Kismet's Kiss: A Fantasy Romance (Alaia Chronicles) by Cate Rowan Read Free Book Online Page B

dragging across the carpets. He hadn’t seemed to notice the new voices in the room, and that worried her. If he were sleeping, it was a deep slumber indeed. Or was it worse?
    She slid her fingers over his small palm. His skin was too warm, parched and dry to the touch. She turned his hand over and gently tugged up a fold of thin skin. Instead of snapping back, the fold drooped down into place. She pressed her thumb on the flat of a nail, turning the nailbed white. When she let go, the nailbed took too long to pinken. His body needed liquids. “How long since he passed water?”
    Sulya reluctantly met Varene’s gaze. “Half a day.”
    “What has he eaten or drunk since his fever began?”
    “Juice and broth early on, when I could get him to take it. Then he said his throat hurt too much, and he refused everything.”
    “Children can be difficult patients,” Varene murmured. Wrestling with a four-year-old was not an easy task for anyone, much less a worried parent.
    She searched the boy’s drawn, gray face. Faint purple shadows had formed beneath sunken eyes. “How long has he been ill?”
    “Since just before dusk last night.”
    She touched the boy’s pale face and pushed a dark lock off his cheek. “The first signs?”
    “A fever. He asked…” Sulya swallowed, and her voice quavered. “He asked if Naaz was angry with him, because he was burning.”
    “Naaz?” Varene glanced at the other woman. “Your sun goddess?”
    Sulya’s eyes flashed her scorn. “The only goddess.”
    Varene bit her tongue. It wasn’t the time to debate religious differences. “He’s still very hot. Have there been other symptoms?”
    “Not yet,” Kuramos said, drawing closer to the bed. “But some of the others who fell ill…” His large hands gave a minute jerk. “When their fevers finally broke, they began to cough, some very badly, and they labored to breathe. Toward the end, there was… blood on the kerchiefs.” His teeth clamped together as if staunching the memories.
    An agonized stillness blanketed the room. Varene looked away from the sultan’s tortured expression, wondering who had passed away to make him grieve so.
    She, too, knew the heartache of mourning…
    Cease, Varene. Other aches must be the priority now.
    She touched her palm to Tahir’s, then laid her other hand on the boy’s throat. Closing her eyes, she felt the infection warm her skin.
    “What are you doing ?” Sulya gasped. “She has her hands on his throat, she could kill—”
    “Quiet!” Kuramos’s voice sliced through the air, silencing his wife.
    Focus. Varene’s breathing slowed as she tried to feel what was wrong with Tahir, what she would need to do to help him.
    She summoned her kyrra , the soul magic she used in her healing. It rolled from her core to her fingers, a sweet joy that always made her wish to sing out, despite the grievous circumstances under which she often called it.
    She slid her awareness into the boy’s body, sensing the torment of his raw throat, the fire of his fever. The infection was growing in his lungs, too—a wet rattle that would thicken, impeding the flow of life-giving air. Blood oozed through his veins and his body cried out for water.
    But though she could feel where he was suffering most, she didn’t recognize the ailment. It wasn’t anything she’d treated before, nor did it have the feel of anything she’d studied in her long-ago apprenticeship. Her disappointment spurred a wordless groan.
    Her old master, Yolin, had long made it clear that Healers would never be able to control all the maladies of the world. Mother Fate will make her own decisions , he’d often said. You cannot cure everyone or everything. Be at peace with that. She supposed it was true.
    But she’d still fight.
    She nudged her kyrra into her palm and out, soothing Tahir’s throat so he might at least drink. His distress eased, giving her the hope that her powers might be of some use against the mysterious malady. After