Elina had never seen the symbol that was etched there, though Chardryn had described it to her.

  “It is the mark of a curse,” Elina said, her voice raw with emotion. “A wasting disease that will soon kill me.”

  And telling him made her chest ache worse than nearly drowning had. Not until this moment, as his fingers traced the mark, had Elina realized how selfish she was. She’d only thought of her own happiness, the joy of knowing love, even if for only a short time. But if Warrick came to love her, only to watch her die?

  For so long, her barbarian warrior had only existed as a possibility, without a name or a face or any life outside of a role the prophecy said he would fulfill. Yet he stood before her now, a man of flesh and blood. A man who could be hurt.

  Her breath hitched painfully in her throat. “I am so sorry, Warrick.”

  He tilted her head so that she looked up at him. His dark eyes searched hers.

  “It was not…kind to ask this of you.” She lifted her trembling hand to his face as Serjeant Iarthil translated. “It was selfishly done.”

  Warrick caught her fingers, pressed them to his lips as he spoke his reply.

  “He says you asked nothing of him that he is not willing to do.”

  Elina could hardly speak after that. Was this how love began? With a bit of kindness and generosity that made her heart ache—and at the same time feel lighter than it ever been?

  She found her voice again when Dara approached carrying a nightdress. With a smile at Warrick, Elina said, “I see that Nurse Chardryn has given her orders. I will be commanded to nap, then confined to my bed for supper. Will you eat with me when I awaken?”

  Warrick nodded after receiving the translation, then lowered her onto the bed, where Chardryn quickly tucked her beneath a blanket. Sleepily Elina thanked them. Nanny Char turned away to busy herself elsewhere, but Warrick remained standing at her bedside. Watching her. Perhaps waiting for her to sleep. She watched him in return through the drowsy fall of her eyelashes, and saw that his confusion and anguish had transformed into steely resolve.

  What had he decided upon? Perhaps she would ask him. Later. When she wasn’t so very tired.

  Elina closed her eyes and slept.

  Warrick the Overturned

  The Falls

  When her eyes closed in sleep, Warrick strode out of the tent—then stopped in disbelief. The sun was still high. The waterfalls still churned up mist. The river still flowed and the air still smelled of flowers. Everything was the same as when he’d gone in.

  Yet nothing was the same. And everything was all wrong.

  He had been wrong.

  Warrick had only dived in after the queen to retrieve the Stars of Anhera—thinking the gods had favored him by making his task so easy. When pondering ways to kill her, Warrick had not even considered a quick drowning.

  When he’d come upon her at the bottom of the ravine, she still lived, but was in the final battle against the need to breathe. He’d only moved in closer so he could watch her die in a cloud of gold, wearing the stolen jewels that had brought her to such a fitting end: caught in a cold-blooded reptile’s jaws, trapped by the same power that ought to have kept her from harm.

  Then she’d looked at him. And upon her face was such overwhelming despair and longing that it had taken Warrick a stunned moment to realize that she wasn’t as old as he’d believed. That she’d likely been little more than a child when the jewels were stolen.

  And her eyes. They weren’t rheumy or clouded as they’d appeared in the prison, merely a pale gray. Almost silver. Yet still an old woman’s.

  What had she suffered to have eyes like that?

  Whatever it had been, he would not let her suffer any more. Almost without thought—yet it had been a clear choice, made with his heart as much as his head—Warrick had fastened his mouth to hers, determined to save her even if he had to give his last breath to do it.

  And the taste of her lips…

  It had been wrong. All wrong. Everything was wrong.

  A throat cleared behind him. “Did you not have enough gold to purchase clothes?” Iarthil asked.

  Because Warrick had gone into the pool naked and carried Elina out the same way. Now he stood bare-assed in front of her tent, trying to understand how he’d been so thoroughly upended.

  The serjeant might have answers for him.

  “They are with my horse. Walk with me.” Warrick started downriver, where he’d tethered his new mount. “Who cursed her?”

