Free DELUGE by Lisa T. Bergren

His large hands were on my shoulders. “For if the doge decides there is truth in them... If he thinks that you and your kin have a strange power he could harness to extend his own…You will be in grave danger. Do you understand me, Gabriella?” he asked, shaking me a little, his fingers digging in. His brows knit, and he looked to my parents, to Lia. Then over his shoulder toward his own castle, thinking, I knew, of his wife.
    “Yes!” I said in agitation, pushing his hands away. Then again, more softly, “ yes ,” understanding his look of angst as the love of kinship, care. For all of us. Not just me. For the future, for his new bride, Alessandra.
    He turned, went to his saddlebag, and came back with Dad’s flashlight. After one last flick of the button and observation of the foreign, miraculous light that came on, he slapped it into my hand. “And destroy this .”
    I lifted the flashlight in my hand, felt the comforting weight of it, the memories it held for me of Dad in so many places, so many archeological sites. In some ways, it represented my childhood. But he was right. It had to go as fast as we could destroy it, in the hottest fire we could find.
    “We depart at daybreak on the morrow,” I said. “Pray that we can accomplish what we must.”
    “That I will,” he said, with a wonderstruck shake of his head. “Because only with God can you go and sift sanity from madness.”

CHAPTER SEVEN
     
    ~EVANGELIA~
     
    I pretty much didn’t talk to Luca until we were at sea, on our way to Venice. I knew I should tell him of what had happened with Rodolfo, but, well…we were hardly on speaking terms yet. So I let it slide.
    As far as I could tell, Gabi hadn’t yet told Marcello either. He seemed free, easy, almost on vacation as he led her about the deck of the ship.
    Lutterius was throwing apples for me, above the waves, and I was practicing, shooting them down, arrow after arrow.
    After about ten, I sensed that Luca was behind me. Without turning, I said, above the noise of the sea, “Please, Sir Luca. Won’t you join me?”
    He hesitated and, after sharing a look with Lutterius, I kept shooting, waiting him out.
    Eventually, he dared to join me at the rail, leaning upon it. Lutterius, in deference, handed him his last apple, and then disappeared belowdecks.
    Luca gave me a smirk and then chucked it, as high as he could.
    I smiled, waited for it to arc, slowly drawing my arrow, and then shot it, just before it hit the water. Arrow and apple somersaulted across the waves and then bobbed there, twenty yards distant.
    “Fairly impressive, m’lady,” he allowed.
    I laughed quietly and then leaned on the rail beside him. “Fairly? What must I do to fully impress you, good sir?”
    “You know what would impress me most, Evangelia,” he whispered, his green eyes a cauldron of conflict—all at once hopeful and challenging and defeated.
    “Hmmm,” I said with a heavy sigh. “And again we come to that, yes? Our predicament. Please, might we set it aside? Just for a time? Through Venezia?”
    He took his own deep breath, staring toward the setting sun, and I admired him from the side as the rays cast a gentle glow over his skin, highlighting the stubble of a sandy-colored mustache and beard.
    “So say we set it aside through this sojourn to Venezia, but what then, Evangelia?”
    “I do not know,” I confessed. “Mayhap nothing will be different. But at least we would have that time together. Rather than endure this dreadful divide where neither of us is happy.” I dared to touch his hand with just my pinky and ring finger, and he froze.
    Slowly, slowly, we both looked at each other. He moved his long, strong fingers to cover mine, and my heart pounded as he lifted my hand to his lips.
    “Ahh, Evangelia,” he said resignedly. “I suppose that it is far less trouble to keep you near me, even if I cannot have the promise of your heart forever. It nearly tears me to pieces to stay away from you.”
    I