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“May I go?” Sabrina cast beseeching eyes in Ard-siúr’s direction.
Sister Brigh looked as though she chewed nails, but the head of the order dismissed Sabrina with an imperious wave of her hand. “Go. Sister Ainnir needs your skills. The letter will await your return.”
Plucking up her skirts, Sabrina dashed from the room in Sister Anne’s wake. She could kiss the unlucky fisherman who’d rescued her. Saved in the nick of time.
It was only fair to return the favor.
Tremors shuddered through him, chattering his teeth, turning fingers numb and jittery. Even his skull ached as if his brain had rattled itself loose. He tried swallowing, but his throat felt scraped raw, his tongue swollen and useless. He tried opening his eyes. Squinted against a piercing glare as if he stood within the sun. Golden yellow. Blinding. Sending new shocks of pain through his sloshy, scattered mind.
Slowly his sight acclimated. His surroundings coalescing into a cell-like room lined with cupboards, a low shelf running the perimeter. A sink with a pump. His pallet jammed into one corner. Beside him sat a small bench holding a pitcher and basin and three stoppered bottles. A cane-backed chair drawn up close. Sunlight streamed in from a high window, and a three-legged brazier had been placed in the middle of the room, giving off a thin stream of smoke and just enough heat to keep him from freezing.
He burrowed deeper into the blankets in a vain attempt to get warm. A vainer attempt to figure out where he was. How he’d come to be here.
He remembered endless black. Crushing pressure. Cold so intense it tore him apart one frozen inch at a time. But when he sought the reasons for these sensations, he came up against a barrier. A wall beyond which lay a vast emptiness.
He pushed harder, but the barrenness extended outward in all directions. Any attempt to concentrate only made his head hurt worse. Still he struggled, panic quickly replacing confusion, until the shudders wracking his body had less to do with cold and more to do with sheer terror. The only memory he managed to squeeze from a brain scrambled as an egg was a woman’s face, though her identity eluded him.
If he rose. Walked around. Perhaps that would help. He fought to stand. Lasted five seconds. The room dipped and whirled like a ship caught in a storm, his stomach rebelling with a gut-knifing retch that left him doubled over and heaving.
Collapsing back onto the lumpy mattress, he stared up at the crumbling plaster ceiling, gripping the thin wool of his blanket. Clenching his teeth against a moan of pure animal fear.
Someone would come. They would tell him what had happened. Why he was here.
Who he was.
The latch lifted, the door swinging open on a figure shrouded by the dim light of the corridor beyond. Stepping into the room, she paused.
And he caught his breath on a startled oath.
Vivid blue eyes. Dark brown hair escaping its kerchief to frame a narrow face. And a figure that managed to defy her shapeless gray gown.
Here stood the woman. His one and only memory.
She was called—he blanked.
“Please. What’s your name?” he croaked, praying she wouldn’t be insulted he couldn’t remember.
Instead she smiled, turning her solemn face into something iridescent, and, crossing to sit beside him, placed the tray she carried on the bench. “I’m Sabrina. But, actually, I was rather hoping you could tell me your name.”
Oh gods, she didn’t know him. She couldn’t fill in the holes. The truth kicked his last hopes out from under him. He was alone. On his own. And he hadn’t a damned idea who he was.
She stared, head tilted, expectant, eager.
He shook his head, hating to disappoint. Hating the sick, horrible dread pressing him with a weight as crushing as the oblivion that preceded it. “I don’t remember.”
