Guardian Queen: Epic Fantasy Romance (Hardstorm Saga Book 3) Read online

  “The last we saw the Lance and the Sword they were weather-beaten.” I’d been praying for them every spare moment I had.

  “But still seaworthy, no fatal damage to sails or rigging,” Batumar said. “They weren’t taking on water.”

  He was right. The caravels would catch up soon. I would have to trust that the spirits heard my prayers.

  As we stood at the railing, Marga squeezed through the throng of men to join us, rubbing her head against my arm. The tiger prowled the deck for most of the journey, watching for jumping fish in calm weather, growling and snapping at lightning during the storms. She hated the belly of the ship. Now she leaned her weight against Batumar, trying to push between us. The warlord responded with tightening his embrace around me.

  “We shall spend the night at sea and sail into port at first light,” he called to the captain.

  Captain Temro responded with a crisp “Aye,” and shouted to his sailors to roll up the sails.

  Then Batumar turned to one of the Landrian Royal Guard who had come up from the hold behind us. “Make sure we have a full guard tonight.”

  “A full guard, Lord Batumar.” The man hurried off to organize the shifts.

  “Rations lifted!” The captain’s deep voice rang out over the ship.

  The mass of men around us greeted this news with yips and hurrahs, shoving away from the railing at last.

  I was smiling just as wide as they were. Dried fish tonight. Tomorrow a feast. We were saved from starvation. We could resupply on Rabeen.

  I tipped my head to rest it on Batumar’s shoulder.

  “You look happy.” He brushed his thumb along my jaw. “Thinking about standing on firm land again?”

  “I’m thinking about fresh fruit, and bread drizzled with honey.” My stomach growled.

  The warlord licked his lips. “Roasted meat with steamed chaka roots.”

  I was laughing as I turned back to the sea. Land. Rabeen. So close to home now. We made it. I swam in a sea of indescribable relief.

  When Batumar asked, “Should we return below?” I shook my head. Not yet.

  I needed to keep an eye on the island, needed to assure myself that it was real. So we stayed at the railing and watched the dark strip of land in the twilight.

  Summer arrived while we had battled the storms, the breeze warm. Hope bloomed in my chest, a stubborn little flame. We had survived the hardstorms. Twice. Once on our way to the mainland, and now on our way back home. We had at least one ship, filled with soldiers. True, we had suffered heartbreaking losses, but we had not lost hope. And Batumar and I still had each other.

  He remained silent behind me. Perhaps he was thinking similar thoughts and was giving thanks to his Kadar gods and goddesses.

  I began another prayer of thanksgiving myself, then, as the sun dipped below the horizon and the island disappeared from view, I turned in the warlord’s arms. His gaze roamed over my features. His arms tightened around me as he nestled me against his hard body. I buried my face in the warmth of his neck, and he rested his chin on the top of my head. We stayed like that for a few moments, entangled in each other, before we pulled apart to return belowdecks at last.

  We climbed down through the hatch in the stern, straight to the galley to collect our food: flatbread and salt herring, with a handful of raisins as hard as peppercorns.

  A couple of men broke out in song and dance, right there in the small galley—a wild sailor dance that imitated the ship’s pitching. We could hear others doing the same abovedecks.

  An old Landrian seaman who’d never before missed a chance to cast me looks of disapproval stood up from the three-legged stool in the corner and ambled over to me, holding out his dirt-crusted, sweat-stained hat. “’Ere ya go, m’lady. We’as collected a small gift as our thanks for your ’elp of our prince.”

  The hat held enough raisins to fill a milk pitcher, likely the whole crew’s share.

  Before I could thank him, he gave a sharp nod, pivoted on his heel and stomped off, leaving me with the gift in my hands. The rest of the sailors in the galley flashed gap-toothed smiles, looking at me as if I was suddenly one of them.

