During his ride from Tor Hollick, Borenson had been lost in thought. The impending battle did not occupy his mind. It was Myrrima, the woman he’d betrothed in Bannisferre. Two days past, he’d escorted her, her sisters, and her mother into the city, to keep them from harm as Raj Ahten’s troops wreaked havoc through the countryside.

Myrrima had borne the attack well, kept a stout lip about it. She’d make a fitting soldier’s wife.

Yet in his few tender hours with the woman, Borenson had fallen deeply, irrevocably in love. It wasn’t just her beauty, though he prized that well. It was everything about her—her sly, calculating manners; her grasping nature; the unabashed lust that flashed in her eyes when she rode with him alone to her mother’s farm.

She’d actually turned and smiled up into his face, her dark eyes all innocence as she asked, “Sir Borenson, I assume you are a man who has endowments of stamina?”

“Ten of them,” he’d said, bragging.

Myrrima had raised a dark brow. “That should be interesting. I’ve heard that on her wedding night, a maid often discovers in bed that a soldier’s great stamina is good for something more than insuring that he doesn’t die from battle wounds. Is it true?”

Borenson had tried to stammer some answer. He’d never dreamed that a woman so lovely would ask him so frankly about his skill in bed. Before he could manage a reply, she stopped him by saying, “I love the color red on you. It looks so good when you wear it on your face.” He’d blushed more fiercely, felt grateful when she looked away.

Borenson had fancied himself lost to love more than once. But this felt different. He was no moon-sick calf, bawling in the night for some heifer. This felt . . . right. Loving her felt right, all the way down to the bone.

He’d realized he was in love as he rode to warn King Orden of the invasion. He’d been racing full-speed along a road, horse galloping, and had passed three lovely maids picking berries at the edge of the road. One had smiled at him seductively, and he’d been so lost in thought about Myrrima, it wasn’t until he was ten miles down the road that he realized he hadn’t smiled back.

That was how mad he’d gone.

On riding to Castle Sylvarresta, he’d driven Myrrima from his mind with this thought: The sooner I finish this battle, the sooner I can ride back to her.

Yet well before he reached the castle, Borenson’s troops began to run into Raj Ahten’s scouts, hunting parties in fives and tens along the road. His fastest knights hunted and slaughtered the scouts gleefully as Borenson plotted his attack on the nomen.