Date: 2022-06-27 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; M M Romance; Romance; dragons; Paranormal; Historical; Lgbt; Magic; Shapeshifters; M F Romance
Description: “The blood of the living shall welcome the blood of the dead. I am the keeper of the Fault Lands, and the dead shall keep me.” For generations, the Corpse Lords of the Fault Lands have watched over the fire mountain of Aeretoll, preventing it from erupting and laying waste to the North. Not yet twenty, Náli is a powerful necromancer in service to his king, a talented swordsman known for his razor-sharp insults…and chained to his destiny as Corpse Lord, doomed since birth to lead a short, painful life; forced to beget an heir so that his essential magic can be passed on to the next Corpse Lord.
Publisher: HP Press

Demon of the Dead

The Drake Chronicles Book IV

By

Lauren Gilley

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are all the products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to persons, living or dead, is coincidental, or meant to serve as entertainment, rather than fact.

Names and characters are property of the author and may not be duplicated.

DEMON OF THE DEAD

Copyright © 2022 by Lauren Gilley

Cover design copyright © 2022 by Lauren Gilley

HP Press®
Atlanta, GA

All rights reserved.

Author’s Note:

This book – this series – is rooted heavily in a combination of English, Norse, Swedish, and Danish history and mythology. Names and myths and bits of language have been borrowed liberally – though all are used fictitiously. It’s all just for fun! For historically-accurate fantasy fiction (and vampires), please refer to my Sons of Rome series.

But here…there be dragons.

DEMON OF THE DEAD

Contents

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

Prologue

The pantheon of the North, one still shared by the South – though to a less fervent degree – is storied and populous. They pray to their gods; write out requests and wishes each year at Yuletide. Women call on Ing for a healthy baby. Young fools ask Donar to bless their hammers and blades. They ask the Val-Father, king of all the gods, lord of the Halls of Their Ancestors whose name passes lips most frequently, to guard the eternal souls of brave fallen warriors.

Receive our heroes into your hallowed halls.

Guide our dead to the warmth of your feast table.

That’s what the Val-Father is for: to offer eternal respite and shelter at the end of a violent and victorious life.

But no one knows what happens after death. No one has come back with tales of those supposedly gilded halls, the feasts, the upraised ale horns, and the adulation of a proud god. No one’s seen what awaits after hearts stop beating.

No one but the Corpse Lord of the Fault Lands.

No one but Náli, who is named for the demon of the dead.

Náli knows there are no gilded halls; no drinking horns; no benevolent deity seated on a throne like a king, smiling, welcoming, lifting a cup to his arrival.

There are only the cold, still white waters of the well, and the even colder hands that reach through the veil to clutch at his clothes, and pull his hair, and strangle him, slowly, terribly, frigidly…

Nothing awaits the vaunted dead save more dead. And one day, that strangling pressure around his throat will squeeze too tight. Snap. And he’ll be stuck amongst them forever.

1

Aeres

“From the masons,” Oliver said, adding a sheet of parchment to the growing stack on Erik’s wide desk. “They’ve run out of stones, and don’t think they’ll be able to harvest and cut more until the spring thaw.”

Erik left aside the parchment he’d been reading and dragged the new one closer, sighing heavily. “How far along are they on the renovations?”

Oliver waited a beat, until Erik lifted his head in question, because Erik himself had taken a tour of said renovations just yesterday.

He blinked, and made a face. “Damn.” He scrubbed absently at his beard. “Great hall and front façade finished. Guest rooms restored. It’s only Olaf’s surgery and the royal apartments that are in want of repairs, yes?”

“Quite.” Oliver nudged a gone-cold cup of tea closer to him. “Darling, maybe it would be best if–”

“Don’t say I should lie down for a while.”

Oliver folded his arms and sent him his best unimpressed look. “I can say it, or I can go fetch Birger and have him say it.”

Erik’s face scrunched up like a child’s caught pilfering sweets. “You fight dirty, your lordship.”

“Why, thank you.” Oliver dropped into the chair across from him, his own back and legs sore from his many, many trips back and forth through the palace halls. He couldn’t remember when he’d sat down last; breakfast had been a ham roll eaten on the go while he and Revna toured the grounds in search of the perfect ceremony site.

“…Ollie.”

Oh. Erik was talking to him. He blinked the haze from his eyes and hitched up straighter in his chair, unable to hide a wince. “Yes?”

Erik smirked, soft and fond. “It seems you’re the one who needs a lie-down.”

“How about this? I lie down, and you come with me.”

Erik’s regard was pleased, warm with heated promise. “I don’t think we’ll do much resting that way, love.”

“Rest is overrated,” Oliver said, and his returning smirk was ruined by a massive yawn. “Gods,” he muttered afterward. “Being a bastard was far less work.”

Once the words left his mouth, he felt a mental jolt. How long had it been since he’d actively thought of himself as a bastard? Since he’d thought that he was lesser, undeserving? He moved through the palace to calls of “your lordship,” consulting, instructing: a voice of authority as respected as Erik or Revna.

“What?” Erik asked.

“Nothing. Life is full of unlikely turns, that’s all.”

A chorus of shouts drew their attention to the window. Erik seemed relieved for an excuse to push his chair back and get away from the desk. Oliver followed, and Erik lifted an arm straight away for him to duck beneath, the heavy, warm weight of it across his shoulders familiar now, and always welcome.

Through the fogged diamond panes, they had a view of the bailey, which had, over the past month and a half, become a training yard for the Úlfheðnar. This afternoon, it was spear work. Bare chests steaming, runic tattoos rippling over layers of muscle, they worked through a sequence of thrusts, parries, and dodges against imagined opponents, all of them perfectly in sync – more so than any purely human company Oliver had ever witnessed. Leif led them, his braids messy and tied back in a knot; something pale along his crown caught the sunlight, and, with a shock, Oliver realized it was a bead made of bone.

Just like Ragnar and the others wore.

Erik’s ribs swelled against Oliver’s through layers of velvet and wool. He exhaled slow, and deep, and exhausted. “I don’t know what to do for him,” he murmured, a confession. “I keep telling Revna that all he needs is time, and when I speak to him myself, I try to brace him as well as I can – remind him that he’s loved and wanted and needed here. But he’s changed.”

His voice hardened. “He goes down every day to speak to Ragnar.”

“Can you blame him?” Oliver asked. “Who better to ask about shifters than the one who turned you?”

“Hm. I know.”

Down in the muddied snow, Leif executed a forward thrust with his spear, his jaw tight, his gaze fixed unwavering on a pretend enemy. Everything from the flexing line of his shoulders, to the tightness of his posture, to the huffs of steam from his nostrils spoke of ferocity. It was hard now to remember how gentle he’d seemed before. The boy who’d traveled with them to Dreki Hörgr was a man now, one that Oliver was ashamed to admit he found more than a little intimidating now.

Erik said, “Do you wish you had another dragon rider?” Oliver didn’t like the doubt that laced his words; that now ever-present worry that perhaps he wasn’t enough anymore. “Someone else who understood what it was like?”

Oliver leaned more firmly against him, bumping his thigh with his hip. “I’m perfectly content with the people I already have, you silly king. Besides. I’m not, in fact, the only dragon rider anymore.”

~*~

“I’m sorry, lamb,” Revna had said a few days prior. “Everything’s been upside down since you arrived. I promise it isn’t always like this around here.”

It was true that every member of the household had been busy in the aftermath of the battle, but, if she was honest, now that the most imminent threat was past, Tessa rather liked being busy. Back home – and, truly, it felt wrong to think of Drakewell as home anymore, now that her wedding was days away and she’d grown to love her new family here – she would have been helping her mother coordinate various winter balls and luncheons; paying visits to the lords and ladies of neighboring duchies. Perhaps a musical evening at Hope Hall; a trip to the Drakewell yuletide market to shop for trinkets and sip hot cider. She had many fond memories of winters spent thusly…but what she did here felt more necessary.

She’d spent all morning helping to entertain the children still staying at the palace. Reconstruction was well underway in the city, but the palace remained overcrowded until repairs were complete. When lunch was announced, she snagged a flask of tea and a ham roll off one of the platters in the great hall and stole away outside.

It was becoming something of a habit.

The drakes didn’t seem to feel the cold the way other animals – or people – did. Anything that breathed ice wasn’t too bothered by the ever-present layer of snow on the ground, she figured. There hadn’t been time or resources enough to build them any sort of shelter, but they’d settled in comfortably against a stretch of outer wall that saw a fair bit of sunlight in the afternoons, well away from the stables and mews – some of the horses were still skittish around them. She made her way there, now, and a low purring started up in the back of her mind before she rounded the corner: Percy’s mate had caught her scent.

When she cleared the broad curve of the turret, and stepped into view, she found the drakes sunbathing, wings spread wide and flat along the ground to soak up the meager warmth of the afternoon. Valgrind, she noted, was not with them; she didn’t know anything about the maturation process of drakes, but suspected he was nearing an age of independence, and had plastered himself to Náli, besides. Percy lifted his head a fraction, huffing a quiet greeting, then stretched out again.

His mate, though, sat up on her haunches with a friendly trill and a sense of welcome pushed through their bond.

“Hello, beautiful.” Tessa stepped up to stroke the sleek muzzle that lowered toward her. Cool breath stirred her hair, and touched her face. “I’ve brought you something.” She slipped her free hand into her cloak pocket and produced the bit of dried venison she’d stowed there earlier. The female licked it up carefully, gentle as any child’s pony.

Gratitude traveled through the bond. Thanks and simple enjoyment.

She’d tried to explain the sensation to Rune, and he’d smiled, and nodded, and asked lots of questions – but she wasn’t sure she’d put it into words properly. Didn’t think anyone save Oliver could truly understand what it was like having an animal communicate with you telepathically.

“What am I going to call you?” she mused aloud, stroking the drake’s jaw. “Kat is too awful to contemplate, really.”

The female’s forceful exhale was colored with agreement.

“Can you imagine? ‘Hello, mum, I let Ollie name a dragon after you.’ Now there’s the opposite of a compliment if I’ve ever heard one.” She chuckled when she imagined the face her mother would make, eyes wide and lips tightly pressed; Amelia would laugh until she cried. All told, it was a poor choice of name.

But what to call her? She’d had a gray pony as a little girl named Flossy – that hardly seemed appropriate. The drakes were so majestic. Náli had come up with Valgrind – suitably impressive and a little bit frightening, considering the meaning. Percy was…well, Oliver had named him for one of their distant relatives, a fellow bastard and dragon rider. That she understood. It fit, in a way. She wanted something equally fitting for Percy’s mate – whom she’d begun to think of as her own dragon. Maybe that was too forward, but she felt like hers.

The drake lifted her head, and alerted Tessa to someone’s approach well before the crunch of footfalls in snow reached her ears. Neither drake projected alarm, but they didn’t give off the warm welcome they would have offered Oliver or even Náli.

Tessa rested a hand on her neck, and turned to face the newcomer.

Though they didn’t like to show it, proud Northerners with war in their blood, she could tell that most everyone on the palace grounds was hesitant to approach the drakes. Estrid, of course, did not fall into that category.

She walked straight up to both of them, hand already outstretched for the female to sniff. She was dressed for riding, with a heavy cloak, dirty boots, and her hair in tight, elaborate braids. The simple black eye patch she’d worn immediately after the battle had been replaced with one of rich purple velvet, its edges picked out in silver thread; a bold statement rather than a shrinking-away from her injury. She’d been wounded in battle, and in the way of all Northerners, wore her scars with honor and pride.

“Are you ever going to ride this thing?” she asked, tactless as ever.

Somewhere between the dark training yard and a hallway full of the crashing of steel-on-steel, Tessa had come to find her bluntness refreshing. Amusing, even; she smiled, now, as the drake inspected Estrid’s glove looking for snacks.

“One day. Hopefully.”

“Hopefully, she says.” Estrid rolled her eyes and propped her hands on her hips. “What’s hope got to do with it? Climb up and go.”

“I’ll have to commission a saddle, first, and everyone’s so busy with repairs I wouldn’t want to take up time and resources.”

“So? Borrow Oliver’s saddle. You can tighten the straps up, right?”

“I suppose, but–”

“But,” Estrid mocked. “You’ll pick up a sword and go charging into battle, despite needing about ten years of experience before that’s a good idea, but now you’re afraid to go riding?”

“It’s hardly just ‘riding.’”

“You are scared, then.” A smile, quick flash of teeth, victorious.

“I don’t see you flying about on one.”

Estrid quirked a brow. “I’m not a Drake.”

This had become part and parcel for them, somehow: all that early antagonism, with Estrid vicious and Tessa uncertain and shrinking, had morphed into a routine bantering that Tessa found oddly endearing. This was just how Estrid was, and it beat the simpering, pretend will-wishes of the soft maidens back home.

Still…Tessa sighed. “Fine. I have no excuse. But.” She lifted a finger. “I think I’m perfectly justified in my trepidation.”

Estrid stared her down a moment, then cracked a true grin, snorting a laugh. “I still can’t quite believe Oliver and that little shit Náli did it willingly.”

Tessa let the insult to her cousin slide – truly, she was surprised as well. To think of Oliver, always cautious, slip-sliding on the icy docks upon their arrival, willingly climbing astride a dragon and taking to the skies, defied all her preconceived notions. That was the thing about notions, though, she supposed; it was almost impossible to know a person completely. To understand all the rooms of their heart, perhaps even a few they didn’t start out with the keys for themselves.

She reached to stroke the drake’s neck, the scales smooth as pearl and cool to the touch – though not unpleasantly so. “I suppose this place brings out the best in him,” she mused. The place, and, more importantly, its people. She’d always loved and valued Oliver as if he were her second brother – but there could be no denying that it was the love and admiration of a king that had put a new brightness in his eyes, and fueled him with a new purpose.

“Just him?” Estrid asked, tone no longer teasing, nor even blunt…but gently prodding.

Tessa whipped her head around, startled, and found the other girl regarding her with a quiet aura of encouragement.

“What can I say?” she said, shrugging in response to Tessa’s questioning look. “I prefer my friends brave.”

A smile tugged at Tessa’s mouth. “They’re keeping the saddles in the armory, aren’t they?”

Estrid grinned, wicked and pleased.

~*~

Náli secured the slim roll of parchment with a blob of black wax and a press of his skull signet ring, feeling a considerable weight lift from his shoulders as he passed it off to Danski to be taken to the mews, attached to a messenger falcon, and sent north and east. To the Fault Lands.

It was a brief message, but he’d spent the better part of the last hour composing it, belly squirming as he thought of his mother’s inevitable response – or, rather, lack thereof. No return scroll would follow, neither would Lady Serafina attend the wedding to which Náli had just invited her.

My Lady Mother,

Unforeseen delays have as of yet prevented my return to the Fault Lands. My assistance was needed amidst a battle here, at the capital, one from which we have emerged victorious and generally unscathed.

The king’s younger nephew, Prince Rune, is to be wed one week from today. The king extends you an invitation, of course. It’s to be a merry event. I plan to return home immediately following, to resume my duties as Corpse Lord.

Yours,

Náli

A week was a close timetable for a trip to Aeres from Naus Keep, but writing her any earlier had felt like inviting her wrath. Best to let her think that the battle had only just ended, and not that he’d been loitering around the royal palace for a month, resting, petting excitable young drakes, and…

“My lord?”

Best of all, trying to draw his Dead Guard captain into more and more compromising positions.

He flexed his hands atop his makeshift writing desk – two overturned barrels with a plank laid across – and turned to find Mattias propped in the open doorway, broad shoulders blocking an impressive amount of cresset light from the hall, even relaxed as they were.

“The letter to your lady mother?” he asked, head tilting in the direction Danski had gone. His tone was full of concern; he knew better than anyone how Náli felt about his mother.

“Yes.” Náli slumped backward into his chair, one elbow hooked over the back of it in what he thought (hoped?) was a fetching pose. Just the sound of Mattias’s voice had eased the jitters in his belly, and it was fast becoming second nature to arrange himself in such a way as to draw attention to the parts of his body he was quickly learning were Mattias’s favorites. It had been a fascinating month of research: watching Mattias’s gaze follow the motion of his hand as it gathered up his long, pale hair and drew it over his shoulder. Feeling the hitch in his breathing when his hands landed on Náli’s narrow waist. Hearing the low, murmured praise that seemed almost mindless when Náli hooked a leg around his hip and urged Mattias’s hand down the length of his thigh, lean and sinewy.

Their moments together were stolen, and not nearly as frequent as Náli wanted. The closer they moved toward inevitable departure, the more frantic he became. Mattias had kissed him, and touched him through his clothes, but nothing more. Even if they were guests in an incredibly crowded, incredibly loud and busy palace, moments alone rare and precious, he still felt like they had a better chance of being together here than at home. Home – where his mother waited, fretting, furious, and plotting another horrid matchmaking ball for him.

No. He shoved all such thoughts roughly away, and focused instead on Mattias as he stepped slowly into the room, and, with a glance toward the hallway, eased the door closed.

Náli bit back the wide, victorious grin that threatened, managed to tame it to something sultry instead. When Mattias turned back, he breathed a quiet laugh.

“Forgive me, my lord, but you are rather shameless.”

“What?” Náli gestured down the stretched-out length of his body. “I’m only sitting.”

A small, rueful smile tugged at Mattias’s lips – even as his gaze tracked down Náli’s torso, and then his legs, pausing when Náli flexed his calves. Light from the window revealed the color that came up along his cheekbones.

“Shameless and ruthless,” Mattias averred, striding closer, voice gone low and rough at the edges.

Náli tipped his head back, letting his smile sharpen, heart thumping pleasantly quick. His childhood admiration of Mattias’s stalwart loyalty, his positivity, his ability to make light of even the darkest nightmares, had over time, naturally, developed into a different sort of admiration – that of a sharp jaw, and deep eyes; of broad shoulders, and strong arms, and precise footwork in the training yard. From adoration to want, to achy, impossible longing. Náli had not thought to find him more beautiful – but then here was this Mattias. The one who had finally allowed himself to want in return. Who looked at Náli like he did now, as if he wanted to devour him.

Náli wished he would.

“Hm,” Náli hummed. “I don’t suppose I’m known for being level-headed and demure, now, am I?”

“Decidedly not.”

Mattias drew close enough, at last, for Náli to dart upright, get a grip on the single, long braid that trailed over his shoulder, and wind it around his fist. He pulled, and Mattias came easily, pupils expanding, breath hitching audibly, before it rushed warm across Náli’s lips.

“Kiss me.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Náli shuddered. His title had never hit him like a punch to the gut before, never sparked across all his nerves and left him caught in his own private electrical storm. Then Mattias’s mouth slanted hot and possessive over his own, and the sensation intensified, a full-body prickling that left his head swimming.

Mattias was so very good at this. The way his hand cupped Náli’s jaw, calluses rough on soft skin; the way he shifted the angle so he could go deeper, tongue tracing along the backs of his teeth, playing deep and wet until Náli was swaying into him, pliant and eager. He’d wondered, a time or two, just how Mattias had become so skilled. How many people had he kissed? And were they better and more pleasing than Náli? Things that didn’t bear thinking about.

Náli hooked the fingers of his free hand into Mattias’s belt, trying to draw him even nearer. He shifted around, their lips still locked, so that he could get Mattias between his spread thighs, right where he wanted him.

Mattias chuckled and skimmed damp lips along his jaw. “Why are you so eager?”

“Are you saying you’re not?” Náli half-growled.

Gently, Mattias drew his hand from his belt, and urged it lower, where Náli could feel the stirrings of someone just as eager as he was – maybe more.

He hummed in appreciation, hand closing, head turning as he chased after Mattias’s clever mouth–

A high, familiar trilling from the window startled them apart.

Náli didn’t miss the panic that flashed across Mattias’s face; the harsh jump of his throat as he gulped back a curse. Things were getting easier between them every day, more heated, more desperate…but only when a door closed off the rest of the world. In front of others, even the rest of the Guard, Mattias was still entirely proper and formal.

Náli spared a nasty thought for Oliver, petty bitterness, that he could kiss and touch and be seen with his lover, wear his rings and beads in front of everyone, while his own must be a secret, too taboo to be borne. Then he whirled toward the window, already snarling.

Valgrind hovered on the other side of the glass, wings flapping. He had his head cocked to an angle so that one bright blue eye, glowing with sunlight, nearly touched the pane. He trilled again when Náli stood and marched to the window.

Náli smacked the frame with an open hand. “Go away, you bloody nitwit!”

A blue tongue lolled into a drake-smile, and, with a last chirp, he went winging away. Far distant, Náli spotted one of his parents flying high above the palace grounds: the mother, he thought.

He braced his hands on the window ledge and heaved a deep breath, not so much angry as…tired. When he wasn’t agonizing over what to include in a letter to his mother, or kissing Mattias, he was so very, very tired.

The well called to him. Each night, he slept a little deeper, went wandering a little farther, and it was harder and harder to wake in the mornings. Mattias would perch on the side of his bed and smooth his hair, pet over his throat, smelling of lavender tea and looking like worry personified when Náli finally cracked open crusty eyes.

Ball or no, bride or no, he had to go back. He could put it off no longer.

The floor creaked beneath Mattias’s silent, careful tread. Náli stayed where he was, until large hands caged him in, a solid, warm chest pressing to his back. He eased his grip, and leaned back to let Mattias take his weight; when he did, Mattias rested a hand on his belly, more stabilizing than teasing: a solid hold full of comfort that nevertheless left Náli’s stomach twisting up painfully. He wanted so much.

Mattias rested his chin on top of his head, so that when he spoke, the words vibrated inside Náli’s skull. “You know we’ll have to take him with us, right?”

“Who?”

“Your pet beast.”

Náli scoffed. “He’s not mine. He’ll stay with the others, obviously. With Oliver.”

The hand stroked back and forth across the width of his midsection. Mattias dropped his face, so he could speak against his ear. “Náli.” Quiet. Fondly chiding. “You named him.”

It was difficult to swallow, suddenly. “I know.”

“He adores you.”

It wasn’t possible to answer that one.

“I think he’s rather good for you.”

“Oh, hush.” But he laid his hand over Mattias’s, stilling it, keeping it pressed tight to the place where his heartbeat had settled low in his stomach. “What will Mother say?”

Mattias snorted. “I shall instruct Klemens to be ready to catch her when she swoons.”

Náli smiled, and saw the ghost of his reflection in the window glass, Mattias large and looming behind him – holding him. The shield at his back, always.

He blinked, and let his gaze shift through the window, out toward the sky, where three drakes flew, glittering white clouds against a backdrop of candied blue.

~*~

After a day spent cooped up indoors dealing with a dozen tiny disasters on paper, it was a tremendous relief to put on his new warm coat and escape out into the yard – and then up into the air. Oliver took what felt like his first full breath of the day as Percy leaped aloft and flapped his wings, swirling snow and propelling them up, up, up. The air rushed cold against his face, tangled his hair, and left him grinning broadly.

He flew most days – but that entailed searching the iced-in Sel ships they were dismantling piece by piece, and sorting the wheat from the chaff in what remained of the mostly-demolished Sel camp. It had been work: transportation and aerial surveillance; the drakes had even helped to carry some of the massive stones that had gone into repairing the front façade of the palace.

But this was flight for the sake of flight. For fun.

It had become second nature: shifting his weight, leaning low over Percy’s spine, reading the flex of muscle beneath him to anticipate swoops, and turns, and dives. Flying, Oliver opened up the bond between them, let it roar and flow, a continuous loop of feedback until his thoughts felt blue, and it was hard to tell whether they were his thoughts at all, or Percy’s.

He tweaked the left rein, and Percy curved into a wide, easy turn. High above the stables, red hair streaming behind in a banner, flew Tessa astride Kat.

Well, everyone said Kat was a terrible name, but Oliver was going to call her that until Tessa arrived upon something more suitable.

Oliver grinned to himself, as Percy undulated through the air toward his mate. He’d spotted the pair out the window, when he lifted his gaze from Leif’s seemingly-tireless exercises down below. At first he’d thought it was a drake alone – they flew off to hunt, and visit the coastline, ready should he call out for them, but left to their own devices most of the time – but then he’d spotted a flash of crimson, and the gleam of saddle buckles.

Little Tessa, brave enough to go up on her own, without even asking for company.

Kat spotted them, pivoting in the air to face them; she trumpeted out a call that Percy echoed, half hawk-scream and half brass horn.

Oliver let Percy have his head, and he circled around his mate, until both hovered side-by-side, the buffeting from both their wings tossing Oliver’s too-long hair in his face. He reached to push it back and shot a smile across to Tessa – whose face was pink from more than cold.

“I’m sorry!” she called.

“What for? That’s your drake!”

They were close enough for him to watch her eyes widen, and her lips slacken in surprise – before she smiled so wide it had to hurt. The smile of a little girl on her first successful pony ride. A smile of pure joy.

He laughed, and she echoed the sound.

Percy radiated happiness, and eagerness, emotions he could feel echoed faintly by Kat.

“I borrowed your tack!” Tessa shouted.

“Mine was ready this afternoon!” He lifted his new, gleaming reins in demonstration.

“Come on, then,” he called, “and we’ll show you the coast.”

They swung a wide about-face, and headed for the glitter of iced-over water through the trees.

~*~

“Ah, there you are,” Revna said from the doorway behind him. Her boots rapped across the floor as she crossed toward him. “The lads think they’ve found some unaccounted for stones: a bit of tumbledown wall from the farm Admar and his family abandoned when he lost the leg.” She arrived beside him at the window. “What are you looking at? Lost in the clouds?”

“Essentially,” he answered, and nodded toward the view of the sky through the glass.

The drakes, and their Drake riders, were heading away from the palace, out toward the cliff faces and the harsh coastline where the Sels had set anchor and snuck up on them from the rear. At this distance, the great beasts looked like no more than birds, with the arch of their flapping wings – if you ignored the swinging, rudderlike tails. Too far for him to still make out the red of Oliver’s hair, shining like a fox pelt in the late day sunlight.

Revna followed his gaze, and chuckled. “Well then, good for her. She’s getting braver all the time, our sweet Tessa.”

Our. Revna, the boys, Bjorn and Birger – his whole household had accepted the Drakes as their own. Proud, possessive, protective, just as he was. Horrors lurked on the horizon, he knew – every night he woke in a cold sweat from dreams of that Selesee captain kneeling on the flagstones, snarling up at him. You will burn before the end, Frodeson. The magics of this land will bend to the emperor’s will, and your whore will look on, laughing, as he burns you himself.

An empty threat from a condemned man?

He thought so.

But he’d also thought drakes long extinct, and here he stood watching three in flight.

He gave himself a mental shake. All he could do was prepare for war – prepare his family for it – and do what he knew to be right. It was the same thing he’d always done, only, his family was a bit bigger, now.

He draped an arm around Revna’s shoulders.

“What’s that for?” she asked.

“No reason.”

Sunlight struck Percy’s sharp, spade-tipped tail, and it glittered like a flash of diamond – like a falling star, one on which Erik wished, fervently, not to lose the precious things that he’d gained.

2

Drakewell, Aquitainia

“A bit more padding, here, I think. I don’t want it to rub.”

“Aye, m’lady, seems right,” Billy said, scratching absently at his nose. An old habit, one she’d watched him perform time and time again in his tenure with the Drake family. He’d served as saddler, cobbler, makeshift armorer once the war started and their ball-going family found themselves in need of battle gear, and wasn’t a bad tailor, either. He’d made Tessa a doll, once, of bleached sackcloth with a frilly dress of velvet and lace scraps. He’d crafted Shadow’s tack, including the armored neck and chest pieces she’d commissioned years before, and Amelia wouldn’t have trusted anyone else to outfit her new mount.

Potential mount.

She was going to ride her drake today.

Billy wedged his fingers beneath the strap in question and found extra room – room for a bit more felt padding where the girth connected with the breastplate: a design Tessa had sent her, one of several detailed sketches Oliver had made in regards to his own drake’s harness.

Alpha craned his head around, nostrils flared inquisitively.

Billy patted his snout, just as he would with a horse. Of all the manor’s staff, he’d been the least bothered by the idea of handling a mythical beast, a natural calm that the drakes seemed to appreciate. “Don’t worry, beastie, we’ll get you sorted.”

“Can I ride the dragon, Daddy?” a small voice asked.

Amelia turned to see that Connor, his four-year-old son Liam perched on his hip, had eased a few steps closer to Alpha – still hesitant himself, but spurred on by Liam’s curiosity…and bravery.

“No,” Connor said, “absolutely not.” But he held out a flat palm for Alpha to sniff.

The drake did so, with a bored air, and then turned his attention to Liam.

Amelia wasn’t keen on children, but had to admit Liam was cute, with his tousled dark hair, and his big, inquisitive eyes, and the rambunctious, bold spirit of a boy born and raised in the wilds of the Inglewood. She smiled as Alpha exhaled against his face, blowing his hair back and making Liam laugh.

Connor’s eyes got wide.

Amelia could feel Alpha’s amusement rippling down the bond between them, and she had no doubt Liam couldn’t have been safer anywhere than with her drake. All of the dragons positively doted on the boy.

Connor caught her watching, and slid a glance her way. “I still can’t believe you plan to ride this thing.”

She grinned. “Oliver assures it’s perfectly safe.”

“Oh, Oliver,” Reginald scoffed from behind her – a safe distance from Alpha and his harness fitting. “Because there’s a daredevil.”

Amelia tossed a glance at him over her shoulder – he stood with arms folded, hips cocked, but with worry lines between his blond brows – and said, “He was brave enough to go into coat closets with you.”

She had the pleasure of watching him turn scarlet.

“Ha!” Connor exclaimed. “I knew it.”

Reginald turned on him, fuming. “You don’t know a bloody damn thing.”

“Daddy.” Liam pressed his laughing face into his father’s throat. “He said a bad word.”

“I’m sure your father says plenty of those.”

“Excuse you, I’m a gentleman.”

“You’re a bloody woodland outlaw.”

Their bickering had become so commonplace as to be boring. She’d learned to successfully ignore it…

“And you’re a prancing fop who needs–”

…well, for the most part.

She turned and pinned Connor with a glare that had his mouth snapping shut. She smiled. “That’s what I thought.”

As she turned back to Alpha and Billy, she heard Reginald mutter, “And just who put her in charge of the whole bloody world?”

“Everyone who wets themselves over the dragons,” she said, smirking to herself.

Billy chuckled.

~*~

Amelia and her mother had spent an anxious few weeks awaiting word from the North, fearing the worst. Tessa had kept them informed since her arrival in Aeretoll, and the silence spoke of nothing good. Finally, though, a letter had arrived on the leg of a wind-rumpled falcon, and more had followed hence, from both Tessa and Oliver.

In them, the cousins told a wild story of a Midwinter Festival that had become a massacre, and the finding of three dragons – three cold-drakes. Of a desperate trip home for Oliver and his king, and of a terrifying siege of the palace at Aeres by the Sels.

“The fucking Sels were at Aeres?!” Amelia had exclaimed when she got to that part.

Normally, Katherine would have scolded her for her language, but in that instance, she’d only snatched the paper away, eyes growing wider and wider as she scanned Tessa’s neat script. “Gods,” she’d murmured. “And they let Tessa fight?”

“Mother, you let me fight.”

“That’s different! Tessa’s a lady!”

Amelia had lifted a single brow.

“Oh, you know what I mean.” Katherine had stood, pacing the width of the salon as she finished the rest of the letter, shaking her head and murmuring to herself over Tessa’s very un-Tessa-like exploits.

Amelia hadn’t truly agreed, though, on any of it being out of character. Yes, her sister was outwardly softer, quieter, and certainly more proper than she was herself. But Katherine had never been privy to those summer afternoons spent exploring Drakewell’s ponds, and forests, and caves; hadn’t seen Tessa pick herself up, wipe a smudge of dirt from her cheek, and set her little jaw at a stubborn angle. Hadn’t seen Tessa step forward as the only one brave enough to handle the five-foot snake they’d found in an abandoned hunter’s cabin.

That was the thing: John and Amelia had always been the brave-seeming ones…but Tessa and Oliver were Drakes, too; their fire was of the banked kind, waiting for a good stirring to roar to life.

Oliver’s letters in the coming weeks had been a bit more dry and practical, but even so, Tessa could feel his enchantment with Aeretoll – and King Erik – shine through. He loved it there, despite the cold, despite the rebuilding efforts post-siege. He spoke with a hopeful tone she’d never heard from him before, and that warmed her cold, dark heart.

He was the one who’d sent all the detailed schematics for the dragon harnesses and bridles. His own was a bit pieced together, he said, but Erik had insisted on a new one, as well as a newer, more modern suit of mail and armor for Oliver. I’m keeping the helm, though, Oliver wrote. It’s quite dashing.

It had hit her then: Oliver was going to war. Sweet, bookish Ollie whose ailments had always kept him from living up to his father’s standards, was to have his own armor. And Tessa had swung a sword.

All told, sending Tessa north to seal a military alliance had worked – but not in the way any of them had expected.

The correspondence was helpful, and Amelia was hopeful that a formal agreement of aid could soon be drafted – but her main focus, now, had to be on her own lands, her own people, her own role in the war.

“All right, m’lady, I’d say that’ll do for ye, what do you think?” Billy announced at last.

The sun hung weak and watery at its midpoint, offering little warmth. Reginald had wrapped himself in his cloak and leaned against the trunk of a bare-limbed tree, napping. Liam had grown bored of the harness-fitting and gone scampering off to lie at the edge of the ornamental koi pond and wiggle his fingertips in the cold water, laughing as the sluggish fish came to nip at him; Connor had followed him, a dark shape crouched on the flags.

Some generals, Amelia thought – not without a measure of affection.

She turned her attention to Alpha, and Billy’s handiwork.

“We’ve got the rings, here,” he said, stepping up to point things out, “that wee Oliver described, for your own harness to attach to. And here we have your main stirrups for riding” – fixed against the wide, smooth saddle flap, rather than dangling from straps as on her horse’s saddle – “and the ones below, on the girth, for mounting. Then we have the breastplate, which runs here, and here. I didn’t add a crupper – didn’t really fancy trying to run one around his tail.”

She smiled. “No, I imagine not. The breastplate should be enough.”

“Right. And here’s the bridle – no bit, of course, but a hackamore, and these chains here, those are quite smart, to allow your beastie to open his jaws and blast fire at anyone who needs a good roasting.” He grinned at that, and Amelia felt her own smile widen. “Your reins go through these little rings, banded onto his neck. Don’t want them flapping about and getting lost, I reckon.”

“No, Oliver said this was the traditional way to do it.”

He nodded, stepped back, lifted his cap and scratched at his scalp. “So. What do you think?” He sounded both proud and nervous at once.

“I think it’s beautiful.” She stepped forward to run a hand along the smooth, dark brown leather of the saddle and all its straps. It was fine-grain, buffed to a high polish, and smelled pleasingly of saddle soap and beeswax. “I always did love a good saddle.”

The old tanner beamed. “M’lady has fine taste. Nothing like a good piece of leatherwork – and this is mighty fine, if I say so myself.” He patted Alpha on the flank.

The drake swung his head around and nudged at Amelia’s side just as Shadow so often did. She stroked his nose, and looked into his red-gold eyes, sharp and fiery and full of an eagerness she felt echoed in the back of her mind. He was ready for a good fight – and so was she.

~*~

“My lady, this – ugh – this is quite heavy,” huffed Miranda, her longtime lady’s maid, as she struggled with the mail skirt Amelia had had made to her specific measurements.

“Well, yes, it’s made of metal,” Amelia said, mildly, reaching for the wide, studded leather belt herself and buckling it around her waist, overtop of her padded doublet.

“I know, my lady,” Miranda said, fetching the sleek, black steel breastplate from the side table. Though her back was turned, her voice suggested she was rolling her eyes. She and Amelia had always gotten along well, when softer-spoken, gentler maids had quivered in the past; they could snark at one another like friends, rather than proper maid and prim lady. “It’s only that I worry about you flying around on a dragon.” She shuddered as she turned around, breastplate clenched in both hands. “There’s still plenty of men about – men like that Lord Connor who’s done nothing but hide away in the woods while his poor brother got strung up. I don’t see why they can’t be the ones to do the fighting.”

Connor had a long way to go before the other lords and ladies of Aquitainia respected him as a lord once more.

“Yes, well, the drakes offer us a distinct advantage,” Amelia said. “And they answer to me, so I think it’s only fair.”

She flicked a glance toward her mother through the full-length mirror she stood before, and once again, Katherine managed to surprise her. She lifted her nose to an imperious angle, plucked invisible lint from her sleeve, and said, “Besides: none of those men waiting downstairs are fit to lead a children’s parade, much less an expedition such as this.”

Amelia grinned, as Miranda helped her fit the plate over her breasts and torso and buckled it at the sides. If you’d told her a few months ago that her mother would ever sound so confident in her, she would have laughed. She had always felt Katherine’s disappointment in her: in the commands to sit up straight, and speak politely; in her protestations against her going out riding with the men, and wearing men’s clothes to do so; most recently in her vicious condemnation of her relationship with Malcolm.

Gods…Mal…

It was that grief, their shared grief, that had finally led them to a place of mutual understanding. To a place where Amelia had begun to realize that perhaps all her mother’s stiff, demanding behavior had been less disappointment, and more worry about her daughter’s future.

Now, no one’s future was secure. And Katherine trusted Amelia more than any of the men to lead the charge out from their home and toward the enemy.

After the breastplate came the black steel pauldrons, and small, padded steel bracers on her upper and lower arms. A matching helm awaited, black as well, with simple, clean lines, and a short, bristling horsehair plume dyed red with beets and pomegranate juice. Oliver’s sketches had given her the idea for the helmet: his own had a long, flowing length of horsehair, and she’d liked it, but decided to go a more aggressive route with her own.

She tugged on her gloves – smooth leather with lines of steel stitched to the back, so she would have spiked knuckles – tucked her helm beneath her arm, and surveyed her reflection.

Katherine stepped up beside her. “You look like the goddess of death,” she said, voice going a touch faint. “Hel astride a dragon. There’s a picture.”

Amelia twisted slightly side to side, and smiled at her reflection. “I like it. In fact, I might be rethinking my aversion to the lip paint you always wanted me to wear to balls.”

Katherine’s face paled.

Miranda appeared on her other side. “I wouldn’t advise it, my lady,” she said, touching at her throat. “It would…it would look…”

“Like the finishing touch,” Amelia said. “Is there any red left?”

~*~

When she returned to the conservatory, where the humans had come inside to warm themselves amid the crackling braziers and thriving palms, heads turned at the sharp ring of her bootheels across the flagstones.

Billy grinned, showing his gapped teeth.

Connor’s brows lifted.

Reginald actually gaped. Connor leaned over and knuckled his jaw shut, which earned a scowl.

She paused in front of them, posing a little, she could admit, hip cocked to the side. “What do you think?”

Connor made a show of give her a slow perusal. “I think you look terrifying.” He grinned. “In a good way.”

Reginald smacked him in the chest with the back of his hand. He said, “You look like you’re wearing a stage costume.”

“Have you seen your armor?” she shot back, and got to see him blush for the second time that day. It was terribly gratifying.

Billy said, “It’s a right smart bit o’ steel, m’lady, if you don’t mind me saying.” Considering he and his apprentices had been the ones to make it, she’d expected that reaction from him. What she didn’t expect was for him to step forward and offer her a tidy bundle of crimson wool trimmed in sable fur. “But I think it needs a cloak,” he said, with a wink.

Propriety and social standing be damned – Amelia stepped forward and hugged him.

~*~

Armored, helmeted, and cloaked, with her mother, maid, generals, and armorer following, she crossed the lawn to where Alpha waited, surrounded now by his four females, all of them snuffling inquisitively at his tack.

“Well, ladies? Do you approve?” she called as she approached.

Five tapered, horned heads turned her way, red-gold eyes gleaming like jewels in the pale winter sun. Two of the girls trilled a birdlike greeting, and Alpha purred, low and rumbling, a vibration up through the soles of her boots. Her mind was awash with a new five-way welcome, all of their personalities distinct voices through the bond – overwhelmingly so. She pushed affection back through, still not able to respond individually other than to Alpha – her connection with him was strongest. He was the leader of his pack, the loudest, and most assertive. He was the first to reach out to her – the one to save her, that horrid night outside the Inglewood manor house.

She walked into their midst, stroking noses, and long, scaled necks, no longer even a little hesitant in their presence. It was a trust that had built quickly, right at the start, mutual and uncomplicated.

She just had to master the communication part.

Starting now.

She reached Alpha and rested a gloved hand on his shoulder, feeling the relaxed, dense muscle beneath; she still marveled at the strength of the animals. Horses were strong, stronger than any man in existence…but the drakes were a kind of strong she’d only ever associated with fairy tale creatures: giants, and ogres, and trolls. Or the elephants of old, brought from faraway lands.

And she was about to climb aboard one.

No, not one, she scolded herself. Yours. Alpha. Every bit as much your friend as Shadow. An important thing to remember, now that the moment had arrived, and the first threat of nerves stirred in the pit of her stomach.

Will you let me up? she asked him, through their bond. Will you take me flying?

He didn’t ever respond to her in distinct words. She wasn’t sure he understood her language, only her intentions and emotions. Either way, she felt a strong yes from him. An agreement, a willingness, a promise of cooperation.

Now came the hard part. I need three of them to stay, to protect my people. To travel with them through the wood when they come to join us. Can you ask them to? Can you command them to?

Another affirmation.

But Amelia thought it would be polite to ask herself, as well.

She turned to face the females, standing in a half-circle behind her, heads cocked to one direction or the other, inquisitive. The largest, the one she’d begun to think of as Adira, lowered her neck and crooned a distressed sound. They already knew.

Guilt swelled in Amelia’s chest. Oh, girls, I know, I know. I’m sorry. I wouldn’t ask it if I didn’t think it important. You won’t be separated for long.

The bond filled with objection, and with sadness.

But what of the rest of our pack? Our people? She waved toward the manor, and sleek heads turned. Who will protect them while I’m away?

Alpha started purring again, a deep, reassuring sound that left her eyelids flagging, briefly. A true alpha male soothing his females, urging them toward cooperation.

There was a drake back-and-forth, then, growls and trills and squawks. Amelia closed her eyes against the rush of emotions that shivered down the bond.

Finally, it all subsided, five drake voices purring in harmony.

Yes, she felt. Yes, we will listen. We will protect. Or, well, the dragon emotional equivalent of such a statement.

She cracked her eyes open, a touch dizzy from the onslaught of secondhand sentiment, and saw that their human audience had backed up against the outer wall of the conservatory amidst all the drake noisemaking.

Adira stepped forward and asked for a head scratch, and Amelia knew that all was forgiven and accepted. She, Valencia, and Lancet would stay behind, she’d decided, and the boisterous Marigold would come along with Alpha and her.

Be very watchful over my stupid men, she thought, and Adira’s eyes slitted, lips peeling back off her fangs in what could only be described as a draconian smile.

Alpha nudged her shoulder from behind. Time to go.

“Amelia.” Katherine walked bravely forward, and the drakes shuffled aside to let her through. All of them sensed that touching the duchess was not something they ought to do. She walked up to Amelia, not flinching away from Adira and Alpha, standing so very close, and took both of Amelia’s black-gloved hands into her own. The contrast between Katherine’s soft, smooth, ringed fingers against Amelia’s black leather and spike-backed gloves shocked her, and sent a fresh crackle of nervousness through her.

Katherine’s next breath hitched, though she offered a tremulous smile. “My brave girl. I won’t say this duchy – perhaps even this kingdom – doesn’t need you. They do. But please be careful.”

Amelia swallowed with difficulty. “I will.” Then, on impulse, she pulled her mother into a hug.

“Oof,” Katherine said. “You’re hard wearing all that.”

They both chuckled as they drew back. Amelia scratched at Alpha’s throat. “I suppose I’m off.”

Katherine nodded, composure fully restored. “I’ll see that the men get away in a timely fashion.”

“Good. They can call themselves whatever they like – but you’re my proper general.”

Katherine smiled, firm and sure now. “Be away with you, then, Lady Amelia.” She shifted her glance to Alpha. Pointed at him. “And you mind your mistress, young man.”

He snorted, and it was good as agreement.

Amelia mounted, took up her reins…and it turned out that a dragon leaping aloft was a great deal like a powerful horse leaping a hedge.

She was away.

3

Aeres

It was becoming a daily habit for Leif: going down into the dungeons and sitting with Ragnar. Picking his brain. Learning how to be a wolf that lived in a man’s skin.

Today, he paused on the spiral stairs that led deep into the bowels of the palace, and his gut clenched tight, even as his inner wolf wagged his tail. He was…looking forward to this. To sitting cross-legged in the straw with the scent of chamber pot and wolf musk in his nose, talking candidly about the way it felt for his fangs to get long in his mouth; the way the ground was starting to smell like spring beneath the crust of snow and ice.

He didn’t like Ragnar, but every night at the family table, he felt the weight of everyone’s eyes; noted the way his mother would hesitate before asking him a benign question; saw the morose glances Rune shot him, guilty and helpless. He wasn’t like them anymore; they couldn’t understand him.

Maybe Ragnar couldn’t either – impossible, he wanted to say, for that traitor to understand me – but Ragnar called him alpha, and showed his throat, and didn’t skirt him looks like he was a creature from another world.

No, he didn’t like him, but he needed him. And, unfortunately, coming down into the dungeon with him was a relief, one that left his wolf eager and hurrying down the rest of the steps.

Damn it all, and fuck him.

The guards had long grown used to his visits, and they offered quick bows and “my lord”s, but didn’t try to hand him a torch. His pupils were already expanding, drinking in the dark, the flickering cresset shadows bright as daytime as he strode down the hall.

Ragnar was sitting up on his cot, chains attached to wrists and throat pooled his lap, waiting for him. He huffed a low, lupine greeting that Leif found himself returning automatically.

Annoyance bristled up his ruff. He’d grown used to this, was eager for it – and was only just now, today, realizing it. It set his teeth on edge, and when he plopped down on the stool opposite the cot, it was more or less an act of throwing himself onto it, so that it creaked ominously.

Ragnar perked up a fraction from his slump against the wall, chains clinking. “What’s got you bothered, cousin?”

Leif bared his teeth.

Ragnar’s head tilted. “True. ‘Brother’ would be more accurate. We’re closer than cousins now.”

Leif growled.

Ragnar showed his dirty palms – and his throat, head tipping back so the collar he wore dug into the flesh there. His voice shifted, flat and obedient. “What’s got you bothered…alpha?”

Better. Leif subsided with another huff. Ragnar’s eyes stayed pinned to him, watchful, assessing – but his gaze didn’t unnerve the way Rune’s, or Mother’s, or Tessa’s, or Uncle’s did. Of the family, only Oliver seemed to treat him exactly as he had before. Oliver had his own strange sort of magic, Leif supposed. Some might have even called it a curse…though he didn’t drop to four legs and howl at the moon.

(Leif had howled, but not at the moon. Not yet.)

Unwilling to speak with Ragnar about the thoughts weighing heaviest on his mind, he said, “Talk to me of the Sels.”

Ragnar made an inquisitive sound. “How should I know anything about the Sels?”

Leif stared at him.

Earned a sigh. “Well, we’ve got no books in the Waste, do we? I can’t read about them. Real men out in the wilderness have no use for studying.” He grinned with all his teeth, but could quickly tell that Leif wasn’t impressed. “Fine, fine.” He rolled his eyes and resumed his earlier slump.

“We’ve talked about wolves. Now I want to talk about men. Aside from their sheer numbers, what makes you think they’re going to overrun North and South both? Why is it useless to fight back against them?”

“You don’t ask easy questions, do you?” He held up a hand before Leif could growl – and then dragged it back through his snarled hair. His braids had all come unwound, leaving only knots, and bits of bone beads caught in dirty tangles. “You remember what I told you about the ritual? Becoming a skinwalker?”

“Yes.” He remembered it all too well.

When he was a boy, the older children, and even some of the old men who sat close to the fireplace and sipped liquor constantly, liked to try and frighten – toughen up, they would have said – the little ones with tales of the old magics of the Wastes. The shamans of the wild tribes, they had said, could turn a man into a beast by carving the heart from a virgin and having the hopeful skinwalker consume it. Horrifying tales of bloodletting, and burning men alive in wicker cages; headdresses of wolf pelts and deer antlers; bright eyes blazing from blood-painted faces, and intonations to gods from another realm.

Leif had thought it all rubbish.

But then there had been the dragons. And Oliver. And now Ragnar.

The true ritual, Ragnar had explained a week ago, hadn’t been far off from the scary, fireside stories. He and his would-be pack had entered a ring of fire, a circle of flaming oil pots in the snow, and a man wearing antlers, with long-nailed, bloody hands had offered Ragnar, the alpha, a bowl from which to drink. Blood, and something oilier and heavier, the taste overpowering the familiar copper tang. Ragnar had doubled over sure he’d be sick – but had fallen into the snow, stars wheeling overhead instead. He’d drifted, the old language drifting overhead, tingling pleasantly all over. And then strong jaws had clamped down on his bare shoulder, and the pain had been excruciating.

He never got the chance to meet the skinwalker who’d turned him, but he’d been the one to bite and turn the rest of his pack.

And Leif.

“I remember,” Leif said, hackles tingling.

Ragnar scratched at his neck, eyes very blue in the gloaming. “When the Ákafamaðr arrived in my territory, they came trailing a treating party of Sels, and a whole cadre of shamans. Northern shamans, mind you: painted, and bare-armed, and wearing furs and bones. It was the Aggressors who did all the talking, so I assumed the shamans belonged to them.”

“That was what you told us, before. You said they’d revived the old magics.”

“I lied, then,” Ragnar said, easily. Which meant he wasn’t now. He couldn’t, or Leif would have smelled it. “One of those purple bastards stepped up, and explained they were his. Theirs.” His gaze grew distant with remembrance, and his expression flattened; his scent soured with old distress, to Leif’s surprise. “He said, ‘All the magic in this land came from us. Your first shamans were of our people. We brought you drakes and walkers, and all the wonders your people have forgotten.’”

An unwelcome chill skittered down Leif’s back, mind filling with a vision of a defeated, but still-snarling Sel general on his knees. The assuredness of him, the promise that Erik would burn. He could still hear the whistle of Erik’s sword through the air, and smell the blood and voided bowels of the general.

“What?” Ragnar asked, perking up.

Ragnar hadn’t been in the throne room that day. He hadn’t heard the general’s promises and threats. There was no way he could be playing off of what Leif had heard, then.

He gestured with one hand. “Keep going. I know you didn’t buy a passel of empty words.”

A grin tugged at Ragnar’s mouth, fangs sharp and glittering. “No. No, you’re right.” He sobered again, and his scent boiled into the air between them, the smell of a kicked dog. “They called the drakes. Little Lord Oliver’s drakes – the big one killed and ate one of my men in front of us all.”

“Gods,” Leif breathed, before he could catch himself.

“Aye. If there were any gods there that day, they didn’t belong to us.”

Us. He still considered them on the same side. Leif supposed that wasn’t exactly untrue, much to his chagrin.

“Then,” Ragnar continued, voice touched with strain, “they brought out this – this bowl.”

Leif lifted his brows.

Ragnar showed his teeth, a quick, unhappy flash that was defensive, rather than aggressive. “It was this massive golden bowl full of black liquid. They made me look into it, and I – I saw things, Leif.” It was the first time he’d said his name in weeks, rather than alpha. “It felt like – like I went somewhere, like I wasn’t inside my body anymore. There was this golden city – it was like nothing I’d ever seen. It made this palace look like a hut, it was so…” He shrank down into himself. “There were drakes. Flying in the air. More than I could count. There were – there were other things. Animals. Maybe? I don’t…”

He shook his head, hard. “When I was standing on my own two feet again, that bastard said, ‘That is the heart of our empire. That is what’s coming for you.’” He deflated. “No one can stand against that. Not even your bloody-minded uncle.” He sighed and wiped both hands down his face, exhausted simply from remembering.

Leif wasn’t sure what to think. Ragnar had always been a silver-tongued liar, hiding ill intent with a handsome smile – but there was no way for a wolf to lie to his alpha without being caught-out, and Leif could detect no trace of dishonesty in him now. But the idea of a bit of magic, of a vision in a bowl of black liquid…he wasn’t sure that would have convinced him of the nation’s imminent demise.

“I’ll grant you the drakes,” he said, finally. “They gave all of us a fright at first. But do you actually believe they showed you their empire? That it’s as grand as all that? Or did they slip you ice rose and murmur in your ear about it?”

Ragnar gapped his fingers and glared between them. He let out a low growl, just a rumbling in his throat. “Fuck you,” he spat. “You weren’t there.”

Leif didn’t growl back – not yet. His wolf was inquisitive, it wanted to get to the truth…nevermind the side of him concerned about a packmate’s distress. He wouldn’t think about that just yet. “No,” he agreed. “But we’re talking about magic here, Ragnar. How can you be sure it wasn’t just an elaborate illusion meant to frighten you into compliance?”

The growl deepened, and the chains clanked as Ragnar dropped his hands to his lap and gripped his calves, tight enough that the scent of blood bloomed into the cell. “Do you think I frighten easy?” he snarled, voice no longer entirely human.

Leif growled, then, a quick pulse that had Ragnar subsiding. “It’s fair of me to question you about our enemy.”

A long moment passed, and then Ragnar turned his face away – while showing his throat. You win. Yes, alpha.

