Page 53 of On a Barbarian World

“He hears you.” Colm’s deep voice in her ear. “It’ll upset him and give him more pain.”

She pressed her lips together but kept struggling.

“Let him have some peace,” Colm added.

Finally, she went still, hanging in Colm’s arms. They didn’t expect him to live. They were all just waiting for him to die. Silence echoed in the hall.

Colm set her on her feet. “Come, I’ll find you a room. There is nothing any of us can do now. We’ll see how he is in the morning.”

But she heard what he was really saying. They’d see if he was alive in the morning.

Aurina didn’t pay much attention, as Colm called for the head of Kavon’s house. An older woman Aurina had seen in the great hall bustled around, and soon Aurina was shown into a smaller bedroom down the hall.

She sank onto the bed—a far smaller version of Kavon’s—and put her head in her hands. How had he become so important in such a short time? Most of the time he set her blood boiling with his orders. God, she’d been fighting the pull she’d felt toward him all this time.

Now, she might never get the chance to hold him, touch him, and tell him she cared.

Damn, if only she had her medscope. She could heal him with one simple beam of light.

But her medscope was either pulverized, in Drog’s hands or…she stilled. Or wherever Kavon was keeping the pieces he’d found from her ship.

She jumped up and wrenched open the door. Colm was still in the corridor, talking with the warriors guarding Kavon’s door.

“Colm!” She hurried up to him. Lines of strain were etched on his face. “I need to see the remains of my ship you scavenged.”

“Kavon forbade it.”

“That hardly matters now!”

“They are in a locked room above, but he said there’s a device that would enable you to leave.”

“He’s dying. What does he care if I leave or not?” She dragged in a deep breath. “I won’t touch it. All I need is a metal cylinder, about the size of your light wands. It can heal his injuries.”

Colm frowned. “Impossible.”

God, these warriors were all cut from the same sheet of metal. “Warrior⁠—”

“No.” He shook his head. “I will not disobey him. If he wakes, by the Great Warrior’s favor, and finds you gone, I would not like to see his wrath.”

Damn. She swallowed the lump in her throat. “But he’s not going to wake, is he?”

A muscle ticked in Colm’s strong jaw. “It is still no, Aurina.”

Damn stubborn barbarians. She turned and stomped back to her room. She slammed the door, taking a tiny bit of satisfaction from the resulting bang.

She paced for a little while, then stopped. Screw it. She’d get the damn medscope herself.

She knew the things from her ship were being kept in a room a floor above her. So how to get in?

She strolled to the balcony, pondering. The same gauzy, white curtains covered the doorway, flirting with the breeze. The balcony was much smaller than Kavon’s, with just enough room for two people to stand.

She looked up.

The balcony wasn’t big, but it was the perfect place for someone to climb off it. Her gaze traced the windows above. She spotted the window at the end, directly above Kavon’s rooms. It didn’t have a balcony.

Well, climbing down had been easy enough for her. Climbing up was worth a try.

Her chest tightened. Anything was worth the chance to save Kavon’s life.