    She winced and stroked his whiskered cheek with a thumb. Her fingers traced below his chin and around his neck to pet his back.
    “You don’t seem upset. They stole your garnet collar,” she said, her words faint with sleep. “And your earring.”
    The fennec fox plopped down on her belly and turned his head to scratch the inside of his ear with a hind paw.
    Hiresha’s smile was shattered by a memory. “Fos!”
    The enchantress struggled to rise. She felt herself slipping downward. She sank into the bed, and the world faded as blankets coiled about her and silk sheets held her prisoner.
    She dreamed with perfect clarity. The fennec fox swam through the air of her laboratory, a dome of black rock. Jewels orbited her, though they were not true substance, merely reflections of her power. Trying to carry them to the waking world would only dissolve them.
    She tried to rouse herself from her dream a hundred times. She met with a hundred failures. When Fos needs me most, I’m trapped within myself. Nothing remained for her to do but watch her wounds heal and try not to imagine the ways in which Fos might die to Feasters.
    Her confinement ended when hands shook her awake. “Mistress Hiresha! You can’t sleep another day. We must leave. Please get up, or I’ll have to strap you to a chair.”
    Hiresha’s full bladder pained her. She shambled out of bed and reached for the chamber pot. Only it was not where she expected. This was not her room. Instead of her matching furnishings, a wardrobe nauseated her with pastel colors as gaudy as a cheap pastry.
    The woman in grey who had woken her was not Maid Janny. This young person, almost a girl, had a strong brow that swooped upward from spiny eyelashes. She handed Hiresha the chamber pot.
    “You’re not Maid Janny,” Hiresha said because her mind took some time to wake up. In truth, most days it never did.
    “Naroh. My name is Naroh Sen.” The girl averted her gaze to allow use of the chamber pot. She opened the wardrobe. Her voice was proud. “I serve Enchantress Cosima, Arbiter to the Empire. She goes with you to Nagra.”
    Hiresha set the chamber pot aside. Despite the throb in her midsection, she had not been able to relieve herself in the strange room, with the strange maid, and with her worry for Fos.
    Maid Naroh lifted colored fabric. “What dress—”
    “What happened to Spellsword Fos? Do you know?”
    “Some women would not want to hear,” the girl said, “but you are Mistress Hiresha, so I will say. He has died.”
    “That—that can’t be possible.”
    Part of Hiresha knew too well that death was not only possible but likely for a man sentenced to the Stone of the Sleepless. She still rebelled against the notion. They had survived so many hardships together that she could not bring herself to think of him dying with her abed. The Fate Weaver would be cruel to spin so.
    Without realizing it, Hiresha had picked up the sleeping fennec fox. She cradled the pet against her chest, near the reddish brown dot on her bandages.
    Hiresha could think of only one reason to hope. “It’s been only two nights, has it not? Curious that the Feasters would kill with another night to