“For what it’s worth, I believe you.”

Ragnar didn’t face him, yet, but his brows drew together, muscle in his temple twitching.

“We captured the general – Oliver did, with his drake. We had him down here with you.”

“I know. I could smell him.”

Shit. Had Ragnar conversed with the man down here? Had they concocted this whole story together…?

But again, Leif fell back on his wolf, on the instinctual assurance that nothing he’d heard today had been false. Even if the Sels had tricked Ragnar, he fully believed what he’d seen.

Leif continued, “He was spouting off about all the magic they have. About how we stole it. Something about Oliver being of some old blood of magic thieves.” Later, he would ask himself why in hell’s name he’d offered up that bit of information, when Ragnar didn’t deserve it; he’d blame his lapse on pack, on alpha and a shown throat.

Ragnar turned to him, finally, wetting cracked lips. “Ah. You’re beginning to see it – to see what I saw.”

“And what’s that?”

Ragnar leaned forward, collar pressing against his throat so that his hair swung forward to curtain his face, and his voice sounded rough. “Whatever we think we know about our people. Our land. Our past…they know more. And I don’t know about you, my prince, but I’ve never been able to outsmart anyone who knows more than me.”

The words tickled unpleasantly down the back of his neck.

But.

He huffed a loud breath through his nostrils. “Well, then. I suppose we’ll have to do what you always do. Fight dirty.”

~*~

They fed Ragnar down in the dungeons, same as they would any prisoner. Erik could be prone to fits of temper – beheaded Sel general as a prime example – but he didn’t believe in cruelty for cruelty’s sake. It was a mindset that had never sat well with their Úlfheðnar cousins. Leif had agreed with Erik…had. Since his turning, he’d known ugly urges toward violence. He hadn’t acted upon them – in fact, he’d gone out of his way to push back against them.

Like now, as he fished a hunk of smoked ham from his cloak pocket and tossed it to Ragnar.

The other wolf caught it, eyes brightening, and brought it to his nose for a deep, appreciative inhale before he took a messy bite, fangs growing long and slicing through the tender meat.

They served food to prisoners, yes, but it was usually porridge and less than fresh bread. Leif had taken to slipping meat and fruit into his pockets and bringing them down on his visits.

He thought of them as visits, now, rather than interrogations, as he had originally.

It was all growing so muddy.

Ragnar devoured his treat and licked the pepper and grease from his fingers, after. “Does Erik know you bring me things?” he asked, light and more like himself than he had when they were talking of magic and invading enemies.

“What do you think?”

“Heh.” He grinned. “Look at you. Not trying to be the favorite nephew anymore, are you?”

Leif sighed. Playing into the provoking bastard’s games only made him worse.

Without anyone to banter with, and belly full, Ragnar subsided back against the wall, scratching idly at his beard. “Tell me something?”

“Hm?” He meant it as a hum, but it had a lupine grumble to it, which caused Ragnar to flick a quick smile before his expression shifted to an enquiring one.

“You said Erik gave me to you. That I’m to be your slave.”

“That’s right.” The idea still made Leif’s belly squirm.

Ragnar cocked his head. “Then how can I serve you, my alpha, if I’m locked up in the dark down here?”

A reasonable question, one Leif had been pondering for the past month. What good was a war prize chained to a wall for the rest of his days?

Erik had been the one to suggest they proceed by the old ways, but it had been Náli who’d offered the solution for such an approach. A pure silver, magicked torq, he’d said, would fit around Ragnar’s throat and prevent him from shifting to his wolf form, as well as mark him as Leif’s property to every Northerner. Once it had been applied, Leif could, in theory, bring him into his household and, as a strong alpha wolf himself, never need to worry that Ragnar could overpower him.

A tidy fix. But, still, Leif had hesitated to proceed, uncertain, Ragnar’s betrayal fresh in his mind.

Even as he brought him food, and worried over him, and sat here for hours, his wolf taking comfort in the presence of another of his kind.

Gods.

Leif took a deep breath. “I’ll talk to Náli, then.”

Ragnar grinned nastily. “Your little necromancer going to leash me?”

“Yes,” Leif said. “And if you don’t mind me, I’ll cut your throat.”

A beat passed. Leif swore he could hear the leap of Ragnar’s pulse as his expression slowly smoothed. A low, wolfish chuff. Then: “Yes, alpha.”

4

Cold-faced, sore, and happy inside from flying, Oliver paused in one of the lower hallways of the palace to check his reflection in the looking glass hung above a sideboard. His cheeks and nose were pink from the cold, and his hair a tousled mess – his eyes were bright, though. He barely recognized himself.

Carefully, he pulled the ties and beads loose from his braids, finger combed his hair – it brushed the tops of his shoulders now, the curls loose and wild, burnished copper in the glow of the cressets to either side of the mirror – and set about re-braiding it. He wasn’t as good as a Northerner, but he’d been practicing on Erik, his broad shoulders pushing Oliver’s thighs wide as he sat before him on the rug in front of the fire. His face heated as he recalled those close, quiet nights alone with wine and unlaced shirts and privacy.

“Shouldn’t you be letting Uncle do that?”

Oliver was a little proud of the way he didn’t startle beyond a widening of his eyes in his reflection. He turned, and found Leif approaching from the direction of the lower staircase – the one that led down to the baths…and the dungeons. He’d been to see Ragnar again, then.

Oliver hadn’t heard his approach, and indeed, as he closed the distance, he moved silently, lightly for such a large boy. No, a large man. All remaining traces of boyishness had vanished from him, from his expressions, to his smiles, to the way he carried himself. Even his voice was rougher, less courtly, more…wild. A low undercurrent of a growl threaded through it always, now.

Oliver’s heart ached for him, for what he’d lost, for the gentleness he’d left behind.

But he smiled and said, “Well, he’d do a better job, certainly.” He faced his reflection again. “We’re meeting in the office for supper. Birger, and Bjorn, and us. Erik wants you to join.”

Leif drew up behind him, and in the mirror, Oliver watched him frown before answering; he looked like a blond Erik in that moment, but in an alarming way, with none of Erik’s carefully guarded softness. “I’ll join. I need to speak with him anyway.”

Why did he make it sound so ominous?

To Oliver’s relief, he moved on, and Oliver finished and tied off his braids alone. But relief was quickly replaced by trepidation. Erik wanted to gather them all together to talk of the war, the one in which they were now most certainly mired. Last night, or this morning, rather, in the quiet hours before down, with the wind pressing at the black window panes and the fire only a line of orange in the dark, Erik had gathered him close and confessed. “I always thought should, gods forbid, Aeretoll ever marched to war, that Leif would be my general. My right hand, as my heir. But now…”

“Now?” Oliver had stroked his bare chest, slow drags of his fingertips.

“Now I don’t know what he wants.”

That was the problem: no one knew. Oliver found that he was dreading this meeting.

He smoothed his burgundy velvet tunic, gave his love beads one last tweak, and headed upstairs.

In the corridor just outside Erik’s study, he found the man himself standing with arms folded, leaning against the window embrasure and gazing out at the sunset through the diamond panes.

Oliver paused a moment, before he was noticed, to simply look and appreciate. They weren’t new anymore, the two of them. Oliver wore his ring, and his braids, and had been acknowledged and accepted by the kingdom as His Lordship, Consort of the King. They’d grown familiar and comfortable. No, theirs wasn’t a decade’s long union, but, by all rights, Oliver should have stopped feeling the flutter of butterflies in his stomach every time he laid eyes on him. He didn’t think that was ever going to change, though – and he hoped it didn’t.

Today, Erik wore blue velvet beneath a black, silver-studded leather jerkin. The tail of his belt was too long, and hung down nearly to his knees. He wore a braid over each ear, layered with lover’s and king’s beads, the rest of his heavy mass of black hair tied back into an intricate, single plait. The fading sunset light coming through the window winked across the gems in his many rings, and he stood with one fur-topped boot crossed over the other.

Oliver drank him in, warm and pleased and proud to know that he was his.

And then he noticed Erik’s expression: contemplative carved marble touched with melancholy.

What, Oliver wondered, was he to do with all these brooding Northmen?

He put a smile on his face and walked forward. “You look as if you’re thinking very kingly thoughts.”

Erik turned to him, and his face immediately softened; his gaze, the glimpse of concern that Oliver first caught in it, melted into something warm and affectionate.

Gods, but he loved this man.

“Hm,” Erik agreed. “And you’ve the hair of a lad who’s been flying all afternoon.”

Oliver twitched a sheepish face and reached to pat the top of his head. “I thought I didn’t do too badly taming it.”

He reached Erik, and Erik reached for him; set a large, warm hand on the inward flare of his waist and drew him in, the other hand smoothing back along the crown of his head. “Not too bad…for a Southerner.”

“Oh, you wound me, sir.”

Erik bundled him in close, and Oliver went happily, slipping both arms around his waist and resting his cheek on warm, fragrant leather. The dense muscle beneath was softened by a padding of warm clothes, but still very much detectable.

“It’s odd when you call me ‘lad,’” Oliver teased. “It makes us seem mismatched.”

“Odd? You don’t like being the young and dashing one?”

“I never said that.”

Erik chuckled, a rumbling vibration that Oliver felt against his own ribcage.

They stood a moment, enjoying a peaceful moment and the press of each other’s bodies. When Erik next spoke, his voice sounded faintly awed. “I saw you today, through the window. You and Tessa, and your drakes.”

“It was her very first flight.”

“She finally got up the nerve?”

“Well, I think Estrid prodded her to it.”

Erik snorted. “How’d she do?”

“Amazingly. She’s always been a good horsewoman, so I thought she would do splendid.”

“Is she as taken with it as you?”

“I’ve never seen her smile like that,” Oliver confessed, and realized, a beat later, that perhaps that wouldn’t be the sort of thing that Tessa’s soon-to-be-husband, and perhaps uncle-in-law by proxy, would want to hear.

But Erik rubbed up and down his spine in a soothing, unbothered way. A good sign.

You will burn before the end, Frodeson. The magics of this land will bend to the emperor’s will, and your whore will look on, laughing, as he burns you himself.

The words popped into his mind unbidden, as they’d been doing on and off, at least once a day, since the Sel general first spat them at Erik’s feet. Did Erik recall them still? he wondered. Were his dreams full of screams and fire as Oliver’s were? Percy was a cold-drake, and he breathed ice instead of fire…but ice burned as well, didn’t it?

“What is it?” Erik asked, quietly, hand stilling in the center of his back.

“What?”

“You went very still all of a sudden.”

He’d also, he realized, tightened his hands to fists on the back of Erik’s jerkin. He relaxed them forcibly, and took a measured breath, chasing the ugly thoughts away. There was nothing he could do about the heated lies of a condemned man, he reminded himself, just as he’d been doing for the whole of the past month.

“Funny,” he said, managing a light tone, “that’s what I was going to say to you when I first walked up.”

“That I was still?”

“No. ‘What is it?’” He rubbed Erik’s back in turn, hand skimming over smooth leather. “You looked very pensive just now. Troubled, even, some might say.”

“Revna says that’s just my face.”

Oliver chuckled. Erik was dodging the question, but he wasn’t going to call him out on it. He did ask, however, “Has Leif come up yet? He passed me on the way here.”

The muscles beneath Oliver’s hand shifted, tensed briefly. “Yes. He’s inside with the others.”

That explained it, then. Erik never stopped worrying about Leif, but worried in double time whenever they were in the same room together. The frosty, unapproachable king Oliver had met on his first day here was in fact a front, he’d well learned since, for a First-Class Fretter. Oliver had tried to take on some of that worry to spread across his own shoulders, and while he thought he had helped, he wasn’t sure if he could ever keep Erik from falling into his natural, dour state.

He would always try, though.

“Does that mean,” he said, “that everyone’s already in there waiting, wondering what we’re doing out here in the hallway?” He smoothed his hands down the small of Erik’s back, and took a grip on his backside.

Erik rumbled a low, appreciative sound, and pulled back so he could capture Oliver’s jaw in one big hand and tip his head back. Oliver had the privilege of watching his expression soften, while his gaze heated, low-lidded and predatory in a way that never failed to give him the shivers.

“Might as well be doing something, then, eh?”

Oliver said, “What an excellent idea,” and stood up on his toes, swaying forward to let Erik hold his weight as he leaned down and brought their lips together.

There had been a few days on the trip back from the festival, separated with Oliver approaching the palace on dragon-back and Erik following along behind, when Oliver had known the terror of wondering if he’d ever get the chance to kiss him again. He was determined not to waste any opportunity to kiss him going forward. He wound Erik’s long braids around his hands and parted his lips in instant, melting invitation, gratified by the hot flicker of Erik’s tongue between his teeth, the scrape of his short beard against his chin.

Erik gripped his waist, just shy of too hard, fingertips digging into flesh through layers of linens and velvet, and he tugged Oliver’s bottom lip between his teeth, a languorous scrape that spoke of those teeth in other places, leaving flower marks on delicate skin that Oliver would admire in the mirror later.

Oliver released his hair in favor of hooking an arm around his neck, confident in Erik’s ability to hold all his weight. Maybe his hands would slide lower, would grip his thighs and hoist him up; Oliver could already feel the phantom scrape of the stone wall at his back in anticipation.

But all too soon, Erik pulled back, albeit slightly out of breath. He rested their foreheads together, and sighed a warm, wine-scented breath against Oliver’s lips. “They’re waiting.”

“Isn’t someone always?” Oliver traced a regretful hand down his chest, hooked his fingers into Erik’s intricately tooled belt.

“Aye. Go any lower, and they’ll have to wait some more.” He sounded nearly hopeful, but Oliver knew, even if he managed to lure him down the corridor and into a private dark corner, Erik would regret having shirked his duties.

He sighed. Stepped back. “Very well. Lead the way, Your Majesty.”

Erik smirked, and tweaked his nose between two knuckles for his cheekiness – “Hey, now.” – and ushered Oliver to proceed him into the study.

“A king and a gentleman,” Oliver mused, and earned a light smack on the ass just before he opened the door.

The moment this meeting was done, he was dragging Erik down to their makeshift pallet of furs and pillows.

Oliver’s good mood lasted until he crossed the threshold and walked into a wall of tension.

With Erik and Oliver using the study as a temporary bedchamber while the royal apartments were repaired, the large room had been made smaller thanks to some rearranging. Their trunks, personal things, and pallet bed had been positioned in front of the hearth, for warm sleeping, and the desk, sideboard, chairs and maps had all shifted closer to the window, the area lit by two dozen tapers in various sticks and candelabrum, the flames carving eerie hollows in faces usually more cheerful than this.

Bjorn had taken the largest chair, as was his due, and Oliver thought the tension in his bare, folded arms wasn’t simply a trick of the light. The groove between his brows was definitely true, and not something one expected to find on the face of a man newly united with his longtime love.

Rune, always the first to interject, innocently uncaring of propriety and sure of his welcome and acceptance, sat on a low wood bench along the wall, one boot braced on the edge of the seat, worrying a jagged thumbnail with his teeth. His hair was neatly braided, beads and gems catching the firelight in fast glimmers: Tessa’s handiwork.

Birger behaved the most normally of them all, seated at his usual place beside Erik’s desk, small, half-moon spectacles already perched on his nose as he read a scrap of parchment held close to a candle flame.

“Ah, there he is,” he said, glancing up to see them, offering Oliver a quick smile. “We can begin.”

It still staggered Oliver that this group of men, relatives, friends, most trusted confidantes who’d earned their places at the king’s side ten times over, had not only allowed him into their circle, but sought his opinions on all manner of kingdom business. “Revna’s not coming?”

“She’s neck-deep in wedding planning,” Bjorn said, then shuddered. “I’d rather dig a latrine, myself.”

Rune snorted.

“Where’s–” Oliver started, and then spotted Leif.

He sat perched on the window ledge, one leg braced across it and the other dangling off the side, aligned almost perfectly with a wedge of shadow so that he was merely an outline, save his eyes, which glowed an unnatural blue in the dimness. He had his back to a wall, Oliver realized – or, a window, but it was a similar thing, he guessed. It put him outside the circle of discussion, and behind Erik, peering over his shoulder. It was the place, Oliver thought, that any clansman of the Waste would have chosen, rather than sit civilized and comfortable in a carved chair.

Erik’s step faltered for one heartbeat – thoughts likely running along the same lines as Oliver’s, with more internal anguish – and then he rounded the desk and took his usual, ornate chair at the center of their group.

Oliver sat down across from him, as had become custom.

“Right, then.” Birger handed the parchment he’d been reading to Erik, who had to adjust it a bit before he found a comfortable reading distance. Oliver bit his lip to keep from smiling at the idea of Erik with spectacles of his own. “That scribe you sent along with Oddmarr has proved valuable. This arrived only an hour ago by falcon.”

Bjorn chuckled. “Poor lad’s probably shitting himself around that lot.”

“Hm, better them than the Jǫtunns,” Birger said. “‘No’ isn’t really a part of their vocabulary.”

“He says,” Erik said, sternly, “that they’ve reached the Jagged Coast and found a land bridge there.”

“A what?” Rune asked, curious.

“A what?” For his part, Oliver couldn’t believe it.

The Jagged Coast was what the Northerners called their side of the Narrow Strait, and the Southerners called it the Merchant’s Widowmaker. The Northern and Southern kingdoms were separated by a winding ribbon of water known by different names at different points. At its western mouth, between the Crownlands and Radial, the wide, deep waters of the King’s Strait welcomed merchants and travelers to ports on either side, and a gentle trip farther downstream. At its easternmost termination, amid the ice floes and marshes, it was the Blue Strait, where Southern merchants traveling up Aquitainia’s eastern coast accessed the Blue Harbor, and traded with the kingdom of Aeretoll.

In between lay a treacherous stretch of shallows, where the dual coasts pressed in close to one another, and jagged underwater rocks had rent many a ship bottom. Only the Northern longboats could navigate it safely. There had been talk throughout Oliver’s lifetime, and before, of creating a dam system that would allow for the raising and lowering of the water level, but finances had never been agreed upon, and so it was a spot on the map marked with a skull. No one sailed there; signposts along the shore warned any and all to turn back. It was as constant as the sunrise: the sun came up, it went down, and the Narrow Strait was unnavigable.

A wine cup rested on the edge of the desk. Oliver didn’t know whose it was, but reached for it and took a sip regardless, his throat suddenly dry. “The water’s gone down, he means? Or been drained?”

Erik flicked him a glance overtop of the parchment, jaw flexing beneath his beard. “Oddmarr says it’s smooth and flat – not an empty waterway, but one filled in. It’s sand, and silt, with stones laid over it. He says there are long scrapes in the stone, marks as if something heavy’s been dragged across them, and a mess of footprints on the shore, preserved by the cold.”

“The Sels,” Birger said, “didn’t come the long way ‘round. They reached an obstacle, and hauled their ships over it.”

Oliver had heard of such things before, of wooden tracks made and ships dragged across solid ground. He shook his head. “He said ‘bridge.’ That means there’s a chance a contingency of Sels broke off and went down into Aquitainia.”

“Aye, could be,” Birger agreed. “They’d be on foot, at least, and not able to move as quickly as they did getting here.”

“What will Oddmarr do?” Rune asked. “Follow them?”

“He’s to continue west for now, checking in regularly,” Erik said. “Those were his orders. Until he gets word from us.”

“You think a bear-shirt’s going to follow your orders?” Bjorn asked, skeptical.

“I don’t think he’s going to go charging down into Aquitainia unless someone convinces him to.”

Bjorn tipped his head. “Fair point.”

Oliver stood so he could peer over the table at the map spread across it. His view was upside down; when Erik offered to spin it, he stayed him with a press of fingertips at its edges. The names of the northeastern Aquitainian duchies were written in a firm, slanted hand: Norbury, Nede, Drakewell, Hopewell, and, the largest, the wildest, Inglewood. Technically, the duchy owned the Inglewood itself, but could anyone truly own a forest? It was dense and vast, bordering both Drakewell and the duchy of Norbury north of it. A long, sweeping arch like a sickle marked the wood on the map, where it stretched up, up, until it nearly touched the shoreline at the Narrow Strait. The Merchant’s Widowmaker. Where one potential death met another, where no man wanted to find himself.

“Here.” He pointed to that stretch of shore and its tiny, illustrated trees. “If they went into Aquitainia, it was here. They could move unseen and unbothered through the forest for hundreds of miles, and from it enter Norbury, Drakewell, or Hopewell. Or convene with the party they expect to be holding Inglewood Duchy, still.”

Amelia had written to them of the battle outside Wood Manor, where she’d met drakes of her own, and they’d saved her and her men, along with Lord Reginald’s rescuing forces.

“My cousin and her allies plan to retake the manor and Inglewood,” he continued. “That’s assuming there are any Sels left. And that a new batch haven’t arrived.” A headache was blossoming in his temples, and he sipped from the wine cup again. “She won’t know reinforcements are arriving.”

“What, then?” Rune asked. “We go after them?”

“With what army?” Birger asked, sighing. “Our numbers are depleted. Between the festival, and the siege…with some dead… and too many injured.” He looked weary. “The Phalanx is weak.”

“We have the clans,” Erik said. “Between the Beserkirs and the Jǫtunns, that’s five-hundred.”

“You ought to go straight to Silfr Hall and drag that coward Kjaran out by his fancy fucking beard,” Bjorn growled. “He should have been at the festival with the rest of you, ‘stead of hiding with his gems like a gods-bedamned woman.”

“Give our women more credit than that,” Rune said.

“Aye, you’re right. Better yet, send the dragons after him; they can carry him here by the scruff of his neck.”

Erik pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ve sent a falcon to Kjaran, but haven’t heard back yet.”

“That’s why you send the dragons,” Bjorn stressed.

“How many men does he have?” Oliver asked. “Would it make a difference?”

“Three-hundred,” Erik said, “and yes, every single sword makes a difference.” His slanted look said you should know that.

Oliver did, but if Kjaran was craven, it stood to reason he might retreat with his entire force if things got rough. “A sword’s no good if it gets thrown down at the first sign of trouble.”

“Now, lads,” Birger said, “I wouldn’t go calling the Silfr boys cowards–”

“You have the Úlfheðnar,” Leif spoke up, at last, and everyone fell silent. Erik twisted around in his chair to look at him.

Leif had sat forward, so that the ends of his braided hair had fallen into a pool of candlelight, the pale scruff on his chin; the rest of his face remained in shadow, but his eyes glowed, blue sapphires in the dark. “The wolf-shirts will go to battle as well.”

A chair creaked. The wind whistled against the window panes.

“Lad,” Birger began, gently. “We can’t–”

A low growl rippled from the window ledge, and then cut off abruptly. “Sorry,” Leif said, tone flat. “I know you don’t trust them, but Ragnar was their chief, and I’ve taken his place. Not just the wolves, but the whole clan will follow me if I tell them to march.”

Again, silence reigned. Oliver itched to break it, but thought it wasn’t his place. This moment now wasn’t about strategy, but about Leif and his uncle.

A silence that Leif himself broke, leaning even farther forward, light and shadow sliding up over his nose, his brow, his golden hair. He emerged from the dark with the air of a beast gliding into the glow of a traveler’s campfire. Oliver thought he’d never looked more wolfish in man form, and he noted the way Erik’s hand curled to a fist on top of the desk.

“You just said” – Leif’s voice was a rough scrape – “that every man counted. But you don’t want mine?”

“Leif.” Erik sounded strained. “Your people?”

Blue eyes fixed to blue. “That’s what they are. They belong to me.”

The bench cracked as Rune shifted, but Oliver didn’t dare look away from the stare-down before him.

“The Úlfheðnar betrayed us. They killed our people. They left us for dead in the mountains.”

“On Ragnar’s orders. They’re following mine, now.”

“Leif,” Erik began again.

And Birger beat out Oliver in breaking the awful tension. “That would be right helpful, lad. Thank you.”

Erik turned his head to regard him, jaw sharp as cut gemstone beneath his beard, but at least Leif sat back into his shadow, gaze sliding off to one side.

But then, Leif said, “Speaking of Ragnar,” and Erik’s head whipped back around, beads thumping against his jerkin. “He could be more useful to us than he is now.”

“How?” Rune asked, unable to keep quiet any longer.

But it was to Erik that Leif spoke. “You gave him to me. Said he was my war prize. He knows what we’re facing better than any of us, and I want him out of the dungeon.”

“Gods,” Bjorn muttered.

Leif ignored him. “Náli said he could enchant a torq for him. It’s time.”

~*~

When Birger finally pushed to his feet, both knees cracking, and declared that their plan was solid enough save conferring with the other lords, the meeting broke apart. The solidity of said plan was debatable, in Oliver’s estimation, but he was glad to see the others out.

Rune was the last to leave, and Oliver walked him to the door.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said in a small, boyish voice, rather than that of a man about to be married. He worried a lover’s bead absently between thumb and forefinger, gaze fixed on his boots as he scuffed along across the rug, in no hurry to depart.

He needed his uncle to reassure him, Oliver thought; needed Erik to pull him into a tight, sure embrace, and say that Leif was all right, and that Erik himself would make sure of it.

But Erik stood at the hearth, hands braced on the mantel, lost in his own thoughts, and so Oliver was playing uncle as best he could. He’d been playing cousin all his life, so he had some experience. Albeit, Amelia had never turned into a wolf, so…

He laid a hand in the center of Rune’s back, and hoped it was reassuring. “He only needs time, Rune. He’s still adjusting.”

“But it’s been a month!”

“A month – and he’s been a man his whole life and a wolf for one month. That’s a bit of a disparity, don’t you think?”

Rune sighed, shoulders dropping. “Yes.” They reached the door, and he turned to face Oliver, scrubbing at his chin and jaw in a way reminiscent of Erik. His face looked leaner since his injury, since the siege. The cheerfulness and boyishness had bled out of him…though his eyes were young and uncertain as he met Oliver’s gaze. “It’s just – I’ve tried talking to him. I’ve asked him to spar with me, and go riding, like we’ve always done. But he’s always with them.” With the Úlfheðnar, his wolf pack. Rune’s lip curled. “Or with him.” Ragnar. “Does he actually want to bring him up into the light? How could he possibly think that’s a good idea?”

Oliver bit back a sigh of his own. He himself didn’t trust Ragnar at all, but was willing to grant that Leif now knew him better than any of them. “I can’t speak to this truly, because I’m not him, and I don’t know what it feels like, but if skinwalker magic is anything like my own magic” – burn, you will burn; no, mustn’t think of that now – “then it comes with a certain amount of intuition. With a kind of knowing, that no one on the outside can understand.”

Rune frowned.

“I imagine it’s like suddenly gaining all of these new senses. Wolves have a way of communicating with each other that humans could never understand. That’s given Leif new insight into Ragnar. If he thinks he can bring him up safely, and especially if he can be fitted with a proper torq, then I think that’s reasonable. Leif might be different in many ways, but I don’t think this transformation has made him rash.”

Rune’s frown twisted, but he nodded. “It’s only that I worry,” he said, voice going smaller. “He’s my big brother, and now…”

“I know.” Oliver patted his arm. “He’s still your big brother. It’s just going to be an adjustment, yeah?”

Another nod.

“Off you go, then, to bed. Don’t you have a tunic fitting tomorrow?”

“Aye.” A smile flickered into existence, albeit small. And then, to Oliver’s shock, Rune took him by the shoulders and leaned down to kiss the top of his head. “Goodnight, Uncle.”

“Goodnight.”

Oliver watched him move down the hall, then closed the door and leaned back against it. Uncle. He supposed he was, now, in the most technical and formal sense, but neither boy had been required to accept him as such. Oliver’s insides felt gooey and warm as melted jam.

But Erik still stood gripping the mantelpiece with white knuckles, and there would be no melted-jam-Uncle-Oliver if not for the man brooding over the fire.

He stopped by the sideboard to pour a fresh, generous cup of wine, and went to prop his shoulder against the warm stone of the wall just beside the fireplace. He waited a beat, one in which Erik didn’t move, save the faint swaying of his hanging braids thanks to the heat rolling off the fire. Then he said, “I know it isn’t the right time, seeing as you’re lost in deep reflection, but I think it’s important to tell you how dashing you look like this. All brooding and stern. It gets me a little worked up, if I’m honest.”

Slowly, the near corner of Erik’s mouth twitched up into a reluctant, though charmed smile. His gaze slid over, eyes blue-gone-gold in the firelight. Oliver liked to think that a little of the flicker in their depths was amusement, and not just a trick of the flames.

“My Lord Oliver,” he said, deep and formal. “You are quite impertinent, just as you have always been since the day of your arrival.”

Oliver grinned and offered the wine. “I’ve been told by some very important people that it’s one of my more charming traits.”

Erik turned toward him, took the wine, and a long sip. Then set the cup aside and reached for Oliver instead, who went gladly. His kiss tasted of sweet, late-season berry wine, and his hands were instantly familiar and possessive on Oliver’s waist, and hips, and ass, drawing him in close.

Oh, Oliver thought, before the rest of his thoughts melted into pure, heated want. Erik needed this even more than he’d anticipated.

Erik gripped the back of each thigh, fingers flexing, and Oliver hopped up at his urging, hoisted up so he could wrap his legs right around Erik’s hips, just as he’d imagined earlier, out in the hall. But the real thing was better than imagination.

Erik broke away from his mouth to nibble at his jaw. “Get the wine,” he murmured, and Oliver managed to pluck it off the mantel before he was whisked away – and deposited on the edge of the desk.

“Gods, you’re strong,” Oliver breathed. “I–” And then Erik was kissing him again, tongue bold and hot in his mouth.

Erik tilted his head, deepening the angle, one hand cupping the nape of his neck to shift him the way he liked, the other pushing up the hem of Oliver’s tunic so he could grip and knead at the top of his thigh. He was so eager, tonight, nearly desperate.

Oliver could only grip at his jerkin and let himself be nudged into a somehow deeper kiss, slick and messy and punctuated by panted, sucked-in breaths between the wet sounds of lips meeting.

Then he realized, even weak in the neck and with a campfire rapidly building in the pit of his belly, that he could do one thing, and fumbled at the fastenings of Erik’s jerkin. They were little metal hooks and loops, hidden on the inner seams, and difficult to manage with his lover’s tongue halfway down his throat.

He pulled away from him, finally, gasping. “Let me–”

Erik fastened his mouth to the side of his throat and bit.

“Gods, Erik.” The first fastening gave, finally, and Oliver managed to focus long enough to undo the rest – only to run into an obstacle when he hit Erik’s belt. “Ugh,” he whined, overheated, head spinning, and wanting skin.

“You brat,” Erik said against his throat, licked over the place he’d bitten, beard tickling at the fresh bruise, and stepped back. Just far enough to tear off his belt and jerkin, and pull his tunic and shirt off over his head in one go.

At another time, Oliver would have laughed at the way it rumpled his hair and left his braids hanging crooked. But now he could only stare, all his blood rushing south, as Erik stood before him bare to the waist, dark hair over heavy muscles and old scars. A familiar sight, at this point, but no less stirring. It took his breath every time.

Oliver reached for him, and Erik, gaze hot as coals, stepped in close so Oliver could stroke his chest and tweak at his nipples. Spread Oliver’s thighs with firm hands and stepped in even closer, so their still-clothed cocks were pressed together. This, surely, was why they made desks so high.

A belated thought occurred, even as Oliver raked his nails through dark chest hair. “What about the maps? Your ledgers?”

“Fuck them,” Erik growled, and grappled with Oliver’s belt. His fingers didn’t fumble the way Oliver’s had. This kind of sharply-piqued arousal left Oliver clumsy, but Erik even more dexterous, somehow; he came at sex the way he came at everything: with a warrior’s determination. It unraveled Oliver every time, that confidence and competency.

His clothes were all but ripped off over his head, and goosebumps broke out across his bare chest and arms, despite the heat of the fire; his nipples pebbled up tight and aching. Erik tossed his fine tunic to the floor without a care, pinning Oliver with a gaze gone black-dark in the dimness of this half of the room. The firelight limned him in gold, and Oliver had the dizzy thought that he sat half-naked and vulnerable before a god…ready and willing to be devoured as an offering.

Erik’s breath rasped audibly through his open mouth as he took Oliver’s chin, firm but careful, in one large, ringed hand. His gaze stayed locked with Oliver’s as, with the other, he picked up the wine cup and took a swallow. Then he leaned forward and pressed his lips to Oliver’s, thumb digging into the soft skin under Oliver’s jaw.

Shock moved through him in a hot flash that left him shuddering. He parted his lips and cupped his tongue as Erik let the wine slide from his own mouth into Oliver’s. It was nearly too much, but Oliver opened his throat and let the skin-warm wine slide down.

Erik breathed sharply out through his nostrils, a huff against Oliver’s cheek: surprise, a sudden spike of arousal. He smoothed his hand down Oliver’s throat, petting over the apple there. Good boy, that touch said, and Oliver shuddered again.

Erik took another sip, and shared it again with Oliver, the warm burst of berries filling the waiting cup of his tongue. When he swallowed, Oliver sucked at Erik’s tongue in turn, and drew a deep, vibrating groan from him.

They worked their way through the rest of the cup that way, until Oliver was even more flushed, head swimming pleasantly and both their lips sticky.

“You have me at a disadvantage,” Oliver murmured, head tipped back as Erik’s said sticky lips trailed down his throat and skimmed along his collarbone. “I’m the only – oh – I’m the only one who actually drank any of that.”

“Mm. Poor you.” Erik set to sucking a dark mark into his skin, and undid his flies with quick, deft movements.

The timbered ceiling overhead swayed, a little, as Erik got his boots and trousers off, and pressed him back flat across the desk with a hand at the center of his chest. Paper crinkled beneath him, ignored amidst the fog of wine and want. He blinked, and refocused, as Erik gathered both his bare legs up and hooked them over one of his broad shoulders. The scent of roses bloomed, and Erik touched him with an oil-slick hand. He teased him a moment, circling, before finally easing in the first digit.

Oliver wanted to touch him, always. Wanted to have Erik’s weight above him, pressing him down into the soft furs of their makeshift bed, and be able to grip his shoulders, and scratch his nails down his ribs. But this way, he got to watch the flex of Erik’s biceps and forearm; got to watch Erik’s face, his pupils blown large, his gaze fixed on the place where his hand worked, and Oliver felt everything, every nerve sparking. He tightened his legs, flexing at the knee, to try and draw him forward with what little leverage he possessed.

“That’s good, sweetheart,” Erik murmured, stretching him on one finger, two, three. “Let me in – there you go – gods, you’re lovely.”

“Erik,” Oliver panted. “Please.”

“I know, I know.” Erik repositioned him, lowering his legs and drawing them around his waist, stepping in closer until the blunt head of his cock pressed at Oliver’s entrance, and then pushed in, inch by inch. Oliver gripped his forearms where they rested on either side of him, digging in hard with his nails at the stretch.

When he was fully-seated, hips flush against the plush give of Oliver’s backside, he leaned low to kiss him again, deep and thorough, his hair falling all around them like a curtain. Erik brushed their noses together. “I love it when you’re sweet,” he rumbled. “When you ask me nicely.”

“And I love it when you move.”

Erik chuckled. “As his lordship commands.”

He braced one hand on the desk, the other on Oliver’s hip, drew back nearly all the way, and then filled him again with a forceful roll of his hips.

Erik fucked him hard and slow, each thrust punctuated by the slap of sweaty skin, grip changing again and again as he drew Oliver down onto his cock, digging bruises on his hips, and ribs, and thighs.

Paper crackled as Oliver tossed his head and tried to clutch at something, anything to brace himself against the bone-rattling force of Erik’s slow-driving tempo, maddeningly steady, unhurried, thorough. “So good,” he breathed between choked-off whines. “So…there, oh, right there. Gods.”

Erik fucked him like that until he sent something – maybe an inkpot? – crashing to the floor, until he was desperate and non-verbal, begging in little pained noises. Then he reached between them and stroked his cock until Oliver spilled all over his own trembling stomach.

Erik pulled him even closer and kept going, fucking him through his oversensitivity, Oliver’s eyes pricked with tears, legs shaking against his hipbones. Until finally, finally, Erik’s pace faltered, and he ground in hard, and came with a shudder and a low, wounded sound like he’d been punched in the stomach, flooding Oliver with heat, deep inside.

Erik pressed his head to Oliver’s heaving sternum and rested there, breath rushing like the working of a bellows; Oliver couldn’t tell if he was shuddering on account of his own shivers.

When he’d softened, Erik withdrew and gathered Oliver up into his arms, unresisting, to carry him to their bed. He wiped him down with a warm, damp cloth, and then situated them both beneath the covers, Oliver bundled into his chest, locked in by strong arms.

Oliver drifted for a bit, half doze and half come-down. His heartrate slowed to the same rhythm of Erik’s beating strong and steady against his cheek. When he finally felt more himself, he roused to Erik finger-combing his now-long hair and murmuring sweet nonsense against the crown of his head.

He broke off when Oliver stirred and slipped an arm around his ribs. “With me again, darling?”

“Mm. Not for lack of trying on your part, though.”

Erik chuckled. He rolled onto his back and dragged Oliver up onto his chest. Oliver settled on his belly, arms folded, chin propped on the back of his hand so he had a view of Erik’s hair streaming across the pillow – and a bit of a view up his nose, but he wasn’t complaining. Erik’s eyes glowed like the blue heart of a steady fire in the candlelight – but it was a natural glow, and nothing like the gleam of Leif’s eyes in the shadows earlier.

Oliver schooled his features, not wanting to spoil the moment with talk of Leif.

But then Erik reached for one of Oliver’s half-undone braids and wound it round his finger, rubbing at the royal beads there with his thumb as a groove slowly pressed itself between his brows.

Oliver reached to smooth it with his thumb, though it didn’t budge. “Good on you for having any thoughts in that head after that. You’ve left me nothing but pudding between the ears.”

A fleeting smile lifted the corners of Erik’s mouth, but faded quickly.

Damn.

“I’m worried.”

“Well, there’s a surprise,” Oliver said, just earn to another smile – this one even quicker. Erik’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, the set of his brows marking the intensity of said worry. Oliver traced the taut edge of his jaw. “What is it, love?”

Erik shook his head a fraction, still fiddling with Oliver’s beads, attention fixed on them. “Nothing. It’s only…neither of the boys ever cared for Ragnar.”

“I’m sensing that’s a family trait.”

“Hm. Truthfully, I liked him better than they did. Or Revna, for that matter. We were boys together, at festivals, on Father’s expeditions out into the Wastes. Once we were grown, he annoyed me more often than not, but I never really thought…”

Oliver scratched lightly at his beard, short hair rasping against his finger pads. “That he’d turn traitor?” he asked, softly.

Erik nodded. Then his frown deepened. “I think I should have expected it, really. I was soft on him. I kept remembering old times rather than reading the threat in his smiles. But the boys knew. They never trusted him.” His gaze slid, finally, to meet Oliver’s. “Until now.”

“Ah,” Oliver said, understanding, now. “You and Rune are worried about the same thing, then.”

Erik looked pained. “There’s no way to be sure that Ragnar hasn’t – I don’t know, magicked him. Enchanted him, somehow.”

Oliver snorted, and earned an affronted look. He stayed Erik with a lift of his hand. “Did you hear what I told Rune earlier?” When he got a reluctant nod, he said, “It’s just as I said to him. A dog cannot fool another dog, and a wolf cannot fool another wolf. The only enchantment at play is that which makes them wolves. But Leif is Ragnar’s alpha, now. He’s in charge of him, and, doubtless, Ragnar has been able to shed some light on Leif’s new predicament that none of us mere men has been able to, hm?”

“But Ragnar’s the reason he’s a wolf. He should hate him.”

“Maybe he does.”

“He doesn’t,” Erik said, with sour conviction. “I can tell he doesn’t.”

“Well.” Oliver wasn’t sure what to say. “Leif is his own man – er, wolf, man, whatever – after all. Isn’t it up to him to decide who he hates?”

Erik’s chest lifted beneath Oliver’s as he drew in a deep breath. “Do you think that Leif has…lain with him?” As if that needed any further explanation, he dropped the bead in favor of skimming both hands down Oliver’s back, settling on his waist, fingertips stroking the dimples at the small of his back. “That they’ve–”

“Fucked?”

His throat bobbed as he swallowed. Nodded.

Oliver wanted to hold him, wanted to comfort him, but he respected and loved him too much to tell him a pretty lie for the sake of a moment’s relief. “I don’t know, darling,” he said, softly. “I wouldn’t think so, but, there’s no way to be sure. I thought Leif preferred girls?”

“He does. Or, at least he’s said as much, in the past.” Erik turned his face away. “But he’s never been all that interested in anyone, really. He never returned Estrid’s advances, and he didn’t fight for Tessa.”

“He didn’t fight for Tessa because he could see that she and Rune were making eyes at one another, and he’s a considerate brother.”

“No one’s that considerate. If he’d wanted her–”

“Erik.” Oliver caught his chin between careful fingertips and turned his head back to they were eye-to-eye. Erik came willingly; Oliver couldn’t have budged him otherwise. “Is it going to be a problem if Leif prefers the company of men?” Leif was heir, but Oliver hated to think there might be some sort of preferential treatment at play.

Erik’s eyes widened, taking his meaning. “What? No. No. Ollie.” He reached to tuck a lock of hair behind Oliver’s ear, thumbing over his cheek, after. “Do you take me for a hypocrite?”

“No. Only asking.”

Erik still looked emphatic, a little distressed. He skimmed the backs of his fingers along Oliver’s clean-shaven jaw; cupped his chin and traced his lower lip, still plump from kissing, with his thumb. “Leif may choose to keep company with whoever he likes: men or women or both. When I die and he takes the throne–”

“Darling.”

“–he may have a consort, just as I have.” He stroked a fingertip down Oliver’s nose, smiling a moment, soft and fond. “And braid his hair with beads, and shower him with jewels…”

“Erik.”

He sighed, smile falling away. “But not Ragnar. That is…unconscionable. The people would never accept a union with a traitor.”

“Listen to you,” Oliver said, “already styling them as king and consort when, as far as we know, Leif views him only as an unruly pet.” He lifted his brows. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, darling.”

Erik’s next sigh was easier; Oliver felt some of the tension bleed out of his body. “I don’t want him to get hurt.”

“Neither do I. But Leif is smart. If he thinks binding and bringing Ragnar to the surface is the right choice, then I think we have to have faith in him.”

“Faith,” Erik echoed, dubious.

“Yes, I know you don’t have much of that in anyone,” Oliver teased, grinning at him.

But Erik sat up, pushing Oliver up in the process, and captured his face, and kissed him long and deep. “I have faith in you, my little drake.”

Oliver’s stomach dropped in a pleasant way. He smiled. “That’s just because you want to go again.” He dropped his hand between Erik’s legs and felt the evidence of that truth.

Erik grinned, teeth flashing, and Oliver was glad to see the stress melt off his face. If he had to distract him from his troubles with his body, that was a sacrifice he was more than happy to make. “Can you blame me? I have the prettiest redheaded boy lying on to of me.”

Oh, low blow, sir. Oliver pushed on his unyielding chest. “Can I be on top this time?”

“Of course. After all, you’re quite the rider these days.”

“Oh, come off it.”

5

“Rev.” The bedframe creaked, faintly, as Bjorn stretched out beside her. “It’s late.”

He was a solid, warm presence next to her on the mattress, his head even with her hip where she sat propped up against the headboard, drawn-up knees serving as a makeshift table for her parchment and writing tablet. “I know. Don’t spill the ink.” She’d left the pot balanced beside her on top of the linens, and it had doubtless been jostled when he climbed into bed.

“Ink? Why is there ink in the bed? Here it is.” He made a low, disgruntled sound and offered it up on his palm for the next dip of her quill.

For a while, the scratch of her quill and the snap of the fire were the only sounds. Then Bjorn took a deep breath, and she knew that, though he’d proved a patient man in so many ways, more patient than any man she’d ever known, he wasn’t going to tolerate his bed being turned into a study for much longer.

“Tell me you’re not still putting together lists for the seamstresses,” he said.

She dipped her quill again. “No. This is for the kitchen. I have to make sure there’s enough stored food to account for the rest of the winter and the wedding feast.”

He didn’t quite manage to bite back his sigh. “You know they don’t care about having a feast.”

“It’s traditional.” She checked the inventory sheet she’d nicked from the kitchen earlier and frowned at the butter numbers. The goats were still producing, so more could be made. If they only used two blocks–

A massive hand landed on her parchment, rough from cold and work, a wolf’s head ring on the first finger, and a plain jet band on the third. “Revna.”

She lifted her head from her parchment – and a wave of dizziness gripped her, swift and unexpected. She blinked, and the protest she’d meant to deliver died on her tongue.

“Aw, love.” Bjorn sat up and took her tablet, parchment, and quill; she would have resisted a few minutes before, but pressed fingertips into her temples, now, willing her head to stop swimming. “Come here.” He returned, and gathered her in close to the strength and heat of his chest. Oh – he’d taken his shirt off before joining her. She hadn’t even noticed.

She noticed, now; the warmth of bare skin bleeding into her face, which felt oddly cold. She was cold all over, now that she thought of it, and clammy too. Her night rail clung to the skin of her back, and a shiver moved through her.

Bjorn rubbed between her shoulder blades, and it felt both wonderful…and left her wanting to shy away, skin overly sensitive. “You’ve worked yourself sick over this wedding, sweetheart,” he admonished, softly. “You’ve got to stop worrying about it so much. The children didn’t ask for any of this; they just want to be married.”

“I know,” she choked out, a lump forming in her throat. “But it’s tradition: a wedding ceremony and a wedding feast.”

“Sweetheart,” he sighed, his warm, sure touch moving up and down her back, “there’s going to be nothing traditional about a wedding held in a palace still wrecked from a siege.”

“I know. But still.”

He chuckled, low and soft, and finger-combed her hair. “Everything will work out fine. We’re all here, we’re all safe. A wedding isn’t that important.”

Says the man, she thought sourly, but didn’t say.

Since the repairs on the royal apartments had been pushed to the bottom of the list, a sacrifice in which she’d agreed with her brother, she’d been forced to relocate elsewhere for the duration – and that place was Bjorn’s personal suite. On the same floor as her former accommodations, but far less rich. Bjorn, a practical military man, had shoved his bed frame into a corner, and had no tapestries or artwork, only a simple wooden desk and chair, and a plain wardrobe for his clothes. The first night she’d spent in it, he’d rubbed at the back of his neck, pink in the cheeks, and apologized for its simpleness. She didn’t mind simple…but she minded being behind on preparations.

“Love,” he said, pulling back, kicking her chin up with the press of his knuckle, “why is it so important that this wedding be perfect when no one expects it to be?”

He had a wonderful way of cutting straight to the heart of a matter, her man.

In truth, she didn’t have a logical reason for her commitment to this wedding. The moment the dust had settled after the battle, she’d thrown herself into preparations wholeheartedly, and never paused to ask why.

“My baby’s getting married,” she settled on, and got to watch him smile with lips and eyes.

He leaned down to kiss her, slow and gentle, and she felt a now-familiar melting sensation in her stomach.

“I think,” she said, fuzzy-headed as he drew back, still smiling at her, “that it’s important, in this tumultuous time, to uphold a bit of tradition. Don’t you?”

“Aye. But not if it means you stop sleeping and eating.” He traced her jaw with one large, smooth-callused thumb. “Maybe you should call it a night.”

“Maybe,” she agreed, and then to her shame and horror, her eyes began to burn with the telltale sting of tears. She turned her face away, but not before he saw – Bjorn was always watching her closely, always noticing the little things. Just the day before, he’d walked up behind her and begun to massage at a sore place between her shoulder blades where tension had gathered; when she asked about it, he’d said he’d noticed she was turning her head stiffly.

“Rev,” he said, with deepening concern. “What is it?”

I don’t know, she started to answer. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. But before she could get the words out, her stomach rolled, heaved, clenched, and she barely got out of bed and across the room to the basin on the washstand before she brought up what little she’d been able to eat for dinner.

Bjorn joined her, swearing under his breath; he gathered her hair and rubbed at her back as she retched for long minutes, too rattled to be properly embarrassed.

By the time she finally lifted her head, understanding had dawned.

“Damn,” she murmured, hoarse now.

“Was it the salt pork, you think?” he asked.

“No. How do you feel about fatherhood?”

6

Pale, rotting hands reached through the dark. They pawed at his face, gripped fistfuls of his hair, and rent his tunic; jagged, black-edged nails scraped over his skin. They were trying to get inside of him; trying to pry open his jaw and climb down his throat and make it back to the world of the living.

Náli twisted and thrashed. He tried to scream, but water filled his lungs, the hands wrapped around his neck, hooked inside his mouth, and he was choking, choking…

“…my lord. Náli. Náli, wake up.”

He woke with a gasp, jolting upright in bed. There were no hands, and no water; he wasn’t drowning. And yet he panted, struggling to catch his breath, heart hammering wildly. He was freezing, he realized, his teeth chattering despite the slick film of sweat on his skin. A droplet trickled down between his shoulder blades, and he shuddered.

It was dark, still, save the glow of coals in the hearth, and the single candle that had been lit over on the desk. Just enough light to illuminate the familiar shape of Mattias perched on the edge of his bed.

“What time is it?” he asked.

Mattias offered a pewter cup: water which he drank gratefully down. “Just before dawn. You were whimpering in your sleep.”

“Hm.” A common occurrence, even if the nightmares had grown more frequent and visceral recently. He was too worn-down; his magic had stretched too thin. An unpleasant truth to think of, even if he could acknowledge it; it was much easier to focus on a more easily remedied disappointment. “You’re still dressed.” And Mattias was, down to his boots.

Mattias took the cup back, hesitating. “I was on night guard duty,” he said, at last, looking toward the fireplace.

“And how is that possible when you were day duty yesterday?”

Mattias shrugged and fiddled with the cup.

“You reprimand me about resting,” Náli said. “And then you don’t rest yourself.”

“It isn’t the same, my lord.”

A wave of shaking weakness washed over him, and Náli chose to grind his teeth rather than lie back down and try to catch a few more hours’ sleep. “Perhaps I’d rest better if you were lying here with me, rather than sitting outside the room.”

Mattias’s head whipped back toward him, and though it wasn’t possible, Náli swore he saw color bloom in his cheeks. How the man could kiss him the way he did, and then blush about it, Náli didn’t understand. He’d thought – hoped – that this last bit of time away from home, without his mother glaring from the high seat through yet another matchmaking ball, that he and Mattias could connect. Physically. Their one chance to truly be together before his responsibilities caught up with him.

“My lord,” Mattias began.

“Matti,” Náli bit back. “Honestly–”

Someone rapped at the door.

Náli frowned, and glanced toward the dark window glass. He’d heard no horns nor bells; and this knock was far too forceful to be one of his Guard.

Mattias surged to his feet, entire demeanor shifting. His hand fell automatically to the hilt of his sword as he moved toward the door.

“The likelihood it’s a cutthroat is slim,” Náli said with a snort.

But Mattias held firm to his sword, and the door, as he cracked it open and peeked out. Words were exchanged, too low for Náli to make out, then Mattias stepped back with an air of reluctance and opened the door wide.

To Náli’s surprise, it was Leif who entered, carrying himself in that new way that would have conjured images of wolves in the minds of even the most skeptical, naïve observer. He smelled of magic now, a crackle in the air like ozone everywhere he went. It left the inside of Náli’s nose tingling.

He drew himself upright in bed, dragging the covers more firmly across his lap and tossing his sleep-rumpled hair over his shoulder. He might be in a nightshirt, hair unbraided, but he could still adopt his usual air.

Mattias lit two more candles, and in the swell of fresh light, Leif looked unimpressed. Náli had never been so glad to have had his advances rejected before. What in the gods’ names would have happened if Leif had welcomed him that drunken night at Long Reach? And then gone and gotten himself turned to a shifter? Shudder the thought.

“This is a surprise,” Náli said. “And not the good kind. Can we help you, your grace?”

Leif’s mouth tugged to the side, a humorless smirk, and he glanced over his shoulder at Mattias, as the door was eased shut.

“Whatever you want to say to me, you can say it in front of Mattias. You’d have to drag him from the room, otherwise.”

Mattias pushed his shoulders back and stood up tall to emphasize the difficulty of that task. Leif could do it, obviously, imbued with unnatural strength, but he only shook his head and refocused on Náli. “I need to talk to you about Ragnar.”

“Ragnar,” Náli echoed, lip already curling. “I don’t suppose I can hope you’ve come to deliver the good news that you’ve reconsidered keeping him alive? I’m sure your uncle shares my opinion that he’d be better off with his head on a chopping black than cluttering up the dungeon.”

Leif frowned – more sternly than Náli thought the situation warranted. It was terribly early to be this grumpy – himself excluded. He liked to think he was charmingly grumpy; Mattias had never disagreed on that front.

“Uncle gave him to me,” he said, and Náli was careful to keep his expression neutral. He knew Erik had thrown the offer out there, but hadn’t thought Leif would latch onto it. “He’s too valuable to execute – at least not yet.”

“Hm.” Internally, Náli was gawking. He exchanged a quick glance with Mattias, who cocked his head to a judgmental angle. “Congratulations, then, on your new pet.”

Leif, always so patient and, if anything, rather blank-faced before, compressed his lips and flared his nostrils. It was more than a little unsettling for Náli, who’d grown up thinking of him as the gentlest of the Aeretollean boys. He wasn’t sure how long it would take them to grow used to this new version of him.