  Iarthil fell in beside him. “Her uncle. Soren.”

  “He is a sorcerer?”

  “He is. Though I don’t know if the curse is his magic or if he paid another to do it. That has been his method these past ten years—though usually he only sends assassins after her, not sorcerers. Perhaps he did because the assassins always fail.”

  The last was said with an unmistakable note of satisfaction. “Because of you?”

  “It is my sworn duty to keep her safe.” That modest reply was followed by a hesitation. Then, “You will not remain king after the curse takes her. Aleron’s throne is inherited through the female line, so when you’ve killed Soren and all is returned to what it should be, next upon the throne will be a female cousin. Though a distant cousin, as Soren killed all nearer female relations, including her highness’s mother.” His voice faltered. “It was over my queen’s deathbed that I made a vow to protect her daughter—but I cannot protect her from this cursed illness.”

  Pain was clear upon the man’s face, yet Warrick knew not whether his grief was for the queen—mother or daughter—or the grief of failing to fulfill his vow. He only said, “I have no wish to be king.” Unless he was at her side. “When was she cursed?”

  “Five years past. Two winters ago, we believed she was near the end. Then she received the jewels—the enchanted rings that kept the beast from harming her leg,” he explained, fortunately, as Warrick had forgotten that he was not supposed to know what Anhera’s stars could do—and his attention had been caught by another part of the explanation.

  “She received the jewels? From whom?” From the fiend who’d stolen them?

  When Iarthil seemed to struggle over how to answer, Warrick assumed he would lie. But apparently the serjeant only thought he wouldn’t be believed. “A raven. It flew into her tent and dropped them into her lap.”

  “A raven gave them to her?”

  “Many of us saw it,” Iarthil said, looking somewhat offended that his own word might not be enough.

  Warrick’s disbelief was not that it had happened, but because the raven was Anhera’s favored bird. Had the goddess herself made certain that she received the jewels?

  Why? “Are they are keeping her alive?”

  “They are. But she is declining again.”

  Not because of any curse. Yet Warrick said nothing. He knew not whom to trust.

  Iarthil blinked twice when Warrick’s new mount came into view behind a cluster of trees. “That is a monster of a horse.”

  Warrick grunted his agreement. But he could not have purchased any other—he was no small man, so he could ride no small horse.

  As Warrick belted a simple leather wrap around his waist and dragged on his boots, Iarthil examined his axe. Warrick had fastened to the weapon a new short handle and the long chain at a blacksmith’s forge in Torrath.

  At the prison, the queen had commanded Iarthil to tell Warrick about a prophecy in which a barbarian warrior killed her uncle with his axe, yet the serjeant had said nothing of a prophecy in his translation. Only that she needed Warrick to kill a usurper. Then he’d insisted Warrick bring the axe without saying why—and Warrick could not ask Iarthil about his reasons without revealing how much he’d understood.

  Nor would he reveal that anytime soon. Better that everyone who surrounded the queen believed they could speak freely around him.

  “Have you practiced swinging the axe by the chain?”

  “I intend to now.” Especially as Warrick was meant to kill her uncle with the weapon. “What is her name?”

  “Elina.” Iarthil regarded him steadily. “She is determined to have you. In that, I won’t interfere. But do not harm her, or I will kill you.”

  “Fair enough. But fear not. You made a vow to your queen to protect her. I will make the same vow to mine.”

  Confusion furrowed his brow. “Your queen?”

  Warrick glanced back at the Radiant Queen’s tent, where the woman who’d overturned his entire world slept. “Elina.”

  Elina did not awaken for supper.

  Two women were in the tent watching over her—one the maid who’d given to Warrick the robe at the pool and had helped him dry her. Dara, he’d heard her called. Along with the nurse, she seemed to be Elina’s primary attendant. The other woman he’d seen in the gaggle of retainers who’d entered the pool to help save Elina, but knew not her name.

