Silver And Sapphires by Shelly Thacker

Author:Shelly Thacker
Language: ron
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

The deafening roar from below shattered the evening's silence and jolted the ship. Ashiana tumbled from her yoga position, falling headlong across the cabin. Her shoulder struck the corner of the bookshelf. She cried out at the pain that tore down her arm.

Vishnu's mercy! What was happening?

Sinking to the floor, she could feel the entire ship shudder beneath her. A second explosion shook the Valor. This one shattered the mullioned windows over the bed. Caught in a spray of flying glass, Ashiana covered her head, screaming. The shards cut into her back and arms like a hundred tiny knives.

Sheer heart-thundering panic held her frozen, hunched into a small ball. Were they under attack? The other English ship had departed an hour ago!

The acrid scents of fire and smoke and burning gunpowder assailed her. For a moment she thought she had been knocked unconscious. That she was dreaming of that horrible long-ago day aboard her father's merchantman.

She raised her head. The agony in her shoulder and dozens of bleeding cuts from the glass told her she was very much awake.

Terror seized her. The door hung at a crazy angle, half blasted off its hinges. Part of the ceiling – above the spot where she had stood seconds before – had caved in. The doorway was completely blocked with smoldering timbers. She could hear screams from the other side.

Ashiana struggled to her knees. She must get to Nicobar – the sapphires –

Saxon!

Please, by all the gods, she prayed, let him be alive! The thought brought her to her feet despite the pain in her limp arm. She clung to the corner of the bookshelf with her good hand, forced herself to remain standing.

Glass glittered all across the floor. Her feet were bare. Quickly, desperately, she grabbed books that had fallen from the shelf and tossed them down in front of her. Using them as stepping stones, she picked her way toward the blocked exit, her heart hammering.

She gasped for air, for relief against the bursts of agony that threatened to pull her down into blackness. She wrapped her good hand in the folds of her thick gray skirt and, using all her strength, pushed against the heavy, charred beams and pieces of broken wood crisscrossed over the doorway.

She could not move any of them. And there was no opening large enough for her to squeeze through.

Icy fear chased down her spine. She was trapped.

The fire billowed closer. It licked at the timbers with crackling orange tongues.

"Bachao! Help!" she shouted. "Please!"

She could hear no more screams from the other side. The blaze danced upward along the pile of wood, pouring smoke into the cabin. Coughing, Ashiana shouted again. She could not draw a breath for a third cry.

Air. She needed air. She fell back from the fire, stumbling toward the shattered windows, blinded by the sooty gray cloud that clogged the room. She could barely feel the glass that slashed her feet. She felt dizzy, hot, her lungs seared, consciousness slipping.

She made it to the window and clung there.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.