“You said you could magick a torq that would control him.”

“I did say that, yes.”

“Can you?”

“I believe so, but I didn’t think you’d truly consider such a thing.” He dropped some of his lordly façade. “Leif, are you sure about this? After what he did?”

“I’m sure.”

“He’s a traitor. Traitors don’t change their ways.”

Leif folded his arms. “I’m sure.”

“Fine.” Náli really hadn’t expected to have to sort out a torq for the bloody liar. He understood the process in theory, but theory and practical application were two very different things.

“That means you’ll do it?”

“I’ll attempt to do it. Though I can’t guarantee success. And I expect I’ll need some help from our resident magical cousins.”

~*~

Mattias wanted him to sleep more, after Leif left. He even brought him a steaming cup of lavender tea and resumed his perch on the edge of the bed until Náli gave in with a huff and gulped it down, burning his mouth. “I’ll drink the tea, but you can’t make me go back to bed. I’ve too much to do, now.”

He washed and dressed, had a second cup of tea, which helped chase the cold from his bones. Mattias braided his hair, and in the kitchens, already roaring and bustling as the sun rose, finally, they found fresh, warm bread, clotted cream, and bacon. Thus fortified, he asked a maid to fetch Oliver to him when he woke, and went to the library to hunt for books.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one with that idea.

Two boys, no more than seven or so, had heaped a table with volumes and were arguing loudly about something they’d found in one of them.

“No,” the little redheaded one said, standing in his chair to lean over the table and stab a page with his finger. “That’s a wrym. That’s a wyvern. See, it’s got four legs.”

Drakes, then.

The blond one, taller and much calmer, peered down at the open book and said, “I don’t think that’s what they’re called here.”

“Yes, it is! The book says so.”

Náli skirted around their table and headed for the dusty, much-neglected section of supernatural tomes.

To no avail.

“Lord Náli!” the little one exclaimed.

Damn.

“Lord Náli! Corpse Loooooor–”

He turned his least sincere smile on them. “Yes. No need to shout. What is it?”

The boy stood upright in the seat of his chair, one hand gripping the back of it, the other smacking against his own chest. “I’m Bo.”

“All right. Good for you.”

“This is Ivar.” He pointed to the blond boy, who’d flushed with obvious embarrassment.

“Bo, he doesn’t care,” he hissed.

“He’s a bastard,” Bo continued.

“Bo!”

“Just like Lord Oliver. I ‘spose that means he might become a lord, too.”

“Only if he becomes a king’s consort,” Náli said, flatly. “Now, if you’ll–”

“You’ve a dragon, don’t you?” Bo interrupted.

Gods, but Náli didn’t like children.

“No. I don’t.”

“But I’ve seen it! The little one! He follows you around just like a hunting dog.”

“Yes, well, that’s his mistake. Those are Oliver’s dragons. You should ask him about them – or Lady Tessa.”

“But I saw it following you.”

He looked to the blond boy – Ivar – for assistance. “Is he always like this.”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

“Bo,” a new voice said from the doorway. “Are you harassing Lord Náli?”

“Yes. He most certainly is.”

Oliver entered the library already put together for the day, dressed in fine velvets with his hair neatly braided and beaded. He bore dark circles under his eyes, though: evidence of long days and short nights.

“No,” Bo wheedled, pouting. “He’s lying about his dragon.”

Oliver sent Náli an amused look. “Is he, now?”

“I don’t have a dragon.”

“Mmhm. Yes, I see, well. Probably best not to harass him anyway.” Oliver leaned forward and dropped his voice to a conspiratorial stage whisper. “He might put an enchantment on you.”

“Yes,” Náli agreed, grinning, as both boys jerked around to stare at him. “I might.”

Bo considered this a long moment – and then his nose scrunched up. “No, he won’t. He’d get in trouble with my mum.”

Oliver hid a smile behind his hand, shoulders silently shaking.

Náli sneered at the brat. “I’m here to do research, not to entertain the likes of you. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” He turned his back on them, and strode across the library.

“What are you boys doing in the stacks this early?” he heard Oliver ask. Not that he cared – he certainly didn’t. But they were talking loudly enough that he couldn’t ignore them.

“We couldn’t sleep,” Ivar said. “And Bo wanted to know more about the dragons, and you were still abed, my lord, and Lord Náli and Lady Tessa, as well, so we came to look through the books, instead.”

Náli rounded a corner and found the – regrettably small – section he was after. His belly twisted with guilt, dislike of children aside. With repairs still underway, and the city by the harbor not yet inhabitable after its burning, the palace was bursting with humanity. The children were sharing rooms, fur-heaped pallets boasting them by the half-dozen. Náli had a room to himself, as one of the high-ranking peers of the nation, while these two boys were piled up with at least ten others.

He gave himself a mental shake and concentrated on the book spines in front of him. They were old, and, judging by the lines of dust, rarely pulled. The gilt lettering had all but faded. He cocked his head sideways to decipher the titles.

The scrape of a boot sole alerted him to Oliver’s presence. “The maid you sent didn’t tell me what sort of help you needed.” He sidled up to Náli and joined him in perusing the shelves. “What are we looking for?”

“A very old book that I’m not sure your king owns – oh, here it is.”

Despite the dust, and lettering faded from incoming sunlight, the book didn’t look to have ever been opened, when he cracked its cover and found crisp, untouched pages with still-dark ink.

Oliver leaned over his shoulder. “The Unlikely Art of Spellcasting,” he read. “By Lord Mads Thorson. I know you don’t like the children, but I wasn’t serious about the enchantment.”

Náli sent him a look, and earned a grin.

“You’re entirely too cheerful, do you know that?”

That earned a chuckle.

“Come along, Lord Cheerful. We have a spell to master.”

Náli went to a tucked-away table by a window and settled in.

Oliver followed, and took the chair beside him. “Spell? We?”

Náli looked up.

“Maybe you’d like to explain it, yeah?”

Oh. Right. He wasn’t used to working with other people, especially not when it came to magic. When he inevitably passed out, Mattias would scoop him up, but, otherwise, he was alone in his craft, always.

“Leif wants a magicked torq for Ragnar – something he can’t remove. You’re going to help me with that.”

Oliver’s brows went up. “I…am?”

“Well. If you would.”

Oliver frowned. “I don’t perform the kind of magic that you do, Náli. I have magic, I think, obviously, what with the drakes. But I don’t do anything with it.”

Náli waved him off. “Magic is magic. It lives in your bones. It has its preferences, yes, but with a little work, you can channel it the way you want.”

Oliver looked astonished.

“I’ll walk you through it.” Náli paged through the book. He’d seen this spell years ago, in his own copy, but hadn’t ever anticipated putting it into use himself. “Hopefully.”

Silence reigned a few moments, as he searched for the spell in question.

“Náli,” Oliver said, then, in a careful tone. “Not that I’m refusing – I’m not – but why do you need my help?”

Ah. This.

Náli turned another page, looking studiously at the book. His next breath hitched, though he hadn’t expected it to. “I’ve…used up my energy. Almost. I need to return to the Fault Lands regardless; I’ve known that for a while, now. But if I do this – and I plan to – I’m not sure I’ll be conscious for the trip.”

He turned his face away when Oliver’s expression went concerned. “It’s fine,” he said, brusquely. “Nothing I haven’t dealt with before. I must return anyway – I needed to weeks ago. This spell will use up the last of my reserves.”

Oliver didn’t say anything; a darted glance proved his brows were knitted, all prettily worried.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Náli snapped. “It’s fine. Mattias will get me home like he always does, and you lot will have a pet wolf with a special new collar.”

“Náli.”

“Do not.” He lifted a staying hand – one that would have been more effective if it didn’t tremble so much.

Oliver sighed. “Fine.” He didn’t sound convinced in the slightest. “At least let me help as much as I can.”

“That’s why I sent for you,” Náli said, primly. “Now. Spells.”

7

The Duchy of Inglewood

Aquitainia

Even from the air, the wood was vast. Amelia had thought it might look smaller, but the canopy stretched from horizon to horizon in the thick of the Inglewood, dense and impenetrable. She followed the winding, dirt ribbon of the road for a while, the occasional deer or lion darting across it, beneath Alpha’s wide shadow.

Flying was like riding, in so many ways. The wind in her face, the speed of travel; the way her mount anticipated the minute shifts of her weight, the turn of her head, the slightest pressure on the reins. It was a natural, lifelong skill enhanced by her special connection with Alpha; when she thought it, he did it.

But, then again, it wasn’t really at all like riding a horse, because she was in the sky.

That first leap, when Alpha had flapped hard and climbed into the air, had left her stomach swooping; sweat beaded beneath her armor and clothes. She’d had a moment of panic: gods, what am I doing? But then Alpha had sent reassurance through their bond, and the view had stolen her breath in a wholly lovely way. She had no doubts about Alpha’s willingness to keep her safe, and she trusted Billy’s handiwork on the harness, saddle, and the straps and hooks that connected her to it.

Delightful as it was, she managed to gather her thoughts, and then it was all business.

They’d decided, before she left, that she would scan as much of the forest as she could for potential enemy troop movements, traps, encampments, etc., before she descended on Wood Manor with her two drakes.

Speaking of…

She twisted to look over her shoulder, to where Marigold had dropped down low toward the treetops. Reading her thoughts, Alpha sent a forceful command to his youngest female, and she came winging back up to them, remnants of a vulture she’d snatched from a high branch in her jaws.

Amelia’s first response was a laugh – she was proving insatiable, that one. But then she remembered Oliver and Tessa’s letters warning of the Sels using some sort of magicked, trained vultures to scout and attack their messenger falcons.

Have another, she thought, and a moment later, Marigold was diving again.

~*~

They found nothing out of the ordinary. Because Connor had evacuated his Strangers to Drakewell, all of them camping out in hide tents in pastures, there weren’t even any woodlander campfires shining through the treetops – nor were there any signs of Sel invaders. Granted, they didn’t search the entire Inglewood, but that would have taken days. So, instead, as the sun went down like the flare of a match beyond the horizon, she pointed Alpha toward Inglewood proper, and they melted up into the dark sky.

They approached amidst a cloudbank, dropping down low enough, beneath a crescent moon, for Amelia to catch a good aerial view of the manor that Connor had once been run out of, and where his brother and sister-in-law (and first wife) had met their deaths. The house itself was dark, all five floors of it, its many, narrow windows black and lifeless. The lawn wasn’t manicured, but trampled from the passage of many armored feet, a dull expanse more dirt than grass. As they floated up and over the spines of the roof, she finally caught a flicker of light out in the stable yard.

A fire.

Careful, she thought. There would be no masking the distinctive clap of the drakes’ wings working, but she wanted to stay high enough that they couldn’t be seen – and targeted – until she’d determined the source of said fire.

Alpha circled, and she leaned out to peer over his neck. It was a small fire, a figure seated on either side of it. She thought, at first, they must be travelers searching for a bit of shelter in the cold, the stone stable wall serving as a windbreak. But then she caught the gleam of firelight on gold. Their armor, removed and stacked beside them.

Sels.

Both of them jumped and scrambled when Alpha landed in the midst of their fire. There was no mistaking them, then: their pale faces and white hair.

“Hello, boys,” she drawled.

Alpha’s frills flared wide; he hissed, and the stable yard filled with an entirely different sort of fire.

~*~

“They must have been scouts,” she mused, lifting a brand from what remained of the fire to serve as a torch. “But why? Suppose they don’t want to totally abandon the ground they’ve gained.”

The drakes were having a snack, so to speak, so, after a cursory glance into the dark stable, she headed toward the house.

Alpha rumbled his worry through their bond, and out loud, an inquisitive mrrp like a big cat, while Marigold munched happily.

“I’ll be careful,” she promised. “And I’ll call if I need to.” She wasn’t all that worried, though. The house, which she approached with torch held aloft, bore that particular air of abandonment.

Worried or not, a shiver still licked down her spine. It had been years, but the last time she was inside this house, the windows had glowed, well-dressed silhouettes shifting behind the glass. The terraced front steps had boasted urns full of potted trees, topiary forms, and big spills of seasonal flowers. There had been liveried footmen on hand to sweep the doors wide for her, and she’d lifted her skirts so she didn’t step on her hems on the way through.

Now, her armor clinked softly as she drew the short sword at her hip, and tugged at the door handle with her torch-bearing hand.

The smell assaulted her first: dust, damp, and, worst of all…decomposition.

There was something dead in here.

Rats squeaked and scurried; she startled at them, as they ran over her boots and out the door, but Alpha sent her a reassurance that there were no humans in the manor – none alive, anyway.

She kept going, across once-pristine tile and parquet floors that creaked underfoot. Up the wide, double-curve staircase. The smell got stronger as she moved: past ransacked salons, a toppled library, linen cupboards with sheets and towels torn out onto the ground. She knew, after the first few minutes, where she would find the corpse, and who it must be: Connor’s wife, who’d plotted against him, and married his brother once Connor could be declared dead.

At the top of the second floor, in the master’s chambers, torchlight slid over rumpled carpets, torn-down drapes, and, finally, the ravaged, murdered corpse of Connor’s former bride, mummified in a sea of once-fine lace and disordered linen.

Amelia took a moment to regulate her breathing and swallow down her gag reflex. Then, turning her back on the body, she searched the room. There was evidence of the Sels, here: smashed ceramics, slashed paintings; dirty handprints on the fine, watered silk wallpaper.

It was a scene in which destruction had been rendered as a fear tactic. A place where a person had been violated not only physically, but emotionally and mentally, too.

She moved on, skin crawling. Walked through room after empty room, noticing not evidence of Sel violence, but of disuse and abandonment that had begun before. Half the furniture had been stacked and draped with old oilcloths. Connor’s brother hadn’t been wining and dining anyone once he’d taken on the mantle of duke. Dust had gathered, windows had been left unwashed; then the Sels had done their worst on what finery remained.

She paused in the ballroom, torchlight fluttering around her in a puddle that didn’t reach the darkest edges of the wide space. The only sounds were the hiss and crackle of the torch, and the echo of her own pulse in her ears. The place was cold in a way that only abandoned buildings could be.

Amelia turned, bootheels grinding over grit and dust on the once-fine floor, and went to see about starting some fires in the hearths.

~*~

Word of the war starting had arrived at Hope Hall last spring, during the first ball of the season: a glittering affair that had left the ballroom steaming with humidity, the doors thrown open to a cold night where torches and braziers glowed out on the slates of the patio. Reginald had just finished bowing to his latest dance partner, the lovely and flushed Miss Theodora Dover, and caught the wink of the rather dashing young footman handing out glasses of punch, when Reginald’s father, Lord Arthur, pushed through the crowd, face drained of all color.

“Come with me,” he’d said, taking Reginald’s elbow and steering him out onto the patio and down its wide steps until they stood at the edge of the garden, expression grim in the glow of lantern light.

He’d held a missive straight from the capital: the Selesee navy had blockaded Aquitaine Bay, and the enemy was landing all up and down the Crownlands. An invasion. A war.

The kingdom had been in a state of bucolic peacetime his whole life. Truth told, the first thought of riding into battle, in his flashing clean armor, on his prancing charger, had thrilled him. He was the finest jouster, most skilled horseman among the young lords in the east; he won every tournament with ease. What better than a chance to prove himself in real combat? He’d grown bored of balls, and dances, and coat closet trysts anyway.

But war, it turned out, was nothing like a tournament.

His mother had called it miraculous, his hanging gone wrong, but Reggie knew the truth: he’d died that day. At least for a little while. One second longer, and he would have stayed dead.

Sometimes, he wished he had.

Even now, with the occasional gust of wind from overhead, the little whirlwinds stirred by dragon wings, and the glow of dozens of pitch torches, Reggie’s skin crawled with dread.

The Inglewood was shadowy, dense, and indecipherable during the height of day; in the deep black of night, it was a horror.

Reggie led his men – what few remained after his disastrous campaign in the capital – as well as those of Drakewell and Norbury. Providing the all-important rearguard was Lord Edward and his Neden forces, the forbidding marshes of their home duchy having better-equipped them to handle the wildness trying to close in around them.

The woodland outlaws, the Strangers, were on point: most on foot, a few moving between the treetops in impossible fashion. The ones on the road held torches; Reggie had no idea how the ones in the trees were seeing anything…but every so often, there would be a rattle or a crash in the brush, in the trees, somewhere, and scouts would call back messages.

Only a wolf.

Just some birds.

A badger.

Reggie didn’t want to encounter any of those things.

Out in the night, something screamed.

Reggie drew his horse to a halt with a not-so-little jolt, hands tightening to fists on the reins, legs going to jelly. His horse snorted, and shied, and he reached woodenly to stroke his neck.

Beside him, Connor chuckled, even as the blood-curdling scream repeated. “It’s only a lion.”

Reggie sent him a nasty look, heart hammering – as nasty as he was capable; his face was probably pale and drawn after that scare. “Oh, ‘only a lion.’ That sounds perfectly safe.”

Connor chuckled again, the absolute bugger. “Lions in this part of the country are solidary animals. They come down out of the mountains before spring so they can mate. That’s a female in season out there, calling to the boys. She won’t attack a convoy this large.”

The faint thread of gentleness, of reassurance, in his voice angered Reggie – everything about the man did, really. His long hair, and his scruffy chin, and the way, despite the fact that he was still the rightful Duke of Inglewood, he insisted on dressing the part of the forest fiend he’d chosen to become.

Reggie scowled at him, as their mounts walked forward again, side-by-side, and Connor smiled in return – the sort of lazy, baiting smile that Reggie had sent more than a few footmen, and kitchen boys, and the occasional bastard in his pre-war heyday. They were goading, those smiles, and that was what angered Reggie the most.

They bickered, yes – Reggie was a natural at that; he bickered as easily as he breathed, and usually enjoyed it – but there was something else. A certain gleam in Connor’s gazes, the ones he shot Reggie when Amelia wasn’t looking. A certain patronizing invitation, an air of intent in the flare of a nostril or a curve of the lips; a lingering quality to Connor’s gazes when he mocked Reggie’s silks and high-polished boots. Connor had been married at least twice, obviously liked the nocturnal company of women, but Reggie didn’t think he was misreading the situation. And if he wasn’t…then he didn’t know what to make of the way some of those glances left his insides trembling.

It was his father who’d introduced him to the concept of seeking easy, physical pleasure with other men. In a mortifying, but helpful conversation, held safely behind the closed doors of his study, Lord Arthur had sat down for brandy and cigars with a fifteen-year-old Reggie and explained it in a no-frills, matter-of-fact way.

“Someday you’ll be wed, and hopefully your wife won’t ever turn you out of her bed. But young men seek out pleasure, I know, and so it’s important you don’t go breeding a bunch of bastards before you’ve even of age.”

Reggie had never forced himself on anyone – as he matured golden and lovely, skilled and eloquent, it had never been difficult to find a willing boy, and, later, man. Servants and employees, generally, and Reggie was always the one in control during those encounters.

He’d never felt like the prey before the predator, not the way he did in Connor’s presence.

Perhaps he’d simply forgotten how to feel like himself the past year; perhaps he just needed a good tumble, a chance to get past his nightmares and simmering, constant fear, and regain his old swagger. What little of it he’d tried to show to Amelia – for spite, mostly, at first – had been a painful display. Like working old, torn muscles poorly-reknitted.

“The camping site is just ahead,” Connor said, drawing him from his contemplations. “It’s secure.”

“Yes,” Reggie drawled, calling on his driest tone, despite his elevated pulse. “This all looks so secure.”

“Heh. Don’t worry. If any lions come looking for a pretty boy, I’ll protect you.”

All right, that was definitely a come-on. Wasn’t it?

“Bugger you,” Reggie muttered.

Connor only hummed.

The front of their convey seemed to compress: Strangers moving to stand at the sides of the ride as the horse guard approached; Strangers dropping out of trees, bows on their backs, gazes darting off through the dark trees. They melted in and out of shadows, their movements liquid, silent. Reggie was so used to knights and soldiers in heavy armor, clinking and clanking everywhere, and he struggled to get used to the smoke-smooth movements of Connor’s outlaws.

Connor heeled his horse ahead into a trot, the road made bright by two lines of torches, and Reggie followed, not wanting to be seen as left behind – as lesser.

A path diverged from the road, narrow, grass-lined, and uneven; it forced them to ride single-file. Reggie felt a shiver of unease move down his spine. This was exactly the sort of trail that led to traps…the sort that had lured him, during the war. I know a shortcut, my lord, and next thing he knew, one of his men was a traitor, he was in chains…and then standing on a gallows.

It wasn’t until Connor twisted around in his saddle that he realized he’d pulled his own mount to a halt, and started him jigging with nerves again. Connor’s expression smoothed – no longer taunting nor seductive, but neutral…tired, even. He looked his age, then: still handsome and well-structured, but with stress lines, the torchlight catching on the gray hair at his temples.

“It’s safe,” he said. “I promise you, Reginald. A stronghold of my Strangers.”

Reggie frowned at him. “If you’re lying–”

“Yes, yes, one of your very strong and elegant men will cut my throat. Haven’t we moved past that?”

Reggie didn’t answer, but urged his horse forward, and they proceeded, despite the hollow pit of worry in his stomach.

The path meandered a bit, back and forth, but finally opened up into a clearing that was…not unpleasant. Wide, tree-lined, floored with moss, it could easily host their tents, picket lines, and guard perimeter. A blackened, stone-lined circle at the center spoke of large bonfires past, as did the stack of old, split logs.

“My lord?”

One of his men had appeared at his stirrup, and, belatedly, he shook his head, dismounted, and handed over the reins.

It was a bustle of the usual activity present in any encampment. Horses untacked, tents pitched, smaller fires started.

Reggie’s steward – his now-dead father’s steward – was a strong, gray-headed man named Callan, and he soon had Reggie in a tent, stripping off his armor, putting on a robe, and heading to the main bonfire carrying a flask of good brandy.

The old, worn-smooth logs that framed the bonfire were already full of soldiers from every household, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with outlaws. Other, smaller fires had been lit elsewhere in the clearing, between tents, and at the edges. Strangers stood guard, bows in their hands, gazes trained on the dark tree line that encircled them all.

Despite the heat of the fires, it was a cold night. Reggie chose to blame the chill in the air for the goosebumps that broke out beneath his clothes. He pulled his robe tighter, and moved to find a seat.

~*~

Supper was venison cooked over the fire. The shuffling, snorting, cracking sounds coming from the opposite side of the clearing told a tale of the drakes enjoying a supper of their own: a feast which Reggie had no intention of witnessing. Bellies full, men began moving to their tents and bedrolls.

Reggie wasn’t sleepy, though.

Despite the brandy he’d been sipping the past hour, he felt more jittery than he had on the road. The heat from the fire touched his face and hands, but he was still cold – the sort of deep, internal cold that had nothing to do with the temperature.

He tipped his flask up again, but found it empty. “Damn,” he murmured.

“In need of a refill?” a now-unfortunately-familiar voice asked, just before Connor settled onto the log beside him. A canteen appeared before him, old battered tin and hide, the cork already dangling from its string. The hand that gripped it was long-fingered, rough from the outdoors, with dirt caked into the nailbeds. The hand of an outlaw, and not a lord.

Then again, Reggie didn’t have a lord’s hands either.

The nerves jangling in his belly got the better of his dislike, and he took the canteen with a murmured thanks. A sip proved it was crude whiskey – strong crude whiskey – rather than his preferred brandy. He lowered the canteen, sputtering and wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his robe.

Connor chuckled. “Careful there, my lord. A little goes a long way with that stuff.”

Obviously, Reginald started to retort, but had to swallow down the burn in his throat, first.

Distantly, but still audible, another lion screamed, the awful sound echoing off tree trunks and down through gullies and streambeds. Just as it had before, it left Reginald shivering with gooseflesh – and brought all the day’s frustration and anger back a rolling boil, one hastened by alcohol.

He turned a glare on Connor. “Why do you keep doing that?”

Firelight caught the silver and amber highlights in a messy fall of dark hair. Licked and danced over eyes gleaming with mischief, and a mouth curved in amusement. “Doing what?”

Oh, Reggie hated him. “‘My lord’ this and ‘my lord’ that, mocking me with it, when you’re a bloody lord yourself. We’re on the way to your bloody manor, aren’t we?”

Unbothered, Connor rested an elbow on his knee, and his temple on his raised fist. “You know,” he mused, “you had such a reputation for being all flashy and suave with the ladies, but you’ve been wired tight as a brand new piano since we met.”

Reggie knew, as a goader himself, and a good one, that the most delicious result of a good jab was getting a rise out of the other party. He knew that, but couldn’t stop himself from bristling. “Last I checked, sir, you’re not a woman, much less a lady, so I’m not sure why you expected to be on the receiving end of anything flashy or suave.” He punctuated this with a long swig of whiskey, and barely managed not to choke and spray it out of his nose.

“Hm. Obviously.”

“Better than being a coward who plays dead and gives up his rightful seat,” Reggie snapped, knowing it was a vicious and low retort. Oh well. The whiskey was hitting him like a kick from a mule and Connor was so…so…

“Come on,” Connor said, cajoling, the bastard. “I’ve shared my good home brew with you and you’ve given over to insults.”

“Fucking insufferable.”

Oh. He hadn’t meant to say that aloud.

Connor grinned, a flash of even, white teeth in the glow of the fire. “My first wife certainly thought so. The ‘fucking’ part wasn’t so bad, though, if you’re interested.”

There it was. Reggie had been waiting for the inevitable moment when Connor’s teasing and provoking stepped out of the shadows and revealed itself as blunt, forward invitation. This was that moment, and, somehow, Reggie still found himself shocked.

The whiskey-heat simmering in his belly rushed up his throat and flooded his face; his breath hitched, and the old, gnarly scar tissue that circled his neck throbbed beneath his high collar. Connor’s grin edged into something predatory, and all the heat in Reggie’s body flashed to ice.

Away. He had to get away.

He shoved the canteen into Connor’s chest – “oi, what are you–?” and shoved to his feet. Shaky. Wavering. Gods, the bonfire spun before him, and the ground tilted under his feet thanks to too much drink and the dizzying effects of panic. Shit, he was going to–

Fall.

Right into Connor’s lap.

“Oof. What – hey now – you’re going to–”

Reggie scrambled, flailed, and was finally gripped around the waist by strong hands, righted, and plopped back onto the log beside Connor. His vision swam, and his throat was so tight he couldn’t breathe; the rope dug into his windpipe, and he was choking, choking, choking…

“Reginald.” A hand slapped down between his shoulder blades, hard. “Come on. Pull yourself together, man.” That was Connor, yes, but all the teasing had bled out of his voice. He sounded commanding, now, like the generals Reggie had served under in the war. Oddly, it helped.

He squeezed his eyes shut, dropped his face into his hands, and tried to get his breath back.

There is no rope. The mantra had become habitual, by now. There is no rope and you’re not dead. You lived. You lived, you lived, you got away.

The hand stayed, rubbing soothing circles across the top of his spine, and that helped, too. Reggie’s throat slowly opened back up; his breaths came easier.

The camp moved around them, distant murmurs and good-natured calls, but it all seemed distant, muted. The heat of the fire pressed close, and Reggie felt sweat slide down his spine, right beneath Connor’s hand. It had been months since anyone besides his mother or valet had touched him, and even then, he’d flinched away. His skin twitched now, an all over shudder, like a horse with flies.

Connor’s movements stilled. “I know you’re always on about me needing to wash my hair,” he joked, “but I didn’t think I was that repulsive.”

“Don’t,” Reggie croaked out, lifting a hand. “Just…don’t.”

Connor’s hand withdrew. “Oh,” he said, softly, like he’d realized something.

Reggie dragged his head up – exhausted, suddenly – and glared at him the best he could. He wanted to show his teeth, felt like an animal backed into a corner.

But Connor was undeterred. His face had gone gentle, the fire carving shadows beneath his eyes, and in the hollows of his cheeks. He looked like an entirely different person – he looked pitying, and that was terrible. “The Sels are renowned for their cruelty. They hanged you, yeah…but that wasn’t all they did, was it?”

“Shut up,” Reggie hissed, and turned his face away.

Connor said, “A pretty golden lordling falls in their laps, they’re going to have a bit of fun before they break out the noose, yeah?”

Reggie wanted to storm off, but knew his legs wouldn’t hold him.

“How many were there?”

Swallowing hurt, the memory of the rope digging into his Adam’s apple. “I lost count.” His eyes stung. “Stop talking to me. I hate you.”

But Connor, the bastard, murmured, “No, no, you’re all right,” looped an arm around his shoulders and dragged him into the warmth and strength of his side.

Reggie tensed…but Connor did nothing but hold him, and he was so tired, his head was starting to throb, and it wasn’t long before he subsided.

If the firelight caught the glimmer of tears on his cheeks, Connor was tactful enough not to mention them.

8

Aeres

As a frigid, silver dawn broke across the grounds, Náli stood in the center of the training yard with Oliver and Tessa, all of them bundled up in furs, all groomed and braided, their tired faces pinched with low-level anxiety. The cousins were nervous because neither of them had ever consciously channeled any sort of magic aside from communicating with their drakes.

For Náli’s part, the anxiety was tied up in the knowledge that, after this, if they even succeeded, he was going to swoon like a maiden and have to be carried from the yard. His belongings were already packed in their sleigh, reindeer even now being harnessed and hitched in the stable. Mattias stood over by the wall, arms folded, expression harsh with unhappiness. They’d argued – at length – but Náli wouldn’t be budged, and Mattias was going to play the loyal captain regardless. It might mean the end of stolen kisses, even.

All three drakes sat in attendance, watching. Náli knew that he didn’t have Tessa and Oliver’s gift with the beasts, but he swore he could feel their worry and protectiveness. Oddly, they were a comfort. If something went wrong, and Ragnar broke free…well, suffice to say there would be no running away from Percy and his family.

Náli bit back a sigh and produced the torq from beneath his cloak. Gleaming silver, a broken circle with knobbed prongs that would sit against Ragnar’s throat, the latch in front was designed to resemble two wolf heads, one biting the other’s throat. If the spell worked, once the latch was clicked into place, it wouldn’t be able to be opened again by the wearer or any outsider; no blacksmith’s hammer could strike off a magicked torq such as this would be. There was to be a failsafe, however; a weaving of magic that Náli himself had researched at length all of yesterday, and which he felt confident he’d be able to achieve. He’d never performed anything quite like it, but if he could raise entire skeletal armies, he didn’t think this would be all that difficult.

“Oh,” Tessa said, when she saw it. “It seems wrong to say that it’s lovely, but it is, really.”

“Somehow, I doubt Ragnar would agree with you,” Oliver said, tone dry. “But the detail is incredible, I’ll give the smith that.”

“Yes, yes, it’s very nice. Here.” With his other hand, Náli fished the two small, diamond pendants he’d promised from his pocket and handed them over. His much larger diamond hung against his chest, outside his leather doublet. Its weight tugged at the back of his neck, rested heavy over his heart.

His mother had picked it up, once, from his dressing table – the sight of it in her hand had left his stomach rolling – and she’d said, “It doesn’t feel as heavy as you say.”

Oh, Mother. If only you knew.

“Put them on,” he told the cousins, and they complied. “Now. Do you remember the failsafe?”

Oliver and Tessa traded a look that he couldn’t interpret: something secret and familiar, the sort of look they’d likely been trading since they were much younger, which could have been reassurance, confirmation, or a shared doubt in Náli and his plan.

“Do you remember?” he pressed, and knew by Oliver’s raised-brow look that he’d been snippy. Oh well.

“We remember,” Oliver said.

Tessa said, a little awed and breathless, “This torq can only be removed for love.” Then she frowned. “Does that mean only by someone who loves him? Or for any reason driven by love?”

“The spell’s not that specific,” Náli said, with a faint inward twinge of doubt, because the spell wasn’t that specific. Love was the release, according to very old, very dead magic scholars. Other emotions could have been used, but given Ragnar’s lack of popularity among his relatives, he’d thought love the best bet. Who could love Ragnar? No chance of an escape from his servitude that way. “Safe to say,” he continued, “no one loves him. It doesn’t matter what type of love the spell requires when you’re a lying, two-faced, sheep-headed wolf-fucker.”

Tessa blushed.

Oliver said, “Eloquent.”

Náli tugged at his cloak. “I like to think so, yes.”

That made both of them laugh.

A door creaked and shut forcefully a few yards away at the palace’s rear façade. A glance proved that the king himself, followed by Bjorn, was stalking their way.

Náli wiped the haughtiness from his face and spoke in a hushed, urgent voice. “Listen to me, both of you. Do not share this with your men. Not with Erik, not with Rune.” Both looked scandalized. “I’m quite serious. Don’t tell them the trigger. Tell no one. If you want to keep Leif safe, then you’ll guard this secret with all you have.” He wouldn’t say with your lives. As someone with one foot in the grave, he couldn’t ask for a friend’s life.

Their eyes widened, and the next look they exchanged was unmistakeable: one of united worry and resolve.

“We promise,” Tessa said.

Oliver added, “We won’t breathe a word.”

Something about his expression gave Náli misgivings – something like I’ll tell someone if it’s necessary. But, well, that was neither Náli’s worry, nor the most pressing issue of the moment.

“Your majesty,” he greeted, as Erik arrived.

As expected, Erik frowned. “Stop that.”

“Whatever your majesty requires.”

“You–”

Oliver snagged his sleeve, deft and quick. “Darling,” he said in a low voice. “We’re ready.”

The two of them shared a complicated exchange of expressions, one that left Náli entirely too jealous, considering he and Mattias were  secret, and possibly not even future lovers, given their impending trip home, and Mattias’s anger.

“Wait, wait!” Rune shouted, and jogged into view.

“Rune!” Tessa turned to greet him, hand settling on his biceps as he drew up before her. “You shouldn’t be running.”

“I’m fine,” he said. “But I wanted to be here for you while you–”

“Can we bloody get on with it?” Náli barked.

King and prince both sent him stern looks, their resemblance uncanny.

“Where’s the prisoner?” Náli asked, not wanting to dwell on the emotional bits of this whole thing. “If I’m to leave in time–”

“They’re coming,” Erik said, pushing his broad shoulders into the circle, being kingly and interloping, as usual. He laid a big hand on Oliver’s shoulder, pulling him in close…

And, to Náli’s astonishment, Oliver broke sweetly away, squeezing Erik’s hand at the end. “Darling,” he said, “I don’t think you can be a part of the circle. It might tamper with the spell.”

Erik frowned. “Oh. Right.”

Náli bit back a laugh. “Yes,” he said, gravely, “only magic-wielding persons should be within a certain proximity when the spell begins.”

Erik sent him a look. A penetrating, pleading, furious look. Do this right, or else.

Náli inclined his head. “I assure you, your majesty,” he said, gravely, not at all mockingly, “that I will perform to the best of my ability. Your consort and niece will do so as well, yes?”

“Yes,” they said as one.

Erik looked worried…but then there came the clank of chains.

Náli’s stomach tightened something fierce. For one awful moment, he thought he might be sick – but that was only the sickness that came with being stretched so thin magically and physically.

Clink…clink…clink.

Ragnar walked into view with a slow, exaggerated step, bound at throat, wrists, and ankles. Even after having been in the dungeons for a month, even unwashed and unshaven, stinking of musk and grimy skin, his hair a wild snarl framing his handsome face, he emanated an aura of threat.

And Náli wasn’t the only one who felt that.

All three drakes lowered their heads to defensive angles and hissed, nasty and vicious. Percy bared his fangs and huffed steam from his nostrils.

Mattias shifted forward, hand on his sword hilt, all too ready to throw himself in front of Náli.

Náli lifted a hand. “Peace!” he called, to every man, woman, and dragon in attendance. “No one needs to die today. Gods know we’ve seen too much of that recently.”

The dragons fussed a bit, amongst each other. Valgrind – damn him – made a plaintive sound that Náli knew all too well. The bugger wanted Náli to come over and scratch behind his horns.

Behind Ragnar was Leif, holding the ends of the chains.

If Náli had thought it before, he knew it now: Leif was changed.

The Leif that he’d – stupidly – thrown himself at back at Long Reach had still been an overgrown boy with honorable intentions.

Nothing of that boy remained in this boy’s face.

Not even a boy: a man.

Náli met his gaze only briefly, long enough to see the determination there – a chilling sort of determination not entirely human – and then scanned the others’ faces. Erik, he quickly saw, was going to be the sticking point.

Erik turned to face Ragnar as he clinked to a halt, wind catching his cloak and hair in a dramatic display that looked purposeful, but which Náli knew wasn’t: Erik didn’t try to look like a king from a fairy tale, but managed effortlessly all the same.

Ragnar tossed his head to shift his hair off his face, that familiar smug gleam in his eyes, despite his captivity.

“Cousin,” Ragnar greeted. “It’s good to see you again, finally.”

Náli didn’t know why Erik had never learned how to play Ragnar’s game. The man didn’t have a nonchalant bone in his body, unfortunately, and so he’d never been able to shrug, and cut cunning looks through his lashes, and thus thwart his cousin’s attempts to rile him. He always got riled, and Ragnar always enjoyed it, even in chains.

This morning was no exception.

“Do you understand how lucky you are?” Erik asked, voice a low, displeased rumble. “If it were up to me, I’d have your head and be done with it.”

“Aw. Would you do it yourself? I bet you’d enjoy that.”

Leif gave a sharp yank on the chains he held, and snatched Ragnar’s head back. He made a choking sound – and then emitted a whine that couldn’t possibly have come from a human throat.

Náli felt his brows go up, and saw his surprise echoed on Oliver and Tessa’s faces.

“Erik,” Náli said. “Perhaps it would be best if we got things over with.” When Erik turned to him, he added, “If the plan’s still moving forward, that is.”

Erik worked through a moment’s obvious anguish, then jerked a nod and stepped away, trailing a large, proprietary hand across Oliver’s shoulders as he went.

Leif said, “Are you ready?”

Náli’s next breath was a little tighter and more difficult. “Yes. Do you have him well in-hand?”

Ragnar grinned nastily. “Frightened, little witch?”

Snow crunched as Mattias started forward.

Náli schooled his expression to one of boredom, and held up a hand, staying Mattias. To Ragnar, he said, “Only that your stench will rub off on me if you stand too close. Oliver. Tessa.”

The cousins stepped forward so that the three of them stood in a close triangle. Their breath steamed through parted lips, as quick and anxious as his own.

“I need a strand of his hair,” Náli said.

“My – ow!”

Leif leaned in and dropped a few golden strands into Náli’s open palm, which he then wound round the torq.

“Oliver,” Náli prompted, and Oliver took the ring from him, so that Náli could draw his ceremonial dagger, and carve blood from his own palm. The sting of it was old and long-familiar; the scar tissue had built up over the years, and he had to press harder and harder each time with the tip of the knife to break the skin.

Blood welled up in bright pearls, and he gathered it on his finger to swipe on Oliver and Tessa’s palms.

“Now.” Still bleeding, he sheathed his dagger and gripped the torq again. They all did, blood to shiny silver. “Just as we discussed.” He met their gazes in turn, and found their blue eyes brimming with determination. “Good.”

He closed his eyes.

The well beckoned; it dragged at the diamond around his throat, and hooked its cold fingers between his ribs. Dead voices rushed up to the very forefront of his mind, dozens, hundreds, overlapping in ugly, pained whispers.

No. He gritted his teeth and gripped the torq hard. Pushed back against the inexorable tug of his birth magic, of his homeland, his curse. He felt the sweat bloom on his brow, and under his arms; his chest ached; the chain around his neck pulled with strangling pressure. His awareness was nothing but water, that awful, murky white water down in the well…

NO. He needed something to catch onto – something that could drag him out of his spiral.

A sound cut through the veil: a trilling purr. A sound of pipes that vibrated like a happy cat. A sound he’d never before heard in the well. Cool air rushed across the back of his neck, and something solid pressed at his side.

Valgrind.

Oliver. He had to find Oliver.

Valgrind kept purring, breathing welcome, cool breath over Náli’s sweaty face, and the waters of the well didn’t seem so deep anymore. So miring. With something alive touching him, it was easier to reach out through the vast spaces of the veil and search for something else alive.

In the gray swirls of mist, past shadows that could have been trees or reaching, claw-like hands, he finally spotted Oliver: a bright, pulsing heart wreathed in blue. And beside him, Tessa.

Náli latched on tight to both of them; in the physical realm, he was distantly aware of both of them gasping in surprise.

The torq between them was hot to the touch, Ragnar’s hair a burning golden thread. The cut on his palm sizzled.

Ready?

Yes.

He took a deep breath, leaned against Valgrind, and drew every last scrap of magic from deep in his bones. Then, he channeled it.

Their shared intent, their will, carried him somewhere beyond the veil, someplace he’d never ventured before. Everything was the scent of wolf pelt, and the sound of snarling, and a wish made manifest. Bind, bind, bind. Only love, only real love can ever release him.

Náli felt the moment the enchantment took hold. It slammed through him with the force of a hammer blow; washed his mind clean, and gold, and blessedly empty.

He cracked his eyes open in time to see that Oliver and Tessa’s eyes were glowing blue, just as he knew his own must be.

Valgrind let out an alarmed cry.

Náli grinned, and then the weight of the diamond around his neck dragged him over.

He was unconscious before he hit the ground.

~*~

During his fevers and early dragon hallucinations, Oliver had thought the pull of magic strong. Even after poring over books all yesterday with Náli, he hadn’t been prepared for the pull of that other plane; the place Náli had called “the veil.” He’d known the blue, crystal caverns of Percy’s bond with him, but this had been a black, twisted forest layered with impenetrable fog. Within it, Náli had walked toward them, naked, crowned with bones, his eyes glowing, blood glistening crimson on his hand, the brightest part of him.

The magic had felt like nothing he’d ever experienced: like lightning cracking through him. He swore he’d seen his own bones, glowing golden. But when he landed, gasping, back in his own body, conscious but dizzy, he’d known that they’d succeeded. He could feel the magic in the torq, humming like touching a beehive.

He opened his eyes, his hand and arm numb, his lips buzzing. He felt as though he’d been shaken, like a fine bottle of bubbly in Drakewell, before the cork was struck off with the flat of a knife.

“Gods,” he murmured, blinking his spotty vision clear again.

Beside him, Tessa said, “Oh, that was – oh.”

“Yeah.”

Then he realized that the two of them still held the torq, and that Náli lay sideways in the snow, eyes shut.

“Oh no.”

Valgrind stood over him, bleating his distress, nudging gently at his shoulder and lapping at his face with a cold, blue tongue.

Oliver wanted to move toward him, but was too slow and sluggish. Strong hands caught his waist – Erik’s, he’d know them anywhere – and he heard Rune murmuring worriedly over Tessa.

Náli’s Guard captain slash hopeful lover rushed forward and went on his knees in the snow beside his master. His expression – out of place on his usually strong, stern countenance – was so anguished and loving that Oliver felt like an interloper, too tired and weak to do more than lean back against his own lover and watch.

“My lord? My lord.” Mattias touched him with careful reverence, hauling him up to lie across his lap. Valgrind lingered, making distressing noises, and Mattias, to Oliver’s surprise, spared a hand to pat the drake’s nose, before he angled Náli’s face up toward his own, thumbing tenderly at his cheek – which looked bruised and sunken. “Náli?” he whispered. “My lord?”

His fingertips glided over sharp cheeks, and his visage was anguished, terrified…devoted.

Oliver wet his lips with a dry tongue. “He said this would happen,” he croaked. “That it would be the last thing he did.”

Mattias nodded, but didn’t look at him. Instead bundled his master close, and stood, lifting him in his arms.

Valgrind bleated in distress.

Mattias sent the drake a sad, but affectionate look. “Come along, then, little one, and we’ll take care of him.”

To Oliver’s surprise, Valgrind turned to follow them, crooning and worrying the whole way.

He’d known that Valgrind wanted to be Náli’s dragon, but hadn’t thought Val would abandon his parents in favor of his human.

It figured, though. Once chosen, and all that.

Oliver blinked. Erik pushed him more upright – oh, he’d slumped – and he shook his head, and tried to gather his wits. He still held the torq. It seemed as though it ought to be glowing and pulsing, but outwardly, it looked no different.

He traded glances with Tessa, who seemed as dazed as he felt, but, with Rune massaging her shoulders, offered a scrap of a smile. “Did it work?” she asked.

“I think so.”

Erik towed Oliver back far enough to grip his chin and turn his face up. “Are you all right?”

Breathless, still, but whole, and standing, Oliver nodded. “Yes. And it worked, I think.”

“You think?”

“I know.”

And he did know. He felt it bone-deep, in a way he never had before. He’d used magic – not to talk to the drakes, but to cast a spell, and he’d never thought to do that, ever.

He gathered himself, stood on his own power, and shook out his cloak.

He still held the torq, and turned toward Ragnar – who grinned at him, all his teeth bared.

“Oh, stop,” Oliver said. “You’re not in control here, you wanker.”

Erik snorted.

Tessa laughed and tried to suppress it in her hands.

“All right, then.” Oliver knew a moment’s nerves, but pushed through it, expression steeled. “Come along, Tess, and let’s see.”

Leif had to unlock the collar Ragnar already wore, a thick, silver number that required a key. Oliver thought that might be the crucial moment…but, once the collar was loose, Leif growled, low and deep like a wolf, and Ragnar submitted. Like a sad puppy, he stood still while Oliver stepped in to fasten the new torq around his neck.

Oliver smelled an overpowering woodsy scent of pine and wolf; and he was all too aware of the flicker of too-strong muscle in Ragnar’s neck as he clicked the latch into place at the other man’s throat.

But, in the end, the enchanted torq was on, and that meant Ragnar couldn’t shift until someone who loved him – truly – tried to remove it.

Oliver couldn’t imagine that moment coming – not soon, nor ever.

Ragnar’s eyes closed, and he breathed harshly through his nostrils a moment, breath audible and visible as steam in the early morning. He went to his knees – Oliver and Tessa stepped back – and stayed there, head bowed, shoulders heaving.

It was Leif who stepped forward, and, first, unlatched his wrists and ankles, and, then, circled around to take Ragnar’s face in both hands.

“Oh,” Tessa murmured, gripping Oliver’s arm.

“It’s fine,” he murmured back, transfixed by the tableau before him.

Leif growled a sound not at all human, and, a moment later, Ragnar’s gaze dropped, and he whined a response.

Leif nodded, and stepped back, surveying them all, his eyes unnaturally bright. “He won’t be a problem.” To Ragnar: “Will you?”

“No, alpha.”

Erik and Rune, Oliver noticed, looked crestfallen.

9

Inglewood

Amelia was in the process of arranging chairs around the long dining table when she heard the drakes start up a glad cry in the yard. A quick test of the bond left her smiling: the other girls were arriving, which meant the humans they’d been left in charge of were as well.

By the time she made her way down the staircase into the dug-up back garden, Alpha’s other three girls were swooping down to land on the grass beside him. There was much nuzzling, and purring, and happy warbling as they all greeted one another. Then Amelia reached them, and sleek, horned heads shoved into her face; warm snouts pressed at her shoulders, and arms, until she’d given everyone a proper hello.

“Hullo, girls. How are your charges faring? No one got snapped up by lions, did they?”

The snort of a horse drew her attention to the mouth of the road, and the tunnel of interlaced branches that led out of the wood and onto the manor lands. Connor, Reginald, and Edward rode abreast, gray-cloaked Strangers walking ahead, spears on shoulders, soldiers from four duchies walking behind, morning sunlight dappling bright armor.

“They don’t look like the finest army,” she mused aloud to Alpha, who’d moved to stand at her shoulder, “but they’re ours, I suppose.”

~*~

The stables were empty, and cleaner than the house – less ransacked, at any rate – and the first hour of arrival was given over to unsaddling, rubbing down, finding oats and hauling water. Her men had brought Shadow along for her, and Amelia spent a peaceful twenty-minutes currying and loving on him, before it was time to get down to business.

“You’ve been industrious,” Reginald remarked as they entered the dining room.

“The place was a shambles, and it was too quiet to sleep.” She’d spent most of the night moving from room to room, searching for useful bits and bobs, checking the cellars to see if any food remained. She’d managed to cobble together a set of mismatched cups, some crude pewter plates that had been used by the servants, and a variety of candles and sticks on which to mount them. She’d unrolled her maps and unpacked her ledgers; shaken out the dusty curtains and gathered old furniture scraps for firewood – had turned the dining room into a war room, and then stolen outside for a few hours’ sleep tucked in the secure coil of Alpha’s tail, more comfortable against his warm side than in the cold, haunted manor house.

There was still the problem of the duchess’s remains to deal with; she planned to discreetly ask her men to handle them, without letting Connor know of the process. He’d remarried, but surely seeing one’s former spouse carried out as a mummified horror wouldn’t be pleasant for anyone.

Speaking of Connor…

She turned back toward the door, when she realized he was no longer keeping pace with them.

He’d paused in the threshold, one hand hovering along the chair rail, expression carefully, unusually neutral. She had the sense he’d caught himself in the middle of an old, familiar gesture; the faint smudges on the white paint told a story of many such touches, the trailing of fingertips along the wood. She envisioned him as he’d been when she’d last seen him in this house, when he’d been a duke with a wild reputation: tall, lean, with laugh lines and a mischievous glint in his eyes, he’d worn his hair short, in the popular style, his beard close-cropped and carefully tended.

Now, his hair lay on his shoulders, his clothes were mud-spattered roughspun, and his gaze held no sparkle, only ghosts.

Reginald cleared his throat, drawing her attention; his brow was furrowed, and he almost looked concerned. He moved to stand at the chair to the left of the head of the table, and dragged it out slow and loud.

Connor blinked, as if coming out of a trance.

“Come and sit,” Reginald said. “Amelia said something about griddle cakes, I believe?”

Connor gave a slight shake of his head, blinked again, and moved toward the table.

Amelia sat down across from Reginald, which left the head of the table for Connor – who hesitated again. “I said no such thing,” Amelia said with a wave. “I said there were sardines, salt pork, and the hardest hard tack you can imagine.”

Reginald snorted. “Delicious.”

Amelia traded a look with him as Connor settled into the chair that had once been rightly his, as lord of the manor. She lifted her brows. What’s going on?

Reginald pressed his lips together, gaze cutting toward Connor, before he shook his head. Not now.

Edward sat down beside her and reached for the tin of hard tack. “Gods,” he deadpanned when he’d popped the lid. “I think I’ll take my chances with hunger pains.”

Amelia took one of the biscuits and added three slimy sardines on top, bracing herself for the worst. “Well, I can’t. Let’s begin.”

Before they’d set out for Inglewood, they’d all agreed that the initial war effort wasn’t one that had worked, or that should be repeated. Armies from each duchy had converged on the capital, been promptly trounced, and then the survivors had been forced to flee across the rolling hills, unprotected manors, and utterly innocent countryside to return to their homes. None of the duchies were properly fortified; there were no thick walls, nor war engines, no moats or ditches or collapsible bridges that could be used as defense against the Sels’ march inland across the country. As they marched back, now, the plan was to establish home bases along the way.

“That’s the way they do it in the North,” Amelia said, dragging forward a sketch that Oliver had sent her of the various castles he’d visited on his trip to the Wastes. “Each ducal seat is a fortress, equipped to handle a siege, many with secret tunnels that lead out into the mountains where the vulnerable members of the household can escape.”

“Can any of them withstand a siege by the Sels?” Edward asked. “Oliver wrote that they smashed the walls with trebuchets.”

“The drakes were what turned the tide,” Reginald reminded. “And yours can’t be everywhere at once.”

“I know,” she agreed. “That’s why I’m thinking it can’t simply be walls – we need traps. We can’t outpower the Sels, so we’ll have to outthink them.”

“How very optimistic of you,” Connor said. He’d recovered his usual demeanor, as they sipped tea and pored over charts; he’d relaxed into his chair, an elbow propped on its arm, stroking idly at his scruffy chin. “Speaking of the North: what of them? Will Oliver’s king ride to our rescue?”

Amelia sighed. “I haven’t asked outright, yet.”

She earned three baffled glances.

“They’ve been busy! With rebuilding, and the winter storms at sea, and the wedding. I will ask, though.”

Edward looked grim. “That alliance was the entire point of the wedding, was it not?”

Amelia nodded. “I’ll ask,” she repeated, more firmly. And pray for a favorable answer.

~*~

“His Guard had him all bundled up. The sleigh even has a brazier in it so they can continually heat bricks to lay at his feet,” Oliver said as he poured two generous cups of wine. “Mattias said this has happened before, and they’re confident they can get him home safe and sound, get him back on his feet.” He frowned as he turned away from the sideboard and offered Erik one of the cups. “You should have seen Mattias’s face, though. He’s devastated.”

Belatedly, Oliver realized what he’d said, and winced inwardly.

Erik – also devastated, but for a different reason – didn’t appear to be listening. He didn’t take the cup, examined his rings, instead, turning the wide, platinum bands on his fingers, so the gemstones winked in the incoming sunlight.

It was midday, now. Náli and his Dead Guard were headed as quick as they could for the Fault Lands.

Leif had taken Ragnar out to what remained of the Sel encampment, to see if Ragnar’s dealings with them might yield some greater insight into all they’d left behind.

Oliver was tired, skin buzzing faintly with the aftereffects of magic, and he needed a drink, badly. He set Erik’s cup down on the window ledge and took a healthy sip of his own.