  It was Dara who approached him as he stood by Elina’s bed. She hadn’t moved since he’d lain her down, not even to turn onto her side. Sleeping far more deeply than a mere nap would suggest.

  “Nurse gave to her a sleeping tonic with the draught for her cough. She won’t wake again this night,” Dara said—then attempted to say the same by pillowing her cheek on her folded hands and miming sleep, before shrugging and shaking her head.

  Warrick nodded.

  The other woman arched her brow at Dara, pursed her lips in clear disapproval—though unspoken. For the moment.

  Warrick left the tent, then waited. The tent walls were no impediment to the voices within.

  It did not take long. “Will you be tale-telling on Nanny, then?”

  “I will not,” Dara said sharply. “But the queen would not be pleased about the draught. She wished to sup with him.”

  “Nanny’s care will be the only reason the queen reaches home. If she ever does.”

  “Whether she returns home or not, I should like to see her happy.”

  “Oh yes, happy.” The woman gave a bitter little laugh. “I suppose at least one of our number should be. We have been apart from our families for a decade, but by all means—let us risk the queen’s health so she can be kissed.”

  “Return to your family now, then. The queen will not begrudge your leaving, just as she has not the others who went. Though you know what happened to them when they arrived.”

  By the other woman’s silence, Warrick assumed that they had not survived their homecoming.

  An assumption confirmed when Dara continued, “What Soren did to them will happen to you. Our only hope of returning home is by staying loyal to her—or to her barbarian, if it truly is his axe that will fell Soren. So by the gods, I pray they kiss. And I pray he loves her enough to avenge her death and kill the king who cursed her.”

  A deep sigh floated from the tent. When the woman spoke again, the bitterness was gone and her voice wistful. “Does he truly love her, you think? So quickly?”

  “That is what the prophecy said. ‘From the moment he lays eyes upon her face.’ And he’s here, isn’t he?”

  The woman gave a saucy laugh, but Warrick was too thunderstruck to attend to her reply.

  Something had happened within him when he’d first laid eyes upon Elina’s face. Her true face, beneath the haggard paint. He knew not if it was love. Yet he would kill her uncle. And never would he abandon her.

  Nor would he let Elina leave him. Not in death. Not by any illness. It was clear to Warrick that there was far more—and far less—-to her uncle’s curse than Elina knew.

  But he need not think upon what it meant that a raven had delivered the Stars of Anhera to Elina, keeping her alive until she arrived in Torrath, where Bannin and Warrick had only remained long enough to meet her because Warrick had spoken to a dead man whose family was enslaved by Lord Gleris—a family who needed help to return home. Just as Elina’s people wished to do.

  Whether a prophecy or a goddess put him at Elina’s side—or whether it had come about by chance—it hardly mattered. This was where Warrick wished to be.

  Because until the moment he’d laid eyes upon her face, everything Warrick had thought and done had wronged her.

  Now it was time to do what was right.

  Elina began to stir not long after sunrise. She shifted toward Warrick with a soft sigh—the first time she’d moved since the previous day.

  Whereas he had barely closed his eyes. It seemed that now he’d laid eyes upon her face, he couldn’t look away. Almost the full night he’d spent watching her sleep, studying her every feature. But that had been in darkness and shadow. Now sunlight was filtering in through the filmy bed curtains, and he was seeing her anew.

  Her hair was still in its toweling wrap, but from the curling wisps that had escaped, he could see that it was a deep brown that glinted red where the light touched it. Her eyebrows were the same dark color, heavy slashes with the faintest arch. Long thick lashes fanned across her upper cheeks, which were dotted with freckles. Her nose was pert, her lips soft—and she had a stubborn chin that he liked very well.

  Altogether a pretty—if unremarkable—face.

  His gaze returned to her eyebrows. Unremarkable, aside from those. In the prison, with her expression stiff under the paint, he’d hardly noted them. Yet after the pool, when her face was cleaned, her brows seemed to emphasize her every word—and sometimes they conveyed her thoughts so clearly that she needed no words at all.

