Page 64 of The Royal Curse

“As if you’re in a position to judge, you utterly ignorant, stupid son of a—”

“Enough, both of you.”

Andreas.

Where…how…I didn’t even know if I had a body, let alone what state it was in. I could barely comprehend that I had a mind.

But I’d have known that voice, so deep and sure and reassuring, even if I’d been dead.

A distinct possibility, actually. Did I have a body? Seriously, I’d begun to find it disturbing that I couldn’t tell.

“I beg your pardon,” said the first voice, a smooth, faintly sardonic baritone. “Lord Cyril likes to stand upon his dignity. If he wants to be argumentative, he should go further from your prince’s sickbed. And if he wants to be known as a competent mage, he should learn how to be one.”

“I told you he’s alive, what more do you want from me?” demanded the second voice, lighter and more pleasant than the other, but very sulky.

Prince. Sickbed. Alive. Well, that at least answered my most pressing question.

“Good thing we consulted you, then. The fact that he’s breathing and has a pulse never would’ve been enough for mundane idiots like us to—”

“Don’t include me in that, even thoughmundane idiotprobably describes me fairly, I’ll admit,” Andreas said. “I want no part of this argument, if you please. I appreciate all the assistance you’ve rendered, Ser Enzo, more than I can possibly ever tell you. And you have my word of honor that—”

“SerEnzo?Ser? Are you joking? He’s a common ruffian, and if you had any honor at all you’d be rescuing me from—mmmph!”

“My apologies,” Ser Enzo said, over Lord Cyril’s muffled but shrill protests. Did he have a hand over his mouth? Rescue? Was he this Enzo’s prisoner? If he was, Andreas didn’t seem concerned about it, so I could safely ignore it too. “We’ll leave you alone, but there’s someone in the hall if you need anything. I’ll take Lord Cyril out of earshot, I promise. Yours, anyway, I’m stuck with him.”

The sounds of a scuffle faded, presumably as Enzo dragged Cyril away, and then a thump and click suggested the shutting of a door.

A deep sigh filled the ensuing silence.

Andreas again.

Andreas…and a door? We’d been on the ground by the side of the road.

It all rushed back, too quickly and too forcefully, too much—the fight, screaming, being carried away, Dario’s rough hands, pain and terror and grief, Andreas’s wound all blackened and deadly, and then all my magic and my life pouring out of me and leaving me a shriveled husk…in the present, a faint sound, a soft whimper…

“Niko,” Andreas said, voice hoarse with some strong emotion. “Niko, sweetheart, can you hear me? Are you in pain? Fuck, what do I do,” he muttered, and that clearly wasn’t directed at me. “Damn it. Niko?”

Awareness of my physical body had started to filter back in: warmth, glorious, unexpected warmth, wonderfully soothing after my last memory of being crouched on the frozen ground and dying.

No, none of that, because I was warm now. And Andreas…and it figured that the first real sensation I’d get back would be the wetness under my eyelids as tears started to slip out. And the arid stickiness of my mouth. Andreas. Alive and well enough to tell that pair of annoying fellows to shut up.

And to say my name in that tone that set my—yes, I could feel my heart again, and it was racing.

My eyes stung even more. Which meant I’d become conscious of them, hadn’t I? So I ought to be able to control them.

Heavy though they were, I fluttered my eyelids open.

Pale, heavily stubbled, his brow deeply furrowed, and with purple shadows painted beneath his eyes, Andreas was still the most beautiful thing that I’d ever seen. Gloriously alive, with a look in those coppery eyes that stole my breath and left my chest aching. I seemed to be lying under a heap of blankets, with Andreas sitting in a chair beside the bed and leaning in to peer at my face. Sunlight gilded his auburn hair, which stuck up in wild tufts as if he’d been running his hands through it for hours.

Sunlight through a window, and a soft, warm bed.

Gods. When Andreas had been incapacitated, I’d tossed him on the ground under a tree with icy drizzle falling on us and cleaned him up with a guard’s not-very-clean undershirt. Apparently when it’d been my turn to be unconscious and useless, he’d managed to find me a cozy bedroom. And better weather to boot.

No wonder my mother had put him in charge.

“You’re awake,” Andreas said, as I blinked up at him. “Finally. Fuck. I was starting to—we’re going to have words, Your Highness. As soon as you’re well enough that I won’t feel like a monster for shouting at you.”

Shouting atme? Aside from the way I’d tried to doctor him in the middle of a rainy forest, what could he possibly be angry about? If anything, I’d be shouting at him, because he was the one who’d let his wound get to the point of gangrene. We wouldn’t have been there at all if he’d taken better care of himself! Hiswordswouldn’t be a one-sided argument, and if he thought they would, he’d be thinking again.

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