“Erik–” he started, before a knock sounded at the door.

It was Revna, and she looked – well, she looked terrible. Her usual straight-backed, regal posture was more of a slump; her hair was loose on her shoulders, without beads or braids; and her face was pale, downright sickly, with lips bloodless and eyes smudged with sleepless shadows.

Oliver took another sip of wine in an effort to swallow an exclamation of alarm.

Erik, though, turned away from the window and said, “Holy gods, you look–” He caught himself, but Revna paused on her way toward the desk, head lifting, eyes flashing momentarily.

“Go on, dear brother. I look what?” Her voice held the faintest quaver. Something was wrong, but Oliver had no idea what that might be – unless she was taking this whole business with Leif even harder than Erik. That made sense, given she was his mother, and she hadn’t been in attendance this morning, come to think of it.

“You look,” Oliver stepped in, while Erik’s eyebrows jerked up and down in comical fashion, “as though you could use a cup of tea. Shall I put the kettle on?”

Revna’s gaze snapped to him, and Oliver wanted to dive beneath a table. Good gods, she was furious. “What I need,” she hissed, “is for this bloody wedding to be over already. I have–” She froze. Her eyes widened, face going a shade paler, suddenly.

Erik took a step forward. “Rev?”

She held up a staying hand, whirled, and staggered across the room to lean over the empty washbasin – and vomit noisily into it.

Erik’s sharp intake of breath mirrored Oliver’s own.

It didn’t last long, and a few moments later, Revna slumped over into a chair, dashing at her mouth with the back of her hand. She looked wretched, all the fight bled out of her.

Oliver put his cup down and went to dampen a clean cloth. When he went to offer it to her, Erik was kneeling on the floor at her feet, one hand resting on her knee.

“What is it?” he was asking. “Have you taken ill?”

She accepted the cloth with a limp hand and pressed it to her forehead, eyes closing in momentary relief. “In a manner of speaking.”

Erik’s frown deepened. “Oliver, go and fetch Olaf. I’m sure he–”

But Revna waved him to silence. “No, no. I need some ginger tea, is all. And to be twenty years younger.”

Erik and Oliver exchanged glances.

“That means I’m pregnant, you sheep heads.”

Erik’s eyes widened comically; if his own hadn’t been doing the same, Oliver would have found his expression hilarious. As it was, he choked on his own spit.

“I’m sorry?” he managed.

Erik turned back to her. “You…but how?”

Revna’s eyes opened, narrow and judgmental on her brother’s face. “I know you prefer to lie with men, Erik, but surely you understand how children are made?”

Two bright spots of color bloomed on Erik’s cheekbones. “Yes.” He hesitated. “Is it…Bjorn’s?”

“What? Of course it is! How many men do you think I go to bed with?”

Oliver laid a hand on his shoulder. “I think it best not to answer that one, darling.”

“How observant of you, Ollie,” Revna said, with no small amount of bitterness. For one awful moment, her eyes glimmered, and Oliver thought she might cry. Then she dropped her face into the damp cloth and sighed. “Gods, I’m a mess right now. The mood swings, and the illness, and, just…argh.”

Erik sighed, too, and patted her knee. “Does Bjorn know?”

“Yes. I wasn’t going to tell anyone else until after the wedding – I don’t want to overshadow Rune and Tessa’s big day.” She lifted her face again, expression now solidly miserable. “It isn’t that I’m not glad of it, but I thought, at my age, that this wasn’t anything I’d ever do again. And I have no idea how the boys will react.” She looked between them. “Do you?”

“They’re men, now, and not children any longer,” Oliver reasoned. “I’m sure they’ll be happy for you.”

But Erik said, “I don’t have any idea either.”

“Helpful,” Oliver hissed at him.

But Erik didn’t respond; instead took his sister’s hand and squeezed it firmly. “This is good news, Revna.” He offered one of those kingly, reassuring smiles that never failed to soothe Oliver, no matter the situation.

“It’s horrible timing,” she argued.

“Is there such a thing as good timing?”

She smiled, and Oliver went to swing the tea kettle over the fire, leaving Erik to pull her into a hug and whisper quiet reassurances about the future.

~*~

“Does it bother you?”

Leif stepped over the broken timbers of what had once been one of the massive Selesee trebuchets. They’d salvaged every scrap of wood they’d been about to, but the bits shattered beyond repair were being gathered for firewood; it was a slow process. He could hear the distant conversation of some of the salvage crews across the field, picking through anything that might be of value.

“Does what bother me?”

It was strange seeing Ragnar out in the sunlight, striding across the snowy field. Before they’d departed, he’d requested he be allowed a bath and new set of clothes – reasonable requests, Leif knew, and he also thought that Ragnar’s appearance would be a reflection on him now. No sense letting him wander about in unwashed rags.

He'd gone down into the baths – well, they both had, because torq or no, Leif wasn’t ready to exhibit that much trust yet – and Leif had sat on a stone bench along the wall while Ragnar soaped, and scrubbed, and attempted to draw him into meaningless conversation.

“We aren’t friends, you know,” Leif had reminded.

Ragnar had only snorted.

Now, hair clean and unbound, dressed in a sleeveless leather jerkin, trousers, boots, and secondhand furred cloak, he sent Leif a sly glance as they walked, torq glinting in the sunlight. “Your stoic routine doesn’t fool me, cousin. I can smell how unhappy you are.”

“Unhappiness doesn’t have a smell.” Even though it did, acidic and sour.

Ragnar laughed, head tipping back, eyes closing, soaking up the faint, winter warmth of the sun. “Oh, yes, he’s unhappy. But the question is why? Is it about me? Or is it about the lovely little Drake girl he can’t have? I wonder.”

Leif sighed. “I don’t want to be with the little – with Tessa. She and Rune are a good match, and I’m happy for them.”

“You sure do sound it. So that leaves me, then. Or maybe being a wolf isn’t all you dreamed it would be, hm?”

Leif paused, and turned toward him, hands balling to fists, a growl building in his throat. “I never–”

Ragnar grinned, fangs flashing.

Bastard.

“Stop doing that,” Leif said with a sigh, turning away.

“Doing what? Worrying about my alpha?”

“I hate you.”

Ragnar – and his low, dark chuckle – followed him as he pressed on ahead. You asked for this, he reminded himself. You could have executed him. Could have left him to rot. But even now, with his smug laughter ringing in his ears, and the overwhelming sense of his presence, the fear that Náli’s magic might not hold, the idea of taking an axe to his neck, or of him languishing in the dungeons for the rest of his days, left Leif shuddering.

Physically. Ragnar hummed a curious note behind him, but thankfully didn’t comment.

In the heart of the encampment, they’d disassembled all the tents save one: the massive, gold-braided one that had belonged to the general. It was where they’d found the dragon harness and weapon schematics, the maps and everything else deemed of strategic value. It stood forlorn and slightly askew, now, gold braid flapping in the wind. Even abandoned, it carried a threatening aura, one that Leif had felt the first time he’d lifted its flap and stepped onto its rich carpets. It wasn’t anything the soldiers and guards who’d accompanied him had seemed to feel – some sort of wolf sense. One that caused Ragnar to draw up short a good ten paces back from the flap.

All the humor and mischief had bled out of his expression; his gold brows were notched, and he worried at his lower lip with one elongated fang. Leif’s own gums ached as his fangs lengthened: his wolf pressing up close to the surface of his awareness, urging him to turn back the way he’d come.

He willed his hackles down and focused on Ragnar instead. “What’s the matter? Frightened?”

When Ragnar swallowed, the torq bobbed against his throat. Leif imagined he wanted to shift to his four-legged form – just as he wanted to himself. “These people,” he said, gaze fixed on the frostbitten serpent banner that snapped at the top of the tent, “are not natural.”

“Says the man who turns into a wolf.”

Ragnar’s gaze narrowed, and dropped to meet Leif’s. “I’ve already tried to explain it to you. If you don’t believe me, then that’s too bad for you.”

Leif shrugged, and walked into the tent.

Ragnar followed, growling softly: a deep rumble that Leif read as a warning to other wolves. A spooked beta inquiring after his alpha’s intentions.

Leif chuffed a reassuring sound before he could help himself, running on pure instinct, then shook his head and tried to think only as a man.

“Right, then. This bloody thing has rooms, and we’ve been sorting through them one at a time.” Rich tapestries and silk curtains portioned the wide space into bedchamber, war council chamber, dining room, and a smaller sleeping chamber with a crude pallet that had most likely housed the general’s valet. “The gold we’ve taken back to the palace, everything from coins to chalices, to a truly ridiculous bedframe. It’s all to be melted down and recast for our own use.”

“How noble of you.”

Leif sent him a look, and earned a one-shouldered shrug in response.

“We found charts and maps and blueprints. Most of it was written in their insufferable language, but the diagrams were plain enough, for the most part. The useful furniture is being distributed amongst the displaced villagers to replace what they lost in the fire.”

“Sounds like you have it well in-hand.” Ragnar cocked a single brow. “Which begs the question: why have you dragged me all the way out here?”

“We haven’t found anything like you spoke of: the golden bowl and the black liquid. I brought you out here to find it.”

Ragnar barked a humorless laugh. “You want me to what?”

“You heard me. We’ve not found anything like it in any of the chests, nor on any of the ships. They didn’t bury it in the snow. If you were telling the truth–”

Ragnar bared his teeth. “You know I was, damn it.”

“If you were telling the truth,” Leif repeated, “then it’s in here somewhere.”

“Maybe one of your honorable Aeretollean guards made off with it so he could sell it at a harbor market.”

“The harbor markets are all burned out. You know that isn’t what happened. If it’s real, then it’s here. Find it.” He levered an order into the last, a forcefulness to his voice that he’d never been able to find when he was purely human.

It had the desired effect. Ragnar snarled, but stalked off across the carpets, nostrils flared as he scented the air.

Leif followed.

The useless contents of the emptied chests had been arranged on a long, ornate wooden table slated to be carried to the palace as soon as a wagon was ready. It was all combs, and bottles of strong scent; flasks of brandy and hair ties, and the purple paint the Sels used on their faces in battle. Ragnar pawed through tobacco pouches, snuff boxes, silk drawers embroidered, hilariously, with Selesee serpents, sniffing loudly all the while, hairs on his bare arms standing on end.

“The stuff has an odd scent,” he explained. “I thought it might be oil, being black like that, but it doesn’t smell like any oil I’ve ever seen.”

“What does it smell like?”

“Have a whiff when I find it.” He kept sorting: tins of sugared sweets; a box of gold jewelry missed in the initial searching, comprised of dangling earrings, bracelets, and layers of delicate pendant necklaces swinging gems and cast animal shapes; an inordinate number of brushes, the use of which neither could account for.

When the chest was empty, Ragnar ran his hand along its polished cedar bottom, and hummed.

“What?”

“There’s a latch here.” Sure enough, he pressed into a corner, there was a click, and then the whole lower panel lifted out: a false bottom.

Leif wanted to kick himself for not thinking of such a thing.

“I could smell it once I got all the cologne out,” Ragnar explained, as if reading his thoughts. “Have a look.”

Leif stepped up to peer over his shoulder, and, sure enough, there they were: a wide, shallow golden bowl, and a stoppered, black porcelain bottle. There was in fact a scent rising up from it: an odd blend of licorice and mint, and some other herb he didn’t recognize, but which immediately set his nose and eyes to itching. He drew back, swallowing a cough. “Get them out.”

Ragnar braced a hand on the edge of the chest and twisted to shoot him an incredulous look over his shoulder. “Me? You want me to get them out?”

“Yes, you. Beta.”

Ragnar’s nose wrinkled at the title, but he didn’t deny it. “I want nothing to do with this shit. Send one of your lackeys. Or carry it yourself, if you want it so bad.”

“Get them out,” Leif repeated.

After a long beat, Ragnar sighed, turned back around, and reached into the chest as if he were reaching for a venomous snake. He brought the bowl out first, and set it on the rug at his feet. The bottle came more slowly, held delicately between his fingertips, nostrils flared and gaze trained on it with clear alarm.

Leif reached down and took it from him, heard his relieved sigh as he lifted the bottle up toward the tent’s skylight and inspected it more closely.

Even corked, the scent was strong and unpleasant this close. His wolf turned circles within him, shaking its head, sneezing its displeasure. The bottle itself was perfectly smooth, cool porcelain, not so much as a nick or a scratch. And it was heavier than it should have been, as if the liquid he felt sloshing inside was denser than any water or wine.

“Was there anything else in the bowl? Or just this?”

“Just that, as far as I know.”

He picked up the bowl in his other hand. “Right. Come over here.”

Ragnar followed, because an alpha’s command carried weight, but he did so bristled-up and reluctant. “What are you doing?”

Leif placed the bowl in the center of a small utility table they’d set in the center of the tent, ready to be carted. Its surface was worn smooth from use, and narrow. He motioned for Ragnar to stand across from him, so they stood one on either side of the bowl.

“What,” Ragnar repeated, “are you doing?”

Leif sent him a level look, and knew it was a steady, commanding one going by the way Ragnar’s shoulders dropped a fraction. “I’m going to pour this into the bowl, and we’re going to look into it.”

Ragnar tucked his chin and growled. “That is a massively stupid idea.”

“Why?”

“Because I told you what happened when I looked into it before!”

“Yes,” Leif said, calmly. “You glimpsed their empire, and then you joined their cause. Afraid I’ll turn traitor like you?”

Ragnar showed his fangs. “You’ve never seen anything like this. If you’re so keen on watching it work, take it back to the palace and have the little Drake do it.”

An image of Oliver this morning, eyes flaring bright, mouth open in a shocked gasp, filled Leif’s mind. Náli had swooned, as he’d predicted, but Oliver and Tessa had been shaking, pale and weak, and looking like they’d just pulled themselves from a sickbed. Oliver had grown into this confident, dragon-riding consort who dressed like them and spoke with pragmatic, savvy confidence – but in that moment, Leif had been reminded of how small he was. Erik had looked ready to jump into the middle of the ritual and grab his consort, hands lifting and lowering again and again as he fought to restrain himself.

He snorted. “And have Uncle skin us both if anything happens to him? No. You did this before, and you were fine – save the whole traitor business.”

“I didn’t–”

“I won’t turn my coat so easily. And should the urge strike you, it won’t matter: you’re mine, now.”

Ragnar’s lips pressed closed, and his brows furrowed. “Yours, eh?”

Belatedly, Leif wondered at his own phrasing – it wasn’t the sort of thing he would have ever said before. But now, with his wolf desperate to split his skin and pad across the carpet on four legs, it felt right. It was true, wasn’t it? Ragnar belonged to him, even if the idea left the human part of his brain squirming away from the…the intimacy of the word.

He huffed a loud breath through his nose. “That’s right. Do as you’re told.”

“Wanker,” Ragnar muttered under his breath. “This is bollocks.”

Leif ignored him in favor of uncorking the bottle, and tipping the mouth of it over the bowl.

The liquid poured out slow and viscous, very much like oil, and the scent boiled up, overpowering. Ragnar made a choked sound, and Leif swallowed down his own rising gorge. It smelled wrong somehow, like something artificially created, strangely akin to the Sels’ black powder.

“You shouldn’t do this,” Ragnar said. “We shouldn’t do this.”

“Shut up.” The bottle was empty, and Leif set it aside on the table. “How do we do this? We just look into it?”

“How should I know? I was high out of my mind last time.”

Leif debated returning to the chest and searching for a packet of herbs, something they needed to ingest in order to make this work, but decided against it. They were here, the bowl was full: might as well have a go at it first.

“Just do it,” Leif said. “We’ll do it together.”

He leaned in over the bowl, and with a growling sigh, Ragnar did as well. Their reflections stared back at them, ghostly in the still, black surface of the liquid, tops of their heads nearly touching. They looked, Leif thought, related, the groomed versus the wild branches of the family. A disconcerting thought, one he chased away in favor of this morning’s ritual. He thought of the three of them, eyes closed, brows furrowed in concentration.

“Are we supposed to…think of anything in particular?”

“How should I know?”

“You were there. They must have offered you some direction.”

In their reflections, Ragnar cocked a single, mocking brow. “Who’s to say it has anything to do with us? We don’t have a shaman here. It probably won’t work.”

“It might.”

“And what do you propose to do? Stare at one another all afternoon hoping something will happen? Because if I’m going to be staring, I much rather it be at someone prettier and less grumpy.”

“Shut up. Just…concentrate.”

“On what?”

“Ragnar.” A sharp growl bled through his voice, and Ragnar, blessedly, quieted down. They stared down into the liquid, both their expressions smoothing.

Leif had no idea what to concentrate on, so, instead, he let his mind wander. Let his gaze go slowly unfocused, looking first at his own face, then at Ragnar’s, then at the smooth, obsidian surface of the liquid itself. It was a bit of a marvel, really. He wondered what it was – what had been pressed, and extracted, and emulsified to create it. Where did the color come from? A berry? A bit of charcoal? But there wasn’t a speck of grit in it, as if it was any form of ground carbon. He tried to envision a process that could create such a thing; imagined a bent, bearded man with a pale, Selesee face hovering over a mortar and pestle, adding bits of dried herb, smashing ingredients he’d never heard of from across the sea. He–

The ground titled beneath his feet. The tent spun around him. A cramp gripped his stomach and he thought he might be ill, nausea slamming into him from out of nowhere. He squeezed his eyes shut, fighting his rising gorge, and when he opened them, he was outdoors.

It was night, stars wheeling overhead in a black sky. Before him, backlit by a raging campfire, stood a woman he’d never met before, one dressed in black that melted toward him through the shadows. Hair dark. Eyes a brilliant blue, familiar somehow. He felt a hand fisted in the back of his tunic, big and strong, just as her smaller, slimmer hands reached toward his face.

Everything spun, and he was somewhere close, and dark that smelled of sweat; he was sweating, too hot in his skin, droplets pearling down his back. A warm body beneath him; his hand gripping the back of a neck, fisting golden hair. A whine, his own fangs pricking his lip. Yes, alpha. Please.

It spun again, and he was kissing the back of a delicate neck while she kissed someone else, and it was all three of them together, and there was a gleam of firelight on a silver collar, and it was – it was–

Leif felt a shove against his shoulders, his chest, even the top of his head. He returned to himself with a gasp. He was gripping the edge of the table so hard his nails had turned to claws and were splintering the wood. His hair had slid forward over his shoulder, the end of one braid dangerously close to the surface of the liquid in the bowl.

He wanted to throw up.

He wanted to get as far away from that stuff as possible.

He took two staggering, unsteady steps back, reached to swipe the sweat off his forehead, and glanced up at Ragnar.

He’d never seen his cousin look the way he did now: as if he’d seen a ghost. A whole pack of ghosts. Pale, wild-eyed – horrified. His chest heaved, and his arms shone with sweat, and Leif didn’t have to ask if they’d both seen the same thing down in that black poison. The moment their gazes locked, he knew. In the split second before they both glanced away from each other and schooled their features, Ragnar’s eyes glittered with knowledge. A knowledge that frightened them both, Leif knew.

He turned around and faced the wall of the tent; it felt like days, weeks, months had passed since he’d last looked at the canvas of it. Was it still daylight? A glance toward the tent flap proved it was, that the position of the sun hadn’t changed. But he was dizzy with the sense of the passage of time. He heard Ragnar breathing roughly behind him, same as his own ragged, hitching pants.

They didn’t speak. Long moments passed, and, eventually, Leif’s pulse slowed, his head stopped spinning, and the sweat began to dry, leaving him chilled beneath his clothes.

Finally, he cleared his throat and said, “Was it like that for you last time?”

“Worse.” Ragnar’s laugh was a raw scrape. “I’ll take fucking over enemy palaces any day.”

Leif failed to suppress a shudder. “That wasn’t – we have no idea what that was.” But he’d known, in those visions, that there was quite a lot of fucking going on: a tumble of countless images, layered and overlapping. He was still a little riled up about it, if he was honest. “That could have been nothing but lies, same as what you saw before. Hallucinations.”

“Heh.” Soft footfalls moved across the carpet, and Leif wanted to run like a coward. He wouldn’t; he was the alpha, he was in control here, and there was no evidence whatsoever that what they’d just seen was any sort of prophecy or glimpse into the future. “Gods,” Ragnar said, as he moved closer, “if I’d known all it would take to knock you off your feet was the threat of a little romance, I’d have kissed you years ago.”

Leif reacted. Violently.

He spun, fist already cocked back and ready to fly.

Ragnar dodged away, light on his feet – light like a wolf, cowering like a wolf about to be struck by his superior, head ducking and shoulders jacking up around his ears.

Leif froze, fist suspended in midair. His breathing had picked up again, a rough sawing through an open mouth.

Ragnar hid his face, hair shivering where it lay on his chest, and arms.

Slowly, Leif straightened, and let his hands fall to his sides, though he couldn’t prevent them balling into fists. “You will never,” he growled through clenched teeth, “say anything like that to me again.”

He didn’t wait for a response; turned and strode from the tent, leaving Ragnar to follow. All of his own shaking occurred on the inside.

10

Inglewood

The candle flames danced tall and vicious, the candles themselves burned down to stumps, each stick ringed with long wax drips like icicles. Wax flecked the tabletop, and the edges of maps, and the schematics they’d been drawing and tweaking for the past…who knew how many hours. Reginald had stopped paying attention some time ago, and rested now with an elbow on the table, his head propped on his fist. His back and his ass hurt from sitting. His gaze had grown unfocused, fixed on Amelia seated across from him, her braid unwinding over her shoulder and her lower lip blush pink from being chewed on so much. The candlelight gleamed on her smooth cheeks and brow, softened the sleepless shadows beneath her eyes.

She truly was lovely. To look at. He’d always thought so. With her hair curled and pinned, in a flouncy dress that fitted her slender silhouette; pink-cheeked from the heat of a party, snapping her fan back and forth angrily. But that was the key thing: angrily. She’d always cloaked her loveliness with a snappish temper and a ready dismissal of all compliments and complimentary glances. He’d thought her a cold fish, or perhaps only a pretend one, one that might prove a hellcat in bed. The idea of wedding her hadn’t been…abominable. If she booted him out of bed, he'd always have footmen and stable lads at his disposal.

But ever since the unpleasant dinner at Drake Hall, when the marriage had been suggested to her, when he’d sat with his throat scarred, and his head full of nightmares, and then learned of her secret, forbidden lover, he’d begun to see her in a new light. A light made brighter the more time he spent with her on this (probably doomed) campaign. Her coldness wasn’t an act – nor was it even really coldness. She was pragmatic, tireless, and a little bit ruthless. She hadn’t disliked Reggie because he was a man, but, rather, because he was a man dripping in frippery. She’d rejected the fop, but he thought that, soldier to soldier, they might be something like friends at this point.

“Reginald.”

Oh. She’d been saying his name.

He sat up straight, spine protesting, and blinked his vision clear to find her regarding him with a frown.

“Are you all right?”

“Fine.”

She didn’t look convinced, her concerned gaze far too much like Connor’s had been last night for his liking. What was so bloody special about him that he warranted all this worry?

“I’m fine,” he repeated, pushed his chair back and stood to prove the point. He couldn’t keep from wincing, though, as the backs of his legs grabbed and twinged. Two days in the saddle and a day sitting in this awful chair had left him one big knot. “In fact, we’re doing one captain per watch, yes? I’ll take first shift.”

“Are you sure?” Connor asked. He still sat at the head of the table and Reggie didn’t – couldn’t – glance at him. Instead, he knuckled at the kinks in his lower back and paced the length of the room, peering out its rows of open windows.

It was full dark, now, and cook and watch fires glowed in the garden and across the lawn, all the way out toward the trees. Sentries – Aquitainian and Stranger both – would keep watch through the night, and of course there were the drakes, bedded down in the waves of dead grass, alert to everything that moved or breathed, and certainly able to meet any threat. But the four of them had decided that one lord, or lady, should be awake on each shift, should an emergency arise or if a sentry came pelting up to the manor to sound the alarm. Whoever it was could start tossing out orders while the other three woke and scrambled for their boots and swords.

“I’ll be happy to take it,” Edward said. “I don’t require much sleep.”

“No. I have it.” Reggie tossed them all a wave as he strode from the room and down the dark hallway toward the door. His steps rang hollow in the high-ceilinged space, and the candlelight from the open dining room stretched his shadow long before him across the dusty parquet. He’d been in and out of fabulous houses all his life, but never one that was so empty, so…lifeless.

He suppressed a shudder, shrugged into his coat in the grand entryway, and went out into the cold night.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t expected anyone to follow him, only that he’d thought it would be Connor, with more lascivious looks and deceptively kind arms around his shoulders. The thought sent another shudder through him, when he heard boot soles gritting over the stone of the stairs, but then Amelia called out, “Reggie, wait.”

He halted, and turned back around slowly. In the dancing light of the two braziers on either side of the doors, he saw the shock on her face, and knew the cause of it.

He braced a hand on his hip, and smiled. “You’ve never called me that.”

She recovered quickly, shock melting into a sterner expression. “Yes, well, you march to war with a man, it stands to reason pretense falls away, don’t you think?”

“Yes. Still.”

“Oh.” She glared. “That’s not why I came out here.”

“Then why did you?”

She studied him a moment, her gaze unreadable. His palms and the back of his neck began to prickle with unease. He had loved being stared at, once upon a time, but now, every time someone did, he wanted to turn away and pull his collar up higher over his throat, even if the press of fabric did make him feel like he was choking. He held his ground, now, as Amelia came down the stairs until she stood on the one just above him, which put them on eye level.

The breeze dragged a lock of hair across her face and she tucked it back, her expression softer than anything she’d ever directed at him. He found he hated it.

“Are you sure you’re well?” she asked. “And that’s not just courtesy. I’m asking: are you all right?”

“I already told you yes.”

“Connor said–”

Reggie felt as if he’d been shoved. He staggered back a step, and pressed his lips tight, biting at the insides of his cheeks to keep from releasing the sound that built in his ruined throat.

Amelia’s eyes widened.

Damn her. Damn everyone.

He took a few deep breaths through his nose and straightened his coat; fiddled with his cuffs. When he could, he lifted his chin and said, “Don’t tell me what Connor says. Ever. Unless it’s to do with the war. Socialize with him all you want, but he’s nothing but a greasy outlaw to me. A reluctant ally in all this mess.”

He spun on his heel and marched off down the path, shaking all over as the sweat bloomed beneath his clothes.

~*~

“What in the gods’ names did you do to him?” Amelia asked, setting a tray down on the table at Connor’s elbow. She’d found him, as expected, in the small salon that was in the best repair: dusty, and a bit disordered, but one which the Sels had clearly used for themselves, what with its view of the long front drive and manor gates. She’d started a fire in the hearth, earlier, and Connor had lit candles; drag marks in the dust proved he’d hauled two wingback chairs and a small table over in front of the fireplace, where he now sat, one leg propped over the other, elbows on the chair arms: a lordly pose, despite his woodland garb.

He turned to regard the tray. “What’s this?”

“Brandy. They hadn’t cleaned out the cellars completely – but I think that’s only because they were so thoroughly stocked.” She’d never seen so many bottles and casks in one place before.

He smirked. “A man has to deal with being a lord somehow.” He took the bottle, and poured them both generous portions in the mismatched glasses she’d managed to rustle up in the kitchen.

“My lady.” He offered her one with a flourish – ruined by the fingerless leather gloves he still wore.

She snorted, but accepted it, and settled into the other chair, which smelled faintly of old, male sweat. She wrinkled her nose and took a sip. It was good brandy.

During a party, there would have been an abundance of candles, so that the whole room was glowing and overwarm. Tonight, only a handful were lit: just enough to light the way from the door to the hearth, but too few to chase back the shadows. With his hair unbound, and the firelight dancing over his face, Connor presented an odd portrait: regal features cloaked in a woodsman’s visage. This look suited him, she thought; the role of the gentleman of the manor had always seemed an ill fit, like he couldn’t wait to shed his dinnerware at the end of the night.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she said.

He’d been staring into the fire, but glanced toward her now. “Which question?”

“The one about Reginald. What did you say to him to make him so” – he’d seemed frightened, truly – “prickly,” she settled on.

He chuckled against the rim of his glass. “When is he not prickly? He was probably born with a stick up his ass.”

“I’m being serious. When I mentioned you, he stormed away, thoroughly rattled. What happened on your trip through the woods?”

He sighed, smile dropping off his face. “He’s only being sensitive.”

“Connor.”

“Gods, woman. What does it matter to you?”

“Because we’re organizing a war effort together, and I don’t want it to get mucked up by infighting because someone insulted someone’s mother or some other such rot.”

“Fine, fine, don’t bow up your back.” He patted the air in a soothing gesture that left her bristling.

“I won’t if you answer my question.”

He made a show of rolling his eyes and sighing. “Can’t two chaps have a conversation out in the woods without anyone needing to know all the details?”

“No.”

He sent her a long, narrow look, and sipped his brandy. “It’s a bloody good thing I never took your mother up on her offer of your hand. You’d have driven me even harder toward the bottle.”

She stared at him.

He drained his glass. “Fine.” Poured another. “Your young Reggie has got a bad case of the Death Tremors.”

“The what?”

“Death Tremors. It’s what they call it when you nearly die, and then can’t get over it. Messes with your head.” He gestured to his own. “Makes you shake and sweat and act like an absolute moron.”

“An extended state of shock,” she guessed.

“Right.”

“Then if that’s the case, he isn’t being a moron.”

He tilted his head in mild concession and took a sip.

“If that’s true” – and she was willing to bet it was; Reginald wasn’t the same man he’d been before the war started, that was for sure – “then why would mention of you trigger a reaction?” She glared at him. “So that brings us back to the original question: what did you do to him?”

“Gods.” He drained his glass off again, head tipped back, stubbled throat working. He set it down on the tray with a clatter and stretched his legs out toward the fire, scuffed boots dull in the orange flicker of light. “If I tell you, you’ll only think less of me.”

“I’m not sure that’s possible.”

He shrugged, an uncomfortable-looking gesture, and his shoulders stayed up beneath his ears. “Last night, I may or may not have suggested, being off on a dangerous journey, and without loving ladies to keep our beds warm, that we might keep one another company, man-to-man.”

“Connor. You propositioned him?”

“There’s a war on! It happens! Don’t act so surprised and innocent about it: you were fucking your man at arms.”

Every time Amelia thought of Mal, she started with a happy memory: his head thrown back in laughter, his gaze low-lidded and slanted toward her invitingly from across the stable yard, a secret, heated glance that spoke of what was to come later that night. But invariably, those memories twisted, morphed into her last memory of him: slumped with his hands tied behind him to a stake, chin on his chest, skin cold and waxy. Dead. He came to her that way in dreams that melted into nightmares: gray, skin sloughing off, breath reeking of rot. One moment, she’d be in his arms, heated and ready, and the next she was looking up into a skull, his once-lush hair in stringy tatters against her cheeks.

Connor hadn’t said his name, but he conjured him all the same. Mal, chin streaked with dried blood, eyes sightless and staring, head rolling on a limp neck as she reached to search for a pulse.

She bolted up out of her chair, its legs screeching over the hardwood.

“Amelia, wait.” Somehow, he was up quicker than her, deceptively fast, given his lounging posture, and he caught her forearm as she turned for the door.

Amelia didn’t hesitate. As she spun back toward him, she caught his cheek in an open-handed slap.

The crack of it echoed through the room. His head kicked to the side and he let out a quiet grunt of surprise or pain – she hoped both.

She tried to wrench away, but the leather of his glove bit into her skin. He didn’t hurt her, but he didn’t turn loose. He was no soft lord any longer; the Inglewood had hardened him. He turned back to her with his nostrils flared – but with his gaze full of remorse. “Amelia,” he said, softer. His near cheek was dark, her handprint clear along the plane of it. “I’m sorry. That was cruel of me.”

She ground her teeth and blinked hard. It would do no one any good to let her temper get the best of her…but that mental portrait of Malcolm, a spear thrust through his chest, couldn’t be wiped away with one sorry.

“How dare you,” she hissed. “You bastard.”

“I know, I know. I’m a bastard. I always have been. I think my second wife found it charming.” A fleeting smile touched his mouth, but only for a moment. “They took her, too, you know. My wife. We both lost someone to the Sels’ spears.”

She and Mal had stepped out of the drake cave and into a ring of torchlight studded with gold armor…to the sound of weeping. Connor kneeling in the moss, spine curled over the limp body of his child-bride, her sightless eyes staring into the abyss, blood soaked through her tunic.

Amelia turned her face away, fighting to catch her breath, trying not very successfully to calm her racing heart.

“Cruel times make cruel men,” Connor went on. “My father used to say so – and he should have known, cruel man that he was. I spoke without thought. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“You didn’t hurt me,” she snapped. How could anyone hurt her worse than the Sels had, when they’d run Malcolm through? She’d had the last laugh, there, when Alpha roasted the soldier who’d done it, burned him to a crisp and chewed on his gristle, after.

Connor’s boots scuffed over the floor as he shifted in closer, and she became aware, with a sudden pulse of alarm, that he still held her forearm. “Amelia,” he said, his tone shifting lower – more intimate.

When she turned her head, she found his face very close, bent over hers, and his pupils wide and dark.

“Dear gods,” she said, finally pulling loose – he let her go this time. “You’re disgusting. If you’re this hard-up, go proposition someone’s horse out in the yard, you randy asshole.” He didn’t try to stop her as she turned and stormed from the room. Over her shoulder, she called, “You have next watch. I’m going to bed.”

On her way out, she heard him sigh.

~*~

The cold night air went a long way toward soothing Reggie’s jangled nerves.

He’d had his face pressed into the straw of a cell at the height of last summer, his captor’s hands slipping and sliding on his hips and waist while they panted over him. Later, he’d been dragged out to the hangman’s noose, and someone had kicked the bucket from beneath his feet. Horror had come with the heat; nothing terrible had ever happened to him when he was chafing his hands against the cold, wrapped up tight in a long wool coat and scarf.

The grounds were quiet save the conversations around the cookfires. Tomorrow, when the cooks and servants arrived behind their main fighting caravan, the kitchens of the manor would be thoroughly cleaned, and the house would begin its transformation into a serviceable barracks. For now, most seemed content to sit and smoke and drink and tell bawdy stories; laughter erupted in sudden bursts as he passed; there was much hooting, hollering, and exclamations of disbelief over someone’s tale of conquest.

A few sentries greeted him with a “good evening, my lord,” to which he nodded and murmured a thanks, but he didn’t accept anyone’s offer of a drink or a spot by the fire. They probably thought him a prig, but he didn’t care; he didn’t want to be near anyone at the moment.

He moved beyond the reach of the fires and torchlight, into the miasma of shifting shadows at the edge of the yard, only to curse himself when he heard a twig snap. Idiot. But a hulking shadow stepped in closer, and resolved into one of the drakes.

Odd, he thought, to be comforted by the sight of such a large, deadly creature, but if it was here, then a lion or an enemy scout certainly wasn’t.

It was one of the females who’d escorted their party through the forest. The quiet one with the daintier snout; whipcord thin, her obsidian scales blacker than the night around them, eyes glowing like gemstones as she regarded him, and lightly nosed at his shoulder. Her breath was warm, and smelled faintly of charcoal. Valencia.

He was surprised he’d learned to tell them apart, honestly.

“Hullo there, girl.” He reached, slow and careful, to rest a hand on her neck, as she sidled in next to him and got settled. He was startled, as ever, by the heat and smoothness of her scales. Once you got past the terror of their teeth and claws, they were remarkable creatures. “What are you doing over here all alone?”

She rested her head lightly on his shoulder, and coiled her long, sinuous body around him, a barrier against the dark, and any questing eyes. For the first time in hours, he drew in a full breath, the discomfort in his throat fading until it was possible not to think of the noose.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, the heat emanating from Valencia pushing back the cold and warming him through. The tension slowly bled out of his body, and he found, after a time, that he was resting his weight against her strong shoulder, the deep, even bellows-sound of her breathing lulling him into a sort of trance.

He snapped back to the moment at hand when, with a single, short horn blast, the guard changed for the night.

He stroked Valencia’s neck once more, scratching up behind her horns the way he’d seen Amelia do. “All right, Lenny. I should attempt to sleep, I suppose.” She blew in his ear until he chuckled. “You go sleep, too. Make one of the other slackers keep dragon watch, hm?”

He scaled the front steps of the manor feeling considerably lighter, his words with Amelia forgotten.

Until he passed through the door.

Connor sat at the foot of the grand, double-curve staircase, one hand lightly gripping the spindles of the handrail, the other curled around the neck of a bottle. He was sprawled, boneless and unbothered, knees splayed and gaze glassy in the light of the candle that he’d – somehow – managed to set carefully on the step beside him. It was a miracle he hadn’t ignited the dusty old runner and sent the whole house up.

Reggie heeled the door shut behind him, and the clap of the latch startled Connor, if the way his head jerked was anything to go by.

“Clearly, I’ll need to go and wake Amelia or Edward,” Reggie drawled, “seeing as how you’re too sauced to even make it up the stairs, much less keep watch.”

Connor wiped his face and cleared his throat with a phlegmy sound. He squinted up at Reggie. “What? What time is it?”

Reggie snorted. “Time for you to sleep this off.” He toed the end of the bottle and Connor’s grip didn’t hold; it dropped to the floor with a hollow thunk and rolled away. “Any particular reason you decided to tie one on?”

Connor blinked, and frowned. “Well. Hm. To start with,” he said, slow and careful in the way of the very drunk. “I made a pass at Amelia.”

“You what?”

“Shh. It’s fine, it’s fine. I wasn’t really serious about it.” He moved as if to raise the bottle to his lips, then realized he’d already dropped it. “Damn. But. I did that – she slapped me, by the way. And so I went up to my old bedroom to have a bit of sleep. But there was a dead body in my bed.”

“You are unbelievable,” Reggie hissed. “You’ll throw yourself at anyone, won’t you?” He didn’t want to examine the way that burned in his chest. As distressing as it had been to have Connor’s attention directed his way, for ugly, war-related reasons he also didn’t want to examine, it was much worse, not to mention demeaning, to think that Connor hadn’t fancied him, but had only been looking for the nearest warm body to stick his cock in. It felt nearly like a rejection. “I can’t believe that you…”

A beat too late, the second part of Connor’s statement registered.

“Wait. Did you said dead body?”

“My first wife, I believe, going by the jewelry.” His head thumped sideways against the banister. “It was winter time, when it happened, and the house was cold. She’s quite preserved. Bit like a raisin.”

“Gods.” Reggie swallowed with difficulty, the tension back in his throat. “Did you…?”

“Come down here and pick up a fresh bottle? Yes. Yes, I did.”

Well…that made a bit more sense. Even if it was foolish.

Legs gone watery, Reggie turned and sat down on the step beside him. “Sorry,” he murmured.

Connor heaved a deep breath. “She hated me. No big loss, I suppose.”

“Right. That’s why you’re drunk.”

“I’m drunk for many reasons,” he said, waxing philosophical.

“Perhaps I should be as well.” He rubbed at the back of his neck, which prickled with anxiety. “If you need to soothe yourself by mounting something – which so far appears to be your preferred method of handling your emotional issues – might I suggest one of the goats your people brought along? Lest you get slapped again this evening.”

Connor snorted. “I imagine getting kicked hurts worse than a slap.”

Reggie snorted, too, imaging it, and then they were both laughing: Reggie low and rusty, with his ruined throat, and Connor with the easy giggles of the intoxicated.

“Let this be a lesson to you,” Reggie said, when he could. “Fucking isn’t the solution to life’s problems.”

“I’m beginning to see that.”

“Do you…need assistance with your…wife?”

“Gods no. That’s a job for tomorrow.”

Reggie nodded, stood, and offered a hand. “There’s bound to be other bedrooms in this shithole. Let’s find you one.”

Connor tipped his head back and regarded first his hand, and then his face, his gaze glassy and unfocused. His tone was over-serious, though, when he said, “Reginald. You’re not so bad.”

Reggie wiggled his fingers until Connor gripped his hand. “Why, thank you. I like to think I’m not.”

It took some searching, Reggie holding the candle and Connor clutching at his arm for dear life, but an empty bedroom was found. The coverlet was furry with dust, but Connor dropped face-down onto with a pleased murmur, heedless. His eyes closed, and he was snoring by the time Reggie took a step back, swatting at the dust.

They were a bit of a collective disaster, he decided, a pang of unexpected fondness chiming in his breast as he watched Connor inhale dust, but, perhaps, that meant they were all the more motivated.

He supposed they’d find out in the weeks to come.

11

Aeres

Tessa woke on the morning of her wedding with nausea twisting in her belly. What little sleep she’d managed had been riddled with nerves; the bedclothes were tangled and her hair clung to the sweat that had gathered on the back of her neck. Unwilling to continue the charade any longer, she sat up, lit the candles, and saw by the clock that it was more like the middle of the night than the morning; hours remained until it was time to bathe and dress for the mid-morning ceremony that was to take place in the garden.

Her dress hung from the wardrobe door, long, thick blue velvet picked with white and silver wolves and reindeer. The cloak was crimson, its hem stitched with runes in the old, Northern language that spelled out Heart, Body, Soul – her offerings to her new husband. Rune had a matching wedding cloak that read: Loyalty, Fidelity, Protection. Traditional words, sewn in for good luck.

Jewelry awaited her on the table, new pieces crafted for the occasion: delicate silver necklaces, bracelets, beads, and even a circlet for her hair, set with sapphires from the mines at Silfr Hall.

She would have been richly gowned and bejeweled had she married in Drakewell, but today’s ensemble was so distinctly Northern that it filled her with a momentary melancholy. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her new family, nor even her new home city…but when she’d imagined her wedding as a little girl, she’d imagined her mother there. And her sister. Katherine fussing over her hair in front of the dressing table mirror while Amelia leaned on the bedpost, drinking wine and making smart remarks about the pageantry of it all. Her dress would have been silk, with an empire waist and delicate seed pearls sewn along the square neckline. She would have worn fitted white gloves, and spring flowers woven into her hair. At the foot of the staircase, she would have turned down a long, red carpet and walked to meet her husband-to-be on her father’s arm, while her fiancé waited coiffed and handsome beside the priest.

There was no one she’d rather be marrying than Rune, but she wished the rest of her family was here.

Thoroughly awake now, and more than a little cold inside, she wrapped up warm, and snuck through the palace. The guards on duty all greeted her with nods and murmurs of “my lady.” She nodded in return, and slipped out the rear door, past the empty training yard, and down the snow-dusted paths toward the garden – where she pulled up short, because, sometime after she’d gone to bed, the stage had been set for the wedding.

An ironwork arbor waited just before the gate, offering a view of the gently rolling grounds, the dragons slumbering in white mounds like snow hills. Bowers of winter roses and hothouse lavender had been woven between the lattice, set with candles waiting to be lit, and hammered silver ornaments depicting the gods in their more famous poses. Silver lanterns in two rows marked an aisle down which she would walk, which would be flanked by guests standing attendance on either side. The naked fruit trees had been draped with evergreen garlands and hung with more ornaments.

It was breathtaking in the moonlight, its silver glinting and its shadows intricate on the snow.

“Oh,” she murmured, walking forward slowly down the aisle, hers the only footsteps to have touched the swept-clean snow.

She wouldn’t have her mother or sister; her father wouldn’t be there to give her away.

But even so, it was to be a beautiful day. A joyous one, which the people of Aeres – and she herself – desperately needed.

A gentle, wordless murmur at the back of her mind told her that the drakes had sensed her presence. Smiling to herself, now, she passed under the arbor, through the gate, and across the swath of lawn the drakes had chosen. It had been a gaming field, once, Rune had told her, and might be once more, if the drakes were built a proper a barn of their own. Like all things, it would have to wait until more urgent repairs were completed, but the cold-drakes didn’t seem to mind.

Percy shook snow off his head and gave her a sleepy look before closing his eyes again.

Valgrind continued to snore, twisting to lie on his side, flat-out like a dog.

The female chuffed a greeting and reached to snuffle at Tessa’s hair until she laughingly reached to scratch her chin; then her eyes slitted in bliss.

“I’ve been looking at Northern names,” Tessa confessed to her. “I think you and I have something in common: we’re both out of place, but we’ve found ways to be happy, and there are people who love us. What do you think of Alffinna?”

Elfin wanderer, it meant.

The drake let out a glad, warbling sound, and rubbed her face against Tessa’s shoulder.

Tessa felt her smile widen. “Alfie it is, then.”

~*~

Rune reached the end of the hall, performed an about-face, and paced down the length of it again, soft-soled boots whispering over the flags. It was after midnight, which meant it was technically his wedding day, and he couldn’t think of sleeping.

Bjorn had sat him down after dinner that night – last night, he supposed – in the family dining room. The two padded chairs by the fire, and a small flask of mistress, and Bjorn clearing his throat in a way that suddenly set off all the warning gongs in Rune’s head and let him know that this was going to be awkward. “You see,” he’d started, “er, son…”

Rune had recoiled, and Bjorn and taken a long swig from the flask. “Aye, forget I said that. But, seeing as your father’s gone to the Halls of the Ancestors, and your uncle is – well, let’s just say that women aren’t his area of expertise–”

“If it’s – technique you’re offering–”

“No, no. It’s only – should you not know what to expect–”

“You’re not married! And you’re – you’re – spending your time with my mother!”

“Ah, bollocks.” Bjorn had upended the flask and told him to get a good night’s sleep, grumbling about the fact that he’d tried, at least, to impart something like wisdom.

It wasn’t thought of the wedding night, nor his husbandly duties beneath the covers keeping Rune up, though, despite what Bjorn might have thought. It was the finer points of being a spouse: namely, being a spouse while a war was on.

He reached the window, the night still black beyond its diamond panes, spun – and nearly ran smack into his brother.

“Gods!” He clapped a hand over his leaping heart and marveled, not for the first time, that Leif had become silent and sneaky as a ghost. The beads in his hair didn’t even clink when he walked, now.

Rune’s sudden fright was made worse by the way Leif’s head was cocked a fraction to the side, his gaze fixed and too intense: a wolf trying to make sense of a flighty human. There were times when he looked like Rune’s brother, soft, serious, and easy, the way he’d always been; but most of the time, he looked like a version of Leif who’d been tweaked a few centimeters. A doppelganger, like the old stories: a creature from the beyond wearing Leif’s skin. In the moment, with his nerves heightened already, Rune found it especially unnerving.

“Gods. Were you trying to scare the piss out of me?”

Leif blinked, and the predatory intensity melted off his face. “No. You were deep in your head, though.” He moved to the opposite wall, and perched in the window embrasure there, arms folded. His bare arms, Rune noted; he didn’t wear nearly as many layers as he used to. “Wedding jitters?” he guessed.

Rune sighed and slumped back against the window behind him, suppressing a shiver at the cold of the glass digging through his nightshirt. “Aye. But not the kind Bjorn was thinking.” He shivered again for a different reason. “He tried to have some sort of…talk after dinner.”

Leif snorted. “Is that what that was about? Haven’t you and Tessa already shagged?”

“Hey, now. That’s not a way to talk about a lady.”

Leif shrugged. “I’m only saying.”

Rune frowned. Leif had never been so indelicate before. If anything, he had been the inappropriate one, and Leif the one with an elbow or a smack to bring him back in line. The role reversal settled uneasily across his shoulders.

“Anyway,” he pressed on, “shagging isn’t what’s given me a belly full of tacks.”

The slight lift of Leif’s brows invited him to explain.

“It’s…” He’d never been eloquent when it came to giving voice to finer feelings. He could describe a hunt or a training bout or a win at an impromptu archery contest all day, but talk of feelings always created a logjam of inelegant words in his throat. Now was no exception. “I’m very glad to be marrying Tessa. I love her, truly, I do. But now I’m to be a husband.”

“Yes,” Leif drawled. “That’s generally how marriage works.”

“But my cloak. That silly ceremonial cloak with the runes stitched in it. Loyalty, Fidelity, Protection. I know I can be loyal, yes, but I have to provide protection.”

“I’m still failing to see how this is something to have a crisis about at three in the morning.”

Rune sighed. “It’s one thing to say I’ll protect her from brambles on a ride, or from court gossip, or from the affections of other men. But we’re at war, Leif. That requires a whole different sort of protection.”

Leif tipped his head in concession. “Aye, it is. But I don’t think she’s asking you to promise nothing bad will happen in war. She’s already seen it up close, right here in this palace, after all – and she handled herself remarkably.”

“But she shouldn’t have to. I was up there, falling through the ceiling,” he said, letting his desperation bleed through his voice. “And she was down here wielding a sword!”

“At Estrid’s urging, I’d imagine.”

Rune scowled. “I can’t stand her. Why does Tessa want to be friends with her?”

“Perhaps because Estrid treats her like an equal, and not a delicate flower.”

Rune felt as if he’d been struck. It felt like a betrayal, the sting of Leif’s accusation. “That’s not fair,” he said when he could. “I don’t think she’s delicate – not in the way you mean.” She had fine wrists and dainty ankles and skin soft as rose petals, but deep down, inside, where it counted, she had an iron core, same as any Northman; it was only her manners, ingrained from Drakewell, that made her appear delicate.

Unbothered, Leif said, “Then why are you so worried?”

“I–” He faltered.

“Everyone who loves someone worries,” Leif went on, sounding almost sage. “Uncle was a wreck when Oliver took off on Percy, headed for home without him. Mother lost Father – she knows all too well that loss is something that can and does happen. You can’t protect her from everything,” he added, gentle now. His eyes were very blue, in the shadows, bluer than they’d ever been. “You can’t protect her from the world and all its whims.”

“I know that…But. I wish I could.”

“That’s noble. I suppose.” A trace of mockery in Leif’s tone sharpened Rune’s attention on him; gods, but he was different.

I want my brother, Rune wanted to say. I want my real brother, not whoever you’ve become. A nasty thought, one he dashed as soon as it had formed. What if he himself hadn’t been such a fool as to get drunk and go shooting in the dark? He would never have been alone with Ragnar’s assassin; would have been able to travel north with Erik and Leif for the festival. If I’d been there, I might have stopped the attack. The wolf might have gotten me instead of Leif, and I would have deserved it.

He let out a deep breath that had Leif arching his brows. “Stop worrying about the things you can’t control,” Leif suggested, sliding gracefully off the window ledge and crossing the space between them, clapping Rune on the shoulder. It was an effort to stand still and accept the friendly gesture like he always had before and the wry twist of Leif’s mouth said he knew that. “It’s what I’m trying to do,” he said, gaze flicking away.

Rune wanted to call him back, when he stalked down the hall, or even chase after him.

But he didn’t.

Here he’d been worrying about fulfilling his role as a husband…and his brother was a wolf.

All things in perspective, he supposed.

~*~

Not that it counted for much, given he wasn’t the one getting married this morning, but Oliver wasn’t even a little nervous about the wedding. He woke to early sunlight kissing his face, and Erik snoring like a bear against the back of his neck. He took a moment to smile to himself and bask in the unlikely happiness of their circumstances. For the first time in weeks, he didn’t allow thoughts of repairs, supplies, or war reconnaissance crowd his mind; he pushed all that aside and marveled over the turn of events.

He'd brought Tessa north to wed a king – a king who now tightened his arm reflexively around Oliver’s waist in his sleep. And today Tessa was marrying the boy she truly loved, about to become a princess, already a shieldmaiden with a blooded sword, and a newly-minted dragon rider.

Oh, the strange turns of the world.

Then Erik stirred with a yawn, and a groan, a cracking and popping of joints and the usual grumble about his stiff back, and then it was time to rise and prepare for the ceremony. Tea and pastries arrived on a tray, and it was a flurry of washing, dressing, and braiding each other’s hair.

Erik took his shoulders and turned him around when the last bead thumped against the top of Oliver’s back.

“I was thinking,” Oliver said, “that we–” He broke off when he caught sight of the expression on Erik’s face. The unguarded softness, the warmth in his blue eyes and the small, but deeply affectionate curve of his mouth. “Oh. Hello.”

“And I was thinking,” Erik said, echoing his words from moments ago, “about how I regret you’ve not had a ceremony of your own. A proper display to acknowledge you as consort and introduce you to Aeretoll with all the usual fanfare.”

“Oh,” Oliver said again, feeling like he’d been struck – in a good way. In a way that was only painful because of how unexpectedly precious this gruff man managed to make him feel. He braced both hands on Erik’s velvet-covered chest, marveling a bit at the rings on his own fingers, heavy and Northern and proprietary. “I don’t need anything like that. You’ve made your intentions abundantly clear to your people, darling.”

“Still. It’s tradition.”

“Taking a Southern bastard as consort is tradition?”

Erik’s smile widened. “You know what I mean.”

“And you should know what you mean to me, by now.” Oliver stretched up on his toes so he could murmur against his lips: “I don’t need anything but you.” He kissed him, and he tasted of strong tea.

An hour later, breath steaming in the chill morning air, he reached to pluck a strand of red hair from a crown of winter roses. Tessa fairly glowed, cheeks flushed in the cold, eyes sparkling with unshed tears, all of her suffused with a barely contained joy that Oliver found infectious. He found that he was smiling at her wider than he’d intended, as they stood at the head of a clean-swept aisle, beneath a bower of dormant vines strung with greenery and glittering silver ornaments.

The garden had become a fairytale around them, dragons included. Candles flickered and sunlight gleamed on silver and jewels, and down at the end of the path they’d traverse, Rune stood beside his uncle, richly-garbed, beaming, trembling like a new colt.