  Even now, while still half asleep, her brows had drawn in slightly—as if in puzzlement. Likely she had never before awakened with an aroused barbarian pressed full-length against her side.

  Never again would she awaken without one.

  Her silver eyes fluttered open. Those were remarkable, too. As was her mouth, when her slow smile transformed her lips into the most tempting he’d ever seen.

  “You are here,” she breathed.

  “Good morn to you.” And he would give a greeting that needed no translation. Gaze fixed on her lips, he lowered his head.

  “Oh!” She slapped her hand over her mouth and turned her head away. Muffled behind her fingers, she said, “Chardryn’s draughts make my mouth sour.”

  Warrick hardly cared. He wished to taste her again—to see if what he suspected of her illness was true.

  But that was not the only reason he had to kiss her.

  Angling his head, he feathered his lips over her ear and was rewarded when she gasped. She shivered when his mouth moved downward and he nipped the tendon at the side of her neck. Beneath the sheet, his palm slipped up over her ribs to cup her heaving breast through the silk of her nightdress.

  Her breathing halted. Her body trembled.

  Warrick stopped. “Elina?”

  She turned her head, silver eyes meeting his. A blush had stained her cheeks. Her soft bottom lip was pinched between her teeth.

  Gently he swept his thumb over the swell of her breast. “It is all right that I touch you?”

  No need to translate. She responded with an eager nod.

  “Please,” she whispered, her flush deepening. “I know nothing of how to do this. But whatever you like, it is what I wish.”

  Warrick would like to do everything with her. And they would have time enough.

  He hooked his fingers into the neckline of her nightdress. Her gaze fell to his hand as he tugged the silk down over her small breast, revealing a dusky nipple that had already stiffened in anticipation of his touch.

  Or his mouth.

  She gasped again when he captured that tight bud between his lips, her body curling forward, her hands clutching at his head. Then she moaned softly, and settled back against the pillows, her eyes closed and her breaths panting through her parted lips.

  And the gods help him, the sweetness of her. Not upon his tongue, for that was just skin. Instead her sweetness was in his blood, with her every moan as he pinched and sucked, and the way her hands caressed his head as if she needed to touch him in return, and how she stifled a cry and arched her breast toward his mouth when he lifted his head to see how rosy and swollen her nipple had become.

  So beautiful. And so very sweet.

  Hungrily he tugged down the other side of her nightdress—then glanced up to find her eyes awash in tears. His heart constricted.

  “Elina,” he said thickly.

  She shook her head, giving him a tremulous smile. “Ignore my tears. I am happy. It seems that everything I do is accompanied by pain. But not this. Not with you.”

  “Never with me,” he vowed. “And I will see your pain end.”

  Her hand slipped down to cup the side of his face. “You will have to tell me that again when we are with Serjeant Iarthil. I am certain I will like what you said.”

  “Good morn, Queen Elina!” Light flooded the bed as the curtains were thrown back. Warrick reached for his axe—and stopped at a startled squawk. “Forgive me, Your Highness!”

  The curtains were yanked closed.

  Elina began shaking with laughter, sputtering into her hands. Then she sat up, pulling her gown back into place while giving him a look of regret. “I suppose I need my tooth powders before we can do much more, anyway.”

  Warrick would have been happy to show her much could be done without kissing. But he would be patient.

  He sat back against the pillows as the curtains opened again on Elina’s side of the bed. Dara, holding a tray heaped with fruit and toasted bread.

  The curtains next to Warrick swept open. A small cup in hand, the nurse announced, “Your tonic, my— May the gods help you, girl! You’ll never survive that!”

  Horror overspread her face. She—and now Elina and Dara—stared at the sheet covering Warrick’s cock, where the silk had pulled tight enough to show the length and thickness of his erection.

  Elina snorted, breaking the stunned silence. Then all the women burst into laughter, the nurse and maid doubling over to support themselves against the mattress.