Forgotten Ages (The Complete Series) by Lindsay Buroker

Author:Lindsay Buroker
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2015-06-11T22:00:00+00:00

THE END

DECRYPTED

by Lindsay Buroker

PART I

CHAPTER 1

Tikaya crossed out another opening line. A letter should not be so hard to write. True, the conditions were not ideal: the ship’s wooden railing made a poor desk, the salty wind tugged at the paper, and something redolent of seagull poop adorned the side of her pencil. But it was the topic that made the message a challenge. And the fact that she didn’t know the names of the people to whom the letter would be mailed. Nor was she certain they existed.

She glowered at the page.

“Linguistics troubles?” a familiar baritone asked.

Tikaya turned and spotted Rias. A clean Rias, the first time he’d appeared so in more days than she could remember. She flung herself into his arms with enthusiasm that would have knocked over most of the men on her island; he caught her with ease. His six-and-a-half feet complemented her annoyingly tall six-foot frame nicely. But that height, along with those broad shoulders and the dense armoring of muscle beneath his shirt, reminded her how unmistakably Turgonian he was. For the eight- or nine-thousandth time, she worried that none of her ideas for inspiring her people—her family—to accept him would work. Even getting him past the port authorities could prove challenging.

The basalt cliffs rising from the eastern side of the island told her they had a few more minutes before the ship reached the harbor. She could worry then. For now…

Tikaya rose on her tiptoes, kissed Rias, and wriggled deeper into his embrace.

Catcalls and whistles floated down from the ratlines.

Someone yelled, “Ain’t pass’gers s’posed to have cabins for that?”

“Give ’em a blanket, so’s we got a show to watch!”

Most of the sailors’ comments were easily ignored—especially considering how little of Rias she had seen during the three-week voyage—but the surly mutter of “traitor” from a passing man stole her ardor.

Tikaya broke off the kiss. “Sorry.”

The sailor had spoken in Kyattese, and she wasn’t sure if it was one of the words Rias knew, but he had to have guessed the nature of the comment. He merely raised his eyebrows. “I hope that apology is for stabbing me in the neck with your pencil—”

She blushed and adjusted her hands.

“—and not for kissing me,” he finished. “Because if you’ve forgotten how much I enjoy the latter, I’ve been spending far too much time in that stokehold.”

His brown eyes twinkled, but she winced at the reminder that he had paid their fare with his labor. Granted, he was the fittest forty-three-year-old man she had ever met, but neither that nor the fact that women were not allowed in the stokehold assuaged her guilt. She had strolled the deck or sat in their cabin and studied pages full of symbols and runes, while he shoveled coal into the furnaces twelve hours a day. He had already given up a world to be with her, and she feared the sacrifices would only increase. What if he came to regret his decision?

“No,” Tikaya said when his brow furrowed at her silence.

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