The Outworlder Read Online Free

bowl. He placed a twisted metal tripod over the
fire and set a mug of water on top of that. She nestled further
under the blanket. It was softer than anything she had ever felt
before in her life, and her shivering melted away under its warmth.
But her body ached with fever now, and her eyes were burning so
that she could barely hold them open.
    Jared took a leather pouch from one of the
wooden chests and sprinkled some dried herbs into a mortar bowl. He
ground them into a fine powder and then tapped it into the water
over the fire. He waited for a few moments as the water and the
powder swirled together into a fragrant crimson liquid. When it
began to steam, he removed it from the tripod and carried it to
Sahara.
    “Here.” He slipped an arm around her
shoulders and raised her head so that she could drink. “This will
ease the fever and the pain. Then you should sleep.”
    Sahara hesitated for an instant, hazily
remembering the pungent drink he had given her earlier. He gently
pressed the cup against her lips and tipped it. As the warm liquid
slid into her mouth, she swallowed. It was slightly sweet, and she
felt its warmth seep into her. She drank it to the last drop and
let him settle her back onto the cushions.
    “Sleep,” he told her with a smile.
    Sahara’s eyes closed, and she fell into a
dreamless sleep.
     
    *****
     
    Jared put out the fire in the copper bowl and
set the mug in the basket with the cloth. He took another blanket
out of the wooden chest, this one a rugged crimson, and pulled some
cushions onto the rug on the other side of the cave. He pulled off
his boots and tossed them against the wall, then laid his sword on
the ground within easy reach of his hand. All the while, his eyes
never left Sahara’s sleeping figure. He waited until he saw the
fierce red stain of fever leave her face pale but peaceful, and
then he lay down on his side, pulling his blanket up under his
arm.
    Sleep would not come. Too many unanswered
questions lingered in his mind.
    Who is she? And why do I feel like I’ve seen
her before? That I know her, somehow?
    He remembered how she had stared up at him
from the sand, surprise and shock mingling with recognition in her
eyes.
    And why do I feel that she knows me too?
Where did she come from? Why is she here? Is it a portent?
    Jared rolled over onto his back and stared up
at the ceiling of the cave, watching shadow dance with light.
    “I don’t believe in portents anyway,” he
muttered. “Portents are for fools.”
    But he couldn’t brush away the feeling that
finding her in the desert was not an accident. She was meant to be
there, and he had been meant to find her.
    Recognition.
    It was a strange idea, really. He rolled the
concept over in his mind, considering how two people who had never
met, and—here he glanced over at her sleeping form—who weren’t even
from the same world, could have a memory of one another.
    He rolled over again so that he was facing
the wall of the cave. He closed his eyes and told himself to sleep.
But sleep, like love, runs when forced, and he opened his eyes
again. Rolled onto his back. Laced his fingers behind his head and
stared upward.
    A chill suddenly flashed through his veins.
He remembered now.
    It came back to him in disjointed images that
flashed into his memory and left almost as quickly as they came.
The stone colonnade of the great house of Albadir, wavering, fading
into obscurity as something in his mind clouded his eyes. The
blazing contrail of a ship plummeting through the atmosphere. A
woman lying in the sand, blood caking her head and her left arm.
The arc of the sun, the heat, the sand. The woman, standing on top
of the sand dune, searching. The stone colonnade of the great house
of Albadir.
    He sat up with a sharp gasp. His hands
trembled as he rubbed them over his face and then through his dark
hair. Those disconnected images had been enough for him to equip
himself for the journey into the western desert, bringing