Fire Raven by Patricia McAllister Page A

thrashing about as he tread water, his mouth gaping open in a terrible plea. Help me, colleen …
    She rose from the boulder, trembling violently.
    “ Faeilean ?” she heard Morgan ask with concern. Yet his voice came to her as if from far away, fading fast into the background. Memories rushed down on her like the screaming bird above them, tumbling her about in a surf of invisible agony. She gasped for air as her hands paddled frantically against the rising water in her mind.
    Rain! It was raining, a vicious downpour from angry black skies. Her weary arms churned the icy waves, as wooden boards and loose debris from the ship smashed against her from all sides. She saw a head bob to the surface beside her, heard a man’s faint cry as his hands flailed in her direction. Help me … !
    Morgan saw Kate’s hands rise to her own throat, as if she fought for each breath of air. She made strangled, choking sounds. He ran towards her. She managed a faint scream as he grabbed her and held her in his arms. A terrible wail issued from her throat.
    “Rory!”
    Her cry shook him to the core. It was full of despair — a terror so great, he almost shuddered at the intensity of it.
    “Kate, what is it?”
    She fought off Morgan’s restraining hands. She did not hear him at all. Her mind was elsewhere, caught up in a spinning vortex of icy water and burning fire.
    In her tortured mind’s eye, she fought against the surging waves of sea water separating her from another man.
    “Help me! I dinna know how to swim, Kat ...”
    “Rory,” she cried again. The sea water was cold, so frightfully cold. Gradually her desperate battle against the brutal waves ebbed to cramping pains instead.
    “Nay,” she screamed, over and over. She reached in vain towards the drowning man, watching helplessly and horror-stricken as the waves closed one last time over that beloved auburn head. Rory’s flailing hands slipped beneath the churning seafoam — forever.
    Morgan supported her as Kate crumpled to her knees. Deep, wrenching sobs wracked her. He could do little more than hold her tightly as he joined her there, kneeling on the grass.
    Who was Rory? Morgan wondered again, when she quieted and nestled like a quivering fawn against him. Her brother? Father? Husband? The last possibility sent a jolt of pain through him. It would make her a widow, at any rate. Fair game. Morgan was chagrined and ashamed by his own thoughts.
    “Kate, what do you remember?” he demanded when he determined she was calm enough to respond. “Tell me what you saw.”
    The reminder sent another shudder through her. She raised her tear-streaked face to his, her green eyes glittering like peridot.
    “I remember,” she whispered, and was silent long enough for him to become frightened, “I remember watching him drown.”
    Morgan swallowed hard. Dear Jesu . Yet he had to know. “Who, Kate?”
    “Rory. That’s all I know. His name, his face. Sweet Jesu, his face.” She shut her eyes and he watched tears seep beneath her lashes. “I remember he called me ‘Kat.’ Not Kate … Kat . ’Tis similar to the name you’ve given me, for lack of any other.”
    Morgan did not answer her. She forged on, choking on her tears.
    “’Twas horrible, Morgan. Rory begged me to help him. He couldn’t swim well, you see, but I couldn’t … couldn’t hold him up …” Her words rose to a keen of pure agony, a sound to rend the heart of the heartless. “Ahh, Jesu, why did I fail him?”
    “Ssh, Faeilean , it does no good to blame yourself,” Morgan murmured as he stroked her head. Her shaking subsided at the sound of his voice. He had the power to calm her thus. Trelane magic, they might have called it centuries ago; now it was nothing less than a curse. Morgan’s voice thickened with emotion as he continued speaking to her in a soothing vein.
    “The sea is a beautiful yet fickle mistress, so man is always at her mercy. Even today, when she seems benign and peaceful, there is