Chapter 5 Alaric
CHAPTER FIVE
ALARIC
The days bled together.
Sleep. Wake. Eat. Sleep again.
My body refused to cooperate, and that alone was enough to make me irritable. I hated weakness. Hated the way my limbs trembled when I tried to sit up too long. Hated the distant throb of pain in my side that reminded me I was still alive, but not by much.
She didn’t hover, which surprised me. The girl—who, frustratingly, would not tell me her name–moved around the cottage quietly, like wind threading through the fibers of the sail.
She tended the herbs hanging from the beams, stirred the pot without a word, wiped my brow when a fever broke, then left me to my silence.
That silence unnerved me.
No one in my world was ever quiet. They shouted orders, barked commands, spilled blood while laughing or crying. But she had a stillness about her, a kind of grounded calm that filled the room without demanding anything.
And maybe that’s what caught me off guard. Not her beauty, though she had it in spades. Warm brown eyes, sun-kissed skin, hair like black water. But her presence…
Unshaken. Even now, with a wounded stranger in her home.
She didn’t fear me. Not quite.
Furthermore, she held herself like a polished princess. There was nothing rough or sharp about her.
Each footstep was graceful.
Each word was spoken clearly and gently.
She never raised her voice, and kept her chin up.
That behavior strangely reminded me of Sereth, but in a whole other way.
I shifted beneath the blanket, trying not to grimace. The wound tugged with every breath. She’d stitched me up like a sailor patching torn sails. Deft and fast, not pretty, but it’d hold.
The door creaked. I turned my head slowly to find her bringing in some herbs. She noticed my empty bowl and picked it up.
“Round four?” I rasped, voice rough as driftwood.
She offered a faint smile. “It’s actually round five, but who’s counting?”
My mouth twitched. Not quite a smile, but close. How long had I been here, eating her home cooked meals that made my heart twist with nostalgia?
She set the bowl beside me and turned to grab a cloth, probably to cool my forehead again. I cleared my throat.
“My men.”
She paused, glanced at me. “Yes?”
“My crew. They’ll think I’m dead by now. Or captured.” I forced myself upright, teeth clenched against the pain. “I need to send word.”
“I can send a message,” she said, gently but firm. “But you need to rest.”
“If they think I am in danger…”
“I’ll tell them you’re alive. Just healing, but safe. And that you should stay put.”
I studied her. “You don’t know them. They won’t take your word.”
“Then you can write the message yourself.” She offered a scrap of parchment and a quill from the nearby mantel. “I’ll make sure it’s delivered.”
Ginger thought of everything.
I took the items from her hand, foreign to the way just the brush of her fingers tickled my heart.
I dipped the quill into the ink, then paused.
In simplicity, my men would recognize my voice.
Safe. Healing. Hold position.
I signed my name and handed it back.
She took it without question, folding it carefully. “Who should I give it to?”
“Destin. My cousin. First mate.”
She nodded, already turning toward the door.
“Ginger,” I said before I could stop myself.
She turned back. “Yes?”
I didn’t know what I meant to say. “Thank you” felt too small. “I owe you my life” felt too large.
So instead, I made a playful guess. “Is your name Anne?”
She tipped her head, as if amused. “Not close.” Perhaps we could make a game of this to pass the time.
“Rain?”
The corner of her lip turned up. “It should’ve been.”
Silence, then she held up the letter. “I’ll be back soon.”
I wanted to say more, and in a rush of words that didn’t feel like me, I said, “I appreciate you… and all you’ve done for me.”
A beat of silence passed between us. Then, she nodded, a trace of a smile on her face. “I’m doing what anyone else would do.” It was as if she wanted to dismiss the idea that she had been helpful at all, her eyes looking past me.
She left, her skirts brushing the floor like leaves on stone.
And for the first time in a long time, I didn’t mind the stillness she left behind.
“Alright, I’m getting up,” I said. “The sooner I walk around, the better.” A groan escaped as I tried to sit up, the pain in my side flaring. I froze and cursed under my breath, to which Ginger said, “Don’t.”
“Sorry,” I muttered, knowing that not cursing would take some time to get used to if I was going to be here much longer. My chest heaved with the effort to stay still, the muscles in my back and shoulder tight with strain.
The woman sat beside me in an instant, her hand at my back. The warmth ignited something in me.
“I’m fine,” I said, but she braced herself to help me stand as I rested my left arm over her shoulders. She was so small compared to me, yet, at the same time, she was the perfect size.