  Batumar and I ate our meal together, then I took my leave of the warlord and headed to Prince Graho, while Batumar went off to issue orders for our landing the next day. My brain buzzed with expectations. Tomorrow we land. Tomorrow we land!

  The prince waited for me awake, in good spirits himself. Two of his royal guards stood on one side of him, Commander Durak on the other. The guards moved aside to make room for me.

  A weak smile turned up the corners of Prince Graho’s lips as I sat next to him and lay my hand over his. “You saved my life, my lady.”

  “I could draw the pain.”

  “No.” He circled my wrist gently with his fingers and pushed my arm away. His stubborn gaze warned against argument.

  The commander cleared his throat. “Should we move him to his sleeping rolls now, Lady Tera?”

  I considered the matter with care before I responded. “I do not want his wound to tear open. You can try moving him up to the deck tomorrow, if he feels better. Some fresh air would not be amiss. But only if you can carry him up the ladder without jostling him overmuch.”

  The prince scoffed and stuck his bristled chin out at a jaunty angle. “By tomorrow, I shall climb the ladder myself.”

  I patted his hand and did not naysay him. If manly vanity spurred him to heal faster, I would not hold him back.

  “The men say we reached Rabeen.” He paused. “Do you think I will be able to go ashore?”

  “We shall see,” I said, instead of impossible.

  I asked his guards to wash him in cool seawater once again, careful to keep it away from his bandages. I left half my raisins for him and his men, then I moved along to make my rounds, looking for any injuries among the crew and soldiers. When I ascertained that no one else needed my healing skills that evening, I headed to my sleeping roll, yawning as I went.

  This time of day, I could see little of the room, but enough moonlight filtered through the porthole that I did not walk into walls. We had few candles left and only a smear of lamp oil. I would not waste any.

  I set my half a hatful of raisins atop an upended barrel in the corner, then undressed to my undergarments. In the hardstorms, if we capsized, a waterlogged dress would have pulled me down into the depths of the ocean. I had come to enjoy sleeping unrestrained so much that I kept the habit even after we reached calmer seas.

  I’d barely lain down atop the blankets before Batumar entered. He carried a bucket of water in one hand and a lit candle in the other.

  “We can buy more candles on Rabeen tomorrow.” He set the bucket in the corner and the candle next to it. He unfastened his sword belt and hung it from a peg, then sat on the floorboards by the bucket, leaning his back against the wall, his legs stretched out in front of him. “Go ahead.”

  I stripped, then washed my body that had been tired but a moment ago, yet now gained new life from Batumar’s nearness. I rinsed my shift, wrung it out well, then pulled it back on. The material was light enough so it would not be damp long. We were far enough south so that even the nights were hot.

  Not as hot as Batumar’s eyes while he watched me, but near. His gaze burned through the semidarkness.

  When I returned to our blankets, no more than a few steps in the small cabin, he blew out the candle, then knelt by the bucket and washed up. He still would not let me see the scars on his body, the wounds he had suffered at the hands of the Sorcerer of Ishaf. He would not let me heal them either.

  He washed his shirt, then came to me at last, the damp linen clinging to his shoulders. He lay next to me, on his side, facing me, watching me. This was always the best part of my day: spending the night next to Batumar, just the two of us. I liked listening to his even breathing in the dark and to his heartbeat when I slept with my head resting on his chest.

  “How fare the troops?” he asked.

  “No serio
us injuries other than the prince. I only wish the men would come to me more readily with their ailments.”

  He reached out and wound a lock of my hair around his finger. He caressed that lock with careful reverence as if touching exotic silk. “They are battle-hardened soldiers. They will not cry for help over a skinned elbow, my Tera.”

  “They might not hold back so much if you did not glower at them every time one asked me for healing,” I told him. “How goes the training?”

  “Instilling true military discipline takes more than a few mooncrossings. Once we are back home, once we regain our lands, I shall build up a proper army. And I will encourage all the other warlords to do the same.” He paused. “When the war is over,” he asked, shifting closer, “what would you wish to do?”