This was the wedding Oliver had always wanted for his cousin.

And standing beside his nephew, dark and imposing, face transformed by happiness, was the love he’d always wanted for himself.

“Ready?” Oliver offered his arm, and Tessa looped hers through it. He leaned in to whisper, “Don’t be so nervous. It’s only a little walk.”

Tessa let out a breathless laugh. “I’m so, so happy. I don’t understand why I’m shaking like this.”

“Because you’re happy. And you’re nervous because this is something worth wanting.”

She breathed out, slowly. “I suppose you’re right.”

“I usually am.” He patted her hand, where it lay on his sleeve. “Come on, then. Look at our men down there, looking ten kinds of gorgeous.”

Tessa rested her head against his shoulder, briefly, and he felt the curve of her smile. Felt, too, her joy echoing through the bond they both shared with the drakes.

“Ready?” he asked again.

In answer, Tessa straightened, and she was the one who started marching him down the aisle.

Laughing under his breath, Oliver Meacham, now His Lordship Oliver Drake, walked his cousin down to be married, just as he’d been tasked with from the start.

FINISH

12

Náli knew the moment he woke that he was home.

Ah, home. That hellish place.

For a while, he hadn’t dreamed; it had been only the peaceful black of true, undisturbed sleep. But then he became aware – that lucid state that meant he had fallen into the crack between dreams and the constant, tugging magic of the well. He’d been made to drink that water, when he was only a little lad; he couldn’t remember much of the first time, save its oily, mineral tang, and spitting it all down his front, so that his mother exclaimed in dismay. He remembered Mattias cupping his chin gently, and bringing the cup back to his lips for a second try. That water, its magic, had gotten into his bloodstream. It lived within him still, in the center of each bone, in the coils of his brain, in the roadways of his heart, beating now sluggish and unhappy, as he clawed up through the layers of magic and dream and blinked his eyes open.

Between its natural cloud cover, and the constant curls of dark smoke that trickled up from the peak of the fire mountain, the light was always a dim silver, the same color as his hair. A light that filled his familiar bedchamber, as he turned his head to find that nothing about it had changed in his absence. He lay on the same four-poster, canopied bed, its gray drapes drawn back with silver cord, the feather-tick mattresses, a stack of two, soft and downy beneath him. The same granite floors, walls, and ceiling greeted his blurred gaze, gray flecked with black and white, large, reddish veins running in streaks like claw marks. He saw his trunks, and his writing desk; his table, and chairs, his armoire, and his dressing table and silver-framed looking glass. Lying down, his view through the three, leaded-glass windows was of a bleak sky smudged with smoke.

He'd spent the whole trip back here unconscious. Been washed, and dressed in a soft shirt, and tucked beneath warm blankets and furs all without waking. His stomach rumbled, and his tongue was dry when he flicked it across his lips. The drag of the well was much more concentrated here; it felt as though someone was sitting on his chest; his bones felt weighted down to the mattress.

Perhaps, he thought, if he closed his eyes, he could fall back asleep. But that would only delay the inevitable.

With a groan, and no small amount of effort, he pushed himself up to a sitting position. He wasn’t just sore, but actively in pain, bolts of it shooting up his arms and legs. He gritted his teeth, threw back the covers, and swung his legs over the edge of the mattress. His slippers, gray suede lined with lambswool, awaited him on the rug below. He bit his tongue as he stepped down into them, when the pain crackled through his feet and ankles. His body was punishing him for being away so long, and using so much magic.

Each step he took toward the window winnowed what little strength remained, shaved it off slice by slice, until, when he finally reached the glass, he had to catch himself on the granite window ledge and grip, white-knuckled, to keep from toppling over. His head swam, and the floor tilted, and he had to squeeze his eyes shut to keep from being sick.

When he felt steadier, he opened them again, and then felt sick all over again when he beheld the view.

Through the fog of his breath on the glass, he could see the sloping plains that led down from the Keep toward the Nár River, edged with ice-slick boulders, its surface half-frozen, too dangerous to cross save for at the black granite bridge that joined Náli’s lands with the Capital Road. The snow was streaked with heavy deposits of dried lava, layers of black coils like a vast snake basking beneath the hidden sun. Náli’s rooms had once been his parents’: the Corpse Lord’s suite. After his father’s death, his mother had moved to the dowager’s suite, leaving him here, alone, in this cold stone space, with its perfect, dreaded view of the fire mountain, in all its jagged, snow-dusted glory. It belched smoke at an alarming rate now, angered by his long absence. The lava rock that marred the hillsides now was evidence of small, regular trickles; a true eruption, had Náli stayed away indefinitely, would sweep the land, fill the river, and melt the shepherd’s crofts on the opposite bank. It was that – the threat of innocent lives and homes lost – that drew him back here, time and again, when all he wanted to do was climb on his horse, ride for the coast and never look back.

He rested his forehead against the cold glass, and let it ground him a moment, willing himself to stop shaking – to move to his bureau, don proper clothes, his diamond, and go down the many staircases that would take him to the well. He dreaded the thought – nearly as much as he dreaded the thought of encountering his mother. All things in perspective, he supposed.

The door whispered open behind him, and he recognized Mattias’s soft tread across the floor.

“You’re awake.”

“Unfortunately.”

Mattias stepped in beside him – and then, to Náli’s delight, slipped a supportive arm around his waist, held him close, and kissed the side of his head.

“Mm. I thought I’d dreamed that.”

“Dreamed what?”

“That you love me.”

Mattias hummed, and kissed him again, warm and lingering on the skin of his temple. His breath rushed warm across Náli’s ear as he drew back. “I always have.”

“But you never kissed me before.”

“Náli,” Mattias said, sighing fondly. But he would address it no further. “You should eat something, before you go down.”

A knot formed in Náli’s stomach.

“I’ve brought your favorite.”

He rolled his head against the window so he could look at him, finally, and the sight of him was worth all the grim, bleak landscapes of the Fault Lands, with his cold-chapped face, and his dark braid, and his even darker, warmer eyes. “You have?”

Mattias leaned down to kiss his mouth, gentle and sweet. “Come and eat.”

His stomach rumbled noisily, so there was no point resisting. Arm still secured around his waist, Mattias helped him over to the table, where a small basket of steaming, sausage-filled pastries waited. The first bite left his eyes rolling back in his head. However much he hated the Fault Lands, there had always been sources of pleasure and comfort, and one of those was Agattha’s cooking. The pasty itself was light and flaky, its surface brushed with butter and sprinkled with coarse salt; the filling was ground lamb sausage seasoned with sage, thyme, and rosemary grown in their hothouse garden. Mattias must have rushed up from the kitchen given how warm they still were.

Náli ate three with hardly a breath between bites, before Mattias nudged a cup of lavender tea toward him. Spiked tea, he realized, after the first sip. The gin would give him enough steadiness to manage the labyrinth of stairs he was about to face. He drank it down faster than he should have – to the sound of Mattias’s chuckling reprimand – and then pushed the cup aside with a deep sigh.

“Better?”

Náli wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his dressing gown. “Considerably.” Then he thought of what he must ask next, and his breakfast turned over in his stomach. “How long have I been abed?”

“We arrived last night, well past dark. And now it’s morning.” Mattias offered a soft smile tinged with sadness. “Not so long.”

“Yes, but I slept through the entire journey.”

“You needed the rest.”

No sense arguing. It was an effort to hold his head up. When Mattias poured him a second cup of tea, he took it gladly. “Have you seen my mother?” He braced his elbows on the table, steadying his grip on the cup in preparation of her secondhand wrath.

Mattias’s expression turned careful. “We debriefed her last night, once we’d seen to your comfort. She is displeased with the length of your absence, but looks forward to moving forward with the ball.”

“Gods.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, a headache blooming between his eyes. “The country at war, and Mother wants a ball.”

“My lord,” Mattias said, quietly.

“You only ‘my lord’ me lately when you’re about to tell me something I don’t like. No, I know.” He held up a hand. “This isn’t about a ball.” His hand shook, and he lowered it to the table. “We can’t risk the mountain erupting, especially not during a crisis.”

Mattias looked pained.

Náli glanced toward the window, and the brightening sky, its hazy silver glow. “I suppose it’s time.”

Mattias stood to help him. “Yes, my lord.”

A half-hour later, bathed, dressed in a thin, gray silk robe that brushed the floor, hair combed sleek and loose over his shoulders, he took Mattias’s arm and departed the lord’s chambers.

The rest of his Guard waited in the corridor, two by two in the narrow space, in fresh tunics and with tidy braids that showed no sign of the past few days’ travel. They pressed their fists to their hearts and bowed to him, falling into step behind the two of them once Náli had nodded his acknowledgement. Their presence at his back was a welcome one; whatever lay ahead, they guarded his back.

~*~

Naus Keep had been built three centuries ago as an alternative to the original Corpse Lords’ sad mountain cave, where they dwelled in dust and darkness, faces streaked with ash, hands pressed to the seams of diamond interlaced with the molten rock of their deadly demesne. It had started as a two-story, five-room crude manor house of sorts, built into the side of the now-dead neighbor of the much larger, more volatile fire mountain that Náli had been birthed to quell. A simple place for a lord and his Guard to live. Over the next three hundred years, lords had expanded it upward and outward, the slope of the hill forcing a disjointed, jagged shape. From a distance, it resembled waves and breakers frozen in place: cold granite spikes and rounded towers, its rooflines plentiful and topped with widow’s walks. Inside, it was a maze of narrow hallways and too-few windows, the granite walls flickering with torchlight and shadow, a seemingly endless supply of staircases, short and tall. In his seventeen years of life, Náli hadn’t yet managed to traverse all of them.

Perhaps because he’d spent much of that time traversing one in particular, the one most essential for any Corpse Lord.

Best not to think of that now. One step at a time.

The twisting, turning hallways and staircases were empty save the few servants they passed, bowing and bobbing curtsies in turn, murmuring “welcome back, my lord,” in the hushed tones of a population frightened of his magic. The fear in their eyes left Náli’s belly twisting with guilt. He might be a boastful shit half the time, but he’d always striven to treat those in his employ with dignity and fairness. He wasn’t warm by nature, and knew this well, but he wasn’t a cruel master.

It wasn’t him they feared, but what he could do. His connection with the dead. Though they feared when he was away, too: when the mountain smoked and burbled and the air tasted thick with fresh ash.

The fortunate thing about the Keep’s architecture was that there were rear and hidden entrances to almost every area of the castle; if one wanted to avoid a certain room or hall, it was a simple matter of taking a different staircase. Without having to ask, Mattias steered him down a flight of dark, cresset-lit stairs that curved round and round until Náli was dizzy and panting; a stair that would bypass his mother’s favorite series of salons and receptions halls: rooms she kept cozy with rugs, upholstered chairs, tapestries, and constantly-stoked fires. A comfortable area, to be sure, but comfort was relative when Mother was concerned.

Náli stumbled, his vision going black at the edges, and Mattias kept him from falling.

“My lord?” Klemens and Einrih asked from behind, in unison.

I’m fine, Náli tried to say, but found his jaw was clenched too tight to form words. To his shame, his knees buckled.

He didn’t hit the ground, though. Mattias scooped him up in a bridal carry with the smoothness of long practice.

Náli pressed his face into his strong shoulder and closed his eyes tight against the shame of it all.

They continued down, across a gallery, and down another twisting flight of stairs; Náli knew their path without looking. He curled his toes inside his slippers to keep them from sliding off his feet, and even that was an effort. He listened to the sound of boot soles on granite, clutched a handful of Mattias’s tunic, and resigned himself to the rest of the long, slow trip through the Keep.

Until Mattias pulled to an abrupt halt. Náli felt his heart thump against his knuckles; heard him swallow.

“My lady.”

Oh, bollocks.

Náli pried his eyelids open, turned his head, and there stood his mother at the mouth of the next hallway.

She had an elfin quality, his mum. Small and slender, she was the source of his trim physique. But she was Southern, and rather than Náli – and his father’s – silver-pale coloring, had come to the North golden-haired and pink-cheeked. Living in the Fault Lands, without proper access to the sun so long, had rendered her sallow and drawn. She’d been a flighty bride, according to Keep gossip, and had grown into a shrill and unhappy woman in her dowager status. She wore a high-necked, gray wool gown trimmed with white fox fur, her small hands clenched together before her as she glared at them.

“Hello, Mother.”

Her brows drew tighter together, wrinkles marring her skin. “Náli.” Her tone was as stiff and formal as ever, head kicked back a fraction so she could meet his gaze from his position in Mattias’s arms. Even with all his Guard, and her small stature, she managed to make him feel small. “You’ve been negligent.”

“Yes, Mother, I know. If you haven’t noticed, there’s a war happening in our kingdom.”

Her lips pressed together. “And how do you expect to help that war effort if you aren’t at home, minding your post?”

“I’m a prominent lord of the land. Would you have me sit at home, hiding?”

“I would have you keep this fucking mountain from blowing up!” Her chest heaved, and her eyes blazed, and she was furious…and afraid.

“I’m here now, aren’t I?”

“Are you going to the well?”

“If Mattias is carrying me, where else could you think I was going?”

She did actually blush – a little. Her hands fidgeted together. “You wouldn’t have to be carried if–”

“My lady,” Mattias interrupted.

Náli had the pleasure of watching his mother’s nostrils flare in shock and outrage.

“Time is of the essence,” Mattias continued. “It’s imperative to get Lord Náli to the well. If you’ll permit.”

Mother made an ugly face, but finally stepped aside. “Yes. Well…”

Mattias pressed on, and Náli squeezed his bicep in thanks.

Down, down, down they went, past bowing servants, and open rooms with cozy fires, and past tapestries stitched with the likenesses of his ancestors. Until, finally…

Mattias kicked open…

The Door.

It had no handle for this reason, but needed a strong show of force. It swayed with a groan, and stuck, somehow, to the opposite wall. The scent of damp stone and salt rushed out to greet them.

Náli sucked in a sharp breath.

Mattias shifted his grip so he cupped the back of his head. “Same as ever,” he murmured. “It’s all right.”

It was far from all right, but Náli clutched at him, his diamond a weight against his chest, and let himself be carried down the ninety-two steps from the Keep to the well.

When Mattias’s boot touched the worn-smooth granite of the cavern floor, a warm pulse like a heartbeat started up in the diamond pendant. Náli’s skin hummed and buzzed, shifted over him like he wore a suit of bees. He failed to bite back a distressed grunt, and Mattias shifted him in his hold so he could see what lay before them.

Naus Keep had been built up from a cave fortress, yes, like the Palace at Aeres, and most strongholds of the New Age in the North. But in the other castles, the caves housed hot springs, or wine storage, or root cellars, or escape tunnels. In the Fault Lands, it housed the well. Náli called it that because his father and grandfather had done so before him; in truth, it was a wide, shallow underwater lake, still as glass, white as chilled milk.

It called to him, that well. Not in words, but in the thousand, discordant screams of the dead.

Náli pressed his ear to Mattias’s chest, and clapped a hand over the other, though he knew it did no good. The screams were only in his head, inside his own personal well of magic, laced through all his bones and tissues since the first time he’d breached the surface of that awful white pool. He still covered his ears, though, just as he’d done in his earliest boyhood. Like then, too, Mattias carried him to the edge of the water, though he wasn’t supposed to. Mother had screamed at him about it, years ago. The Corpse Lord was to enter the pool alone. But there were times, like now, when Náli had waited too long, used too much magic; times when he couldn’t stand, and so Mattias carried him…though it cost him.

Mattias paused at the edge to toe off his boots, and then, with jaw set grimly, he stepped down, and then down, descending the shallow stone steps that led into the well.

He’d never said how badly it hurt, or whether or not he could hear the voices, when he was wet to his knees, the tendons standing stark in his neck, his hands tightening where they gripped Náli.

Náli closed his eyes and rubbed his cheek against the warm velvet of his tunic, one last stolen moment of human contact before he was given over to the dead.

Then Mattias was wet to the knees, and it was time.

“Are you ready, my lord?”

Mattias had asked that same question every time, all the way back to the first time, as a smooth-faced boy with an as-of-yet unbroken voice. Only a lad, and already stronger than anyone else in the Keep; strong enough to brave the waters of the well for his master, the boy who couldn’t stand under his own power.

Yes, Náli ought to say. But the answer was no. No, no, no. He was never ready.

He gathered a breath–

And the air was split by a loud, bugling cry, one that echoed off the smooth, stone walls of the cavern and momentarily silenced the screams of the dead.

Náli knew that cry. He turned his head, and then blinked to ensure he wasn’t hallucinating. On the far side of the pool, pale blue eyes glowing, as white as the water itself, Valgrind stood, shaking out his ruff and chittering unhappily.

“He’s been kept down here since we arrived,” Mattias said, voice full of apology. “We’ve fed and watered him. We would have taken him out on the slopes to play. But. Your mother–”

“Ah. Of course,” Náli said.

“She was concerned about the Keep’s…reaction to him. Given drakes are thought extinct.”

“Well, we couldn’t have the maids swooning in the corridors, could we? Valgrind,” he called, not very loudly, because he couldn’t, but the drake snapped his jaws shut and cocked his head like a curious dog. “Stop all that bleating, you great lug. Have some respect for the dead.”

“Not that they’ve ever had any respect for you,” Mattias muttered in a rare show of sourness.

It startled a laugh out of Náli, who tipped his head back into the crook of his captain’s arm and gazed up at him, affection offering a fleeting warmth, a push-back against the chill of his magic. “They haven’t, have they? But I’m their servant, not the other way around.”

Mattias looked pained. Quietly, a soft plea: “Náli.”

He was too drained to shiver in pleasure at the sound of his name. “Put me down, Matti,” he said, and Mattias’s throat jumped as he swallowed, though his gaze never wavered.

A low grumble issued from beneath their feet; the surface of the pool rippled and splashed at the edges. A tremor from the mountain, its hot magma boiling, sending shudders through the earth.

Valgrind bleated out another distressed cry.

They were out of time.

Expression still wounded, Mattias lowered him slowly. His slippers had come off, somewhere along the way, and his bare toes hit the icy water with a shock.

Náli gasped – but the tremors stopped immediately. The water gave one last shudder and lay smooth, the last ripples dying away at the banks.

Arms still tight around him, Mattias stood him upright, until the soles of his feet kissed the cold, cold granite of the stair beneath him. Submerged to mid-shin, the icy chill of the water wrapped around him – and fused with him. He stopped shivering; his teeth no longer chattered. He and the cold were one. His vision turned strange, and he knew his eyes had gone the same cool-cream color as the water, the blue of his rises and black of his pupils lost behind the veil of the dead.

Dread lingered, but it had become a distant sensation, a suggestion of disquiet at his periphery. It was perhaps one of the worst aspects of all this: the way that, in the grip of the water, he forgot how to hate it. How easy it would be to slip fully over, and never come back: nothing but a cold corpse bobbing to the surface for Mattias to fish out.

No, he thought, fear spiking, one hot pulse before peace settled again. He rested his hands over Mattias’s much-warmer ones where they perched at his sides. Fitted their fingers together, small to large, rough to rough. If nothing else, Náli hadn’t gone quietly to his doom like his father had, soft-handed and perfumed and untrained. He’d fought, and he had the bruises and sword-calluses to prove it.

“Matti,” he whispered. “It’s time to let go.”

Across the water, Valgrind paced, tossing his head, grumbling deep in his throat. Náli could swear he’d grown since he met him. Gods knew he ate enough.

Behind him, Mattias made a low, pained sound. A touch at the back of Nail’s neck, brief – Mattias’s forehead, he thought, as warm breath tickled at his collar. But then he murmured, “Yes, my lord,” and released him. Gripped the shoulders of his robe.

Náli untied the laces in front, and let his arms fall to his sides, so Mattias could draw the silk down and off of his body. He heard the whisper of the material as Mattias folded it over his arm, and then silence, save the throb of his own pulse in his ears, and Mattias’s quiet, rough breaths. This was the part when the Guard captain was supposed to step up out of the pool, and leave the water free of all outside influence.

But Mattias never had. Not even when Náli was a boy, when Mother had harped on him in her shrill voice.

How did he gaze at him in these moments? Náli had always wondered. With longing? With revulsion, because Náli was only a half-dead thing, after all, and not a warm-blooded, vital boy like he ought to have been?

Náli took one step, and then another, water lapping up his calves, covering his knees. He walked down the centuries’ old stairs carved into the stone of his ancestral home, the cold suffusing his lungs, filling his throat like Valgrind’s ice-fire.

But he could stop wondering about Mattias. About his face. He had to know.

As the cold water settled in the grooves between his ribs, he twisted to look over his shoulder – and then nearly overrode the impossible pull of magic.

Mattias still stood ankle-deep, ruining his boots. He clutched the gray silk robe to his chest, fingers knotted so tight in the fabric his knuckles had gone white. He leaned forward at the waist, so far that one shove would have sent him sprawling; like even if his feet were firmly planted, the rest of him was trying to follow Náli.

But it was his face that hurt the worst. The unchecked downward curve of his mouth; the knit brows; the naked pain in his eyes, as though watching Náli descend into the well hurt him.

Náli hesitated. A tug in his chest said to turn fully around, to go back, to go to him.

But the mountain rumbled beneath them, and the dead laid their claws on him, and it was too late, now. Much too late.

Náli closed his eyes, took the last step, and plunged down into the water, the diamond around his neck dragging him into an endless sea of white.

13

It was called Nágrindr. The gate of the dead. The underground pool into which Náli had been baptized as an infant, and to which he was forced to return at regular intervals, was what the priests had described to him as a “thin place” in the veil. A point where the fabric between the mortal plane and the plane of those who’d crossed over was so porous that it was possible to commune with them. A place where a man with Náli’s magic might slip right into the afterlife, or where a man without magic might be driven mad.

Náli wasn’t sure he wasn’t mad. Nor had he ever known anything like communion. It was always like being thrown headfirst into a maelstrom, and this time was no different. Was in fact worse, because he’d put it off for so long.

Water made things buoyant, usually, but not so with precious stones. Especially not with enchanted precious stones. The moment he was fully submerged, the diamond pulled taut at the end of its chain and towed him forward and down, forward and down.

He’d gone swimming, once, in the height of summer; in a slow-moving bend in the river, with Danski and Darri, before a scowling Mattias had fished him out by his ankle and hauled him, laughing and dripping, up onto the bank. Then, when he’d been down low among the slippery river stones in the shallows, light had penetrated the surface and dappled the bottom in shifting, refracted tides. Despite the burn of water in his eyes, he’d been able to see the waving tendrils of underwater plants, and the flashing dart of minnow and trout.

The waters of the Nágrindr were nothing like that. With no sun overhead, and the waters opaque as pearl, there were no refracted glitters to light his way; no dart of fish or gleam of moss-slick stones. He could see, though, even though he was underground.

He wished he couldn’t.

He slipped through the bright, pale water suffused in a glow he’d never been able to explain. It was if a light filtered through from underneath, an impossible glow that was more terrifying than comforting. It lit the scabrous hand that darted toward him in stark relief.

Dark, open sores weeping, tattered strips of peeling skin dangling, it grabbed at Náli’s face, and he tucked, and rolled and shot past it.

But it was replaced by another, and another. They flailed, as quick and twisty as the minnows he’d tried to catch that time in the river, darting forward, rather than away. Reaching for him. Until he was surrounded on all sides.

A face pushed through, eyeless, jaws spread wide, jagged stumps of rotten teeth bared.

Another, on his opposite side, its lower jaw stripped away completely, bits of ligament dangling like open shirt laces.

It was here that the diamond stopped dragging him, content and light against his chest once more. This was where it – where his magic, where the dead – wanted him.

He tried to dodge, at first, like always. An ingrained fear that had dogged him since infancy, that couldn’t be fully suppressed by the waters of the well. But then a hand caught his ankle. Another curled around his wrist. And then there were ten, fifty, a hundred of them, pinning him fast. He stopped fighting and floated within that dead hold, refusing to look at any of the rotting limbs that held him. He stared straight ahead, waiting, trembling, and the thing that would come next, the thing that always, horribly came for him, he wouldn’t flinch away from. Pride alone held him steady, helped him keep his eyes open against the soft, weightless press of the water.

Bubbles formed. Ripples. The water skimmed backward off a face, parted like two sheets of curdled cream across a tall brow and narrow, hawkish nose. Its skin was the gray of old stone, pocked and streaked as the curtain walls of a palace. Its hair hung in long gray streamers, and on its brow sat a circlet of silver set with diamonds.

Its eyes were closed, but when it hovered nose-to-nose with Náli, dead, gray neck stretched long, the lids flipped open, and they were the blue of sapphires in the sun. The blue of the cold-drakes’ fire. They pulsed, strobed like lightning, the blue of magic.

The face surged forward, pressed its frigid lips to Náli’s, forced his mouth open, and breathed death into his lungs.

~*~

Mattias was eight-years-old when his mother dressed him in a stiff set of new leathers, a miniature version of his father’s, and shooed him out the door in his father’s wake. “Good luck,” she’d told him, but her eyes had been sad. He hadn’t understood why, then; hadn’t understood until much later, years after he’d bested all the other eight-year-olds at the Guard trials. Father had looked on, pride shining naked on his face, as Mattias proved the strongest, quickest, canniest with staff, wooden sword, and shield.

Mattias had viewed it as a game, grinning and trading insults with his friends, offering hands to help them up once he’d knocked them, complaining, on their backsides. At the end, he’d been declared the victor, and he’d caught his father’s eye and smiled as they pinned the brooch to his tunic.

But that victory changed everything. The next morning, a man with an odd hairstyle – shaved on all sides save a thin strip down the center of his head, braided into a single, slender tail that hung down his back – appeared at their door, dressed as a warrior, boots dusty, face grave. Mother brought Mattias’s belongings in a satchel, and then fled back inside the cottage, muffling sobs into her hands.

“Mother?” he inquired, but Father kept him from following her; got down on one knee so they were of a height, and gripped him firmly by both shoulders.

“Mattias,” he said, and his voice was oddly tight. “This is Master Sigismund. I want you to listen to him. Do everything he says.”

“But why?”

“He’s your teacher now. You’re to be a member of the Dead Guard.” And though Father’s smile was proud, his eyes glittered in the slanted morning sunlight, tears that he refused to shed.

Mattias went with Master Sigismund to live in a crude timber longhouse on the back side of the fire mountain. The sky was gray, hazy with a constant layer of smoke, and the ground beneath their feet in the training yard was dried magma covered with sand. When you slipped and went down while sparring, you left wide slashes in the white sand, black of the old magma showing through in jagged, cut-off shapes like runes. There were no girls or women. Their beds were low and hard, their meals nutritious, but not rich. They were woken before dawn each morning, and made to run a long, narrow trail that carved its way through the lowlands. Afternoons were for study: military history, tactics, rudimentary first aid; reading, writing, and sums. Then, later, there came the sparring.

That was Mattias’s favorite part. He was the tallest, and the strongest, and graduated quickly from a wooden practice sword to a steel one – even if it did have blunted edges. In the hours before dinner, he put the other boys on their backs in the sand, again and again.

He didn’t tell anyone, though, that sometimes he missed his mother’s lullabies as he tried to fall asleep. That sometimes he pressed his face into the blankets and let the wool drink his silent tears.

His homesickness eased with time, and his prowess in the ring grew. He licked his bowl clean every night and heeded all of Master Sigismund’s instructions.

“You’ll make a fine captain, one day,” he was told, and struggled to keep the smile from his face. Not just a Guard, but a captain. His young mind could think of no higher honor.

But always there was that underlying strain: being apart from his family, from his boyhood friends. Games had been replaced with exercises; flights of fancy for learning well the weight of armor. They wore mail shirts, gods-awful heavy even if they were boy-sized. And after meals, they scrubbed the wooden bowls and spoons, cleared and waxed the long tables where they ate; banked the fires and raked the hard-packed dirt floors. His life was half sword practice and half maid duty, and it became routine. Became normal and inescapable.

But then he turned ten. And the reigning Corpse Lord died.

A coronation day was announced for the heir, newly born. Master Sigismund brought him a new tunic and trousers in fine gray wool, and he shaved his head for him; braided his hair in the single long tail that was the style of proper Dead Guardsmen. Mattias’s pulse beat drum-quick on the long cart ride around the mountain, to the base of the palatial Naus Keep, home of their lord and master.

Mattias was overwhelmed by the crowded, switchback labyrinth of the Keep, studded here and there with pockets of soaring opulence. All in shades of gray. All of it glittering with diamonds. He struggled to keep his gaze level and his mouth shut, filled with a ten-year-old’s amazement. He’d never seen such wonders as this, the palace of his duke.

But then he was led into a room carpeted with furs and kept warm by two roaring fireplaces. And a bundle was lowered into his arms, swaddled all in gray silk and linen. A baby, small and pink, wrinkled and fussy.

“This,” Master Sigismund said, voice gone grave and heavy, “is Náli, Corpse Lord of the Fault Lands. His life is yours to guard and serve, Captain.”

The other boys were named to the Guard: his strong second, Klemens, and Einrih, the cousins Danski and Darri. All strong, all quick, all loyal and trustworthy. But from that first moment, when a tiny hand batted Mattia’s nose, and newborn blue eyes peeped up at him, it was Mattias who became the steward of the new lord’s every need and want.

Náli was twelve when, one late afternoon over cooling cups of tea and a detailed map of the Great War cavalry charges, he glanced up, crude joke on his lips, the evening’s weak sun striking sparks in his bright blue eyes, that Mattias felt something like a kick beneath his ribs. When Náli shifted, with one sideways grin, tongue poking against the inside of his cheek, from beloved little brother figure to something else entirely. When Mattias thought, Gods, he’s beautiful, and spent the whole rest of the day and night trying to will the notion out of his head.

It was too late, though. The flint had struck, the kindling had caught, and Mattias hated himself a little more each time he noticed the graceful arch of a neck, or the dexterous play of long fingers on a twirled quill. Silken pale hair chased him into his dreams.

So much of it was an innocent longing; an admiration for beauty and a love borne of years of dedicated service.

But by the time they’d arrived in Aeres for the Yuletide festivities, Náli seventeen, grown, limber and wicked and strong, wit and mouth as sharp as his blade, Mattias was well and truly lost to him. To fantasy. A shame he’d resigned himself to endure for the rest of his days.

Watching him go down into the well had always been painful: when he was a boy, clutching at Mattias’s trouser leg and trying to hide the tears on his cheeks, little chin wobbling; and when he was older, chin lifted, eyes closed, seemingly heedless save the fine tremors down his back as he glided deeper and deeper and finally disappeared.

It was worse, though, watching it now – now that he knew the taste of lavender from his lips, and the fragile narrowness of his waist, the way it fit so perfectly in his own big hands. He wanted more. Wanted so very much. Wanted everything. But always, Náli must return to the well, not so much as a bubble breaking the surface where he’d slipped away. And later, when he emerged refreshed, crackling with magic, he would go up to the ballroom, to one of his mother’s parties, and pick a bride so that the next Corpse Lord might be handed into a boy captain’s arms when the magic finally wrung every last drop of beauty from the current one.

And Mattias would always be this inert, useless thing, standing in the shallows, clutching a poor substitute for the flesh-and-blood boy that he wanted to hold instead.

“Mattias,” Klemens said quietly behind him. Beseeching. Don’t do this to yourself. Come out of the water.

But Mattias couldn’t get his feet to work.

A loud splash from across the cavern shook him from his maudlin thoughts. He blinked, and saw that the young drake, Valgrind, was batting at the water with one clawed forefoot.

“What’s it doing?” Darri asked.

Mattias cleared his throat. “Hey, now. No. Stop that.”

Valgrind bleated at him in clear defiance, and slapped the whole of his tail down into the water with a great plume of white spray. The ripples ran out in fast, overlapping rings, and the water seemed to brighten; it hurt to look at.

“Hey,” Mattias said sharply. “No. Stop it.”

But the drake squealed unhappily, ducked his head, and dove straight down into the pool.

~*~

The worst part about entering the Nágrindr was that the seemingly-worst part was not as dangerous as the actual-worst part. When the icy breath fractured and multiplied in his lungs, Náli’s vision whited out completely…and then returned in a soft palette of grays and browns very like his house colors. The dreaded, endless white of the well water was gone, and in its place a field of rippling gray grass, softly hilled and dotted with little white flowers like starbursts. When he turned around, he faced a settlement: rudimentary timber and sod houses set into the hillsides, fenced with split rails, cows and horses and sheep moving amongst barefoot humans toting baskets, and harvesting potatoes, and drinking blueberry wine in the shade of rough porches.

Here were the first Northerners. The first to spread out from the early, nomadic settlements of the Waste and establish permanent homesteads; the ones who’d taken up farming, and created long, arduous, though prosperous trade routes to the South. It wasn’t a time for kings, or dukes, or palaces. Small-scale lords, generally shamans, had acted as mayors and priests both for the people of their villages.

That was who Náli was here to see.

The villagers regarded him with friendly curiosity. A few lifted waves that he didn’t return. When he glanced down at his own hands, he saw they rippled and blurred like smoke, same as they always did beyond the veil.

Overhead, the rustle of wind in the aspen leaves, and the call of birds. He heard children laughing and cows lowing; somewhere distant, the laughing bark of a fox.

This was the worst part of reaching this plane: the way it felt so very real, and soft, and pleasant. The way it felt like a safe place to stop and rest.

This must have been what Dreki Hörgr looked like at its inception: the start of a civilization that none could have predicted would lead to the palace at Aeres, to a king draped in jewels and fine furs. Here was how it had started, humbly and gently.

Náli trod the familiar paths toward the heart of the village, to the longhouse there crowned at both ends by massive pairs of antlers. Runes were painted in white chalk around the door frames, and smoke issued from the chimney hole at the center of the roof.

He didn’t knock; the grizzled dog lying in the shade of the bench beside the door didn’t stir to regard him. He pushed open the simple, oaken panel, and found himself in a dim, warm space that smelled strongly of fresh onion tops and peat smoke. Even if he wasn’t corporeal here, the smoke burned his eyes and nose, and the onion-smell made the back of his throat itch.

Like at Dreki Hörgr, the fire ran the length of the longhouse, a stone-lined channel filled with kindling, logs, and merrily crackling flames. Three great cookpots on iron tripods bubbled and steamed above it. At the center one, seated on a low stool, the shaman awaited. He lifted his head, met Náli’s gaze with the surety of one who’d been expecting him, then nodded to the stool opposite.

Náli crossed, and sat. The flames licked up between them, casting upward shadows on the shaman’s regal face. It wasn’t gray here, like it was in the well; was ruddy from cold and sun, brow creased with lines from knitting his brows. His cheeks were smooth, but not flawless: a nick along his jaw marked uncareful shaving; patchy beard growth covered his chin like lichen. In this realm, his circlet was simpler, of iron, stoneless, unremarkable. But the eyes were the same: shocking blue, seeming to glow in the dance of firelight as he lifted them to meet Náli’s gaze.

“You’re late.” His voice was clear and bell-like. A melodious contrast to the gravel-rough voices of most men of Aeretoll.

“Yes,” Náli said. “I am. It’s a bit busy out in the real world.”

The shaman – that was how Náli thought of him, since he’d never been offered a name – glanced down into the pot between them and stirred in slow, measured movements. Something alarmingly like an eye bobbed to the surface before it was lost in the bubbles and went back under. “This world is just as real as the world of the living,” he said, tone gone lecturing.

Náli bit back a sigh. “Not exactly urgent, though, is it? We’ve a war on, beyond the veil. People are dying.”

“All men die.”

“Yes, eventually. But I’d rather not meet my end at the hands of cannibals or Sels, thank you very much,” Náli snapped. He loathed the dead for their placidity; for the way time stretched endless and unhurried, with never an emergency to be found. What did it matter to this corpse that he was late? Was he the one who made the mountain erupt? A petulant fit because he’d been ignored too long? Náli had asked him once, and earned only a riddle in response.

Now, though, that bubble of indifference wavered. The shaman paused, hand tightening on the handle of his spoon. His eyes lifted again, the blue even brighter. “The Sels?”

“Yes, great lumbering purple bastards that they are,” Náli said with a dismissive wave. “Out to try and conquer more continents. In need of a good slaying. But no, here I am, watching you stir some poor fool’s brains around in a…”

Belatedly, he realized the shaman was staring at him, something like panic drawn in the lines of his normally-passive expression. “What?” And then, realization striking again: “Wait…how do you know of the Sels? The Great War was long after your time in the mortal realm.”

The shaman did something Náli had never seen him do before: he licked his lips in an obvious show of nerves. Turned loose of the spoon and wiped both palms down the front of his robe. “The dead know many things. We see that which you cannot, Corpse Lord.” But he didn’t sound sure of that; his voice trembled.

“What are you…are you frightened?”

“No mortal bow or blade can pierce beyond the veil of the Nágrindr.” Rote words, ushered through quivering lips.

“Yes, yes, I know. So why are you shaking like that? The Sels have attacked before, you know. That whole war in the South, when King Erik’s father–”

But the shaman stood, suddenly, kicking sand into the fire that set the flames to hissing and dancing. He turned his back, and marched into the shadows along the walls of the longhouse.

“Where are you going?” Náli asked. He stood. “I came all this way back so you wouldn’t blow the whole bloody kingdom apart, and now you’re–”

A sound overhead. One newly familiar, but never heard here, on this plane. An emotive, bugling cry, half-hawk and half-horse, loud and brash.

“Valgrind,” he breathed. “But how…?”

Something banded tight around his waist and yanked him backward. The room swirled, a twist of fire overlaying shadows. His hair covered his eyes, and his ribs squeezed, and he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe–

White. He hung suspended in a pool of white, without a clue which way was up. Something cold and strong held him around the waist; his fingers slipped over smooth, hard scales as he probed at it.

A flash of blue. Eyes.

But not the eyes of the shaman, no. The dead were gone, with all their peeling flesh and weeping sores. In their place, a sleek, toothy head appeared before him, open eyes glowing unnatural blue, a hint of blue edging each scale and the dark, flickering tongue all that gave him shape: a white drake in the midst of a white pool.

Valgrind.

Wings folded neatly at his sides, tail wrapped secure around Náli, he blew happy, open-mouthed bubbles into his face, and then shot upward, clawing his way through the water.

Weak, confused, achy, Náli couldn’t have swum on his own, but he didn’t need to. Within moments, his head broke the surface, and he took his first painful, gasping breath in who knew how long. He coughed, and sputtered, and pushed his sodden hair out of his eyes.

Valgrind, neck lifting out of the water like a great white sea serpent, shook water off his head, frills opening and fluttering. He snorted vapor, blinked vigorously, and turned to thrust an eye into Náli’s face. Inspecting him.

“My lord!” Mattias called from the shore, voice full of worry.

“I’m all right.” And he was. As he became reoriented in his proper plane, able to tread water and keep himself afloat, Náli found that his exhaustion was draining away, leaking like wine from a tapped barrel. “I’m all right,” he repeated, and laid a wondering hand on Valgrind’s neck.

The drake trilled a glad nose and set to licking his face with his cold, blue tongue.

Every time he went down into the well, it became harder and harder to disengage from the village; from the shaman and his cryptic, slow speech. More difficult to find his way back through the gaps in the weave and into the pool. The last time, he’d nearly drowned; he’d lied about that to Mattias, not wanting to worry him.

But this time. This time Valgrind had come diving after him. Had dragged him back.

“You bloody marvel,” he murmured, and Valgrind stuck his tongue in his ear.

14

“What do you mean?” Mattias asked that evening, frowning from his chair by the fire in Náli’s bedchamber.

Náli paced the length of the rug that ran alongside his bed, hem of his robe trailing along the floor behind him, worrying the diamond around his neck with restless fingertips. “I’ve never seen him unsettled before. He never even gets up! The old goat just sits there, stirring, talking in circles, acting so much wiser than me. But this time, he was nervous. That has to mean something.”

“And he didn’t appear that way before you mentioned the Sels?”

“No. Same as ever until then.” He paused, and only after he’d done it realized he’d brought the bottom of the diamond up to tap against his lips. He let it fall to his chest and stood up straighter. “Remember what that general said back at Aeres? Before Erik liberated his head from his shoulders?”

Mattias’s frown deepened. “He was raving.”

“Yes, but he mentioned the ‘old blood.’ Remember? He said that the Drake magic had been stolen – from them, presumably. He said, ‘The magics of this land will bend to the emperor’s will.’ Maybe they really did steal it. The shamans, I mean. And that’s what old Blue Eyes was so afraid of. He knows he stole his power and that the Sels might one day want it back.”

Mattias wore the face of a man who didn’t want to give voice to the words that had built on his tongue.

“What?” Náli prompted.

Mattias tipped his head to a careful angle. Always the respectful, mannerly Guard captain. Náli wondered how much effort it would take to break him of that behavior. “That may well be true. Everything he said. Or he could have been lying. Sowing seeds of doubt. You saw the king’s reaction: a nerve was struck.”

“His nerves are painfully easy to hit. But no, listen. What if it was the truth? What if the magic of this nation, of Aquitania, came from Seles?”

Mattias met his gaze. “What if it was?” He was struggling to understand Náli’s excitement.

And it was excitement.

He went to perch on the edge of the chair across from Mattias, the fire warm against the side of his face. “Every time I go into that blasted well,” he said, “that vulture there reminds me of my sacred duty. Tells me how delicate my magic is: it must be handed down through the blood…blah, blah, blah. The same old story Mother’s been giving me my whole life. It’s why I have to produce an heir, and quickly. Only my father’s bloodline can cross over, greet the dead, and keep the mountain quiet. I’ve always thought of it as my magic. My family’s magic.

“But what if it isn’t? What if it was stolen? And if it is, it somehow interacts with the Drake magic.”

Mattias looked unhappy. “There’s a difference between making friends with dragons and literally raising the dead, Náli.”

Náli. His name, now. If they’d dropped the “my lord,” then maybe he could tease out Mattias’s true feelings on the matter.

“Yes, but perhaps those magics aren’t as discrete and separate as we thought. Why did Valgrind pick me? We marched with hundreds of men, and it was me he singled out. His magic drawn to mine.”

“Yes, but…”

“And he came into the pool! No one and nothing enters the water save me!”

“I do,” Mattias said, quiet, troubled.

“Yes, of course you do, because you’re too bloody wonderful and you’ve had to carry my worthless carcass all these years when I waited too long like a whimpering infant. But.” The excitement built and bubbled; shifted under his skin like insects. He popped back to his feet and started pacing again. “You never go in over your head. And even if you did, you wouldn’t be able to cross over, the way I have to. You couldn’t ever get to meet the riddling bastard who sits there stirring bone broth. Not that you’d want to, but still. Valgrind came through! I think he did. I could hear him there. And he dragged me back out! Nothing’s ever done that. There are times I’m sure I’ll drown before I can break the surface, but I–”

Oh. Wait. Oops.

He whirled, and saw that the damage was done. In his mounting enthusiasm, he’d let slip words he shouldn’t have, and Mattias’s face had gone blank and wide-eyed with shock.

“I meant–”

“Drown?” Mattias’s voice was hoarse. At first. And then it cracked like a whip. “You were sure you’d drown?”

Náli tried and failed to recall a time when he’d sounded angry with him. The sound of it now left him feeling two feet tall. Mother hated him, every tutor he’d ever had had sniffed and tutted. But Mattias had been his shining beacon of kindness. His endless well of patience.

He knew what Mattias looked like furious. But it was a look that had never been directed at him.

Until now.

Slowly, he gripped the arms of his chair and pushed up to his feet. His face settled into a jarring collection of aggressive angles, eyes black in the firelight, head tucked in that throat-guarding, ready-to-charge posture he donned when he felt called to defend Náli.

“Matti,” Náli said, appealing to sentiment.

To no avail. Mattias closed the distance between them in three long strides, so that he loomed over him, his glare stunning in its intensity. When he spoke, he bit off each word, succinct and sharp-edged. “You thought – you were sure – that you would drown?”

Náli sighed. There was no walking back on his word, now. Mattias would never believe he’d exaggerated, not when he was this angry. “Well, yes, I was – but! I never did, and that’s what counts.”

“You–” Mattias cut off whatever he was going to say with a click of teeth meeting. His nostrils flared, and a muscle in his jaw flexed, and he turned away, hands balled to fists at his sides as he marched back toward the hearth.

If pressed, Náli would have admitted that seeing that flare of aggression had been thrilling. Just once he wanted to push Mattias outside of his role as Guard. He’d thought he’d managed that, back at Aeres, when he’d earned a kiss and a pained admission dragged up from the depths of a soul long used to suppressing all its wants. But things had gone no further. He was still “my lord,” and Mattias had spent the past half-hour sitting across from him, hands empty, the height of propriety.

Bugger that.

Náli propped his hands on his hips; watched Mattias resume his seat, legs braced a belligerent width apart, gaze fixed on the fire. He felt his lips curl into a silent snarl. “Honestly, Mattias, what did you think it was like?”

A long beat passed, one which Náli filled with an impatient tapping of his slippered toe.

“Do you think it’s like a dip in the river in summer? Like daring each other to plunge through the fishing holes in winter and see who lasts the longest?”

A gaze darted over, briefly guilty, because he clearly hadn’t known that Náli knew of some of their rare, youthful hijinks, glimpsed from Náli’s window when he was supposed to be resting. Mattias had only done it once, in Náli’s whole acquaintance with him. Mother and a nurse had been tending to him – far less capable sickbed attendants than Mattias – and Mattias, finally driven from the room by Mother’s snappish insistence, had joined the other four Guards out on the grounds, at the edge of the river, no bigger than poppets from a distance. Náli had hitched a blanket around his shoulders – “Come back to bed this instant!” – and sat in the window ledge, aching with boyhood longing for fun, for adventure, as he watched his Guards strip naked and leap, shrieking like fools, into the frigid water.

Mattias had been the most beautiful, of course. Náli’s one glimpse of him without his usual tunic and armor, stolen and too far off.

An unhelpful reminiscence, at the moment.

“Did you think it was without risks?” he pressed.

“Of course not,” Mattias said, voice thick. “I knew–”

“That I go beyond the veil of the living, beneath that water? That I am no longer alive when I’m floating suspended in that horrid water? I’m dead, then. That’s the only explanation.”

“Náli.”

“How long am I under? Fifteen minutes? Twenty? An hour? No mortal can hold his breath that long.”

“Your magic–”

“Is a plague!” Náli hissed. “One that I might be able to get rid of if it turns out it isn’t mine in the first place! I’ve been trying to tell you that, and you won’t bloody listen. Do you think I enjoy this?”

Mattia’s eyes glittered. “I know you don’t.”

“When I’m down there, when I finally, finally manage to remember that I’m talking to a dead man, and that he’s sucking magic out of my throat to fuel – I don’t fucking know – undead birdsong or something! Then I open my eyes, and I’m still underwater, and I can’t tell which way to swim, and my arms are like lead, and yes, yes, I almost drown. Every time I go under, I die for a while, come back to life, and almost die again. It’s a miracle every time I ascend those steps.” He snorted. “Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe if I’d bother to stay dead for once–”

Mattias shot up with a roar. “Stop saying that!”

Náli was shocked to silence. Could only watch, agape, as Mattias physically wrestled with his anger; it looked painful.

Voice rough and unsteady, Mattias said, “Stop talking about being dead. Stop calling yourself a carcass. I don’t…I cannot…” He pinched the bridge of his nose and turned away, shoulders heaving with a deep breath that rattled on its way back out.

“You…” Too late, it struck Náli then: all that he’d said and how it had sounded to Mattias. “Oh,” he murmured.

“Oh, he says,” Mattias said, back still to him, spine rigid. “Oh.”

Careful, as he would approach an animal in the wild, Náli crept up to stand beside him, and saw the harsh lines of resignation stamped into his downturned face. “Matti.”

No response.

Náli wrapped one curled-tight fist in both of his hands. The skin was warm; Mattias had always been so very warm. More than anything, Náli wanted to feel that heat against him, all of it, without a single barrier between them. “Matti,” he said again. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Yes, you did.”

“No – truly, I didn’t. I only meant to help you understand.”

“You think I don’t?” He sighed, and sounded exhausted afterward; shockingly so. “Do you think I haven’t known, since the moment they placed you in my arms as an infant, that the greatest threat you faced was one I couldn’t keep from you?”

“I–”

“I knew,” Mattias pressed on, “that, as the years wore on, your magic would take a greater and greater toll on you. That you would weaken, and gray, and shrivel, just as your father had done. That I would – lose you.” His voice caught, choked-sounding. He took a shallow, unsteady breath, fist tightening in Náli’s hold. “I could face an army for you – I would. I would slay any man or beast, climb any mountain, ford any river. I have trained my entire life with the sole purpose of protecting you.

“But I can’t save you from your destiny.” When he exhaled, he seemed to deflate; if it weren’t for the iron strength of the clenched fingers against Náli’s palm, he would have looked nearly fragile in that instant. Defeated.

“I have always known,” he said, “that some day far sooner than is tolerable, I will be forced to hang up my sword and shield, don the white of mourning, and go spend the rest of my days in seclusion, grieving. A knowledge that is the surest of my life. And then,” his voice took on a bitter edge, “you call yourself a carcass.”

“Unthinkingly,” Náli said, pushing up the edge of his sleeve so he could pet over the sturdy knobs of his wrist. The hair of Mattias’s forearm bent downy-soft beneath his fingertips. “I’m unpleasant. You know that. I let my anger get the best of me, and I hurl insults – even at myself, yes. Everyone knows I’m a miserable little–”

Mattias’s thumb pressed to his lips, silencing him. He’d moved in a flash, between one blink and the next, so they faced one another. Náli was quick – too quick to fall to a move from someone so much larger and more obvious than him – but Mattias wasn’t a threat, had never been, and so he hadn’t been anticipating that flash. Nor the way Mattias looked down at him, pinning his lips shut with just that one touch.

“Whatever you’re about to call yourself, don’t,” Mattias said, in the steely, unrelenting tone of the sword master he’d so often served as in their relationship. “You wanted me to understand, you said. To know what it felt like to cross the Nágrindr and meet with the dead. And I want you to understand that it cuts like a knife each time you speak of the person I love most in the world with contempt and malice.”

The words landed as a blow and epiphany both. “Oh,” Náli said, and felt the widening of his eyes.

“Yes. Oh,” Mattias repeated.

He reached up to tug the thumb away from his mouth. “To clarify: when you say the person you love most in the world…”

Mattias’s eye twitched.

Náli grinned. “Just checking.”

A knock sounded at the door, and Náli wanted to throttle whoever was on the other side. He stepped around Mattias and tugged the belt of his robe tighter. “Yes? What is it?” he called out in his Court Voice, the one made for decrees and mocking, public-display quips.

The door opened a fraction to reveal Klemens, face very blank in a way that made it impossible to tell how far away he’d been standing at his post, and whether or not he’d overheard their conversation. They hadn’t exactly been whispering for most of it, Náli recalled with an internal wince.

“My lord,” Klemens said, “your lady mother is requesting–”

Náli cut him off with a groan, reaching to massage at the immediate headache that sprouted along his temples. “Supper. Yes, yes. Tell her I’ll be along shortly.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Náli sighed when he was gone.

The fire popped, and boot soles whispered near-silent across the granite floors. He anticipated an approach, strong hands landing on his hips. He hoped for that.

But when none came, and he turned, he found Mattias standing at his upright wardrobe, sorting through his good dinner clothes.

With another sigh, this one soundless, he shed his robe and set about arranging his hair.

~*~

Dinner with his mother was, as ever, a stilted, frigid affair.

She took most of her meals in her favorite salon, alone or with one of her ladies in waiting, few and feckless as they were. She couldn’t tolerate solid, decisive women like Revna Frodesdottr. Even young Tessa Drake might have proven too fiery a companion. She and her whey-faced friends nibbled at Southern-style sandwiches each afternoon in the hazy light let in by the third-floor windows.

But supper she took in the formal dining hall. The one that, in an ordinary household, would have been reserved for formal occasions. The table was a long, single slab of nearly-black granite that seated twenty-six, its legs of heavy cast iron, its chairs high-backed, pale ash wood, seats covered in bristly white bear hide. Iron candelabra interspersed with granite-bottomed candlesticks marched down the table’s center, flames flickering and tallow dripping down to the tabletop, left to dry in little piles the servants would have to scrape, and peel, and scrub away later.

A fire crackled in the hearth, but the room was too vast, with its high, barreled ceiling and its cold, condensation-slick walls for its heat to reach far. Mother sat at the foot, and Náli sat at the head, wrapped in gray wolf fur against the chill.

Náli tried twice to broach the subject of the war, and all that he’d seen and done in his time away from the Fault Lands, but Lady Serafina dismissed the topic with a sharp, “Hardly appropriate discussion over supper.”

He closed his mouth – and kept it that way, as she pivoted the conversation to the ball, and never wavered from the topic for the rest of the meal.

His appetite was always up after he’d gone in the well, his magic replenished, even if his vitality wasn’t, and hunger was all that kept him in his chair as she waxed on and on about the coming festivities. The ball was to be held in four days’ time, and she was already fretting over decorations, food, and the number of required chairs. She wanted to go with a spring theme, she said, in keeping with the Southern balls of her youth, but with the war on, it was impossible to secure the flowers necessary for such a thing. Numb, Náli shoveled baked trout into his mouth, shocked and yet not shocked at all to hear her complain of the war’s inconvenience with regard to the imported wines available.