Alaric, I warned myself.
“You’re not fine,” Ginger whispered. “But you will be.”
I let out a short laugh, but the pain kept me from doing more than wincing. “At least I can walk.”
Her gaze was sympathetic as she slowly stepped away from me. “For now. But don’t push it.”
And with that, she helped me to the washroom, where I could relieve myself. I desperately wanted to bathe, but I didn’t have the strength to do so, and returned to the settee, completely winded.
“You lost a lot of blood,” the woman said, handing me a plate of rice and laulau, pork wrapped in taro leaves and cooked through.
The salty aroma filled the room, and my stomach grumbled in response.
As I took the plate, I couldn’t help but notice she rolled up her sleeves today. And now I could see so much more.
Burn scars.
They laced up her hands, arms, disappearing under her clothes until they reached her neck. Where did she get those? How did it spread from her hands to her neck?
“It will take a few days to get back to your normal strength.” She sat on the rocking chair across from me and ate her own food, her head tipped as she carefully prepared her bite. It was odd… Why didn’t she just look at her food?
“The good news though is that your fever has broken, which means the wound is no longer infected.” She motioned to my food, inviting me to eat. But I wasn’t quite ready to eat, because this time, being fully conscious, I couldn’t stop looking at her eyes, trying to figure her out.
Each time I thought she was meeting my eyes, she seemed to be looking… beyond me? Above me? To the side of me? It was as if our eyes never quite locked.
Is she a witch? I’d heard witches had poor eyesight. Or maybe she was just ignoring me? It seemed beyond shyness at this point because she kept turning her head to see me.
I wanted to ask, but it seemed rather… rude.
The fact I could not categorize her frustrated me. I was used to command, control, order. And she did not fit into any box.
Mother’s lessons came rushing back to me. Manners first.
“Thank you for helping me,” I said, and I meant it.
The salve she’d put on my wound before dinner eased the pain in my side, and I was able to relax. Just a little. It had a cooling effect and smelled like mint and aloe.
“This salve… did you make it?”
“I did.” She smiled, as if pleased with herself, suddenly rattling off herbs and natural remedies she’d used to make it. She finished with, “It also contains a good amount of cleansing alcohol in it to disinfect the wound.”
I eyed her suspiciously.
Her vast knowledge only confirmed what I’d figured out. “Are you a witch?”
Her face paled, and she opened her mouth twice to speak. And though she was looking at me, it seemed she wasn’t looking directly at me.
There was no doubt in my mind now. I frowned. “Don’t put any spells on me–”
“I don’t cast spells,” she snapped. “And if you want to label me as a witch, then you should label me correctly as an herb witch.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Herb witch. Witch. What difference does it make?”
“Plenty of difference.” The conversation obviously upset her.
She took her meal to finish in the kitchen alone. I sat back, chewing over her words. Maybe I’d struck a nerve… or maybe she simply didn’t like being accused of her true identity. Either way, the tension in the room lingered when she returned to collect my bowl.
I cleared my throat, the edge of our argument still prickling at me, and opted for a change of subject. “Would I be able to bathe?”
“Not in the tub, especially with your wound still not healed,” she said. The tension in her expression softened, as if she’d already forgotten what she was angry at me for.
That look drove me crazy. Nobody should look at me like that, and yet…
I was getting used to it. Getting used to her.
Get cleaned up, I reprimanded myself. A good bath would make me feel more like myself, not the shell of a man who owned the wealthiest and most powerful whaling business in the Tempest Seas.
Saltwater, blood, and debris still soiled my hair. Sweat and healing cuts and scrapes made every inch of my skin feel sticky. Though we focused on the large gash, we could give a little more attention to the other wounds. A good bath would get everything off.
But Ginger was right. It would be a bad idea to submerge my wound in water.
“I have an idea,” the witch said, and disappeared before I could say a word. When she returned, she had prepared a large clay bowl with warm water, steam still rising from it. She knelt beside me and began dabbing the cloth on my chest.
I grit my teeth, knowing I should not be reacting to her touch the way I was. This was ridiculous, yet it felt so… good. I reasoned it felt good because I was finally beginning to feel clean again.
I’m not clean, I thought and frowned to myself.
When she moved to my back, her fingers skimmed my scars. “What happened here?” she murmured, and I knew which scar she referred to, but I closed my eyes to try to dispel the memory.
“Huntsmen don’t live soft lives.”