  I did not have to think long about my answer.

  “I shall plant the largest garden of healing herbs in the world.” I had dreamt that up during the hardstorms to calm my fears. “I want to start a school for herbal remedies: teas, tinctures, poultices, and the like.” I was excited just thinking about mortars and pestles. I could smell the sweet chamomile and pungent sage already.

  While Batumar worked on keeping us safe, I would work on teaching people how to heal themselves. I could see myself walking through the endless garden, a babe on each hip, explaining each plant’s uses to any who wished to learn.

  “I shall heal all who come to me,” I told the warlord. “Like my mother did. I will spend my days not in a Pleasure Hall, but in a Hall of Healing, where the rows of rooms hold not concubines, but the sick. I wish to become Tika Shahala—a healer of the highest order—as was my mother, Chalee.”

  Then, after a satisfying day, I would lie in Batumar’s arms each night, talking quietly as we were at this very moment.

  Perhaps he was thinking something similar because his face softened in the moonlight that fell across the bed. He leaned toward me, brushing his lips over mine.

  My breath caught. My body came alive and begged for more.

  Yes. This. This was what I hoped for and planned on doing once we gained our precious peace. But as I pressed closer to the warlord’s hard body, a distant, faint horn sounded in the night.

  We both froze and held our breaths. Then Batumar rose, walked to the porthole, and opened the round window wider. We listened.

  The distant horn sounded again.

  I scrambled to sit, wild hope leaping in my heart. “Which ship, do you think?”

  “Lord Karnagh’s.”

  Yes. As the horn sounded for the third time, I recognized its distinct, deeply resonant timbre.

  Our own horn answered from abovedecks—sharper toned and much louder. Then yet another, different horn blew, high-pitched and piercing, the sound even fainter than the first.

  “Tomron!” I grinned into the night as a happy clamor buzzed on the other side of our door. “We have the Sword and the Lance.”

  Joy filled me, replacing endless days of worry. With three ships, we should have enough fighting men to push the enemy off our island. I sighed with pure happiness. Mostly because of the ships. But also because Batumar lay back next to me and bracketed my face with his large warrior hands.

  Chapter Four

  (Rabeen Gained and Lost)

  Batumar claimed my mouth and kissed me as if he had all the time in the world, as if the war was already won and we were home, happy and free. He kissed me as if the whole world wasn’t falling apart around us. He made me forget who we were, where we were. I enjoyed every moment of that kiss. Then the kiss ended, and I laid my head on his chest.

  “I wish it were morning already, and we were pulling into harbor,” I said after a few moments.

  “Let us hope that our good fortune will hold,” Batumar responded.

  “Good fortune?”

  “After a journey as difficult as ours, it would not be unusual for half the men to be dead or dying. On this ship, at least, we still have near all our soldiers and sailors.”

  Near, as nine had been washed overboard by ravenous and merciless waves.

  Batumar’s lips touched against my brow. His hand caressed my cheek. When I tilted my head up, his lips meandered down my temple, then over to the corner of my lips. And then his mouth claimed mine again.

  He pushed me onto my back and came up on his elbow next to me, nuzzled my ear, then neck, and then his large hand slid lower, nothing between the heat of his palm and my skin but the thin fabric of my shift.

  My blood raced. My heartbeat drummed a slow, drunken rhythm. My body awakened.

  “I wish to see you safe on Rabeen,” Batumar said in a rough whisper against my lips.

  I blinked at him, feeling as if I had been doused with a bucket of seawater. He wished me to stay on the Island of Rabeen while he waged war against the Kerghi invaders on Dahru.

  I put my palms on his rough cheeks to make sure he paid my words full attention. “I will not separate from you.” He was precious to me, body and spirit. “You are my heart.”

  He gathered me closer. “As you are mine. In truth, I hate every moment when you are out of my sight.”