She’d wanted, she said, to invite a wider variety of eligible young ladies. (That phrase left him shuddering beneath his furs.) But, once again blaming the war with the air of someone who would blame a dog for shitting on a nice rug, she’d had to content herself with Fault Land daughters and coastal heiresses. Still a wealth of choice, she’d assured, with a pointed look down the table that said what’s wrong with you? How can you not choose already?

Náli’s supper turned to ash on his tongue, but he ate it anyway, wanting the energy.

Throughout the meal, his Guard stood in full attendance along the wall, impassive and unmoving. Náli kept sneaking glances at Mattias, but the only sign he’d taken note of any of the conversation was the occasional flicker of a muscle in his cheek.

After, when Serafina had dabbed her colorless lips with a napkin, stood, and been led from the room by a lantern-bearing footman in her father’s household livery from back home, Náli pushed back his chair to the quiet clink of all five of his Guardsmen clapping their fists to their hearts in salute, heavy wrist bracers striking the badges of honor on their chests. They moved seamlessly as they fell into formation around him when he left the table, none having to hurry, no one jostling or crowding him. Mattias in front of him, the other four two-by-two behind him.

Had things gone differently in the well today, and after a dinner such as the one he’d just endured with his mother, he would have normally wanted to scream and throw things in the face of such practiced, dedicated service. He wanted to live. He wanted to be normal. He didn’t want to have five nursemaids frown over his morning porridge and suggest he have some more; or be guarded from the other side of the garderobe door lest he require his Guard’s assistance in the middle of his necessities.

But tonight, an odd mood had settled over Náli.

No: tonight, he had an idea. Tonight, he possessed a thrilling, illicit theory that was in need of testing.

Back in his chamber, Mattias laid out his nightshirt and robe, stoked his fire, poured a cup of water and set it on his bedside table, swung a kettle over the hearth to heat water for his Náli’s tea. His expression was troubled, and his eyelids flagged low, betraying his fatigue. Náli had no doubts that he hadn’t slept for the entirety of their journey, nor since they’d arrived.

The person I love most in the world.

The words left a warm ache in Náli’s chest. A wonder, a reassurance, a reason to try, and try, and try again, to keep testing and teasing.

But not tonight. Tonight, he needed Mattias to go to bed.

“You seem tired,” he said, from the other side of his seal-hide screen as he undressed and washed with a cloth and warm water. “You should turn in. Let Einrih keep watch.”

Mattias didn’t respond, and when Náli stepped out from behind the screen, doing up the laces of his shirt, he found him frowning. “We were…interrupted. Before,” he said, hesitantly.

Náli fought to keep his expression composed. Mattias wanted to stay. He wanted to talk more; was encouraging a return to that fraught and intimate conversation before supper.

But there was no way Náli could sneak out if Mattias was the one on guard. “No, but we can finish our discussion later,” he said, with the air of the lord, rather than the boy who wanted so very much. He hated himself for it – and for Mattias’s brief, quickly concealed crestfallen expression.

Náli offered a smile. “Besides. We’re home now, and safe, and you’re exhausted. And if I have my way, I’d rather breakfast with you than anyone else. You won’t be good company if you fall asleep in your porridge bowl.”

Mattias’s lips plucked to the side unhappily, but he nodded, and moved to the door. “Good night, my lord.”

“Good night.”

When he was gone, Náli pressed his face into his hands a moment with a quiet groan. My lord. When would that end?

~*~

His bed had been turned down while he was at supper, by one of the few heavily-researched servants allowed into his wing of the Keep. Náli didn’t climb beneath the covers, though. He waited a few minutes, quiet, listening, in case Mattias came back for some reason. He did that, sometimes. Often, actually. Said that he’d forgotten to clear a dish when he had, wondering if Náli needed another blanket, or asking if he’d cried out, just now, in need of something.

Ploys, Náli now realized, in the wake of the person I love most in the world. Chances to steal one more glimpse, one more smile. Stolen togetherness, disguised by duty.

It was enough to fill him with pleasant tingles, cheeks heated and fingers restless for touch.

But no. His theory.

When he felt certain Mattias had gone to bed, he pulled on his robe and used its length to disguise the fact that he wore boots rather than slippers. Then he tiptoed to the door and peeped out, schooling his features into a sleepy expression.

As expected, a figure stood in silhouette at the end of the hall, cast in flickering light from the cressets on the wall. He knew right away it wasn’t Mattias, from the shoulders, so it must have been Einrih, set on duty by Mattias on his way to his chamber.

In the interest of security, the Corpse Lord’s chambers sat at the end of a hallway flanked only by the bedchambers of his Dead Guard. No one else lived in this part of the Keep. Sometimes that felt lonely, but tonight, it was a boon.

“Einrih?” he called, loud as he dared. Mattias’s chamber was nearest, and though he ought to have passed out the moment his head hit the pillow, he didn’t want to risk waking him.

Einrih turned at once. “My lord?” He strode down the hall and reached him before Náli could beckon him closer.

Náli shifted his brows and mouth into an expression that Mattias had always called dangerous, even before his confession, and the kisses. Einrih didn’t gaze on him the way Mattias did, but he wasn’t unaffected, Náli could tell. “I’m having trouble sleeping,” he said in a small, uncertain voice that left him with the sudden urge to laugh. It was an effort to keep his face properly demure.

“The lavender tea–” Einrih began.

“No, that’s no good. I’ve drunk it already. And I think, given how long I slept on the way here…”

Einrih frowned. “But you must rest to build your strength back up.”

“I know. So I was wondering…” He held one hand against the door, and fiddled with the ties of his robe with the other; shifted his weight to one foot and adopted a childish pose. “Does Darri still have some of that blackleaf weed?”

Einrih’s brows lifted, and then lowered. He frowned. “I don’t–”

Think that’s a good idea, Náli could imagine. He interrupted. “Won’t you please ask him? Please? It always relaxes me, and I’m so restless tonight.”

Einrih hesitated, scratching at the back of his neck, making faces. Finally, he nodded. “I’ll go check if he has any.”

“You’re positively indispensable.”

Einrih snorted as he walked away.

Náli waited; watched him reach Darri’s door and rap once, lightly, before letting himself in. Sound filtered out into the hallway, muffled and indistinct, and a warm puddle of candlelight, before Einrih ducked inside and pulled the door mostly to behind him.

Náli had spent his entire life surrounded by his Guard. He’d never known loneliness, nor privacy; had lived always as a fragile ornament encircled by snarling dogs that kept others at bay. They could tell when he was tired, when he was hungry; knew every trick of keeping him hale and healthy, though he’d become more resistant to their efforts as of late. No one had ever addressed it directly, but they all knew Mattias was his favorite – perhaps more than a simple favorite, given their occasional glances. They knew him.

But he wondered if they knew that such knowledge went both ways; that he knew them as well.

He’d suggested Einrih to Mattias for a reason. Asked for Darri’s blackleaf weed for a reason, also. He caught up the tail of his robe and hurried down the hall, walking silently on the balls of his feet.

He paused for a handful of seconds and stole a peek through the cracked door, anticipating what he’d see there. Darri lay across his bed, on his back, Danski between his spread thighs, both of their strong bodies naked and glistening with sweat in the rosy glow of the candles. Einrih had been drawn into things: a hand braced on the edge of the mattress, bent at the waist so he could kiss Darri upside-down.

Náli had first caught the three of them tangled up when he was eight, another stolen glimpse through a partially open door. Then, his face had flamed, and his belly had squirmed, and he’d gone pelting out to the yard to find Mattias and ask him about it. Mattias’s face had turned red and he’d stuttered through an awkward explanation before begging Náli not to tell his mother or anyone else what he’d seen. Seeing them now, Náli felt a stir of arousal, and a hard squeeze of longing. His Guard, though unmarried and childless, perfectly comported in public spaces, hadn’t been able to maintain their vows of chastity. Those three had worked out an arrangement that kept things private and secret between them. Klemens picked his women carefully.

Only Mattias remained chaste. Even when Náli more or less threw himself at him.

With an inward sigh, he continued down the hall, sure that the blackleaf was long-forgotten, and that he had a stolen half-hour or so before anyone came searching for him.

The halls were empty this late, save the occasional servant darting for a rendezvous, none of which did more than squeak in surprise at him, murmur courtesies, and go slinking off into the shadows. The cressets were equipped with enough oil to last the night, and so the way was lit and easy; he was jogging by the time he reached the top of the staircase that led down to the well, holding his robe up off the floor so it didn’t drag. His pulse pounded hard in his ears, more from anticipation than effort, and a fine sweat began to itch between his shoulder blades.

What he was planning was reckless. Was downright stupid. He’d never gone into the waters alone before, without a witness or a helping hand to haul him out.

But, technically, he wasn’t alone tonight, either.

Valgrind was curled up on the near side of the pool, munching cattle bones. The femur in his jaws fell to the floor with a clatter as he bleated a greeting, frills extending, tail flicking back and forth like a cat’s.

Náli bit back the insult that formed automatically on his tongue and walked over to the drake instead. He offered a hand for sniffing, and was immediately crowded and licked in the face, a stripe of cold along his cheek. “Yes, yes, it’s good to see you, too.” He scratched his jaw until Valgrind’s eyes closed and his head tilted in bliss; he puffed pleased sounds through his nose, cold air stirring Náli’s loose hair. “Look. I’ve brought you something.”

From the pocket of his robe, he fished a flaky palmful of smoked trout that he’d secreted away during supper and offered now on a flat palm. Valgrind sniffed it, and then snapped it up with great delicacy, sharp teeth skimming his hand but not breaking the skin.

Náli wiped cold slobber on his robe and shoved Valgrind’s nose away when he started sniffing for more. “No, that’s all. Stop it.”

Amazingly, he did stop; thumped down on his haunches like a dog.

Náli took a moment to look him over properly, now that he could stand on his own. “You are bigger, aren’t you?”

Valgrind shook out his frills and swelled his chest as if to say yes, thank you for noticing.

“Preening beast,” Náli muttered. “Time to earn your keep. I want you to help me again, like you did before. I’m going to go back through the Nágrindr, and I want you to come with me.”

He felt stupid, speaking to a dragon.

Less so when Valgrind cocked his head, listening, and made an inquiring sound.

“I don’t know how Oliver talks to you,” Nali said. “We don’t have the” – he tapped his forehead, and gestured to Valgrind – “mental connection, you and me. How did you find your way through the veil? Did you commune with the dead? Or was it me you found first?”

Valgrind said, “Kirik!”

“Helpful,” Náli muttered.

He turned and walked to the edge of the pool, to the top step waiting there, a scant half-inch under the water, the next several fading ghostly beneath the white surface until they disappeared. Dread mounted in his gut as it always did, sharper now that he was more alert than he’d been before. The dead called, as the did, his skin aching like sunburn as he resisted their siren song.

Teeth gritted, he shed his robe, folded it, and set it on the edge of the pool beside his boots, which he stepped out of, so the cold granite bit the soles of his feet. A full body shiver gripped him–

And then Valgrind stood beside him, rubbing the silk-smooth scales of his face against Náli’s shoulder, scratching an itch or encouraging him, or both, it didn’t matter. He wasn’t a warm creature; lacked the heat of a horse’s shoulder. But he was even stronger, and even more comforting, somehow.

Náli rested a hand on Valgrind’s neck, and the howling of the dead softened a fraction. “Well, then. I suppose there’s no sense delaying.” He stepped down, water overlapping his toes, and Valgrind stepped with him.

For the first time in his life, Náli walked side-by-side with someone down into the milky waters of the Nágrindr, and that someone was a bloody dragon.

He glanced over, when he was neck-deep, and caught those glowing blue eyes. Valgrind looked like he was smiling, though that wasn’t possible. He trumpeted a sound that Náli read as encouragement. Then Náli shut his eyes, and went under, a large, cold body stirring the water beside him.

From the first, it was different. The diamond glowed against his neck, but its pull was faint, more of a suggestion than the relentless tug he was used to. It bounced against his chest, and pointed in the correct direction, but he had to swim the way it wanted him to go, rather than let himself be towed.

Undulating like a serpent alongside him, Valgrind kept pace easily, blowing bubbles through his nostrils, wings tucked tight to his sides. Náli kept one hand on his neck, gripping firmly at the blunted spines there, afraid, suddenly, of what might happen if they got separated with his diamond malfunctioning.

Valgrind seemed content to stay together, though, glancing over occasionally, checking on him. Náli caught himself smiling, and didn’t try to feign belligerence. It was only the two of them here now, with no witnesses to carry forth tales of his fondness for this puppy-like drake.

And there were no witnesses – not even of the dead variety. No leprous hands reached out for him. No frigid grip caught him around the ankles. There was…nothing. He swam, and swam, half-towed along by Valgrind as he plunged easily through the water, tail acting like a rudder, and he didn’t glimpse so much as a fingernail from beyond the veil.

Which seemed a good thing, until his lungs began to burn, and he realized he had no idea how to cross over without the shaman’s aid.

He blew a few precious air bubbles through his lips, and stopped kicking – but Valgrind drew him onward, faster, and faster, tail stirring the water at a breakneck, frothing pace. Náli pinched at his neck spines, trying to get his attention, trying to stop him. He didn’t think he could get to the surface alone. His whole midsection ached with the need to breathe.

Wait, he thought. Wait, wait…

And then he saw it. A vivid ball of light below them. The source, he thought with a lurch, of the opaque glow that suffused the entire pool.

They were much, much deeper than Náli had thought. Deeper than he’d ever been. And then Valgrind paused, gathered his haunches, angled his head down, and dove with a fast push of his wings and tail. Náli gripped his neck with both hands and ground his jaw, his vision darkening at the edges.

He didn’t have long. He needed…had to…

The orb rushed toward them, brighter, brighter, brighter–

Not an orb. A sun. A–

A wave of pressure overtook him. It forced all the air from his lungs in a single rush, like the time his horse had bucked him off when he was nine and he’d landed flat on his back. His chest caved in, and his vision went black, and he was dying, dying, dying…

Until he sat upright, gasping and choking. He sucked in a massive breath that hurt his throat and devolved into an ugly, hacking coughing fit.

But if he was coughing, he was alive. Though his eyes streamed, he managed to get a glimpse of his surroundings. He sat in hip-deep grass that was stirred by a gentle breeze. When he managed to suck in another breath, he could hear the twitter of birds and the distant low of cattle. A pale sky arced overhead, set with an even paler sun that glowed blurry and white high overhead.

He thought of the orb in the bottom of the pool. “Gods,” he muttered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “It really is a sun. A dead sun.”

This was the other side of the veil, he could tell. Its scents and sounds, and his familiar, rough-spun set of clothes and patched boots that always materialized here.

But there was one key difference. Two, really.

One, he hadn’t had to feel a dead man’s cold lips against his to gain entry.

And two, Valgrind stood over him, his shadow long across the grass, his head lifted and cocked as he listened to the sounds floating from over the hillside.

Náli took a few more deep breaths, got his lungs steady, finally, and then stood. Dusted bits of grass off his trousers. “That’s a neat trick,” he told Valgrind.

“Kirik.”

“Come on, then.”

The diamond began to shiver against his chest as they crested the hill, and found the village sprawled homely and drowsy before them. Smoke twined up from chimneys and flocks of doves scudded along like low clouds, alighting on the sod rooftops. The lovely din of laughing children and the tinkling of cow bells was as alluring as ever, but as they started down the dusty cart path toward the village, Náli found that he wasn’t nearly as nervous about getting stuck here as he normally was. Valgrind’s tail swish-swished through the grass behind them, stirring up dust from the path, and Náli reached to pat at his shoulder as they walked, simply because he wanted to.

At the outskirts of the village, they encountered their first humans. Dead humans. Souls who’d crossed over. Náli didn’t know the specifics. He watched, half-amused, half-annoyed, as a woman pinning up her laundry caught sight of them. Her mouth fell open, wooden laundry pills spilling from her lips to the ground. Her hand flew to her throat. Her chest heaved beneath her apron as she dragged in a breath.

“Kindly don’t scream,” Náli said. “Screaming is so tedious.”

She screamed.

Valgrind screamed back, shaking his frills.

The woman whirled and went sprinting into the village, skirts lifted high, shouting incoherently.

“Now you’ve done it,” Náli muttered, and earned a cold lick on the side of his neck.

The sleepy little village erupted into chaos. Children were snatched indoors; window shutters clapped as they were slammed from the inside; women screamed, chickens darted, dogs barked. A man jumped into the road, brandishing a scythe.

Náli gave him an unimpressed stare. “You’re dead, friend. What are you going to do with that?”

Swing at him, apparently.

Náli ducked with a curse.

The scythe landed on the road before him, just as the air parted overhead with a whistle. He glanced up in time to see Valgrind slap the man across the middle with his tail, and send him flying back into the side of a house. He hit with an oof of expelled breath, then slid down to lie crumpled against the timbers.

Another man charged with a yell, this one wielding an old, rusted sword of a crude design not seen in Aeretoll for generations. He carried it awkwardly, up and too far back, exposing his entire front to attack.

Not that Náli had a weapon. He pushed up on his feet, dusted off his tunic, and wondered if he could actually be injured or killed here. If nothing else, he could trip the poor fool and send him sprawling; no one who launched an attack in that way was any sort of fighter.

He didn’t have to do anything, though. Valgrind rounded on the man with a snarl, and breathed out a plume of blue ice. The man froze mid-step, fully encased; he’d only had time for his eyes to go wide in shock before he was rendered a statue.

Náli sighed. “That was a bit excessive.”

It did the trick, though. The last few onlookers flung themselves indoors; Náli heard more than one security bar drop into place. Then they were alone in the street.

Náli picked up the abandoned scythe just in case, and on they walked to the heart of the village.

The smoke pouring from the longhouse chimney had an oily, rolling quality, thick and quick-coming…as though the fire inside had been doused. Scythe propped on his shoulder, Náli entered without knocking, and found the place in a state of total disarray. The fire in the center of the house had been smothered: with sand in places, and with the dumped contents of the cook kettles in others, the light from the windows gleaming on the puddles that had overrun the pebble trough. The air stank: from the hissing smoke and steam coming off the ruins of the fire, and from whatever had been cooking before, something sharp and unpleasantly herbal. The shaman was there, hurrying toward the back door, arms loaded with scrolls, long hair snarled and tangled, as if he’d been tugging at it.

“You!” Náli shouted, angry anew because he didn’t even know the man’s name. He’d spent his whole life attending him, and knew him only as the shaman. “Stop right there!”

The shaman cast a terrified look over his shoulder at Náli, reached the door, and yanked it open. The bastard was fleeing.

Or, rather, he intended to. Valgrind thrust his head through the door and shrieked in the shaman’s face. Náli couldn’t keep the smirk from his own face as the man shouted in alarm, tripped backward over his own long robe, and landed hard on his backside. The impact jarred the scrolls loose, and they went tumbling and rolling across the floor.

Náli closed the distance between them quickly, and stepped on the back of the shaman’s hand as he was reaching for a scroll, pinning him in place. When white-rimmed eyes lifted to meet his, Náli hefted the scythe. “Do not test me,” he said in his most commanding tone. “I don’t care if you’re already dead: I think you can die again, or you wouldn’t be running like a coward.” He tilted the blade so the light caught its wicked curve. “Am I right?”

The shaman’s lips trembled as he drew breath. “I-I-I don’t – no one has ever – and you brought your…” His gaze flittered to the door, where Valgrind had folded his wings and was trying to wedge his way through.

“Oi, don’t get stuck, you great oaf,” Náli said.

“Kirik.”

“No, stop it. Just stay out there.”

Valgrind made a defeated noise and plopped down on his haunches, head hanging in a maudlin show of defeat outside the longhouse.

The hand beneath his boot twitched, and he refocused on the shaman. He ground his foot – “Ahh!” – and rested the tip of the scythe against the man’s throat.

He stilled, breathing in quick flutters, blue eyes frightened, without a trace of their usual timeless authority and mystery.

“Now,” Náli said, “clearly, something isn’t right here. By this point, I suspect it never has been. And you, o Lord of the Great Beyond, are going to tell me exactly what’s been going on my whole miserable life.”

The shaman sent him a pleading look. “My lord” – there was a first – “you must understand – the changes that were made” – what changes? – “were all done in service to the bloodline. To protect the realm!”

Náli pressed in with the scythe tip, until a single pearl of blood appeared. The dead could bleed, then. At least here. “Listen to me closely, whoever you bloody are. I don’t give half a damn about the bloodline, and I’m not all that keen on the realm, either. I want to know why I have to live this way, and if you won’t tell me–”

Valgrind growled, a low and threatening sound more eloquent than anything Náli could have given voice to with words.

The shaman glanced between them…and then sagged like a puppet with cut strings. “All right. Fine. I shall tell you. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Fine. I’m well-warned. Start talking.”

~*~

First, the fire was rebuilt, which took some time, and then the damp wood smoked and spit and filled the longhouse with yet more noxious gray clouds. Then tea was prepared, and poured into two wooden cups. Náli let the heat of his warm his palms, but didn’t sip at it. The shaman bolted one cup down straight away and poured another before he finally settled on the stool opposite and took a long, deep breath. Though his physical features remained unchanged, he seemed to have aged a decade since Náli saw him last. Strained and gaunt. When his gaze lifted to meet Náli’s through the smoke, his eyes had gone that same eerie, timeless blue again; the eyes of a man who had seen too much.

His hands shook on his cup, but his voice was steady. “You must understand: when I speak of ‘the bloodline,’ it’s far older than you have ever imagined. The truth of it is something you might not receive gladly.”

“An upsetting truth is better than never knowing,” Náli said.

“Even if it upsets the balance of all you now know?”

He glanced toward Valgrind, who’d coiled up just outside the open doorway, snoring lightly in the wash of pale sunlight. “I’ve begun to think, lately, that I don’t actually know anything at all.” He met the shaman’s gaze again. “So, yes. It’s better. Even if it’s upsetting.”

The shaman nodded. Took a long sip of tea, eyes closing; then opened them once more, cleared his throat, and began. “It’s fitting that your king is descended of the first wolves – of the Úlfheðnar, the strongest and fiercest of the clans in the Early Days of the North. But the wolf-shirts are not the oldest clan in our history.”

“No, that’s the Dreki clan,” Náli said, impatient. He already knew this. “That’s why it’s Dreki Hörgr, and not Ulf Hörgr.”

“Yes, but what do you know of them save the fact they were the first settlers of the Waste?”

“They…had drakes. They bonded with them. Rode them. Just as Oliver has done, and the Drake lords of the South before him.”

“But where did the drakes come from?”

“I don’t bloody know that. Am I supposed to know when the first leaf unfolded at the dawn of time?” Náli huffed. “Can you not dispose of the questions and just get on with it?”

Unperturbed by his outburst, the shaman said, “There is a cavern beyond the ancestral seat. Up high in the mountain passes, never traversed by the men of the North.”

In an instant, Náli’s aggravation was replaced by a cold lick of fear. He recalled waking in a cold ice cavern, the way sealed by iron bars. The Fangs with their filed teeth, and their arena full of snow-buried dead men. They’d found Valgrind and his mother there. Strange glowing sapphires. And a verse etched in runes on the wall.

“What sort of cavern?” he asked, though he already knew.

“One glistening with ice, its light blue with the breath of a cold-drake.”

Náli swallowed with difficulty, and brought the tea to his lips before he could think better of it. It tasted of sharp mint, to his surprise. One sip cleared his sinuses and tingled across his tongue, so different from his usual soothing lavender blend.

“The first Northmen,” the shaman continued, “were not the clans of history. But there were nomads who, in their treks across the Wastes, found the valley you now call Dreki Hörgr. The herds stopped there, to drink and calf and shelter. And it was there, in their hide dome tents, cooking over open fires, that the Northmen saw great silhouettes in the sky, wheeling like falcons, lashing tails like serpents.”

Náli had lost his impatience, and his taste for interruption. The shaman had entered a sort of trance, gaze faraway, voice grown resonant with the telling.

“They flew high overhead, their calls echoing like screams across the valley, and the people were frightened. Elk were snatched – but the herd stayed put and so then did the Northmen. They began to talk of forming a hunting party. The drakes descended with the sun every night, falling north behind the craggy peaks. They must have a den, the humans reasoned. A place where they rested. An expedition was formed, and the nomads trekked deep up into the mountains; a few were lost to rockslides, and narrow, slippery ledges. But at last, they arrived in an open field amidst the mountaintops. A boneyard strewn with the beasts’ wreckage. From the mouth of the cavern the drakes emerged, snarling and snapping, beating their wings so that clouds of ice and snow blinded the men.

“But then a calm, sweet voice called out, and the drakes receded. They bent their heads and bowed before their mistress, docile as lambs.

“In the mouth of the cavern stood a woman, tall and slender as a willow stem, pale as the moon, her hair the silken silver of the white bear fur she wore. Her eyes dazzled, blue as the winter skies overhead.”

Lots of people had blue eyes, Náli reasoned. It was quite common in the North. Erik had them. Oliver had them.

Oliver who possessed Drake magic.

He sipped more tea.

“She walked out to greet them, this soft maiden with the clean hands and the angelic voice. They thought her a goddess, so divine she seemed, so untouched by the mortal squalor of hard, everyday, ordinary life. Skin smooth and smile kind, teeth straight and feet bare across the snow, as if she didn’t feel the cold.

“She greeted them, and the men bowed before her as the drakes had done. ‘Rise,’ she said, with laughter like the chiming of bells. ‘Rise and be easy, friends of the valley. You have traveled far, and bravely. Will you sup with me?’

“Weary from travel, and bewitched by her besides, they followed her into the cavern and found that it was outfitted richly and strangely, full of wonders beyond their imaginings. Sumptuous as a palace, it was.”

“A palace?” Náli said, snorting. “Not when I saw it.”

The shaman tilted his head, expression bland.

Náli waved. “Fine, fine, go on.”

“Over a meal of venison cooked on a spit, she told them that her name was Lucia, and that she was the last of her family. That she came from a line of powerful mages, and that they’d come to these lands after sailing the Impassable Sea.”

Náli felt his brows shoot up. “There’s a reason they call it that. The few ships that have made it back turned around after less than a day. None who went farther returned. The harbor there was abandoned several generations ago for just such a reason.”

“I’m not speaking of ‘several generations ago.’ But of events that transpired long, long before that.”

Náli bit back a sigh. “Yes. I understand.”

“Lucia told the men of her family’s perilous trek through the ice floes. Her great-grandparents, her grandparents, her parents, and her siblings had all ventured forth from the far-off land of Sē, a vast land of splendor and wonders beyond imaginings, far more remarkable than her drakes. Magic of all sorts, unharnessed and wild, flourished there. No humans could manipulate it, no man could weave its flows and bend it to his will.

“No man,” he stressed. “Lucia and her twin sister could, though. She and her sister Lilac possessed power so great they could alter the world around them. Seithr, they called this power. A magic so great it allowed its possessors to commune with animals and control the weather. To bolster a crop or slay an enemy. They could turn coal to diamonds in a blink, melt ice with fire from their palms. They could even,” the shaman said, voice becoming grave, “raise the dead.”

The fine, colorless hair on Náli’s arms bristled; the back of his neck prickled. “Raise the dead?” he echoed, voice a dry scrape in his throat.

The shaman nodded. “It was that, most of all, that frightened Lucia. She was a gentle woman, who enjoyed using her power to speak with animals and encourage green things to grow. Dead things, she reasoned, were meant to stay dead.

“But her sister, Lilac, disagreed. She had lost her lover to clan fighting; he’d been struck down by a blow with an axe from behind. She mourned him deeply: would not eat, would not sleep. She wasted away to skin and bones, until the grief washed the blue from her eyes, and left them colorless.”

Náli couldn’t fight the urge to scrub at the back of his neck. Silvery hair. Colorless eyes.

The Sels.

“Lilac’s lover,” the shaman continued, “had been buried in the hull of a small boat, his worldly possessions at his feet, his body covered over with a mound of hard-packed dirt. Lilac’s family cautioned her, they said it went against the world’s natural order, but she commanded her drakes to dig up the corpse with their strong claws, and when he was bare to the moonlight, maggoty and fetid with death, she laid her hands on his cold chest, and called upon every ounce of the seither that dwelled in her blood. Her lover sat up, and was made animate…but he wasn’t alive.”

Náli thought of the skeletons he’d dredged from beneath the snow in the Fang fighting arena. They’d been nothing but marionettes, responding to his whims like overgrown children’s toys. Yes, he could raise the dead, but he couldn’t give them life once more.

“Her sister pointed out her folly, kindly, gently, with great compassion, and hoped that Lilac had seen the error of using this power. But she had not. She tried again, and again. She became obsessed with perfecting this power: with bringing back not just the body, but the soul from beyond the veil as well.

“Their clan was divided: those who encouraged Lilac, and those who feared her. Her drakes were large, far larger than that one.” He gestured to Valgrind, still snoring in his sun patch. “These were tremendous, as big as this longhouse.” The glint of fear in his eyes left Náli believing him. “They killed a man who tried to stop her, and she didn’t bring him back.”

“And so Lucia and the rest of her family left Sē?”

“Yes. And after a treacherous journey in which half were lost, they found their way to the harbor far north of here, beyond the mountains, in Impasse. The rest of the family, she told the men, had fallen one by one as they journeyed south, falling to hunger and fever and weariness. By the time she reached the cavern, she was alone, save her dragons.

“She was weeping by the time she’d finished her tale, filled anew with a terrible sadness from so much loss. They comforted her, offering kind words and strips of their own travel-stained cloaks with which she could wipe her eyes. So moved by her story, they offered to take her with them down into the valley, where there were warm fires and bountiful fish, and hare, and elk to hunt. She could make a home amongst them; would be welcomed by their people with open arms.

“She agreed, on the condition that she could bring her drakes with her, and they said yes. ‘But first,’ she said, ‘you must eat, and partake of the fresh spring waters that flows in the caverns, and rest after such an arduous journey.’

“And so, the five men, those resilient enough to last the journey, heeded her urging and lay down to rest.

“Lucia felt it was a gods-touched moment, meeting them this way. She the last of her people in this strange land, they the only ones who’d survived the journey to find her and her drakes. While the men lay sleeping, she conferred with her drakes, and found them likewise admiring of their visitors. She moved from bedroll to bedroll in the night, waking each man in turn with the weight of her body. She lay with each of them, and in the morning, she gifted each with a gemstone larger than a goose egg, and a drake to ride.

“But the fifth refused such gifts. ‘What of you, my lady? Would you not keep a gem and a drake for yourself? When I have so little need for either?’

“And so, she did. She kept the largest beast for herself, gleaming silver with eyes like diamonds, and together, she and her new lovers flew over the mountaintops, the fifth man riding behind her, back to the valley that would be named Dreki Hörgr in honor of the Lady Lucia, the Mother of All Magic in the North and the South.”

Náli remembered his tea and took a sip to find it had gone cold, which somehow enhanced the mint’s taste. “That sounds like every children’s story I’ve ever heard. Let me guess, she birthed five sons from five fathers?”

“Six, actually, according to legend. Her drake, the great silver one, was in fact a skinwalker, and he transformed into a man so that he could get a son on her also.”

“Gods,” Náli muttered, and choked down a sudden, hysterical laugh. “I think I can see where this is going.”

“Perhaps,” the shaman conceded with a head tilt. “When Lucia gave birth to these six sons, she gifted each with just one aspect of her seithr. The power, she reasoned, was too great for one wielder. To one she gave the gift of weather; another the gift of green, growing things; another the gift of foresight. The son of the dragon was gifted the drake magic, and another the power to wear an animal’s skin.”

“Leif,” Náli said to himself.

The shaman didn’t acknowledge him. “Last of all, she gave her fifth son – the child of the man who would take neither drake nor gem – the gift that had so frightened her in her sister, and in herself, a magic she had never before used. The gift of the dead.”

It was the logical conclusion of the tale, one he’d anticipated, and still he shuddered, against his will. “That one was my ancestor, I suppose.”

The shaman nodded. “It was the greatest of Lucia’s magics; the most powerful and the most dangerous. It was too much for the child, too much for any lone figure, and Lucia was frantic with worry. The healer of the clan said the child would die if his power wasn’t diluted, and so, worried for his son, fueled by Lucia’s tears, the boy’s father broke his power into pieces and scattered it, so that the child might live.

“A portion he gave to a group of wise men who would become the shamans of the Old North.

“A portion was pressed into the massive diamond that he had not taken, and it was then cracked into six pieces.

“The last portion was for the boy himself, but this too he split into six equal shares. He gathered five willing young men of the clan, and Lucia used her seithr to bind their souls to the boy. Together, the six of them shared the burden of the power of the dead, and they became the first Corpse Lord and his Dead Guard. Each wore a diamond pendant, their power replenishing them when they’d overtaxed themselves.”

Náli blinked.

And then blinked some more.

“His Guard…” he said, “shared his power.”

“Yes.”

“His Dead Guard shared his power.”

“Yes.”

“His Dead Guard shared his power.”

“Yes, yes, and yes, Lord Náli.” For the first time in their acquaintance, the shaman’s lips curved in the subtlest of smiles. “Originally, the Dead Guard were not merely guardians of the lord of death – but of death itself. They guarded the power of the dead, wielding it between them, safeguarding it, and passing it to their sons in turn.”

Náli tried and failed to imagine what that must have been like. To have someone share in his burden. To thin out its effects by spreading it amongst six souls, rather than heaping it all upon one.

“But…did they…” His throat squeezed tight, made it hard to speak or breathe. “The fire mountain. Were they forced to return to it? As I am?”

“No. The power was evenly distributed, and it never posed a threat to them or the realm at large.”

“Then why is it different now? Why?”

She shaman’s smile melted as if it had never been there at all. His eyes took on a haunted cast. “Because everything was different after…”

Valgrind shot upright with a sudden jerk. He leaped to his feet, and flung up his head, startling the shaman to his feet as well.

“What is it?” Náli asked.

Valgrind screamed up at the sky, the sharp, hawklike cry he used in flight. A warning? A greeting? It sounded as if it might have been both.

The shaman turned to him. “You must go now.”

“But you haven’t finished! I need to know. I must know what happened! Is it possible to return to the old way of things? To share the power so that it doesn’t nearly kill me every time?”

“You must go,” the shaman repeated.

“But I have to know.” Desperation boiled in his chest, bitter on his tongue. His mug landed on the floor and he leaned across the fire, reaching, grasping, trying to snag hold of the man.

But he slipped away. Náli’s fingers closed on empty air – just as a strong hold clamped around his middle and pushed all the air from his lungs.

The world went white to the sound of Valgrind screeching.

He couldn’t move, couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe.

Couldn’t–

Air filled his lungs in a rush, and his eyes popped open as he started to choke. Hands lifted him upright, and then thumped him hard on the back as he coughed up water.

As his vision cleared, he became aware that he was sitting on cold, hard granite, and that someone had draped his robe over his naked lap. When he could lift his head, breathing in harsh gasps, he saw that he was seated beside the pool, surrounded by his entire Guard, while Valgrind stood behind them, shaking water off his frills.

Náli lifted the robe to wipe his face, and scowled at each of them in turn. “What the bloody hell are you doing?” His heart still galloped in his chest, adrenaline coursing through his limbs. He had to go back! He had to hear the rest of the story!

Mattias knelt beside him, and had been the one to help him clear the water in his lungs; his hand rested still on Náli’s bare back. His expression was thunderous. “Us?” His voice was low and deadly-smooth; at another time, Náli would have shrunk back at the sound of it. “What the bloody hell were you doing?” Mattias hissed. “Besides coming down here alone to die all by yourself!”

When he first woke up this morning, those words and that tone would have made him flinch. Mattias was the only person whose approval had ever mattered to him.

But what he’d learned today trumped all else.

“I wasn’t alone,” he snapped, and lurched forward to get to his feet.

Mattias, infuriatingly, caught his elbow and assisted him. “Náli–”

“Stop that.” Náli smacked him away and stepped clear, robe balled up in his hands. He fixed his captain with a snarling glare. “I wasn’t alone, I said.”

Mattias, half incredulous and half anguished, flung out an arm in Valgrind’s direction. “You had that animal, you mean? You came down here to cross over in the company of a dumb beast?”

Valgrind echoed the furious huff that left Náli’s nostrils, only much, much louder. Náli was aware of one of the others – Darri, he thought – cursing and edging away from the drake in the background.

He was aware, too, that he was overreacting, just as Mattias was.

There was nothing for it, though.

“That beast,” he said, pointing, “can cross over the veil, same as me. Did you know that? No. Or perhaps you don’t care. Perhaps your tiny mind” – Mattias flinched, an infinitesimal twitch of brows and mouth – “is so closed to the possibility that things might not be–”

Klemens stepped neatly between them, facing Náli. “That’s enough,” he said, calm and firm.

Náli bristled. “What? I will not be–”

“My lord,” he interrupted again, face smooth, hands lifted to a placating angle. “Are you well?”

“What do you think?”

“Are you harmed physically?” Klemens persisted. “Were you harmed in the Nágrindr?”

Náli ground his back teeth and didn’t grace that with an answer. Held out his arms instead and turned for inspection, trampling his now-crushed robe into the granite floor and flaunting his flawless, naked form.

“I see that you were not,” Klemens said, mildly, when they faced one another again. “It’s late, my lord. Perhaps it would be best to all seek our beds and reconvene in the morning.”

“Yes,” Náli said with a sneer. “We’ll reconvene. One of you can wipe my nose and another my ass like a babe in swaddling clothes. One can play mum and one can play daddy and if you’re not all too busy fucking one another someone can lecture me about what I may do in my own home. Mattias tends to take point on that position, but who’s to say another of you isn’t a nursemaid in waiting, hm?”

Danski, Darri, and Einrih went properly red-faced, though they didn’t shrink back from the blistering look he tossed them.

Mattias he couldn’t see, because Klemens still stood between them, and he was unmoved by Náli’s tantrum – yes, he could admit it was a tantrum; or, at least, he would be able to, later, once his blood had stopped boiling.

“Though if any of you had bothered to ask why I might come down here, alone save for the company of my drake – who is infinitely wiser than you lot, I can tell you – when you know how much I loathe this fucking place, you might have discovered that I had good reason to do so. You might have learned, as I was about to before you played bloody hero, that my life doesn’t have to be the miserable, sodding wreck it has always been. That I might be able to change things.”

He picked up his robe, shook it out, and donned it, grateful that he managed the ties on the first try, despite the anger shaking through his limbs.

“Why did you come, my lord?” Einrih asked, quietly.

“That’s an excellent question,” Náli snapped. He whirled, and marched toward the staircase, shoulders back and chin lifted.

Behind him, Valgrind bleated a worried sound.

His Guard made no sound at all.

15

Náli lay in his bed, beneath the heaped furs and quilts, but sleep never came. He stared up at the ceiling until the first, faint rays of daylight highlighted the whorls and swoops of the granite overhead, then he stood and stoked up his own fire and made his own tea. He was fully-dressed, hair braided, seated at his desk with a second cup of tea when a rap sounded at his door and Danski let himself in.

Náli spared him a glance over his shoulder before he dipped his quill and returned to his parchment. A glance that took in the smartness of his dress, the tightness of his braid, and the hint of embarrassment lurking in his gaze. Surprise, too, when he saw Náli at his desk; he’d paused with a hand on the door, halfway into the chamber.

“Breakfast time already?” Náli asked. “I’d like some eggs, thank you. And toast and jam. Perhaps some sausage, if there is any.” He was hungry this morning, his churning thoughts in need of fuel.

Danski hesitated a beat. Then said, “Yes, my lord,” and withdrew to flag down a maid and send her to fetch his meal.

By the time a tray was placed at his elbow, Náli had set his quill aside and was massaging a cramp from his hand, surveying all that he’d written.

“What’s got you up so early this morning, my lord?” Danski asked, freshening his tea.

Náli had taken all that he could recall of the shaman’s story and committed it to paper, annotating the margins with his own thoughts and theories. He slid the papers toward Danski and dragged the tray toward himself. The dark bread was still steaming, and he broke it in half to a waft of rich, yeasty scent.

“A story?” Danski asked.

“Yes.” He popped jam-topped bread in his mouth and spoke around it in a vulgar flaunting of manners his mother would never permit in her presence. “The first bit of useful information I’ve been able to glean from that old man in the well.”

Danski, one fingertip pinning the parchment down by a corner, lifted his brows. “The old man?”

“Yes.” Náli waved with his jam knife. “Have I never…?” But no, he hadn’t ever explained to anyone besides Mattias what it was like down there. Nothing of any substance beyond “I was with the dead.”

He forked up a large, runny bite of fried egg. “You’d best go and get the others so that I can explain about last night.”

Danski evidenced doubt.

“I’m not angry anymore,” Náli assured. “Or, not very. Get them. If you please,” he tacked on at the end. And then, after Danski had nodded and moved to the door: “Oh, and try not to find yourself entangled in amusements the way Einrih did last night, hm?”

A participant in said entangling amusements, Danski’s face flushed dark as he slipped out of the room.

Náli had a little chuckle at his expense and finished his breakfast.

By the time he was polishing off the last crumb of bread – gods, he had been hungry – the door was opening and his entire Guard was trooping in, dressed and braided and polished as ever. Danski’s blush had faded, but there was a distinctly uncomfortable set to his and Darri’s and Einrih’s shoulders.

Klemens was stoic as ever.

Mattias stared right through him in a way that left Náli momentarily chilled. What if this was the thing that broke them? What if those few, stolen, not-enough moments back at Aeres were all he ever had?

Well, that wouldn’t matter if he was dead, or a ruined, gray husk of a man, aged decades ahead of his time. So he pushed the pang of unhappiness away, wiped his mouth with his napkin, and hitched up straight and lordly in his chair. The voice he employed was the one he used on the people of the Fault Lands during formal ducal functions.

“I want to talk about last night – but I’d like to say my piece before anyone throws out any chastisements or worries,” he said, forestalling Mattias’s gathered breath and intent to speak with a lifted palm. “Yes?”

“Yes, my lord,” five voices chorused, each tinged with a different tone. Mattias sounded like he’d been gargling with rocks.

“Firstly,” Náli continued, “I’d like to apologize for something I voiced indelicately last night.” He gestured to Einrih, Danski, and Darri, all of whom went wide-eyed in undisguised surprise. “No one hates the rigid structure of our arrangement more than I do. I think the vow of chastity that you all must take is ridiculous and insupportable. Your pursuits are your own business, and I didn’t mean to imply that I found them distasteful or dishonorable in any way.”

Three blank faces blinked at him.

“As to my foray into the well unaccompanied…” Here he forced himself to meet Mattias’s gaze, pained all over again by its emotionless, fixed state. “I’m well aware that I took a risk in venturing beyond the veil alone. It’s a dangerous place, in those waters; there’s been many a time when, upon crossing back over, I feared I wouldn’t make it to the surface before my lungs gave out.”

Someone made a surprised sound, but he kept his eyes on Mattias.

“It was a risk I took, however,” he continued, “because I felt certain that one or all of you would stop me if I told you what I’d planned.”

“You’ve never returned to the well so quickly after a crossing,” Klemens said – but it was more curious than disapproving. None save Mattias really did disapproving with any sort of authority.

“No,” Náli agreed. “I loathe the process so much that I put it off as long as possible. You’re all familiar with that. But the last time, and last night, the usual process was changed.”

“The drake went in after you,” Darri said.

“Just so. I was sitting there in that damnable longhouse talking in the same riddles with the bloody shaman who always vexes me,” he said, some of his lordliness slipping. “And suddenly I could hear him overhead. Valgrind. Screaming like he does for attention. The next thing I knew, he was dragging me up out of the water without having been sent back.”

“Sent back?” Klemens asked.

“I’ve never found my way back on my own before,” he confessed. “The shaman leans in for another kiss, and then I’m back in the water, trying to decide which way is up before drowning.”

He’d said it thoughtlessly – another kiss – and so was unprepared for the way Mattias’s expression suddenly broke.

His brows snapped together, and his lips curved down into a harsh frown. “Kiss?” he asked, voice still gravelly, and Náli wished suddenly that he could dismiss the others because this flash of jealousy was delicious.

“You said another kiss,” Danski clarified, brows lifted, curious and clearly appalled by the idea of receiving one from a dead man.

“Well, it’s not really a kiss,” Náli said, rolling his eyes. “Cold and tedious, more like. When I first go under, his face comes floating out of the water, and it’s more like…” He mimed what happened with his hands. “Like he’s sucking the power out of me. And then, when it’s time to leave, putting just enough back in so that I don’t immediately faint when I’m back on dry land.” It was infuriating all over again to recall the sensations out loud. And here he’d spent the morning feeling more charitable toward the deceased bastard…

Mattias’s frown deepened. His shifted his stance, hips tilting, feet bracing wider apart. He folded his arms, and though self-contained, it was the energy of a man who wanted to fight someone. “What the fuck does he need with your power anyway?” he asked in a rare display of blunt agitation. The other Guards darted looks toward him, noticing.

“I didn’t have a chance to ask him that,” Náli said, dryly, “before I was hauled out of the water like the day’s fresh catch.”

No one looked chagrined.

He sighed. “I told you I didn’t go alone, and I didn’t. I took Valgrind with me, and he got me through the veil without having to swap spit with a dead man. His presence there, on the other side, caused quite a stir. I thought the shaman would piss his robes in fright.”

As succinctly as possible, he told them the tale of the Lady Lucia, and her powers, and the first Corpse Lord.

“It sounds like a children’s story,” Klemens said, stroking his short beard, unconvinced.

“So does most of history,” Náli reasoned.

“You don’t like him,” Mattias said, at last. “What makes you trust that any of what he told you is true?”

“Nothing,” Náli said, honestly. “I need to return and wring the rest of the story from him.”

“Then what?” Klemens again. “You want us to share your magic with you?” His brows lifted. “Would that even work?”

“I don’t know. Presumably the shaman can tell me. But, no. I don’t want that. At least, I won’t ask for that. I merely want to know how it used to be, and if such a thing was even possible. If even one of you opposes the idea, then I won’t pursue it.”

“And if we all agree?” Danski asked.

Náli hesitated, because he hadn’t expected them to. Magic was a burden he wouldn’t wish on anyone. “Then…we’ll talk again. And come to a decision.”

“That’s assuming it’s even possible,” Mattias said.

“Obviously.”

A stare ensued, hostile on Mattias’s part, serene on Náli’s – at least he hoped so. No matter how prickly a façade he wore in front of others, he detested fighting with Mattias. It made him feel as if a part of himself was missing.

He allowed his voice to soften, and spoke to Mattias directly. “I want to uncover the truth. One I’ve been denied since birth, it would seem. Any action taken after that will be the result of a unanimous group decision. I swear that I won’t do anything further on my own.”

Mattias shifted his weight again, muscle in his cheek leaping.

Before Náli could offer anything else reassuring, a light knock sounded on the door. He had the pleasure of watching all five of them frown and turn in exactly the same way.

Einrih strode forward to answer it. A maid stood on the threshold, scrunched down in her starched dress to make herself appear smaller. Her lip actually trembled when she looked up at Einrih, face pale and stricken with terror.

“Yes?” Einrih asked politely. “Do you have a message for his lordship?”

The poor girl gulped audibly, her complexion the same curdled cream as the waters of the well. Náli thought she might swoon right into Einrih’s arms – and then swoon again when she realized what she’d done. “I – I – um.” Another gulp. “I’ve a message for – for Lord Náli.”

“Yes?”

“He’s–” Her voice cracked. “His lady mother requests his presence,” she finally got out in a rush. “In the Southern salon.”

“Thank you. I’ll tell–”

But she’d already bowed and gone scurrying off down the hall.

“How heartwarming,” Náli said. “Being the greatest source of terror for my household staff.” He stood and stepped into his boots. “We’ll speak again later.”

They nodded, even Mattias, though he looked grim at the prospect.

“Honestly,” Náli said as he moved toward the door, “could the prospect of magic tampering possibly he as horrifying as tea with my mother?”

That, at least, finally earned him a chuckle.

~*~

The Southern salon was not on the south-facing side of the Keep, but was named, instead, for Lady Serafina’s preferred, Southern style of decorating. Most of the Keep was done up in the heirlooms and antiques passed down to the Corpse Lord households of previous generations. But in this salon, everything from the tasseled drapes, to the pastel carpets, to the dainty-legged chairs with their floral-stitched seat cushions was imported from her homeland.

Entering was always a shock, the discordance of the granite walls, floor, and ceiling with the delicate, feminine furniture and accessories. Náli always felt awkward and out of place there, as he did now…when he entered to find that his mother wasn’t waiting for him alone.

Arranged around her on velvet sofas and fragile chairs and stools was an assortment of women sitting in pairs. Mothers and daughters, he realized. Maidens and chaperones. The highborn ladies of the Fault Lands and the coastal regions. He saw many familiar faces.

And he saw his mother, holding a delicate porcelain teacup, smiling demurely at him with cold, flashing eyes that threatened him to behave like a gentleman or else.

He longed to duck behind his Guard, but they shifted away from him to stand along an empty stretch of wall, taking up their regular posts; more than one pair of eyes followed them, the young girls with awe and worry, several of the mothers with obvious appreciation. Their lords had probably run to fat, and Náli was keenly aware of his Guard’s attractions.

“Náli,” Serafina said in a lilting, girlish voice she only used in front of company.

“Mother,” he returned, ice-cold.

Her gaze tracked down his body to the toes of his boots and back up. That’s what you’re wearing? that look said.

“Forgive me,” he said. “I wasn’t aware that we would be entertaining visitors.”

“Of course.” She laughed, a practiced chime. “You know the custom: how can we offer to host a ball without providing adequate accommodations for our esteemed guests?”

He did know that. He himself had arrived for the Yule festival days ahead of time; every lord in the North was fond of days’-long celebrations, replete with ale and whole roast hogs and sporting events in the yards of palaces and keeps.

But this party would be in no way shape or form a Northern celebration. It would involve teas, and strolls in the gardens (ha! Let a lady enjoy the magma-crusted “gardens” of Naus Keep), and endless dinners at the long dining table. Even now, he wagered a pack of musicians were rosining bows and polishing horns; he’d doubtless be forced to endure a “musicale evening.”

“Of course,” he echoed, shuddering internally.

Mother held out her limp hand to him. “Come, Náli. And reacquaint yourself with our guests.”

Wishing he faced an angry bear, or a mob of Fangs, or even the well instead, he walked forward to his doom.

16

Náli climbed to the top of the stool beside his bed, turned, and flopped backward across the mattress, which let out a pleasing whoof as goose down gave beneath his weight. “I’ve realized something.” His voice was very flat, every last drop of sass squeezed out of him after a full day of – shudder – entertaining nice young eligible ladies. “It wasn’t the magic that killed my father – it was the unhealthy plethora of tea parties.”

Klemens snorted as he stoked up the fire and got it crackling again.

“Not that I have anything against tea,” Náli said. “Or parties. Or even young ladies. I rather like a few of them.”

None of the fathers had been in attendance, all off to Aeres for war councils, gone to offer advice, pledge their swords, or, most likely in the case of the coastal lords, put forward arguments as to why the North should abstain from battle. They hadn’t been at the palace for the siege. Perhaps sight of a burned Aeres and a still-in-disrepair palace would change their minds; or perhaps Erik would shout and Oliver would say something cutting and they’d be bullied into complying. Náli wished he was there to witness it.

But, no. He’d spent the day sipping tea, munching dry sandwiches the size of coins, and making small talk with those men’s daughters.

There were a few ambitious ones – the forceful Gerta who’d made décor suggestions and complained of the overall gray theme of the Keep. Agata, daughter of the governor of White Cap, thirty and still unmarried, desperate to marry before her old father kicked off and left her destitute. Twenty-three-year-old Amma, all fulsome curves and winks and sly smiles who, quite frankly, terrified him. He liked girls as people, sure, but he had no idea what to do with one…

Nevermind the fact that he was hopelessly in love with his Guard captain.

Mattias had avoided direct eye contact all day, letting Klemens step forward and serve as his right hand each time he’d had need of a discreet cup of wine. Though not as crushing as the formal ball would be, the day had been a firm reminder that he had a whole life – what little life his magic would allow – of this ahead of him: begetting heirs, taking tea, glad-handing his people, while the love of his life stood stiffly against the wall, until Náli’s inevitable death, and Mattias’s subsequent future of robed loneliness out in the wilderness. That any of his five devoted Guardsmen should waste away apart from society, that they should die a spiritual death once Náli died physically…it was unthinkable. Devastating, when he considered Mattias.

Klemens was still puttering about on the other side of the room; the cast-iron arm squeaked as the kettle was swung over the flames. The wardrobe doors thumped as nightshirt and robe were collected. Klemens himself appeared as he laid the folded garments out on the bed beside him, his expression casual, his gaze anything but as it flicked over to rest, briefly, on Náli’s face.

“What?” Náli asked, instantly curious.

He smoothed the silk of the robe sleeves; laid out the fur-trimmed over-robe beside it. “You seemed to get on well with Lady Brigida.”

“Yes. She’s my favorite.”

