AllFreeNovel
Share Us
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 spellcaster?” Carelessly using corrupted magic.
“He is. Though I don’t know if the curse is of 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 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 the queen 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.