  “We sailed together from home. Let us then finish this journey side by side. I will not stand in a port and watch you sail away into danger.”

  Memories flooded me as I said the words. Memories so old, I had not thought about them for a long time. “When I was a child, my mother sailed away to heal Barmorid, then High Lord of the Kadar. I never saw her again. She died on that journey and never returned.”

  Batumar held me, kissing my cheek and rubbing my back.

  After a moment, I added, “Even had you not asked me to join you on the journey, I could not have let you sail to the mainland without me.” I sighed. “I went with you and lost you anyway, when I thought you drowned in the sea. When I lost you, I felt as if I lost my heart.” I paused. “No. I will not be left behind.”

  “I expected you would say that.” He kissed me once more. “But I had to try.”

  His large hand caressing my skin filled me with pleasure. He laid kisses on my lips, on my chin, trailing them in a meandering line down my neck. Then his lips found my breasts through the barely there fabric. Soon he had me mindless, my body straining toward his.

  “Batumar…” I wiggled to shed my worn shift.

  My breasts were freed first. A soul-shattering groan left his lips at the sight, although truly, he could not have seen much in what little light the moon provided. His arms shook from the effort to hold back as he supported himself above me. But he did hold back—as he had held his desire back for far too long now.

  “At the abandoned metropolis, whose name history has forgotten,” he said in a tortured tone, “I held you in my arms in the ruins when you lost our babe. You nearly died.”

  My breath caught. “You remember?”

  While he had survived being tortured by the sorcerer of Ishaf, he had few memories of those dark times, or the days that followed.

  “More than before,” he said darkly. “But still only flashes.”

  From the look on his face, he had filled out the gaps between the flashes of this particular memory with his worst fears.

  “Batumar—”

  He was withdrawing already, dropping to the blankets next to me, his breathing ragged. He rolled onto his back and drew me into his arms, until my head rested on his shoulder once again. When I placed my hand on his chest, over his rapidly beating heart, he covered my hand with his own.

  “I will not risk your life for my own selfish pleasure,” he said. “We still have much warring ahead of us yet. I will not risk another babe.”

  I groaned in protest but argued with him not. He would not hear me now. I settled for what I could have and relished the comfort of the warlord’s embrace, but even that pleasure lasted only the blink of an eye before someone rapped on the door.

  “I beg your pardon, my lady.” The thick wood muffled Commander Durak’s voice. “Prince Graho is burning up with fever.”

  Batu
mar kissed me one more time, gently and with an ocean of love, before he unlocked his arms to let me leave.

  “Coming!” I grabbed for my clothes in a hurry, my body aching for the warlord, my mind worried for the prince. I left our room, still working on my buttons.

  I was careful not to step on any sleeping soldiers as I hurried forward. The commander escorted me with an oil lamp, although I would have found the prince without light, following the sounds of struggle.

  “I must reach them in time!” the prince yelled at his men, who held him to the floor so he would not hurt himself thrashing. “Release me!”

  “I need a bucket of seawater,” I called as I neared.

  Water drawn from the sea was colder than our fresh water that had been collected from the last heavy rains and had been sitting in barrels up on the deck for days.

  Durak held the lamp up so I could see, and I sank to the floorboards next to the prince. I placed a soothing hand onto his burning forehead. “You must stay still, my lord.”

  He opened his eyes but could not focus them on my face. They remained dazed, then, in an instant, they filled with urgency.

  “I must reach them before they are hurt.” The prince gripped my hand. “I cannot be delayed.”

  “They are safe. You already saved them. Rest.”

  He was speaking of the kidnapped children of his kingdom. He had reached them, had saved them. I had met him on that very same journey.

  The prince finally halted his struggles and seemed to fully see me at last. “I found them?”

  “And returned them to their parents,” I assured him.

  His tortured body relaxed. He drew a calmer breath, then another. But, too soon, the urgency flashed back into his gaze. “And the ships sinking? Had I dreamt that?”