It seemed as if his mother grew the ranks at each of these events, but Brigida was a familiar face, the one he’d known the longest. Two years his senior, her mother had died in childbirth and she’d come accompanied by an elderly aunt who smiled a lot and drank a lot, and didn’t get too fussed about the matchmaking, content to be away from home in a grand keep with other ladies for company. As her father’s only offspring, Brigida had served as daughter and son both. Her father was the lord of a small, but prosperous merchant territory on the east coast, Last Harbor, and he’d brought Brigida up in his study, teaching her sums and bookkeeping, taking her down to the wharves with him to meet the merchants and ship captains. A tall girl, taller than Náli, she was trim and dark-haired, her face ruddy from the cold, salty sea air of her homeland. She was quiet, but not mousy; confident, but without the brashness of a shieldmaiden. She chuckled at Náli’s fits of fancy and her eyes betrayed her disapproval of his mother’s haranguing.

They were friends.

If he must marry, she would be his choice…but he loathed the idea of saddling her so.

Lost in his thoughts, he’d forgotten Klemens still stood over him until he said, fingers playing with the fur collar of the over-robe, “She’s not the braying sort like Lady Estrid, nor a meek sort like Miss Raneigh.”

“No,” Náli agreed.

“And she’s agreeable to look upon. She’s got” – he lifted both hands and held them apart – “suitable hips for providing heirs.”

Oh. Oh, this was interesting. Náli didn’t try to suppress the grin that slipped across his face, and Klemens froze at sight of it, caught-out. “You’ve been examining her hips, have you?”

Klemens face didn’t change, but his throat bobbed as he swallowed. “As your Guard, it’s within my duties to advise you.”

“Advise me on the shape and breadth of Lady Brigida’s hips? Someone’s been very attentive to his duties.”

He exhaled. “My lord…”

“Oh no, no. Don’t let me inhibit you. Shall I walk her around the garden tomorrow so you can get a look at all her angles?”

Klemens frowned. “These women aren’t broodmares, my lord.”

He felt his lips twist, the grin morphing into a sneer. “And yet here I am, prized stallion. How am I supposed to view them, Klemens, if not physically? You were the one who brought up her hips.”

“I only thought–”

“To advise me? Yes, I know. Advise me on this, then: how am I to convince the one person I want to take to bed to actually go along with it rather than quoting honor and protocol at me? Because it doesn’t matter if I marry my most favorite girl of all if I’m in love with someone else and always will be.” The last was said with a bitterness that seemed to boil out into the room and taint the air. He swore it had a scent.

Klemens’ face shuttered. “Very well, my lord. I shall see you in the morning.” He went out, shutting the door behind him.

Náli sighed when he was gone, massaging the tension from between his brows, listening to the pop and crack of the built-up fire. “Another day of offending everyone I know,” he muttered, and sat up.

Mattias stood with his shoulders pressed back against the wall by the door.

Náli snapped to immediate attention, shock tightening all his limbs. “Shit,” he muttered.

Mattias did not slouch, as a general rule. He stood tall and square-shouldered, always alert, always ready, even when his face was etched with fatigue. As a small boy, Náli had thought him invincible; he still thought that, sometimes.

So it was his posture, in this moment, that struck Náli so sharply. The boot propped back against the wall; the casual arch of his spine; the almost artful way he allowed himself to be held up, rather than standing on his own, all traces of his usually rigid, disciplined stance given over to a pose wholly human.

How seldom he’d revealed that human side of himself. The part of him that thirsted, and hungered, and stewed in his own melancholy juices. The part of him that wanted things he couldn’t have – or thought he shouldn’t have. That was who stood across from Náli now: not Mattias the captain of the Dead Guard, but Mattias the man. Náli had no idea what to say to keep him from reverting to the former.

His gaze, dark and heated as two coals snatched from the fire, pinned Náli in place and set his pulse to hammering.

“I think,” Náli said in a tone of forced lightness, “that our very own Klemens has designs on one of my potential brides.”

Mattias lifted one shoulder in an out-of-character lazy shrug. “She’s comely enough.”

Why did that sting to hear? She was comely. Lovely, even. If that was to a man’s taste.

“And just this morning,” Mattias continued, his voice low, deep, rough-edged, “you said you didn’t care who we fucked.”

Fucked. Náli couldn’t recall the last time he’d spoken that crudely. He’d always been mannerly to a fault.

The sound of that word, in that voice, coming from Mattias, put a not unpleasurable knot in Náli’s stomach. It brought to mind what he’d seen through the gap in the door last night, only minus Einrih, and with him and Mattias on the bed. The thought of hot, sweat-slick skin, and a fevered mouth against his own…

He realized he was clutching at the blankets and loosened his hands with effort. “I did say that.” He wanted his voice to be confident, smooth and inviting, but it came out airless instead. “And I meant it. For them.

“But I am very much invested in who you fuck.”

It might have been a trick of the light, but he thought one of Mattias’s brows quirked. There was no imagining, however, the subtle shift of his hips as he adjusted his boot against the wall. The movement drew Náli’s gaze straightaway. An intentional tease? A quiet torture? He’d never been cruel like that.

But nothing was as it had been, once.

His voice was still rough velvet, but his words fell over Náli like a bucket of cold water. “If she’s your favorite then you should offer for her now. It will save the effort and expense of the ball, and keep Klemens from sampling her charms before you.”

“Did you not hear what I just said?”

“It’s not as rigid as it is in the South; no one demands that a bride come to the marriage bed a virgin. But as someone who’s seen Klemens’ cock, I think you’d best move quickly before she has a reference for comparison.”

“Stop.”

Mattias pushed off the wall and turned toward the door.

“Stop,” Náli snapped. “That’s an order from your lord, Mattias. Don’t you dare walk through that door.”

Mattias paused. Through the fitted cut of his tunic, Náli could see the tension in his spine. Watched the tail of his braid quiver as he drew a deep breath. His head turned a fraction, just far enough for Náli to glimpse the edge of his pained expression.

“I’m sorry, my lord,” he said, formally. “I spoke out of turn and without proper respect.”

“Damn respect,” Náli said.

“I didn’t mean to impugn the Lady Brigida’s honor. Nor suggest that Klemens would behave dishonorably.”

Náli wanted to strangle him. The voice of command he’d used before gave way to an unsteady breath, and a tremble in his lungs. He couldn’t do this anymore. He couldn’t… “Matti,” he said, and his voice cracked.

Mattias turned, and Náli wished he could enjoy watching in real-time as all his resolve crumbled to dust in the face of Náli’s childhood nickname for him. Wished he could feel some sense of victory, or even relief, as Mattias charged across the room and caught his face in his hands.

His gaze tracked over Náli’s face, unchecked hunger bright in his eyes, thumbs sweeping over his cheeks. “Gods,” he breathed, a starving man with no idea where to start, too accustomed to resisting temptation.

It should have been flattering – it was – but Náli was too hungry himself to bask in the admiration.

He gripped the front of Mattias’s tunic with both hands and yanked him forward, throwing him off balance so that he floundered to catch himself, one hand on the mattress, the other on Náli’s thigh. Náli kicked his chin up and pushed their mouths together.

Mattias’s grip tightened on his thigh, digging bruises, and his teeth scraped across Náli’s lower lip before he slipped his tongue between, urged his jaw wider, and kissed him properly.

Náli’s chest swelled with delight, hands moving to Mattias’s shoulders and clinging tight, because he was the one who got to do this. He was the one who drew a reaction from the normally-taciturn Guard captain; it was Náli he broke down for; who he got angry with, scowled at – and then kissed as if he couldn’t live without him.

One hand slid up Náli’s thigh until it gripped his hip, and the other speared back through his hair to cup his nape; tipped his head to a new angle so Mattias could deepen the kiss. It was a slick side of damp lips and hot tongue; Mattias was so warm, heat bleeding through the fabric of Náli’s trousers, radiating through his face like sunlight. He wanted more, but already this was nearly too much, his head swimming and his neck weak.

He gasped when Mattias broke away, and gasped again when he pressed a chain of kisses down his jaw and throat, close-kept beard scratching at sensitive skin.

“Matti,” he panted. He fisted the back of his tunic, between his shoulder blades, and felt the shift of steely muscle beneath his knuckles. “Please. I want…” Everything. He wanted everything, and his usually-glib tongue failed him.

Mattias pulled back, but rested their foreheads together before Náli could protest. His voice was breathless, strained when he said, “What if I give you what you want? What if I take you to bed?”

“Yes – oh, please–” He tried to surge forward, but the gentle pressure of a hand at the base of his throat held him in place. “Matti.”

“What if I did?” Mattias persisted. “What if I spent all night with you?”

Náli couldn’t stop the growl that built in his throat. “If you’re about to wax poetic again about your fucking vows–”

“Have you thought,” Mattias said, ignoring him, his voice melancholy in a way that stopped the words on Náli’s tongue. “About what would happen after? When we wake, and dress, and venture back to the salon for another day of entertaining your potential brides?”

Náli had never wanted to punch and kiss someone at the same time before. He loosened his grip on Mattia’s tunic with a huff of annoyance; ran his hands down the strong planes of his chest and stomach instead, until he could hook his fingers in the tooled sword belt around his waist; stared down at the way his skin looked too pale and breakable against the well-worn, oiled leather, their foreheads still pressed together.

“It’ll be just like it was today. Miserable. Pointless. And then, after, we’ll come back here, and have this.” He gave a meaningful tug on the belt.

“But this” – Mattias drew back, finally, to meet his gaze, his brown eyes impossibly sad, full of regret; his hand slid up, until it was pressed flat to Náli’s stomach – “isn’t something you’ve ever had before. After…after, it won’t be the same.” His hand inched higher, until it covered Náli’s quick-thumping heart. “If you love me, and you lie with me, it’ll hurt even worse when you have to marry someone else.”

“Gods – I don’t care about that!”

“But I do,” Mattias said, just a whisper. “It’ll hurt me.”

The words hit Náli like a shove. He turned loose of Mattias and sat back; felt his eyes go wide.

Mattias’s expression turned rueful and, somehow, sadder. “You never considered that, did you?”

“No, no – I did. It’s only that…”

It was only that he hadn’t. Not really. He’d felt such pain himself, been so bitter over their arrangement, and all the things he was denied, that he’d never stopped to consider that crossing boundaries might wound Mattias.

Mattias let out a long breath and shifted to sit sideways on the mattress, absently smoothing the fine hairs that had escaped his braid. “I forget how young you are sometimes.”

“That’s got nothing to do with it.”

Mattias smirked, wry and unhappy. “You’ve never been with anyone. Who’s to say you won’t enjoy your wife, once you try it? And I’ll be the old man standing outside the door.”

“Would you stop that? You aren’t old, and I’m not that young. And if I’m liable to gain a taste for girls, what’s to stop you from realizing I’m nothing special?” He gestured to himself, glaring a challenge.

One Mattias met with a quietly devastating visual sweep of him, head to toes. “Because I have been with someone, and love didn’t factor into it at all. It would be different.” His gaze lingered on Náli’s mouth on the way back up. “With you.”

“You are going” – Náli said on a big inhale – “to have to stop looking at me that way if you’re intent on keeping our hands to ourselves.”

Mattias bit his lip. “I didn’t say anything about hands.” And he wrapped one around Náli’s calf and yanked him across the bed.

“Ack!” Náli fell onto his back, and Mattias perched over him, one hand braced on the mattress by his head, the other teasing at the hollow of Náli’s throat. His palm could span the entire width of his neck, and wasn’t that a delightful realization?

Amusement touched his expression for the first time, an old fondness usually kept guarded. “You’re an insufferable brat,” he accused.

“Yes. An insufferable brat that you want to fuck.”

That word again. He’d said it often, in every sort of context, but it felt so different between them, in the context of actual fucking. Its true verb form.

If the way Mattias’s eyes darkened was any indication, he felt it too. “Yes,” he agreed, tone deepening. “I do want that.”

Not a new confession, nor an unexpected one, but it left Náli’s chest tight anyway. He wanted to touch, and so he did; traced the bristly line of Mattias’s beard with his thumb; followed the contour of the laugh line on his cheek, so rarely visible.

“What if it worked?” he whispered, and felt the line beneath the pad of his thumb slacken as Mattias’s smile faded. “What if there was a way to divide and share my power so that it didn’t cripple me? So that it wasn’t so important to beget an heir?”

Still frowning, Mattias said, “It would be a risk.”

“Everything’s a risk. I could slip and fall getting out of bed tomorrow. Could choke to death on toast.”

“Not a very dignified end, my lord,” Mattias teased.

“Ends usually aren’t. We might all die when the Sels return. When the–”

He bolted upright so fast he and Mattias bonked heads.

“Ow! Shit, sorry.” He rubbed the offending goose egg and turned wild eyes on his captain. “Mattias, that’s it!” The excitement that flooded his body felt an awful lot like fear.

Mattias probed the matching knot that was forming on his own scalp. “What is?”

“The story, the one about the twin sisters. Lilac and Lucia. The shaman said they were from the far-off land of Sē, but that’s not the name we know it by now. They were from Seles! The two magic girls – the first humans who could bend the powers of the gods to their own will – they were Selesee! It all makes sense. The trip across the Impassable Sea, that general’s accusation that their magics were stolen – he was referring to that same story! To Lucia bringing her magic here and gifting it to her sons, passing it down through the generations.”

Mattias stared at him, unconvinced. “That’s…wildly speculative.”

“So’s the notion of raising an entire army of skeletons, but I’ve done that, haven’t I?” Too agitated to remain sitting, he hopped off the bed and began pacing the width of the room. “If I’m right, if those two things are linked, then that means–” He faltered, in step and voice; turned to Mattias, who’d gone wide-eyed.

“That would mean,” Mattias said slowly, “that you were descended from Sels.”

Náli gulped, with difficulty. The idea was too loathsome to consider…and yet…

He stalked to his dressing table and shoved his face into the mirror; regarded his own blue eyes – too-big in their state of shock – and pale skin, and paler hair. A vision in silver, the same gray as this beastly Keep that was his palace and his curse.

“We all would be,” he said, faintly. “All of use with any magic in our blood. The skinwalkers, the shamans, the drake-riders.” He turned around and let the table take his weight. A new, unpleasant thought occurred. “Does it disgust you?”

“No,” Mattias said right away. “No, Náli, no. It’s–”

“Would you do it?”

“Do…”

“If it worked. Splitting the power. Even if it’s Selesee power. Would you share part of its weight?”

“Without question.”

He didn’t realize how much he’d doubted Mattias’s willingness until he heard it straight from his mouth. The knot in his belly loosened a fraction. “Then isn’t it worthwhile,” he reasoned, “to let me go back into the well to find out the rest of the story? To tease out all that I can from the other side so that we’re fully informed?”

Mattias let out a deep breath, shoulders slumping. “Yes. I suppose that’s so.”

Náli smiled. “See? Was that so hard to admit?”

“Insufferable brat.”

Laughing, Náli skipped forward and threw his arms around his neck. “As such, I demand a kiss before bed, if that’s all you’ll deign to give me, Captain Prude.”

Mattias’s face above him split in a knife-sharp, wicked grin that Náli had never been witness to, right before both his hands landed on Náli’s backside and squeezed.

Náli couldn’t control the little eep of surprise that slipped through his lips, and Mattias chuckled before he used his grip to haul him upward and kiss him.

It wasn’t what he wanted – wasn’t all that he wanted, anyway – but it would do for now.

17

This close to the water, the air was full of a fine, salty mist that stung their cheeks and set their noses to running. A sharp breeze gusted over the rocks on which they sat, having a late luncheon of cold ham rolls and ale from flagons kept cold by the air temperature and the altitude of their journey. Gulls wheeled overhead, screaming, and Oliver swatted at one that had designs on his roll.

Tessa hitched her cloak up higher against the chill, but tucked back into her own meal right after; Oliver had never seen her eat so heartily or unselfconsciously, and he smiled to himself to see the North creeping into her mannerisms, sanding away some of the fine polish of the South.

On the narrow strip of beach, the drakes were investigating the bones of some sea mammal, long washed-up and bleached by the sun. Percy tipped over a rib, and Alfie fussed at him for it; he looked properly chastened, afterward.

Beyond, the waters of the Narrow Strait ran quick and dark, their choppy surface flashing like so many fish bellies. Here on the Jagged Coast, the snow was beginning its spring melt, stubby brown shoots of beach grass poking up between the cracks in the ancient gray rocks on which they perched. “Narrow” though it may have been in name, the Strait was actually quite wide, the Merchants’ Widowmaker over on the Southern side visible as nothing more than a thin smudge of black on the horizon.

So far, there’d been no sign of a land bridge.

Tessa finished her roll and licked crumbs off her fingers – he’d never thought to see the day – and it was an effort not to chuckle. She still carried herself with the unmistakeable aura of a lady, though. A princess, now.

“Perhaps we haven’t gone far enough,” she said, frowning out at the water. “Maybe it still lies ahead.”

“Maybe,” Oliver agreed. “But I reckon we’re at least fifty miles inland at this point. And look.” He motioned out into the Strait, where the water rushed past them, its surface rolling, white and then black, the sunlight cutting triangles on the topsides of the waves. “There’s a current. If a land bridge lies just ahead of us, how is this water flowing? Wouldn’t it lie still?”

Tessa’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know.” Souring, she muttered, “I never studied bodies of water growing up.”

Oliver snorted. “Me neither, but there’s no teacher like direct exposure, I suppose.” He stood and dusted sand and grit from his trousers, offered her a hand. “We’d best be off if we want to be back in time for supper.”

The lengthy, overland journey that Oddmarr and his men had undertaken was made the work of a single day thanks to the drakes. They gathered up looped reins, remounted, and Percy and Alfie leaped aloft, force of their wings leaving patterns on the sand below.

Oliver leaned low on Percy’s neck, and watched Tessa beside him, the way she tipped her face into the wind, smiling, red hair streaming out from beneath her helmet. She wore a brand-new suit of light riding armor similar to his own, mostly leather with a few mail touches, as opposed to the steel Oliver had recently commissioned for the war. Her helmet was styled like his, complete with the horsehair plume, and she wore a man’s trousers and knee-high calfskin boots, as he did. They must look like a set, he thought, with their coloring, and that of their drakes.

He was little bit impressed with them, honestly, and if he preened over the picture he imagined them making, it was no one’s business but his own.

They flew low, now, hugging the Jagged Coast. From above, it resembled a set of endless broken teeth, with sharp points and strange cut-aways at the shoreline. Occasionally, he spotted a large shadow moving deep beneath the water, swimming against the current. Percy cocked his head, curious, and Oliver straightened him with a firm press of the rein and a light kick. “We’re not fighting sea monsters right now, old boy.”

They moved on.

Dark clouds were building to the west, and Oliver had decided it was time to turn back and return to Aeres when he spotted it: a swath of pale, dull earth lying across the water ahead. Percy, flying along with steady, regular flaps, lifted his head, frill extending, and let out a shrill sound of unhappiness.

Oliver patted his neck – “Easy, easy, you’re all right” – and steered him into a wide, slow turn over the top of the land bridge.

And that was most certainly the correct term for it. It wasn’t until they circled over it that he realized how much hope he’d placed in the idea that Oddmarr, chief of an untraveled, uncivilized clan, might have never seen such a thing before and overexaggerated its size. But no; wide enough for ten men to march across it abreast, the bridge spanned the narrowest part of the Strait, in a place where even the rocks on the shore were wicked and tall, forming a sort of natural canyon about fifteen feet deep.

Its construction, viewed from above, was part rock, part sand, part earth. Grass grew in irregular tufts along its surface. It looked like a natural structure, like it had existed here for decades.

He steered a still-fussy Percy lower and lower. “Lightly, at first,” he cautioned. “We don’t know if it’ll hold you.”

Flapping hard, Percy eased down, back feet first. Oliver left the decision up to him, and after a moment, he settled, all four feet firmly planted on solid ground. His wings stilled, but his head stayed lifted, neck stretched tall; his nostrils flared as he tested the air, and growled in his throat.

Tessa and Alfie landed beside them, and Alfie rumbled a low, disquieted growl of her own.

“They don’t like it,” Tessa called over, wind snatching at her voice and whipping loose tendrils of hair across her face. She plucked them away with a gloved fingertip and leaned over to look at the bridge below them.

“I know,” Oliver called back. “If it’s not natural” – though it looked it – “and the Sels formed it with magic, they should be able to sense that.”

For his own part, the fine hairs prickled along his nape, but he wasn’t sure if that was sixth-sense related, or a result of Percy’s unease.

Catch me if I go tumbling over the edge, he thought, and unclipped his harness to slide down Percy’s back.

Percy chirruped, but his boots landed without incident, and a few deep knee bends assured him the solidity beneath them all was real, and not some sort of mirage. He kicked at a dirt clod and watched it explode into powder, just as a dirt clod should.

Above, he heard the click of Tessa’s harness, and held up a hand in her direction. “No, stay. I’m just having a quick look around,” he said.

He heard her delicate sigh.

“Sorry, dear. Force of habit.” Also, he wasn’t going to go home, figurative hat in hands, and explain to Rune how he’d gotten his bride drowned on a reconnaissance mission. (That was to say nothing of relaying the news to her mother.)

He walked to the place where the bridge joined the shore, and found a transition that seemed, like all other parts of the structure, wholly natural. Back at the center, he found the scrapes Oddmarr had mentioned: wide, fresh grooves that could very well have been made by the drag of a ship’s hull.

“Ollie,” Tessa said. “There’s a current.”

“Well, yes, straits tend to have…” He trailed off as the implications of her words struck him. “Wait.”

He peered over the eastern side, down at the water, and saw that it flowed outward from the wall, a steady, swift current as if it was pouring out of the bridge. To the west, he found the water gliding into the bridge, slowing, some, but not meeting the resistance that it should have.

“There has to be a passthrough,” he said. “It’s the only explanation.”

“Is this a floating bridge?” Tessa asked with alarm, and Alfie stretched her wings, ready to take flight.

“I can’t know without looking.” He watched the water lap at the mass of earth, sliding away somewhere down below the surface, and his rippling, breaking reflection. “I suppose the water’s too cold for me to go down there.”

“Yes, it is.” Tessa’s voice went shrill, as if afraid he’d dive in.

Oliver turned a look on Percy – who shook his head, snorted, but then slid down the side of the bridge and into the water head-first, lithe as a seal. His tail tip smacked the surface before it disappeared, spraying Oliver full in the face with cold water.

“Guess I deserved that.” He wiped himself down with the edge of his cloak to the sound of Tessa’s laughter.

Percy was back a minute later, climbing back up the steep face of the bridge, wicked claws sinking deep for purchase. When he’d hauled himself up to the top, he shook all over like a dog, cold droplets flying everywhere. Tessa let out a cry of dismay, and Alfie chittered in agitation at her mate.

Oliver, who’d thought to shield himself with his cloak, laughed – until a wash of blue filled his mind, crowded his vision, and offered him a glimpse of what Percy had seen below. What looked like a natural phenomenon above the water was, at its base, an elaborate brickwork series of arches that looked startlingly like the aqueducts in Aquitaine. Oliver had never seen them in person, but he’d pored over architecture books in the library at Drake Hall, the pencil and paint-rendered splendor of the Crownlands, and all their assembled wonders. Here, the arches allowed the strait to pass through, barely impeded, and continue on.

He blinked, and his vision cleared, faintly dizzy from the transition back to his own consciousness.

“Damn,” he murmured.

“What?”

“It’s definitely manmade. Or, well, magic-made. Its supports leave no doubt. And look.” He gestured to the banks to either side. “There’s no evidence of any construction. They would have needed to block off the water, divert it somehow, dam or redirect the entire strait in order to spend the weeks necessary to build those arches. And yet nothing is disturbed.”

Tessa had gone pale, save the two spots of windburned color high on her cheeks. “They built it with magic, then.”

“Yes. They must have.” The idea sent a chill through him, one he saw echoed in the way Tessa pulled the collar of her cloak tighter around her neck.

Of all the magics they’d encountered thus far, they’d yet to meet anyone who could build a bridge with it.

Oliver gazed off across the southern end of the bridge, where it joined a beach, one that folded upward into grass-topped dunes. A short, steep verge lay beyond, and then, their bare trunks white, limbs tipped with the beginnings of spring leaf buds, stood the aspens, ghostly and dark-eyed. They seemed to be watching them.

Through those trees, and miles and miles beyond, lay Inglewood, and his cousin, and her amassing forces. Closer than she’d been in months – and still much too far.

He climbed back into his now-wet saddle, and met Tessa’s gaze. “I have a feeling,” he said, before they heeled the drakes into takeoff, “that this is far from the last new magic we’ll see in the months to come.”

18

Steel chimed against steel as Náli caught Mattias’s falling blade with both his long knives crossed in an X. Mattias hadn’t checked his swing, and the force of impact juddered all the way up to Náli’s jaw, the sound ringing out across the training yard like the strike of a gong. Náli bared his teeth in a grin, adrenaline and excitement twining in his belly, and ducked to the side, disengaging before Mattias could draw back. He heard the crunch of pebbles behind him and whirled, striking at Klemens’ middle.

Klemens stepped back with a curse, unbalanced, feet too wide apart, now.

Náli heard the whistle of Mattias’s blade at his back, tucked down, knives held carefully, and rolled through Klemens’ spread legs. He whacked him hard in the back of the knee with a knife hilt when he was clear, to the sound of more cursing, and the dropping of his body as his leg gave out.

Náli sprang back to his feet, slipped his knives into the twin sheathes strapped between his shoulders, and drew his sword, the slink of the blade leaving its sheath bringing a thrill of satisfaction.

This was what he’d needed. Not the well, not rest, not tea parties or balls. Nor a true fight like they’d faced on the road to the Midwinter Festival. But a good, old-fashioned sparring match in the gravel-paved training yard of Naus Keep, where he knew every inch of the ring, and each one of his opponents’ weaknesses, because they’d been the ones to teach him how to fight.

His training had begun at age three as games: playing tag in the garden, squealing with delight as he ran from one of his Guards, and gave chase in return. By the time he was five, he’d understood that he was receiving the instruction befitting a proper Northern knight. In the South, knights were largely for show, competing in tourneys in spotless armor to impress ladies and demonstrate their wealth. In the North, knights were warriors, expected to have bloodied their swords before they were twenty.

It had been apparent early on that Náli would lack the height and brute strength of young lords like Leif and Rune. He was slender, instead, light and quick, and so his regimen had been tailored to take the best advantage of those natural attributes. When they’d first put naked steel in his hands, it had been those twin knives, long as his forearms, light as writing quills, sharp as needles. They were slicing weapons, meant for hamstringing and gutting men, rather than bludgeoning them to death like King Erik’s two-handed broadsword. His own sword, likewise, was meant for fast, flurried engagements, rather than bold-faced beatings.

Danski and Darri came at him from either side, and he managed to parry both of them in turn in a rather stunning – if he said so himself – sequence of spins that left him crossing swords with Mattias again while the cousins stumbled into one another with muttered curses and a clatter of swords meeting.

“Little shit,” Mattias accused, teeth bared in a rare, feral smile.

Náli grinned back and tried a feint that Mattias blocked. Another, another. The steel chimed like bells as Mattias took control of the duel and forced him back one step at a time, swinging at him again and again with relentless force.

Náli thought about getting out of it – that was what all five of them had taught him to do. He could sidestep, backflip, and wiggle his way out of the most dangerous hand-to-hand duels, always ready with an unexpected countermove.

But here now, he stayed, retreating. Testing himself.

Why, he didn’t know. Mattias was bigger, and stronger, and his greatest teacher, besides; there was no way to best him like this, flat-out, in a contest of muscles and aggression.

Náli felt his smile become a grimace, teeth still bared, as the next parry sent a painful jolt through his forearms. Something in his wrist gave, a sudden flare of weakness, and that was when Mattias ran his sword all the way down to Náli’s cross-guard and sent Náli’s blade spinning away through the hazy sunlight with a deft flick of his wrist. His resultant grin was brief, but blinding in its intensity. Náli wanted a sketch of it to moon over longingly when he sat by the fire at night.

But later. For now, he couldn’t allow himself even a moment’s indulgence.

The second the hilt of his sword left his palm was the second he drew his knives and rushed in low, beneath Mattias’s guard. Mattias’s sword was too long to attempt a counteroffensive, and so Náli hit him full force in the solar plexus with his shoulder and managed to topple him. “Fuck,” he muttered on the exhale before Náli, victorious, straddled his waist and pinned him in place with a knife tip just under each collarbone.

“Ha!” he crowed. “You’re getting slow.”

Mattias, breathing hard from effort, each breath pressing his ribs into the insides of Náli’s thighs, lifted his brows and said, mildly, “Did it not occur to you that I might have let you win?”

“You didn’t,” Náli said, although, really, there was no way to be sure of that. “You didn’t,” he repeated, frowning.

Mattias shrugged. “My lord can believe what he likes.”

“You–”

“My lord,” Klemens said, a warning.

And someone started clapping.

Náli froze. It was not at all unusual to wind up in this and similar positions when he was sparring with his men, Mattias or one of the others, but this training yard was not like the one at Aeres; sparring wasn’t a spectator sport. It was generally private. And, given the personal satisfaction of straddling Mattias, it felt more than a little damning, perched like this on his hips, his long hair falling around them both like a curtain, their chests heaving as they fought to catch their breath.

Náli sheathed his knives and stood. Smoothed his hair back to the sound of a feminine voice saying, “That was well done.”

Brigida, he realized, with a loosening of his lungs, and turned to find her at the open gate, grinning at him, gloved fingers laced together. “One would never expect you capable of besting someone that much taller than you, Lord Náli.” she said, grin widening, eyes dancing.

“It’s one of my great goals in life,” he said, accepting the waterskin Klemens handed him, “to be not only full of surprises, but also surprisingly beautiful. I like to think I’ve succeeded on both counts.”

Brigida giggled.

Mattias, he noted with a quick glance, made a face and turned away, sheathing his sword.

Náli took a few long pulls from the skin, wiped his mouth, and went to join her. Einrih dropped his cloak around his shoulders as he passed.

“What are you doing out here?” Náli asked. She fell into step beside him and they headed down the narrow, trampled snow path that ran the perimeter of the garden, such as it was. Mostly it was old lava formations, rather than plants. “How did you escape my mother’s clutches?”

“That isn’t a kind thing to say about one’s mother,” she admonished, and then, with a more jocular air: “How did you? Lady Serafina was quite apologetic about you not being at luncheon.”

He grimaced, imagining. “I slipped out through the kitchens, early, and haven’t been back inside since.” His stomach growled, as if to prove the point.

Brigida chuckled. “That’ll do it.” She let out a deep breath, and a bit of her “nice young lady” front gave way to a more normal tone. “I’m sorry about all of this. I know you don’t want to play host.”

“Why are you apologizing? It wasn’t your idea.” He paused, and sent her a look. “It wasn’t, was it? Because if you helped her orchestrate this thing…”

She chuckled again, briefly, before her brow furrowed. She stared off at the path ahead, its benches lined with strange, snow-dusted black shapes that looked almost like men on horseback. “I know you don’t like it. A house full of ladies and all these functions.”

“Well, you’re right about the functions. I loathe those. But I don’t mind ladies. Not at all. I only mind being told to select one as if I’ve gone to market to buy a sow.”

She didn’t respond, and he realized how his words must have sounded to her. A sideways glance proved that her lips had pressed tight together, gaze downcast, hands knitted.

“My apologies,” he said, stiffly. Sorry wasn’t a normal part of his vocabulary. “I didn’t mean to imply–”

She turned toward him, and her expression brought him up short; the quiet, furious flash in her eyes, the soft blue-green of seawater touched with anger. “I may not be as lofty as the Corpse Lord.”

He cringed.

“But I don’t think so poorly of myself to assume I’m a sow.” A notch formed between her dark brows.

“I–” he stared.

She interrupted, pressing forward with a quiet resolve. “Furthermore, while I do like you, Náli, please don’t assume that I am overly impressed with you, nor do I fashion myself in love with you.” Her gaze made a ruthless trip down his body and back up to his face, further evidencing that scant half-inch of height advantage she had over him. It couldn’t have been more different from the way Mattias had devoured him with his eyes last night. “Should I take a husband,” she went on, “I’d prefer him to be a bit – older.” The taller was heavily implied.

Náli didn’t want to marry her, or anyone, but it still stung a little, in the way of all insults. “Well. I appreciate your honesty.”

But she wasn’t done, apparently. “Some of your prospects in there” – she gestured over her shoulder toward the Keep – “want nothing more than to find a landed, moneyed husband. Your looks are a lovely bonus. But I – while I like you – want to marry for love, and not for like. For true feeling, and not for an alliance, or for future financial security.”

Náli blinked at her. “Then…why are you here?”

Here her resolve failed. Her expression crumpled and she faced away, shoulders drawing up beneath her cloak. “It was my aunt’s idea. My father isn’t a young man, and the war has slowed commerce. She worries that, without a husband of some means, I won’t be able to hold our family’s seat on the coast alone.”

“Ah.”

“Father has brought me up to take over once he’s – gone.” She faltered, voice catching. The prospect of his passing was obviously painful for her. “But if trade doesn’t begin as it should in spring, if we…”

“I understand.”

She sighed, and glanced at him, attempting a smile. “And so we are in the same boat, it seems. Encouraged by our betters to wed for the good of forces beyond our control.”

“Your betters, perhaps. I won’t call my mother that.”

A startled laugh transformed her face, and eased the visible tension across her shoulders. “What a terrible thing to say.”

“She’s a terrible person.”

Brigida squelched her next laugh in her palm, gaze dancing again.

Náli breathed an internal sigh of relief.

They reached the garden wall, dark, porous magma stone with three shallow steps built at the bottom so you could climb up and gaze over its steepled top.

The lava fields stretched below, a downward-sloping landscape of black troughs and snow-capped hillocks. The Fault Lands’ sheep grazed its expanse, burrowing beneath the snow with their muzzles to find the first, tender shoots of spring grass beneath. Gray on gray on gray, from the white of the unsullied snow, to the black of the dried magma, to the muddied coats of the sheep. A bleak landscape, smoke curling from the underground vents, the constant haze of ash washing the sun to something insubstantial and joyless.

“It’s beautiful in its own way,” Brigida said. “I’ve always thought so.”

“If you think that’s beautiful, then I’m feeling less insulted by your rejection.”

She snorted. “I didn’t think it was impossible to insult you.”

“No, it is. I’m very vain.” He snuck a glance over his shoulder, searching for his constant entourage. His Guard was arranged along the path behind him, Mattias the closest, watching them with seeming indifference – but Náli could tell that Mattias’s good mood from minutes before had iced over. Jealousy: what a wondrous thing, he thought, with a pleasant internal shudder.

Klemens, he noted, stood beside Mattias, and his gaze was fixed, rather inappropriately, on Brigida’s backside.

He shifted closer to her and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Brigida. When you say that you’d prefer a man who is older…” He trailed off and was rewarded by her gaze snapping to his face, sharp and cautious in an instant. “What do you think of my man Klemens?”

She frowned. “Your man?”

“One of my Guard. Him. Right back there.”

“Your Dead Guard?”

“Yes.” He tilted his head willing her to look.

Slowly, she turned her head.

“No, not him.” That one’s mine, he thought with an inner snarl. “Next to him. To his right.”

He watched her eyes shift; watched her pupils expand, fractionally, before she turned back to him, frown still firmly in place. “What about him?”

“Do you think he’s tall and handsome and old enough?”

Her brows lifted. “He’s your Dead Guard. They swear themselves to you, and only you. When you die, they’ll spend the remainder of their days in seclusion,” she said, the words rote, as if read from a book, her tone a little bit wild.

“Yes, yes.” He rolled his eyes. “The chaste and noble Dead Guard.” He wondered how shocked she would be to learn of the position he’d found three of them in night before last. “No wives, no sons, no fun. Nothing but me, me, me.

“But what if I were to tell you that I’m thinking of altering the tradition somewhat?”

She stared at him.

“Fine. Don’t believe me. But what about Klemens?”

“He’s your–”

“I know what he is,” he snapped, growing impatient. “Forget about that for the moment.”

“But I don’t know him. I’ve never spoken to him.”

“He’s lovely,” Náli said with an offhand wave. “I’m asking for a purely superficial assessment here, Brigida. Do you find him pleasing to look at?”

She hesitated – and then her cheeks slowly pinked. “Well. Yes.”

Náli grinned wide enough that she gave him a startled look.

“Why are you smiling like that?”

“Because I’ve just had a wonderful idea.”

~*~

“That is not a wonderful idea.”

It was the most resistance Klemens had ever offered him, and for that reason, Náli took it as an insult. “I’m insulted,” he said, in case his scowl wasn’t clear enough.

At Klemens’ side, Mattias had gone blank-faced and wide-eyed, as if in shock. “You…” he said, slowly, “asked Lady Brigida…” He covered his face with his hands, unable to say it. Or look at him, apparently.

Náli set his hands on his hips with a huff. “You’re both acting as if I’ve done something unmentionable. I’m problem-solving, which no one else seems ready to do.”

Danski said, “You asked a lady who’s here to marry you if she fancies Klemens. My lord,” he tacked on at the end, without a great deal of respect.

“I asked if she thought he was handsome, not if she wanted to ride his cock while you lot watched,” he snapped, and had the small satisfaction of watching all of their faces color, Mattias’s blush only visible through the gaps in his fingers. “Look, Klemens, if you don’t fancy her, then pick whoever you like. That goes for all of you: if you want to invest time in the making of children, I’ll be nothing but encouraging.”

Mattias dropped his hands with a sigh. “Náli.” He was so agitated he didn’t even bother with the my lord business, which earned several eyebrow raises. “The vows haven’t just disappeared because you’d like them to.”

Those bloody fucking vows. But it was excitement rather than anger that churned in his belly, now. “You’re all forgetting,” he said as patiently as he was currently capable – which wasn’t very – “that I’ve recently learned there is a way to pass along magic that doesn’t involve me rutting against some poor girl night after night.” When he was met by blank and skeptical looks, he said, “It’s almost as if none of you ever listen to a word I say.”

“You’re talking of the gibbering of a dead man again,” Mattias said, grimly.

Náli refused to lose his temper this time – mostly because they weren’t alone, but also because he was exhausted at this point. Tired beyond reckon with Mattias’s doubt and caution. “If that gibbering is accurate, it means the heir of the Fault Lands doesn’t have to be of my blood. It means I don’t have to marry, if I don’t want to. I can name a new Corpse Lord of my choosing, just as King Erik has done with his kingship.”

He watched their faces; realized this had never occurred to them.

“Do you see now why I’ve been so anxious to return to the well?”

Looks were traded; Klemens skated a very pointed one Mattias’s direction, single brow lifted. Náli chose to think it was an encouraging look. The others gazed at their captain with open curiosity, leaving it to him.

Mattias scrubbed at his beard, and then the shaved sides of his head, brow crimped. Finally, he let out a breath and said, “When would you want to–”

“Tonight,” Náli said. “As soon as possible.”

This time, no one argued with him.

19

Mother was furious after dinner, upbraiding him over his absence during the day’s entertainments. She’d come looking for him, and found him in the service hall that led, after a number of staircases, to the stairs that walked down into the cold caverns of the Nágrindr. How funny, he thought without humor, that she’d come looking for him on the path to the dead when she couldn’t find him elsewhere.

As usual, she didn’t acknowledge his Guard as humans capable of hearing.

“…and then,” she continued, voice climbing to something in the startled owl register, “I have to find out from one of the stable boys that you were seen walking alone in the garden with Lady Brigida!”

“Mother, you’ve never spoken to a stable boy in your life,” he said, mildly, just for the pleasure of watching the flush in her face climb up to touch her fair brows.

“Why, you–”

“Secondly,” he said, “I wasn’t alone with her; all of my Guard was in attendance; she came to watch us spar in the training yard. Thirdly,” he went on, in the face of her white lips and red cheeks, “you invited Lady Brigida here. Am I to take it you don’t approve of her as a possible wife?”

“A true gentleman doesn’t show such favoritism!” Little flecks of spittle struck his cheek, cold as her expression.

He wiped his face with deliberate motions. “Yes, well, we’re not in your homeland, Mother, and I’m not a gentleman.  Here in the Fault Lands, I’d be perfectly within my rights to drag my bride of choice behind a hedge and fuck her in front of my men.”

An exaggeration, yes, but it had the desired effect. Her eyes flew wide and she made a choking, scandalized sound, hand fluttering to her throat.

“Now, if you’ll excuse us.”

She was still making shocked, high-pitched noises as he stepped around her and, thankfully, she didn’t try to stop him again.

~*~

Valgrind greeted him with glad trumpeting, down below, and ran circles around him, tail swinging dangerously back and forth.

Einrih dodged one of said swings and pointed toward a corner of the cavern, saying, “We’ve brought him a few sheep, as you can see.” Only bones remained.

“Yes, yes, fine,” Náli told the overexcited drake, and scratched along his jaw and behind his horns until he settled, eyes slitted and purr rumbling in his chest. “Do you remember what we did last time? We’re going to do it again.”

It wasn’t frightening, this time, now that he knew what to expect. He gripped Valgrind’s neck spines and kicked along beside him; knew to hold his breath, close his eyes, and brace himself for the squeezing pressure of travelling forcefully through the gate.

They arrived as before, Náli dressed as always, Valgrind shaking white water off his frills. Birds trilled in the distance; bees hummed in the blowsy white wildflowers that dotted the meadow. But when they crested the hill, they found a village that was not merely quiet, but abandoned.

Doors stood open, swinging faintly in the breeze; through them, Náli glimpsed half-eaten meals on tables swarming with flies. Overturned chairs. Fires had burned down to coals, the contents of the cookpots above reduced to black sludge adhered to the bottoms. He found a doll lying in the street, its straw-stuffed cloth arms flung out to the sides, its hand-stitched face scuffed with dirt. That disturbed him most of all, for some reason; the people who’d lived here were dead. What could have caused them to flee? What could harm the dead?

Pulse skipping with uneasiness, he laid a hand on Valgrind’s shoulder, and together they continued.

The longhouse, when they reached it, emitted no smoke from its roof. A deep inhale revealed a lack of fragrant herbs and cooking smells. Náli knew before he pushed the door open that he would find it empty; it seemed to hum with that particular quiet only found in deserted places.

“Hello?” he called, voice echoing off the high timbers of the ceiling. He startled a pair of doves in the rafters, and they fluttered clumsily out through the open windows. At the center of the house’s single room, sand had been raked over the fire, and the pots sat stacked in a corner, along with the shaman’s usual stool. The herbs, he noted, always suspended from support posts in dried bunches, spaced with ropes of onions, garlic, and dehydrated fish, were gone. Unlike some of the cottages, the longhouse had the distinct feel of intentional leaving about it, like the shaman had taken the time to pack what he needed, and organize the rest before he departed.

“Where did you go?” he asked the empty air, turning in a circle, staring up through the open smoke hole at the hazy clouds above. Shouting: “Where are you?”

No answer, save the call of birdsong.

“I don’t even know his bloody name,” Náli grumbled, to which Valgrind replied with a kirik from the open door. “I don’t suppose you know how to go about following him, do you?”

Valgrind withdrew his head, and shuffled away, tail curling and flicking like a cat’s. Náli followed. When they were side-by-side once more, Valgrind lifted his head, tested the air, and then set off at a lope, heading down the track and out of the village.

Náli had to run to keep up, and though he was young and fit, it turned out that a person grew tired and flagged even beyond the mortal realm.

“Wait, wait.” He clutched at his ribs and grimaced, stumbling on his next step. He staggered to a stop, breathing roughly against the stitch in his side. “I can’t – keep running – forever,” he panted.

Valgrind swung his head around, cocked and assessing; then he gripped the back of Náli’s tunic with his teeth.

“Stop! Bloody – what are you doing? You beast!” But his waving and kicking went disregarded, and he was swung up and placed neatly on the natural dip just behind the drake’s withers, where a saddle would fit.

“Oh.” Náli braced his hands on lean dragon shoulders and regarded this new position. “Well.” He hadn’t considering riding him, for some reason. “Are you sure you’re big enough for that? Am I too heavy?”

Valgrind croaked, shook his head, and spread his wings in answer.

“Oh, gods. All right. That’s what I get for asking.” He took a tight grip on Valgrind’s neck spines, leaned low, and clamped his thighs and calves tight against the drake’s sides. “Try not to–”

With two lurching steps forward and a furious beating of wings, Valgrind threw himself aloft without a shred of his parents’ grace.

Náli was very glad there were no witnesses, here in the land of the dead, and, if asked, would deny that he had screamed.

It was an arduous climb, at first. Twice, Valgrind tipped dangerously to the side and Náli held on with gritted teeth and grasping fingernails. Eventually, though, the wingbeats gained a rhythm, he caught a sun-warmed updraft, and they were safely aloft.

“Do you know where you’re going?” Náli called.

Valgrind trilled an answer that could have been yes, could have been I’m hungry. Regardless, Náli was stuck for the moment; he pressed his cheek to the sleek, flexing neck, keeping low as possible, and held on for the ride.

Time stretched, impossible to gauge. Fields and hills and dark blue ponds passed beneath them, an endless tapestry. Valgrind slipped lower in the sky, once, as a herd of slender, white-tailed deer went sprinting across the plain.

“No,” Náli said, sharply, wishing for a bridle and reins.

Valgrind made a despairing noise, but climbed back up into the air, winging them on their way to wherever the little beast thought fit to take him.

Eventually, a smudge appeared along the horizon. One that grew larger, gained dimension, and eventually took the shape of a mountain range. A single peak in the center stood above the others, snow-capped, pointed and faintly curved like a wolf’s fang. Valgrind let out a cry, one that echoed deep in Náli’s chest, accompanied by a tug. A sense of there, that place.

The wind picked up, gliding through the sawblade mountain peaks; it buffeted Náli’s face, streamed his hair out behind him, and turned Valgrind’s wing flaps choppy and strained.

“Bank, bank!” he barked, and, belatedly, Valgrind did, angling in a way that sent them rushing toward a dark void on the side of the mountain. “Wait! Slow down!”

A cave, he thought wildly, before they smashed into it. Náli shut his eyes, but at the last second, Valgrind spread his wings and dropped, landing on a natural ledge there with a dramatic swoop that was echoed in the pit of Náli’s stomach.

He cracked his eyes and found they were inside a tall cavern cut into the face of the mountain, that they were alive – as alive as one could be in the land of the dead – and in one piece. “Next time,” he fumed, as Valgrind craned around to look at him, “try a little finesse.”

“Kirik!”

Shaking a little, Náli slid down, grateful for solid ground beneath his boots. At the front edge of the cavern, he spotted a narrow, well-camouflaged set of stairs carved into the granite that led down out of sight, presumably all the way down to the plains below. The ceiling overhead was easily fifty meters high, plenty of room for a much larger drake. Sunlight poured in through the opening, slanting across a stone floor worn smooth by time, weather…and, judging by the snatch of a whisper he heard, the passage of many feet.

He stepped toward the deep pool of shadows that lay beyond the sunlight’s reach. “Hello? Is anyone there?”

Rustling. Whispers.

Fragment of a warning: “…don’t! He…”

He took another step. “It’s Lord Náli. Of the Fault Lands. If you’re from the village, you’ve seen me many times…and attacked me, the last time,” he tacked on at the end, unable to keep the irritation from his voice. “Valgrind is stupid and obnoxious, but he isn’t dangerous.”

A grumbling sound of disagreement issued from behind him.

He patted the air, absently. “Shh, you are stupid. Listen,” he called, raising his voice. “I seek your shaman. Your wise man. Your…whatever you call him. I don’t know his bloody name.”

More rustling. More whispers. Then the scuff of a boot sole. Sunlight skimmed across worn boots, and dusty trousers; passed up the fraying embroidery of a tunic stitched with small, twisting dragons. The man stepped into the light, and Náli nearly recoiled, because his face was different – but not truly. The beard had been shorn and his hair combed until it lay in shining rivers over his shoulders. A gleaming circlet set with a diamond sat on his brow. Dusty and patched as his clothes were, they had clearly once been fine; and his face, without the beard and the harsh shadows of the cookfire, was the fine-boned, elegant, handsome face of the dead king that emerged each time he ventured into the white water.

“My name,” said the shaman he’d been forced to visit his whole life, “is Lucian. For my mother. The first Corpse Lord of the Fault Lands.”

~*~

Náli’s first thought was of course. Of course, this was the first Corpse Lord.

His second was I’m an idiot. Because how had he never guessed this? Where else would the gate of the dead send him but to the hearth of his distant ancestor?

Lucian led him deeper into the cavern, and around an outcropping of rock to reveal an interior chamber even larger than the first, lit with the light of candles and braziers. Bedrolls lay unfurled on the stone ground, and privacy had been procured with wood-framed hide screens and quilts hung up between poles. “It isn’t much,” he said, gesturing to a wooden crate set before a brazier. “But it’s dry, and warm, and out of the wind. Easier to defend as well.”

Náli sat, and watched the man who, on his last visit, had seemed gray and frail, settle with lordly grace on the crate opposite. “Defend against whom?” Náli asked. “Forgive me, but you’re all…” He cast a glance toward the men and women who were cooking, tending to children or scrubbing clothes with wooden buckets and stiff-bristle brushes. A few brave souls darted glances their way. “Well. Dead.”

Lucian’s face twitched, a fleeting smile touched with wryness. “Yes, we are. And I too assumed that death was the final battle we all must face. But it isn’t.” He lifted a hand when Náli gathered breath to protest, staying him. “Where do you think we are now?”

“In a cave.”

That earned him a look for being smart-mouthed. “You asked.”

“I did. And you failed to come up with a reasonable answer. Because you don’t know what this place is, do you?”

Náli stared at him.

“All dead must pass through the Nágrindr, which is not a fixed point in the bottom of your white pool, by the by. Wherever a soul leaves a body, there a gate will open. Some warriors go the Ancestral Halls, yes, where the mead flows and there are beautiful women to attend to their every need; where the Val-Father himself toasts their arrival.

“But most go to the fields and halls of Hel, the goddess of death. There, they are not feted, but their souls wander forward into eternity free of pain, reunited with their loved ones.

“And then there is this place. The Meðal.”

“The between?” Náli asked.

He nodded. “My domain. Think of it as a way to sort the dead and send them on to their final destination. A few” – he motioned toward the villagers behind him – “have chosen to remain here. Some are waiting on loved ones to join them, others are restless. Others fear going farther.

“I think many of them will be moving on soon, though. Some already have. Because once they’ve joined the hall of the Val-Father or the goddess Hel, they are beyond the reach of the living…or the dead who wish them harm.”

The back of Náli’s neck prickled with uneasiness. “Which are you expecting to defend this mountain from? The living or the dead?”

“Perhaps both,” Lucian said, eyes seeming to glow in the firelight. “You are not the only one who walks between worlds, Lord Náli. The descendants of Lucia can travel the old paths. But so, too, can the descendants of her sister.”

He swallowed, throat dry. “Lilac’s children. And grandchildren.”

Lucian nodded. “And so on.”

“Sē. The land the twins came from – it’s Seles, isn’t it?”

The shaman tilted his head, gaze reflective. “Seles,” he said, slowly, tasting the word, and Náli bit back an impatient huff. “I’ve heard of it. Fierce warriors in possession of powerful magic.”

“But that’s what became of Sē, yes? It’s Seles now? The bloody awful empire intent on spreading to the ends of the earth?”

Lucian’s voice became almost dreamy. “She was lovely, Lucia said – Mother said. Her twin sister. Even more beautiful than she was. Pale silver with eyes like ice. She gathered the wild lilacs for which she was named to dye her robes.”

“Purple,” Náli said, fear seizing his guts. “Lilacs are purple.”

It all made sense. If the story of the twins was true – and he’d lived through enough impossibilities to think that it was – then all signs pointed to Lilac’s offspring becoming the Sels they now fought, with their silver looks, and their inbreeding, and their purple…everything. And their accusations of magic theft.

“Yes,” Lucian said, simply.

“Are they hunting you? Selesee magic users?”

Lucian blinked, and his gaze cleared, and he grew somber. “It’s the drake.”

“What is?”

“I sensed the old magic on the other side of the veil; close, and strong, and unseen in these Northern lands for many generations. But none of the living came searching for me until your drake” – he nodded toward the opening of the cavern, where Náli had left Valgrind happily munching a haunch of venison a nervous villager had offered – “came through the Nágrindr. They were here already – these Sels you mention, Lilac’s children – but they weren’t hunting me, then.”

“And now they are.” Náli grimaced. “Sorry.”

“It isn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last.”

But what would happen if the enemy found Lucian and his people here? Could a dead lord be killed? And if he was, what would happen to this realm? This gray-washed place that Náli had visited, and hated his whole life, but which he couldn’t imagine being without?

He wanted to ask; he was cluttered with questions. But he’d come here for a reason, tonight. He had to stay on topic.

“All of that is…” He shook his head and refocused. “Lucian.” It felt strange to address him by name, after all this time. “The last time I was here, you were telling me about the way my power used to function. About the first Dead Guard sharing it with – well, with you, I suppose. There were six of you, and using the magic didn’t send you into a swoon, and you didn’t have to go down into the bloody well all the time. I need to know how that was accomplished. I need to know if it can be done again!” At the end, his voice ticked up until he was nearly shouting; he saw more than a few curious faces turn their direction.

“Please,” he said, calmer. “I can’t be chained to this mountain for the rest of my miserable life.” I can’t marry someone I don’t love, he didn’t say, because it felt too selfish. This first Corpse Lord had chosen to cripple himself with magic, and surely he had his reasons; surely being in love with his Guard captain hadn’t been a deciding factor in any of it.

