David Weber - The Road to Hell

She couldn’t. She tried again and made it half way, then staggered and went down, her head swimming and her muscles water. But Kinlafia caught her. He murmured something-something she couldn’t hear through the tumult around her-and then he was helping her totter unsteadily out of the way. He supported her on one side and his wife took her arm on the other while they guided her faltering footsteps across the wide terrace.

The firefighters arrived, at last, bells clanging and horses snorting. Men were scrambling down, connecting hoses to the Palace’s water supply, yanking open the valves and racing with long hoses toward the blaze. Water shot upward in massive jets as the hoses filled and sprayed it into the raging inferno.

Men with ladders scrambled up to reach windows on the rooms not yet burning, trying to contain the blaze before it spread to the rest of the immense structure, and streams of people were evacuating, carrying out art treasures, government records, anything they could salvage.

Watching the destruction of such a beautiful place made Relatha sick inside, and she wondered, numb with agony, how many people had been killed in the explosion. Servants she knew, maybe even her own mother and cousins, and all those Guardsmen who’d been on the balcony and in the Grand Imperial Salon. And there must have been many others in the corridors surrounding the Salon. How many of them had been injured? Perhaps crippled for life? Heavy chunks of the balcony had smashed down into the crowd out here, as well. People could have been badly injured by that falling debris.

By the time they reached the stairs leading down the hillside toward the street she was shaking so badly she could barely stand. She didn’t know where the two Voices were leading her and she didn’t much care, so long as it was away from the horror behind them.

“Who could have done such a thing?” Kinlafia asked in a voice harsh with horror. “Surely not even Chava Busar would have conceived of something this foul!”

“You think not?” Alazon snarled. “You don’t know him the way I do, Darcel. He’s evil ! Chava Busar is interested in just one thing-Chava Busar! He’ll stop at nothing, he’ll-”

Her voice chopped off. She stopped dead in her tracks. Stared out across the dark waters of the Ylani Straits. Horror twisted across her face. Relatha followed her gaze…

A ship was ablaze, out there. Pieces of a ship. Fuel burned in a sheet of flame that danced insanely across the waves. Two hulking destroyers flanked the sinking wreckage.

“Oh, dear God…” Alazon whispered. “That’s Peregrine .”

A whimper broke from Relatha’s throat.

It couldn’t be real. She couldn’t bear for it to be real. But how could anyone have lived through that ? The yacht had been blown to pieces . Kinlafia was cursing. Endlessly. Brutally. With words so foul, Relatha blanched. Some of them, she’d never even heard , before. Relatha turned stunned eyes toward him, saw the wreckage of grief and agony in his face, and wanted to comfort him. But she couldn’t. Her throat was locked tight. She couldn’t breathe past it.

Then she was falling. Collapsing like a house of cards. Sobs ripped through her. The burning ship and the dark water and Darcel Kinlafia’s voice gyred insanely around her, slid and whirled in crazed circles like a cork caught in a whirlpool. She couldn’t bear it. She found herself sitting on the cold stone steps, huddled in Alazon’s arms, and both of them were crying.

Kinlafia crouched beside them, one arm around each. Relatha heard another massive crash inside the burning palace. Firefighters were shouting. More fire bells were clanging as additional fire wagons and crews arrived. It was all dim and distant and strange. When a fire crew hauling hoses charged up the steps toward them, Kinlafia lifted Relatha in his arms and simply carried her out of the way while Alazon hurried after them.

They stepped out into the garden that sloped its way down the hillside, and Kinlafia set her down carefully. He actually went to one knee so that she was sitting down when he let go, rather than standing. She clutched his hand tightly.

“Thank you,” she choked out.

“For carrying you?”

She shook her head. “I’m just a servant…”

“Just a servant? ” he echoed sharply. His hands tightened on hers, painfully. “Don’t you dare say that!”

She gaped up at him, stunned.

“By the Triads, you saved the Emperor’s life! You’re a Talented Healer, girl, powerfully Talented. Even if you’re only a student, you knew exactly what to do. And you did it. Most of us were running in blind panic. But you kept your wits. Shalana’s mercy, girl, if you hadn’t…”

He shuddered. Then he brushed wet hair back from her face, pulled loose long strands caught in her mouth.

“People call me a hero,” he whispered hoarsely. “All I really did was sit in perfect safety at the portal and receive a message. But you…” He touched her cheek. “You ran forward, right toward the explosion, with debris falling all around you.” He tipped up her chin, made her meet his eyes. “There’s only one real hero on this hillside and I’m looking at her.”

“But-”

Alazon hushed her. “He’s right, Relatha. It is Relatha, isn’t it? Your name?”

She nodded, astonished a member of the Privy Council knew her name.

“Relatha,” Alazon laid one hand against her cheek, “all of Sharona owes you a tremendous debt. One we can’t possibly repay-”

And then she broke off suddenly and whipped around to stare at the blazing debris in the dark waters of the Straits.

“ Andrin !” The shriek tore loose, high and wild and…exultant?

“She’s alive! Andrin’s alive !” The Voice was laughing, weeping, gabbling in wild excitement. “That was the captain’s Voice. The Captain of the HMS Striker . The ship’s Voice just contacted me. The Striker’s crew pulled her out of the water. It was the Prince Consort! He saved them both! Howan Fai threw her overboard. Dragged her overboard, just minutes before the Peregrine blew up. Vothan’s mercy, he jumped off the ship with her !”

Kinlafia let out a crowing, triumphant whoop and grabbed Alazon and kissed her. Grabbed Relatha and hugged her . He was all but dancing in place, nearly jumping out of his skin in his own wild relief.

“My Gods,” he gasped, “how in Vothan’s holy name did he know? ”

“Andrin had a Glimpse!” Alazon’s eyes blazed with incandescent joy. “She knew the ship was going to blow up. She was choking it out to him when a boarding party rushed at them, trying to snatch her.”

Relatha gasped.

“The Prince jumped overboard with her in the middle of a gun battle. Oh, Darcel, they’re alive , both of them!”

“But-” Relatha said in confusion, “but Her Grand Highness should have drowned! Her gown must have weighed close to sixty pounds! I know it did! I’ve helped her dress, before.”

Alazon grinned hugely. “It’s sixty pounds at the bottom of the Strait now! Howan Fai cut it off her back, in the water. With his sheath knife. He’s carried it everywhere since the wedding. They were pulled from the water by a search party in a lifeboat. They’re safely aboard the Striker. That one,” she pointed to the destroyer on their left, bathed in the lurid red flames from the burning fuel and the wreckage of Peregrine . The destroyer on the right was mostly obscured by the thick black smoke boiling up from the fire.

Numb shock vanished. Relatha started to cry again. But this time, oh, gods, this time, her heart was wild with joy, not grief.