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No chance did Warrick have to meet with Bannin at the tavern. After securing a bedchamber, Elina cried in Warrick’s arms until she fell asleep. There he held her, listening to her gentle breaths and the ever-growing noise of celebration throughout the city. When she awoke, night had fallen. Moonlight through their open shutters revealed the peace she’d found in her sleep, her eyes no longer stricken with guilt. From the inn’s courtyard came music and laughter, and it was to those jubilant sounds that Warrick lovingly fucked her in their soft bed—the first proper bed that he’d taken her in—and did not stop until he’d made her come on his fingers and tongue and cock.
Only then did they leave their chamber to seek his friend.
To accommodate the crowds spilling out of the tavern, tables and lanterns had been moved into the courtyard. Despite the number of revelers who danced and drank, Bannin stood taller than most and was easily spotted—especially when he was whirling about while holding a happily squealing boy above his head.
“That is Ouin,” Warrick said to Elina, then gestured to a tall red-haired woman dancing closely with a one-armed man. Lightness filled Warrick’s chest to see him. “Bannin’s sister, Helana, along with her husband, Aven.”
“The husband who was stone?”
“She has not taken another,” said Warrick, then grinned when Elina pulled him into the midst of the dancers.
She had been too ill to dance after their wedding. Yet she wasted no time now joining Bannin and Helana, though her eyes were only for Warrick. She draped her arms around his neck and kissed his mouth before twirling away, and soon the sway of her hips was tempting him to drag her up to their bed again.
“Oick! Not the beard, boy!”
Bannin staggered to a stop beside him, face flushed with the dance and ale. A giggling Ouin was handed over to Helana, who gave to her brother a narrowed stare before kissing Warrick’s cheek.
“There are not enough thanks, Trollslayer. You are already a brother to him”—she elbowed Bannin in his gut—“but you are family now to all of us.”
Bannin hissed to him loudly, “She wants another brother so that she can ask you to mind Ouin while she and Aven reunite. Oof!”
While Bannin rubbed his battered stomach, Helana smiled sweetly at them both and carried Ouin back to where her husband waited at a table.
“You are minding the boy tonight?”
“I am. Likely I’ll play nursemaid for the next month. They have five years to make up for, so I will not be adventuring again soon.”
“While my axe still has a sorcerer to fell.”
Elina danced up to his side, eyes sparkling. “Look at Ouin. What did I say of how to eat those berries?”
The boy sat on the table, waving berry fingers in Helana’s face, while she pretended to cringe in horror—until Aven stole a berry from the boy’s thumb with a quick nip of his teeth, then made Ouin scream with tickles.
“You wish for me to tickle you?”
Her brow arched as if considering. “Perhaps that, too.”
“Warrick tells me that you next travel north to kill your uncle?” Bannin asked.
“We do. Soon, I think,” Elina said, and Warrick nodded his agreement. Best not to wait.
Bannin huffed out a laugh. “That was not your original plan, brother.”
“Much changed.”
“I see it did. For the better—and prettier.” Grinning, he glanced at Elina again and clapped Warrick’s shoulder. “You can trust this one to fell any tyrant. Or, apparently, to break any curse.” With that, he raised an ale over his head and bellowed, “Let us drink to Warrick the Cursebreaker!”
“Elina the Cursebreaker,” Warrick said as the courtyard resounded with cheers, and she gave to him a look that warned him she’d rather not be known as such.
Then she snickered. “Your legend soon looks to be secure. And I like your friend very well.”
Warrick groaned to see Bannin climbing onto a table, sloshing his ale as he shouted for attention.
“My friends! My friends! Listen here! Warrick has said he will tell the story of how the Stars of Anhera were returned to this land—and what a tale I expect it to be, as the torch-wielding Trollslayer becomes a cock-wielding Cursebreaker!” Shouts of laughter and approval came from the gathering crowd, with Bannin nodding his encouragement before holding up his hand. “The beginning of this story I was witness to myself. Still ripe from a Torrathian prison he comes to me, saying he’s met a haggard gold queen wearing the stars. ‘Let us go take them from her,’ said I—and said he, ‘The jewels cannot be taken from her, but a virgin is she…and she asked me to become her king. But if she wishes for a deflowering poke, she will first have to take off the rings!’”
The whistles and cheers in response felt as if they might split Warrick’s skull. A great ache took up place in his chest. He’d meant to tell Elina this same story tonight. Of his assumptions. Of his arrogance. Of his stupidity. He would have made her laugh at him. Then later, alone, he would have told her of his shame that he’d wronged her so badly.