Lucian let out a slow, tired-sounding breath. “I was afraid you’d ask me this.”

“It’s only fair,” Náli said, bristling. “It may have come from you, and your decisions, but it’s my magic now and I’m the one who has to live with it.” He kicked his chin up. “I want to know why you took it away from your Guard. And why it wrings me out like a wet cloth whenever I use it.” He held the shaman’s gaze a long, fraught moment, conveying all of his displeasure and impatience, and, well, bratty authority in that look.

Lucian’s face twitched into a very human expression for a moment, less long-dead magical lord and more put-out with a young upstart. But then he sighed and said, "Magic is like a beacon. The stronger it is, the more easily seen by other magic-users. Some magic makes the user seem magnetic and charming – the ancestors of my brother that became the Drake family, the dragon-riders, always possessed a certain allure. They were beautiful, and charming, and captivating. They charmed kings and queens and smallfolk hung on their every word.”

Náli thought of a battle-hardened king braiding love beads into a Southern bastard’s hair, and a chill moved through him. Was that truly love? Or the charm of a magic Oliver hadn’t even known he possessed?

“Other, more powerful magics shine like signal fires on mountaintops,” Lucian continued. “That was our power. The fiercest power in the North…and that was why they came.”

“Who is they?”

Lucian lunged across the brazier – “Hey! What are you–?” – and seized Náli’s wrist. His grip was cold. So cold it burned. Náli tried to twist away, but then his vision was flooded with light, and he stood at the base of a mountain, smoke curling from its peak. Against a roiling, stormy sky streaked with lightning he saw them overhead: drakes. Five, six, seven of them. Black and sinuous and tremendous, much larger than the cold-drakes he'd met, their wings shredding the storm clouds as they circled, and then dove straight for them.

A ring of men stood around him, shouting, swords raised. His Dead Guard. Dressed all in gray and brown, their hair in long, single braids.

No, he thought, but he couldn’t move, and couldn’t speak, because this wasn’t his memory; was instead a flash of what had happened centuries before.

As the drakes neared, he saw riders on their backs: pale hair streaking from beneath black helmets, and armor that gleamed gold.

As abruptly as it had come, the vision vanished, and Náli was left blinking spots from his vision and massaging the icy pins and needles from his wrist.

Lucian sat back, winded, panting. He turned his face away, so the firelight carved harsh shadows beneath his near cheekbone. “We slew them all that day, drakes and enemies both. The last died at my feet, with blood on his lips, vowing the end of our ‘whole miserable people.’ He had my mother’s fine-featured face. Her sister’s face.” His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “I cut his throat, and moved to see to my Guards – but it was too late.

“They lay dying in the snow, burned by the foreign drakes’ strange green fire, bones broken, armor rent, flesh sliced to ribbons. I knelt by my captain, and laid hands upon his breast, but he begged me not to bring them back. Not to – animate them. Like poppets. Because that’s all that it is. It would take a magic stronger than any I possess to keep the soul inside a ruined body. The merging of flesh and spirit is something I hadn’t mastered yet – and something I wouldn’t.

“I gathered up their magic that day, as they died, and I took their diamond pendants, and my mother’s blood magic, and buried it all deep inside the mountain, where the heat and magma and poison gas would shield its secret from any such hunters in the future.”

He turned back to Náli, eyes bottomless and freshwater blue, full of all the ages that had passed since he’d walked the earth. “But even a fire mountain,” he said, gravely, “cannot contain such power; it is a power meant for the living, for a body that can wield it.

“Those diamonds lie even now in the bottom of the pool you call the well. They hold the power that belonged to my Guards. Bind it to your own, and together the six of you can carry the whole of the magic, without need of this mountain.”

Náli could barely breathe. “It would stop erupting? I wouldn’t have to return to it constantly?”

Lucian nodded. “Don’t you see? You don’t go down into the water and give your power to the mountain – you draw more power from it, and settle its disquiet. The well is a repository for magic. Once you take it out, that power will be loose on the earth at its strongest – for the first time in five centuries.”

20

Oliver was awakened by the feeling of large, warm fingers tucking his hair behind his ear. The fingers remained, after, a hard, smooth callus stroking the tender skin just below his ear, slow sweeps that would have left him purring if he was a cat.

He smiled. “That’s nice.”

He’d already known it was Erik, from the texture of his fingers to the scent of pine and leather, but the low, up-close rumble of his voice was a treat in and of itself. “Are you planning to come to bed? Or is the table too comfortable to resist?”

“Shit,” Oliver muttered, and forced his eyes open. He’d fallen asleep at the library table and lifted his head with a wince. His neck protested the movement, and a book page peeled away from his cheek. He’d drooled. Wonderful. He tried to wipe his mouth with his sleeve before Erik saw, but, well, there was nothing for it. Drool happened; sharing a bed with someone shattered all sorts of fantasies of perfection one held about a person. “What time is it?”

“After three.” Erik sat beside him on the bench, his back resting against the table, face etched with fatigue.

“That late? Shit,” he repeated. Rubbed the grit from his eyes and frowned. “What are you still doing up?”

Erik shrugged. “The coast lords were talkative.”

Oliver didn’t refute the obvious lie. The coast lords, who’d arrived while Oliver and Tessa were sharing what they’d discovered on their ride west, had already been yawning and rubbing sleepy eyes at dinner. There was no way they’d been the ones to keep Erik up until the wee hours.

He turned back to his book, open on the page he’d been scanning when his eyelids grew too heavy to hold open. He didn’t remember much of it, already halfway asleep, but a scan proved it to be a century-old account from a Half-Point Islander describing a Selesee battle mage’s spell-casting in the field.

Erik leaned closer to see. “Now that is a very old book.”

“Yes. All the Sel history manuals were written by Aeretolleans or Aquitainians. I wanted something a bit closer to a primary source, as it were.”

He was still poring over the page, but he could hear the frown in Erik’s voice. “But le Duc was Aquitainian. From Inglewood, yes?”

“Innis, actually,” Oliver corrected. “It’s a very tiny little strip of a duchy between Inglewood and the Crownlands. Landlocked, wholly uninspired. All of the South’s greatest explorers come from there, wanting to go off and see the wonders of the wider world.”

Erik snorted with faint amusement.

“So, yes, he was one of my fellow countrymen to begin with, but he lived very little of his life there. His father was a merchant who sailed the trade routes to Seles, if legend is to be believed, back in the days when they were still importing elephants and silk and spices in exchange for good Aquitainian wool and wheat. More than two-hundred years ago.”

“Hm.”

“Le Duc had a chance to witness Sel magic up close, and in a non-combat scenario. He and his family spent a lot of time on the Half-Point Islands, talking to the locals. This man.” He tapped the page. “Lived through the Selesee overthrow of the Islands. Le Duc copied down his firsthand account of the battle, such as it was. The Islanders’ spears and shields didn’t last five minutes against the battle mages.”

Erik didn’t comment, but scooted closer, until his hair fell silky and fragrant against Oliver’s neck, and they could read together.

“‘They could throw stones without touching them,’” Erik read aloud. “‘And fused them together with earth and sand to form great floating weapons, to build ramps over the sea walls, and siege engines with which to batter down doors.’”

“It’s the closest I’ve gotten to evidence they could do something like build the bridge that we found. There are only vague mentions of rumors in the books written on this continent: control of the weather, of enchantment and shapeshifting. That sort of thing.” Oliver turned the page, and the Islander’s account continued. “Look: ‘Once they’d slain many of my brothers, a mage robed all in the colors of dawn stepped forward and lifted their corpses into the air; made them dance, made them…fight us.’”

Oliver blinked, and then turned to Erik – close enough for his breath to stir silver-shot braids – to find a single brow lifted. “That sounds like…”

“Reanimation of the dead,” Erik said. “Aye. Like Náli.”

His memories were blurred with the ice rose he’d taken, blue-tinged, hazy, and sluggish, but Oliver recalled an army of skeletons dressed in rags, rusted swords hacking at their enemies.

Erik’s other brow lifted. “Before you go thinking the North is beset with Selesee magic–”

“You don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Hush. Before you do, consider that Northern magic – raising the dead, communing with them; dragon-riding and shape-shifting – goes all the way back to the very founding of Aeretoll. It’s old. Similarities aren’t evidence that we are the same as the Sels, much less descended of them.” He sounded revolted by the very idea. The furrow between his brows betrayed more than revulsion; Oliver sensed worry, also.

“How do you think magic came to this land?” he asked, quietly, and marked the muscle that leaped in Erik’s clenched jaw.

“I don’t know, but it wasn’t from them.”

You don’t know that, Oliver thought. You can’t know it, and you’re wondering if the general was right, just like I am.

He turned back to the book; turned the page and changed the subject. “Where do the coastal lords stand on war?” he asked. Short though it might have been, there had been an impromptu council, one Oliver had skipped in favor of a cold supper in the library, searching for answers.

Erik let out a deep breath, but his tone had lightened to one of now-usual weariness when he spoke, his vehemence about the Sels put away for the moment. “Most of them don’t have any men to speak of. But they do have ships.”

Oliver let his voice wash over him as he paged through the book, not really listening to the words, but content in the steady rhythm of them. It was a voice befitting a king: that deep timbre and the constant note of unwavering authority – detectable even in his weakest, most doubtful moments, lending a certain weight to even the most ordinary of conversations. Soothing as a warm bath now.

Mm…a warm bath. Now that was–

Shit, he was nodding off.

Oliver jerked awake once more, trying to blink his vision clear. The page swam before him.

Erik’s hand closed warm and gentle on the back of his neck; Oliver noted he had to reach beneath the ever-lengthening curtain of his hair to do so. “Come,” Erik said, softly, but brooking no arguments. “The books will keep until tomorrow.”

Oliver rubbed the grit from his eyes and let out a frustrated breath. “But I want to know exactly what we’re dealing with. What to expect in the field.”

Erik’s thumb, rubbing tiny circles on the side of his neck, stilled.

They hadn’t discussed it outright: their personal participation in what was to come. They’d tried to piece together the Sels’ plan from the evidence they’d found onboard the ships and in the camp. They’d discussed possibilities, and strategies, and alliances; done numerous headcounts of willing and able men.

But Erik hadn’t yet given voice to the sentiment that lurked in his gaze each time he glanced toward Oliver during a meeting: I’m worried about keeping you safe.

And Oliver hadn’t explicitly said, I’m going, like it or not. Because he was going. It would be ludicrous not to take Percy to the front lines, but he didn’t relish the inevitable argument. It didn’t matter that he’d already proven himself capable; Erik was Erik, and he was going to put up a fuss, regardless of logic. The great loving idiot.

Oliver was too tired for that tonight, though. “But, you’re right.” He closed the book. “Let’s go to bed.”

~*~

Tessa could tell it was late, closer to dawn than darkfall. The dull orange lines of the coals in the grate; the particular shade of deepest blue-black through the gap in the window shutters. Beside her, Rune lay face-down in his pillow, snoring loudly, dead to the world.

It still amazed her, sometimes, to lie here with the knowledge, and the physical proof, that she was married. To hear the mattress rustle; to feel the heat of breath on the back of her neck, or the warm weight of a strong arm curve around her waist. She propped her head more often on his shoulder than on the pillow, which wasn’t as soft, no, but gave her the perfect opportunity to rake her nails absently down his chest, playing with the hair there, enjoying the little shivers on his skin that meant he was affected. She’d found that the quiet, stolen moments – like now, studying the way a shaft of moonlight carved the dense muscles of his back in stark relief – were, in their own way, far more intimate than any of the lovemaking. That was very active, a blur of movement and pleasure and discovery. Wonderful, yes, but the quiet, dark wee hours were when she learned her new husband in all the small ways that transformed lust and love into the closest of knowledges.

She reached into the linen valley between them and took the end of one of his unraveling braids between two fingers where it lay on the mattress. She traced the runes etched into the silver; could read them from feel, by now, and knew this was one of his prince’s beads, different from Leif’s; it marked him a prince, but not the heir first-in-line.

Poor Leif, she thought. The family acted as if things were normal, pressing firmly forward and ignoring the fact that he was no longer the mild-mannered, rational prince he’d been. No one mentioned the fact that there was a low growl perpetually rumbling in his throat; no one stared at his eyes and the way they flashed in the candlelight like a true wolf’s would. He took dinner at the family table with them less and less; when he did show, he brought Ragnar with him more often than not, his constant shadow.

The first time that happened, Erik stood up so fast from the table he sent his chair toppling back. His hands had curled to fists and Oliver had gripped his sleeve with a murmured, “Darling.”

Uncle and nephew had stared at one another, Leif blank-faced, but still testing; Tessa had rubbed at the goosebumps that had broken out across her arms. Finally, Erik had sat, though his expression was clenched and quietly furious. Leif had pointed, and Ragnar had sat on the floor against the wall, unbothered. Rune had fretted over it at length that night, when they were back in their bedchamber, until Tessa climbed into his lap and convinced him to forget about it, at least for a little while.

Leif wasn’t the largest trouble weighing on her mind this morning, though he was a part of the greater whole, to be sure. She kept thinking of Oliver’s face out on the land bridge today – yesterday, she supposed. That grim, resolved look of someone about to undertake a less-than-desirable task.

There hadn’t been an official declaration yet, but it was inevitable that the Northmen would march to war. Oliver, she knew without being told, planned to go with them. Percy had been instrumental in repelling the siege of Aeres.

But so too had Alfie.

And Tessa was Alfie’s rider.

How, she wondered, was she to go about telling her new family – her new husband – that she planned to go to war as well?

A hand closed over hers, stilling her fingers, and she startled. Rune’s eyes were slitted open, onyx-dark in the dim glow of moonlight.

“You’re fidgety,” he said, voice rough with sleep. He’d been face-down ever since they’d untangled, hours ago, and still sounded totally spent; a charming observation dulled by the sense of being caught-out.

“Sorry.” She shifted closer, so they were face-to-face. His hand slid up her bare arm, until it rested on the side of her throat. “Just thinking.”

“About what?”

What war will be like. About fighting the enemies that killed my father and brother and uncle.

She said: “The future.”

~*~

The hay sheds were built of stone and placed far away from the barns, mews, and barracks in case of fire. With their sloped sod roofs, close walls, and great stacks of hay, they kept plenty warm, even in the last, cold grip of winter.

The pack preferred to sleep in wolf shape, alert to the slightest disturbance or threat in the night. They lay massed together, curled up and snuggled down in the hay, breaths regular and deep.

Leif sat apart from them, human-shaped, gazing out through the half-open door as the stars slowly winked out, and the sky began its watercolor shift toward daybreak.

Behind him, seated atop a round bale, unable to shift even if he wanted to, Ragnar sat cleaning from beneath his fingernails with the knife Leif had stupidly allowed him. “You’re just like Erik, you know,” he said. “You think too loud.”

Leif wondered at himself that he no longer bristled or growled in response to statements like those – statements made with increasing frequency, as if Ragnar was trying to get a rise out of him. Where once he’d fought to keep calm, now he simply was calm, without effort.

“What am I thinking, then?” he asked, easily.

“Hm?”

“If I’m so loud.” He tapped the side of his head. “What am I saying?”

No sound followed save the soft clicking of the knife edge working under Ragnar’s nails. Just as Leif had expected. He’d baited him, really, because he had no doubt that Ragnar’s thoughts had run the same track as his own; that he’d spent most of his hours since peering into that bowl of black water thinking about – or trying to avoid thinking about – the snatches of vision it had shown them. His initial horror and panic had given way, in the days since, to something like resignation. His life, it seemed, had swerved, and was going to keep swerving, no matter his efforts.

Ragnar, though, had been uncharacteristically silent. Until tonight.

“Well?” Leif pressed, glancing back over his shoulder.

Ragnar studied his task with far too much concentration, a groove pressed between his brows.

“What am I thinking?”

Ragnar looked up, finally, a flash in the dimness, and smiled nastily. “How much you’d like to slit my throat.”

“No.” Leif turned back to face the stars. “I don’t think about you at all, really.” A lie, but one that came easily and didn’t leave the back of his neck prickling. He’d reached that frightening stage, he’d realized, of acceptance. He didn’t hate Ragnar, never had, never could. He was a part of his pack, and even if he wanted to beat him bloody half the time, he’d take off the arm of any man who tried to do the same. It was wolf instinct, ingrained deep, irreversible.

Ragnar gave a quiet huff that a human wouldn’t have heard.

“I’m thinking,” Leif continued, “that my uncle is dragging his feet. And I think he needs to send an advance party South. Fierce fighters. Shock troops.”

The knife stilled, and then rasped against leather as it was sheathed. He could hear Ragnar sit up straighter, hay crinkling beneath him. “He sent the Beserkirs and the Jǫtunns.”

“Sent them west. And to do what? Take teeth for trophies? Pillage border towns?” He sneered to himself, and heard the expression echoing in his voice; didn’t try to smooth it. “The clans are only useful for sending back reports. What happens when they run into a mage? The only reason,” he said, now edging into bitterness, “we weren’t all slaughtered here at Aeres is because of the drakes.”

It was a truth that everyone surely must know, but hadn’t given voice to yet. Man to man, weapon to weapon, the Sels had been vastly more powerful. If not for the drakes, everyone in Aeres would be dead or captured.

“How cynical of you,” Ragnar said, tone careful.

“More like accurate.” He glanced back again, and found Ragnar’s head cocked to an alert angle; he smelled of tension. “Every magic-user in the North needs to march south and meet the enemy in open battle in Aquitainia – otherwise, the Sels will kill the Southerners and then come back for us. Only this time, they’ll know to come armed against dragons.”

Ragnar took a shallow breath through parted lips. “It sounds,” he said, deceptively casual, “like you mean for us to march as well.”

“That’s exactly what I mean. And someone needs to send a summons to the Fault Lands. We’ll need our Corpse Lord as well.”

21

Said Corpse Lord of the Fault Lands took a bracing sip of tea, wished it was wine instead, and straightened his spine resolutely. They sat in one of the small dining rooms on the fourth floor, intended for private meals with the ducal family: a plain, scar-topped table with a view of the magma fields. The sky lightened minute by minute, a smoke-screened lavender now. Náli hadn’t slept, nor had his Guard, who’d been urging him to do so ever since climbing out of the well.

“I don’t know the process, obviously,” he said, scrubbing at his eyes. His vision blurred from fatigue, but he felt overall restless; if he lied down, he would do nothing but watch the shadows move across the ceiling, he knew. “But I can figure it out the same way I did the enthralling spell. A little research, a little applied logic.” He let his hands drop to the table and they sought the warmth of his cup. “I’d need to retrieve the diamonds, obviously.”

Five faces wearing a variation of the same grim look stared back at him.

“Valgrind could do that,” Mattias said, grimmest of them all.

“Probably,” Náli agreed. “He can hold his breath longer and swim more strongly. With enough direction, I think he could manage.”

“Leaving aside the mechanics of it,” Klemens said, sitting forward, elbows braced on the table, “if you succeeded, if the spell worked…it would mean that we…could do what you do?” His brows lifted at the end, skeptical or scared, Náli couldn’t guess.

“Theoretically. There’s a measure of randomness with all magic, but in Lucian’s time, his Guard could use his magic as he could, yes. Not quite as powerfully, I don’t believe – he was still the Corpse Lord proper – but, yes. They could also cross beyond the veil. Speak with the dead. Animate corpses.”

He watched each man wrestle with that thought, expressions windows to the mental gymnastics necessary to imagine such a thing.

Frowning, Einrih asked, “And if we did this, you wouldn’t have to go into the well anymore?”

Danski said, “The mountain wouldn’t erupt?”

“Storing the magic is what’s making the mountain so volatile,” Náli said. “That magic came from a person and is meant to reside in one – or several.” He frowned. “It’s a bit convoluted, I’m afraid.”

“What I’m wondering,” Klemens said, and Náli tensed because, so far, Klemens had asked all the most difficult questions, “is, if the old man tells it true, if he’s who he says he is, and this was once his mother’s power – how was she able to manage it alongside all the others, but he had to share it?”

“I don’t know.” He hated admitting that. “Perhaps because his father had no power of his own. Perhaps Lucia was simply – special.” He frowned, displeased with his own lukewarm phrasing.

“None of us are special,” Klemens said, gesturing around the table at the others. “What if the spell kills us? And then you have no Guard at all?”

“Obviously I don’t want that to happen,” Náli snapped. “But you have all pledged your lives to me.” He was filled then with the horrible knowledge that he could force them to do this. That they ultimately had no say-so, and would submit to his orders because he was their lord and master.

He deflated, and propped his temple on a raised fist, too tired to stay snippy. “I know it’s not the same,” he said. “I know giving your life on the battlefield is honorable and expected. Giving it for the sake of a spell…” He sighed. “I don’t think that’ll happen – but I can’t guarantee it won’t. That’s why I’ve given you all the choice.

“I know that I’ve complained my whole, miserable life about the well. About my limits. About needing to marry and produce an heir. I’ve been graceless, yes, about the knowledge that I’m going to die early, and all shriveled and dried-out besides. Changing that would be – well, I want to change that. It’s selfish, but it’s true.

“But this last visit – hunting the dead across the Between…things are changing. On this side of the veil, and on the other side. Our enemy is changing things. They know we have drakes, now; they know I have one here. Whatever the Sels want with this continent, I don’t think we’ve even scratched the surface of what they’re capable of. I could hide here, in my mountain, waiting – but the war won’t pass us by. I’d rather go out and meet it.” He thumped his fist down on the table for emphasis, and watched their brows jump. “And I can’t do that unless I can leave this cursed place for more than a few weeks at a time.

“Things are changing,” he repeated. “Are you willing to change with it?”

He realized, once he’d spoken, that he’d laid before them an ultimatum, rather than a choice. That he’d voiced the threat to the duchy and the kingdom and their lives, and then asked them to choose.

But that was the truth of it, even if regret churned in his belly.

The five of them traded glances, and then looked to Mattias, their captain. Klemens nodded, leaving the final say to him.

Mattias held Klemens’ gaze a long moment, then nodded in return and looked to Náli. “You’re right: our lives are pledged to you, my lord. We will serve at your side for as long as you live, risking all, and when you pass beyond the veil permanently, we will go into the north and fade to nothingness for the rest of our days.” Old words, said formally, gravely. “We shall serve in whatever way you deem best; service to you is service to the realm at large. To the Fault Lands, and to the kingdom of Aeretoll, that great bastion of Northern strength.”

Then he lowered his chin, and emotion flared in his gaze. His voice softened. “We love and trust you, Náli. We place ourselves in your hands.”

Náli trembled inside; he felt like a struck gong. He swallowed and said, “Tomorrow, then. Valgrind shall fetch the diamonds and we’ll begin.”

“Today, you mean,” Klemens said, glancing toward the window. “The sun’s coming up.”

~*~

He sent the others off to eat and rest. He himself was supposed to sleep, at least for a few hours before he ensconced himself in the library and sent his mother’s messengers off with withering glances; Mattias even had the bed turned down and his tea warmed, shutters closed to keep out the watery sunlight. The room was dim save the light from the fire and the few candles at the bedside table. Mattias stood beside the bed, ready to tuck him in like a child.

Náli hung back, fiddling with the ties of his robe, feeling much less like a lord and much more like the boy he was beneath the magic and title.

“In you get,” Mattias said. “You’ll be dead on your feet later if you don’t get some sleep.”

Náli smiled. “I didn’t know you did puns.”

Mattias realized what he’d said and made a face. “Náli–”

“Matti,” Náli countered, serious. He did walk forward and climb up into bed to mollify him somewhat. But he caught and held his gaze, and let his own face go naked and unguarded. “Matti,” he repeated, taking his hand, where it gripped the blankets, between both of his own and pressing tight. “I want you to tell me what you think – what you really think – about all of this. Not as my captain, not because I’m your lord. Just you, as Mattias.” The sword calluses beneath his fingers were worn-smooth and achingly familiar. Náli dug his blunt nails into them and pleaded with his gaze. “I think the war needs me, and that means I need you…but if you think the risk is too great, then I’ll–”

Mattias swooped down, fast as a blink, and silenced him with a kiss.

Náli gasped as he pulled back.

Mattias smiled, small and sad; close, and warm, and with a conviction that punched Náli straight in the chest. “Do you remember, when you were four, that time you told me that you were going to kill the mountain?”

“I was four. So no.”

Mattias chuckled, and the sound hummed pleasantly in Náli’s lower half. “Brat,” he accused, fondly. “You’d had a bad day.” Here his expression shifted, twinged with sympathetic pain. Because though they didn’t speak of the thing that had happened when he was eight – the night of the horses – they sometimes spoke of his other, earlier attempts at true necromancy. The birds, those fox kits. His pet kitten, that time. His “bad days” had been, in fact, rather horrifying when he was young. “And I had to carry you down,” Mattias continued, “and I thought you’d nodded off, but right before I handed you into the water, you looked up at me, and you said, ‘I’m going to kill that bloody mountain one day. I mean it.’

“And now look at you.” Mattias’s smile stretched, deepening the lines at the corners of his eyes, dark and warm as strong-brewed tea. “You were born with the threat of a whole mountain hanging over your head, and you’ve figured out how to kill it.”

Náli swallowed with difficulty. “Calm it. Hopefully. You can’t actually kill a mountain.”

Mattias chuckled again, an amused breath through his nose. His free hand lifted and cupped the side of Náli’s face, thumb smoothing across the fine skin of his cheek. “My teacher put you in my arms when you were a baby, and I dedicated my life then to you: to your safety, your education; your comfort and your grief and all the hard lessons I knew were to come. But when I put you in the water that day, I wanted to go in your place, to drown if I must, if it meant sparing you another moment’s anger and fear.”

Náli’s throat was tight, his pulse tripping.

“I loved you long before I fell in love with you,” Mattias continued, as if those words weren’t devastating. “Watching you push yourself too far, watching you tear yourself apart out of sheer stubbornness hurts me in a way that–” He faltered, gaze clouding. “In a way I can’t put into words and in a way I’m not sure you’ll ever understand.”

It was an effort, given the burning in his eyes, but Náli managed to pout. “That’s not fair.”

“No, it isn’t. Nothing is. It’s not fair that I can’t cross over with you; that I can’t protect you beyond the veil just as I do here.” He frowned. “And because I can’t be there, I don’t know if I believe this shaman you meet there. This Lucian. Who’s to say he’s even really–”

Náli sighed, and he pressed his lips shut a moment. Nodded.

“I’ve been…resistant,” he said, and Náli gave him a who, you? face which earned him a frown. “I know, I know. It’s…” His gaze tracked across Náli’s face with an intensity that left Náli squirming internally. “I don’t trust the world, of the living or the dead. But I trust you. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met, Náli. I’d slit my own throat if you needed to animate my corpse to save your own life.”

“Matti.”

“So, yes. I will share the burden of your magic. We all will.” His voice still quiet and intimate, still him, and not the captain, so that it carried immeasurably more weight: “If you believe this is the best way to go forward, then we’re with you.”

Náli blinked hard and leaned into the warm palm at his cheek. “Even with all your grumbling?”

“Even with all my grumbling.”

As the years had passed, Mattias’s regard had become increasingly concerned; that notch between his brows was permanent at this point. The grins and soft chuckles of Náli’s early childhood had given way, time and again, to cautions; to warnings; to ever-present frowns. Mattias’s cheer had dimmed as Náli had grown stronger, and pushed himself farther – too far. A worry, he knew, that was born of love; a longing as keen and painful as his own. Those frowns, those admonishments, had made it easier to tolerate their state of mutual, denied want. Easier to think that Mattias was angry with him than to wallow in all the things they couldn’t have. Frowns and admonishments that he now realized had been a shield for Mattias as well; it was kinder and less complicated to play the disapproving nursemaid than the hopeful, would-be lover.

Seeing Mattias now, this rare, shining beacon of not just affection, but open, unhidden love, to feel the faith and trust he radiated…it was too much. Náli closed his eyes, and felt the tears well up against the lids.

“I don’t deserve it,” he whispered. “I’ve done nothing to deserve you looking at me like that.”

Warm lips pressed to his forehead, a long, lingering moment. Mattias murmured against his skin: “Love’s not something you earn. It’s not a battle trophy.”

“Isn’t it, though?” But, in truth, he didn’t know what it was, only that it weighed heavy in his chest while giving him the strength to get to his feet each morning. An ache and a balm; the bright flare of a torch, and the soothing warmth of freshly-poured tea. He’d never not loved Mattias; it was an emotion that had settled deep in his bones, as much a part of him as his magic.

Having it reciprocated felt like fantasy.

He gripped the front of Mattias’s tunic and pitched forward; pressed his face in snug at his throat, where the skin was warm and salt-smelling; where his strong pulse beat steady against Náli’s temple.

Mattias gathered him in even closer, one hand on his nape, his other arm looped around his waist, snug and sure. “I don’t mean to be joyless,” he said, like a confession. “I know the way of things, and I’m content – truly, I am. There’s no place I’d rather be. But…sometimes…”

His fingertips pressed into the side of Náli’s throat, other hand tightening against his hip, and Náli knew. Understood all too well the way wanting became something vicious and, long-denied, hated; an enemy in need of conquering rather than a source of delight like it was for people who weren’t necromancers and their sworn shields.

But all of that was going to change, wasn’t it? Náli was going to press his magic into a handful of diamonds and he was going to be free, finally. Free to leave this gray place; free to take up arms for the North.

Free to take the lover of his choosing. At last.

Náli shifted so his lips brushed Mattias’s pulse point, gratified by the quick lurch of it as he wriggled his way into Mattias’s lap properly.

“Náli.” Half warning, half plea.

Náli kissed the apple of his throat. Gripped his shoulders and kept kissing upward, along the bristly underside of his jaw, the corner of his mouth, where his breath passed his lips in a hot rush.

“Náli…you need to sleep.”

Náli dragged damp lips up the sharp line of his cheekbone; dropped a kiss at his temple. Whispered in his ear: “So make me sleepy, then.”

Mattias sucked in a harsh breath. A jolt moved through him, one that Náli could feel in every place they touched. His hands spasmed, at Náli’s waist and neck – fighting with instinct, but still hesitating.

Náli shifted again, a slow, deliberate grind down against the front of Mattias’s trousers, and looped both arms around his neck, hovered face-to-face. Mattias had gone glassy-eyed and pink-cheeked, face unguarded and lovely and baffled in the candlelight. He was still trying, adorably, to uphold his vows; to be an honorable captain.

Náli didn’t know if that was a battle he could ever win, pushing past all that ingrained devotion and propriety – but it was a battle he was going to have fun waging, at least. He leaned in, slow, slow, giving Mattias every chance to retreat, until their lips finally met.

His cheeks flared hot, a momentary flash of embarrassment. He knew five ways to kill a man in an instant, and knew how to then turn his corpse into a puppet to command at will…but he didn’t know how to kiss. Or, at least not well. He’d always prided himself on being a fast study, but this was still so new, and so very different from any other skill he’d acquired. He tried to mimic what Mattias had done each time he’d initiated a kiss: angled his head and teased at Mattias’s lips with his own. But slow. Easy. He didn’t, he found, want to rush things when he finally got Mattias to respond. He’d wanted this for so long, and he wanted to savor it, to memorize every detail.

If only Mattias would–

Hands speared back through his hair, cupped his head, adjusted its tilt, and Mattias kissed him back, lush and deep.

Náli melted with relief, went pliant and responsive, letting Mattias take the lead.

All of their kisses had been different, and this one was no exception. Unhurried, thorough, it was if Mattias was trying to learn the shape and taste of his mouth. Luxuriant kisses that didn’t rush; that gave Náli time to learn the rhythm and dance of them.

He raked his teeth over Mattias’s lower lip and earned a low hum of approval.

Sucked on his tongue and got got a raspy groan, and hungry hands sliding down his neck and shoulders to grip him tight at the waist.

Mattias pulled back, their lips parting with a wet sound, noses brushing. His gaze was heavy-lidded, pupils blown black. “Do you know what I want to do to you?” he murmured, voice rough and unsteady, and oh, that was delicious.

“I’ve some idea.” Náli wriggled in his lap just to watch his eyes flutter shut. “But you could always tell me. In great detail.”

Mattias tipped his head, and gazed up at him through lowered lashes. A subtle movement, but one that immediately shifted the flow of energy between them. It was a look Náli had never seen before, not on Mattias and certainly never directed at him. He stilled, pulse skipping and lurching, caught in that lazy, predatory gaze full of intent. For the first time, Mattias looked at him like he might actually touch him with purpose.

And then he did: slow and sure, he unlaced the ties of Náli’s robe and then pushed it back off his shoulders. Gray silk slithered and whispered, and Náli shivered inside the thin linen of his nightshirt. His skin felt hypersensitive, fabric chafing over his stomach, and nipples gone hard and pebble-tight with anticipation. The young and inexperienced part of him wanted to surge forward and bury his face in Mattias’s throat; wanted to feel good, but wanted to hide, too, self-conscious and nervous and so very anxious for this to finally happen.

But the part of him who’d been a lord since birth, expected to stand up straight and lead, held still, fighting to keep his breathing steady, as Mattias bunched up the hem of his nightshirt and laid hands on bare skin.

Familiar calluses, familiar heft and weight…but a wholly new kind of touch, as Mattias traced patterns up his thighs and over his hips. Teased across his stomach with short, blunt nails.

Náli bit the inside of his cheek to keep from gasping, wanting to seem composed and grown-up about this…but he couldn’t keep from trembling, and his breaths refused to come steadily. Why did it feel so different? Why was the pass of Matti’s fingertips suddenly so devastating? He was dizzy – and belatedly realized he needed to exhale and take another breath, the sound of which plucked Mattias’s mouth up into a predatory, pleased grin.

“Náli.” He put a hand at the small of his back and dragged him in closer – and, gods, the friction of Mattias’s trousers against his bare cock brought a whimper up his throat – so their noses were brushing again. “Are you nervous?”

Náli managed to scoff. “More like dying of boredom waiting for you to do something, finally.” His voice wavered despite the words, jittery and unsure.

Mattias’s grin widened, a blurred snatch of teeth at close range. He skimmed Náli’s cheek with his lips, breath warm on his ear. “Really? You don’t feel bored.” Bold as you please, his other hand curled loosely around Náli’s cock. “You feel…” He pressed his smile into the crook of Náli’s neck and gave his cock one long, slow stroke, root to tip. “Like you’re very excited.”

“Gods.” Náli squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to buck up into his hand. How was he doing this? How was he so…very much like the heroes of the tawdry Southern novels his mother had imported by the crateful? Smooth and warm and nearly purring. “What are you – I can – that is…” Mattias was making an absolute mess of him with only his hands and a little heated breath in his ear, and Náli’s face was on fire. “Matti–”

Mattias removed his hands – Náli couldn’t help the twitch of his hips, then, nor the choked-back sound he made at the sudden loss of friction – and captured Náli’s face between them. His smile was half-wicked, half-hopelessly fond. “Náli. Sweetheart. Will you please just admit you don’t know what you’re doing?”

His jaw clenched, automatic rejection. “Oh – oh, and you do?”

Mattias’s eyes sparkled when he smiled like this, brimming with emotion usually kept well in-check. “Well. Yes, actually.”

Náli blinked. Opened his mouth. Closed it. Blinked some more. “You what?” The idea of Mattias, of the longing looks, and doting touches, never beyond Náli’s reach, nor even his line of sight, being this intimate with someone…kissing, and touching, was…impossible. But how else could his confidence be explained? How else could he reduce Náli to a shivering wreck in mere moments? “With whom?”

Mattias smoothed a thumb between his brows. “You’re scowling.”

“Then tell me who!”

Mattias’s gaze darted to the side, and faint color bloomed in his cheeks. “It wasn’t intentional. The first time.”

“There’s been multiple times?!” He knew this, of course, because his hands were too good. But. Still.

Mattias smirked, gaze returning. “Are you going to interject the whole time?”

“Absolutely.”

“Of course you are.” His hands slid back down his arms and settled at his waist, safely over the nightshirt, but no less stirring. Náli thanked indignation for clearing his head a fraction. The idea of Mattias, utterly devoted, fucking someone else…outrageous! “As I said: it wasn’t intentional the first time. It was a shock, actually. It was that winter you had scarlet fever” – Náli remembered it only in fits and snatches; he’d run a high fever for days, delirious and too weak to leave his bed; he recalled Mattias’s soothing touch and gentle voice, the taste of broth and tea, and a cool cloth on his forehead, but not much else – “and Klemens came to relieve me. Your mother insisted I rest. I was swaying on my feet…” He trailed off, jaw clenching, and Náli knew his thoughts had veered into more somber territory.

He circled his hips, grinding down on the bulge in his trousers, and earned a light, quick smack on the bottom. He yelped.

Mattias resumed his chaste hold – but his expression cleared, smile playing with his lips and blush warming his cheeks again. “I went to Einrih’s chamber to ask him to wake me after an hour. I didn’t want to be asleep if – well. I wanted to be awakened. And when I entered, Einrih wasn’t alone.”

“Danski and Darri?”

“Yes. All three of them in a highly compromising position.”

“I caught them in one last night.”

It was Mattias’s turn to be shocked, then. “You did?”

“How do you think I gave Einrih the slip?”

“Damn it,” Mattias swore, shaking his head, frowning.

“It’s a shame I was in such a hurry. I would have liked to stay and watch a little. Purely for educational purposes.”

“Hmph. Yes. Educational.”

“I wouldn’t have participated – unlike you.”

“It wasn’t as if I planned to! I was standing there, and they were – tangled, as it were. Danski said, ‘Shut the door, man,’ and so I did. And then Darri said, ‘You look tense.’ And, well, I was. And…” He nodded his head side to side. “What followed was quite educational.”

Náli tried, and failed to sound curious; sounded cold and nasty instead. “Ah. I see. So if those three invite you to a little off-the-books learning session, then you leap right in. But if I all but throw myself at you, you turn into a cold fish.”

“That’s not fair.”

“No, it isn’t, is it?”

Mattias frowned and rubbed circles above Náli’s hipbones with his fingertips. “No, I meant: those two things aren’t comparable, fumbling with them versus being with you.”

“Wouldn’t you have to actually be with me to make that comparison?”

“No.”

“They were just so tempting, I suppose–”

“Náli.” Mattias gripped him tight, fingers digging bruises, and Náli closed his mouth with a quiet click of teeth. “Do you not see?” His expression became desperate, pleading. “Being with them was stress relief. It was practice. It was stupid and meaningless. But being with you – this right now – is everything.” His hands tightened again, grip painful. Náli couldn’t look away from him, couldn’t even blink. “Have you heard nothing I’ve said? You are the sole reason for my existence. I cannot come back from this. I cannot–”

Something wrenched painfully in Náli’s chest, and he laid his fingers over Mattias’s lips, stilling them.

He was, by necessity, thanks to a lifetime of strange and potentially cataclysmic responsibility, self-centered. His own needs and wants seemed so big, and so dire, that it was hard to imagine anyone else feeling things as acutely as he did. But he was just a boy under the mantle he carried, after all; and Mattias, the pain shining clear in his eyes, needed and wanted just as badly. Hurt just as much.

Náli laid his other hand on Mattias’s chest and felt the rapid drumbeat of his heart beneath flesh and bone and muscle, a sharp tattoo that matched his own. He took a deep breath. “All right. All right, all right. I – will you show me, then?” He reached for Mattias’s hand and pried it off his hip, placed it in his own lap. “If you’ve had practice, then I should have some, too. Will you show me what they taught you? Matti?”

The nickname he tacked on for effect; it felt a bit like cheating, but it had the desired outcome. An unsteady breath shivered past parted lips before Mattias wet them and settled, shoulders dropping, tension bleeding out of him. He smoothed his hand back and forth over Náli’s half-hard cock, rasping the linen of the nightshirt against sensitive skin, an almost absent gesture as he reached to tuck Náli’s hair behind his ear with the other hand.

It was so much, even that touch, and Náli bit back a sound very like a whimper.

“All right,” Mattias echoed, fingers sliding down a silken lock of hair, following it to Náli’s chest, moving to pluck at the laces of his shirt. He wet his lips again, and his hand kept moving, side to side, side to side, as the other pulled the laces loose, down and across, down and across, fabric slowly parting over his galloping heart. “Do you want to know what it was like?” Fingertips teased over chill-bumped skin as the shirt opened, and opened. “Do you want me to tell you how it went? Or do you–”

“Yes,” Náli gasped out, surprising himself, and Mattias, too, if the quirk of his brows was anything to go by. Jealous though he was, he wanted to know; curiosity pulsed wild inside him, anticipation electric in his toes and fingers, heat pooling low in his belly as his cock stiffened under the relentless petting of Mattias’s hand.

“All right,” Mattias said again, pupils gone wide, voice gone low and rough-edged. “First…” With a flick of his fingers, he sent the unlaced shirt slithering down off Náli’s arms. It fell in a puddle around his hips, leaving all but his cock and the tops of his thighs uncovered. Gooseflesh pebbled his arms and chest – and then he shivered as Mattias pressed the whole, hot width of his hand into his sternum and pushed. “Danski laid me down like this.”

Náli fell back against the pillows, looking up at Mattias kneeling between his legs.

“And Darri,” Mattias continued, “stretched out beside me and kissed me” – he petted across Náli’s chest, tweaking his nipples with teasing plucks of finger and thumb – “while Danski touched me.”

Náli imagined it, the three of them, Darri’s lean cheeks flecked with pale stubble, his mouth slotted against Mattias’s, the sound soft and wet, while Danski stroked the planes of Mattias’s chest just as Mattias stroked him now.

“Hm. What do you think? Do you want a kiss?” His hand slid down Náli’s stomach, fingers tracing the grooves between his abdominals. “Or do you want me to do what Danski did?”

“Gods–” His chest heaved as if he’d been running, his pulse dizzying in his ears. “Both – I – touch me. Like he did.”

Mattias murmured a low, approving sound, hooked his fingers in the nightshirt and drew it down his hips and off his legs; Náli nearly kicked him in the face in his haste to assist, and earned a chuckle for it. “I don’t think I was as eager as you.” He tossed the shirt over his shoulder, and then Náli was naked beneath his gaze – a gaze that raked him head to toe in a way it never had when he was carried into the well. “At least…not at first.”

Mattias shifted back so he could lean down and press a kiss just below Náli’s navel.

“Blerg,” Náli said, intelligently, and felt Mattias’s laugh vibrate all through his belly and hips. He gripped the bedclothes tight, panting, and said, “Are you going to–”

And, oh, yes he was. He most definitely was. Mattias licked a stripe all the way up the underside of his cock and he bit down on a moan. Nothing had any right to feel that good – but then he kept licking, dropping kisses down his shaft; gripped the base and sucked the head into his mouth.

Hunkering down with elbows braced on the mattress, Mattias settled in to try and suck his very soul through his cock and Náli went to pieces. He gripped the sheets, and then the back of Mattias’s head, as it bobbed, the wet-hot suction of his mouth driving a host of embarrassing sounds out of Náli’s mouth. It was all he could do not to buck up into him and choke him.

He couldn’t last. No one had ever touched him there, let alone sucked him with relentless precision. “Matti – Ma – hah! I’m – oh.” He came with a strangled shout, one hand pressed to the back of Mattias’s neck, the other flying to his own mouth so he could bite down hard on his knuckles rather than wake the whole Keep.

Pleasure hit him like a gut punch and knocked every single thought from his head. He was dimly aware of his stomach clenching and his legs kicking, but mostly it was just the bright burst of climax, far more powerful than any he’d managed alone beneath his covers at night.

When he came back to himself, it was to Mattias smiling above him, rubbing the tension from the insides of his thighs, his gaze softly smug. Náli realized he was making a series of low, wounded, utterly embarrassing noises, and choked them down with a gasp. One hand was pressed to his forehead, the other slapped across his stomach where his own, warm spend had landed. He made a face and peeled them both loose.

“Well,” he huffed, “that was–”

“Gorgeous.”

“I was going to say ‘mortifying,’ but I like your assessment…better. Gods. I feel – I feel like I’ve – run a race.”

“Bit more strenuous than performing solo once you blow the candles out, eh?”

Náli managed to narrow his gaze. “How do you – know about – that?”

Mattias went momentarily stoic. “A Dead Guard captain makes it his business to know–” The rest of his sentence dissolved into laughter when Náli shoved his foot in his face. “All right. I guessed.” He captured said foot in both hands and lowered it back to the mattress, smug again. “I was right, though, wasn’t I?”

“Don’t be an ass. I changed my mind: I want kisses now.”

Mattias smiled and leaned down to oblige him. His tongue, Náli noted with a jolt, tasted of something unfamiliar – me, he thought, with a fresh, wild thrill at the idea. That had in fact happened; he hadn’t dreamed it, and the evidence was slightly salty in Mattias’s mouth.

“I’ve also changed my mind,” he continued, a little breathless, still, when Mattias pulled back a fraction, “about hearing about you with – them. For now, anyway.” He did want to hear it, truthfully, squirmed not-unpleasantly inside when he recalled what little Mattias had said so far. But not now.

“What” – Mattias hovered over him, hands braced on the mattress – “would you like me to do instead?” Voice gentle and fond and far more devastating than the seductive purr of before.

Náli wrapped his arms around his neck, and hooked his legs around his waist; clung to him. “I want you to fuck me. And then cuddle me until I fall asleep,” he said in his loftiest voice.

Mattias chuckled and kissed the end of his nose. “As my lord commands.”

~*~

Náli was half-afraid, now that he’d already come once, and the moment had quieted, that Mattias might try to refuse him like always. Instead, he kissed him until he was drunk with it, grinding up against his hip, then rolled toward the bedside table and reached for the jaw of lavender oil that was kept there for massaging the stiffness out of Náli’s limbs post-well. He kissed him again when he rolled back and whispered, “This will be easier if you’re on your stomach.”

Náli grumbled about it – he wanted to see Mattias – and flopped over gracelessly, which left Mattias chuckling.

“It’s nice to see that you’re consistent,” Mattias said.

Náli propped up on his elbows and tried to glance back over his shoulder. “And what does that mean – oh.”

Hands slick with oil, Mattias stroked down, firm and slow, from the small of his back over the curves of his ass.

“That’s…” he started, and trailed off, as Mattias kneaded him there. Slid a thumb beneath each cheek and lifted, squeezed. “It feels…”

Mattias hummed, and trailed his slick touch down to mid-thigh and back up again. “Feels good?” He dragged the tips of both thumbs down the cleft and spread him with slow deliberation.

He dropped down and buried his face in his arms, cheeks hot with an emotion somewhere between mortification and eagerness. “Yes,” he said, voice muffled, and Mattias’s touch grew bolder. Circled teasingly over his entrance, until Náli’s face was on fire.

“You have no idea how beautiful you are,” Mattias said behind him, soft, like a prayer.

Náli wriggled his hips and bit down hard on his lower lip. “Some idea,” he murmured, expecting a laugh.

But Mattias let out a shaky breath instead, the heat of it ghosting across Náli’s back. “No. No, darling. You really don’t.”

Náli shivered.

The linens rustled, and the scent of lavender bloomed as a trickle of it was poured right over Náli’s entrance. Mattias probed with a slick fingertip, and then gently, oh so gently, pressed in. The bedframe creaked, and his lips landed on Náli’s spine, careful, butterfly kisses, as he pressed a little further, and further still.

“Relax for me,” he murmured. “Relax and I’ll be careful.”

A needless reassurance, because he’d always been careful. In the way he’d hiked Náli up onto his hip as a baby; in the way he’d taken his hand and guided him up and down the stairs; in the way he cradled the back of his head and brought a cup of warm tea to his lips. In the way he taught him how to fight quick and brutal and to his best advantage.

Náli’s eyes stung, and he shoved his face down into the sheets, willing his body to go lax and pliant even as his throat tightened with emotion. Mattias breached his body with a single finger, and it felt strange, and thrilling, and Náli wanted to cry over countless tender memories, and a never-before-used darling.

He hadn’t expected this sort of tangle, to be caught between sentiment and sensation…but he should have. Nothing could ever be simple with Mattias.

True to his word, Mattias worked slowly, his touch careful, but purposeful. He stroked Náli’s side, and hip, and thigh with one hand while the other worked him open until Náli grew used to the intrusion. Until he could add another finger. And another.

Until it started to feel good, and Náli pushed his hips back to meet each thrust.

“I’m ready,” he panted, chasing Mattias’s retreat. “I can take it – come on.”

“Yeah?” Mattias asked, and his casual, rough-want voice sent Náli’s drumbeat pulse spiking. No my lord now; no precious memories on Náli’s part; everything else was burning away in the face of naked, animal want. “You sure?” Mattias pressed in deep, seeking – and then touched a place that left Náli gasping and arching as acute sensation arced through him like lightning.

“Gods.”

Mattias retreated – and touched that place again, lighting up his whole pelvis with a pleasure so sharp it brought tears to his eyes.

Náli made a desperate, needy noise, a wordless plea.

“Too much?” Mattias asked, and thrust against that spot again.

Náli closed his eyes and gritted his teeth through the worst (best) of it, and then growled. Pushed up on his elbows and twisted around to glare at him. “If you don’t stop mucking around and fuck me right now–”

Fingers withdrew, hands gripped him by the hips, and he was unceremoniously flipped onto his back.

The breath left his lungs in a rush when he landed, and he stared up, shocked, at Mattias’s unrestrained, wicked grin; he was delighted with himself, the ass.

He pinned Náli with one hand down low against his belly, just above the head of his weeping cock, and with the other reached between his own legs to slick his cock with oil. When had he unlaced his trousers? Náli wondered. More importantly, how was something that big supposed to fit inside him?

“Speechless?” Mattias asked when he could do nothing but stare. Cock stiff and shiny now with oil, he gave himself one last stroke, muscle in his throat leaping, and parted Náli’s thighs; settled between them on his knees, lining them up.

Náli opened his mouth, but was, in fact, speechless. He’d been teasing, and asking, and pushing, and begging for this – or a more innocent version of it – since he was twelve. And now the moment was here, and he was thrumming with readiness, and Mattias had been right, hadn’t he? There was no going back, after. Things could never be as they’d been before.

The self-satisfied look melted off Mattias’s face. He shuffled in closer – Náli felt the hot, hard line of his cock on the tender inside of his thigh, and then bumping against his own shaft – so he could lean down and kiss him, slow and sweet. It reached out to him as a lifeline, a safe place in this new, unexplored storm between them, and Náli looped his arms around Mattias’s neck, trembling and grateful, eagerly pressing up into the kiss, lips parted.

Mattias broke away, finally, with a wet, sucking sound, and met Náli’s gaze while he stroked his sides, soothing up and down sweeps along the narrowest part of his waist. “We can stop,” he offered, smile soft. “We can stop whenever you want.”

Náli let his frustration boil out in a rough exhale. “I don’t want to stop. I don’t. It’s only…”

“I know.” Mattias pressed a lingering kiss to his cheek, chest inflating and pushing against Náli’s, breath catching audibly in his throat. “I know, darling.”

He sat back and reached for the oil again. Drizzled a little more and spread it with his fingers, one last check of his readiness until Náli was biting at his lip and lifting his hips to meet him. It felt different this way, on his back; still an overfull stretch and a burn, but discomforts he wouldn’t trade. He wanted more. Wanted to feel Mattias inside him.

Mattias didn’t ask this time with words, but caught his gaze, and whatever he found there left him nodding and shuffling in even closer. He pushed Náli’s thighs wider and held him by the hip; took his cock in his other hand.

Warm kiss of skin on skin. Blunt pressure. “Breathe,” Mattias instructed. And then he pressed inside.

Náli did not breathe. He bit his lip hard and concentrated on opening, yielding. Mattias pushed in, and in, and in, and Náli gave and gave, and it was so much. It was too much.

Mattias’s sharp, clothed hipbones kissed the insides of his thighs, and he was buried to the hilt. Náli clenched down and breathed in sharp little gasps; Mattias’s teeth flashed as he gritted them, throat jumping as he swallowed, struggling just as much in his own way.

“Breathe,” he reminded, voice strained. He stroked Náli’s belly, and spread his hand over his chest. “Come on. In and out. It gets easier in a minute, I promise.”

Now there was a mental picture. The idea of it plucked at Náli’s awareness, made him wriggle, which in turn made Mattias suck a sharp breath in through his nose. “Speaking…from experience?”

Mattias held very still, but his pulse thumped visibly in his throat and his thumb flicked back and forth over Náli’s nipple, mindlessly teasing, betraying his strain. “Yeah.”

“Really?” The distraction was helping. Thinking of Mattias like this, while he was so very full was…enjoyable. “Which one of them? Who despoiled my captain?”

Mattias rolled his eyes with a huff of a pained laugh. “Einrih. He’s…not small.”

“Ooh.” Náli clenched again, on purpose this time, and that was – that was something. That was easier, as promised, as his body grew used to the intrusion; and it was worthwhile to watch Mattias’s lashes flutter; to feel the dig of his fingertips as his hand spasmed. “I’d like to see that sometime.”

“Gods.”

“So long as Einrih knows that you belong to me.”

“Náli.” Mattias shuddered all over, head bowing a moment as he fought for control.

“That’s always been true,” Náli continued. “You’ve always been mine. Now make me belong to you.”

Mattias made a wounded sound, and his hips kicked, an involuntary buck that left Náli gasping.

“Fuck me,” Náli breathed. “Fuck me, Matti.”

With a rumbling moan, he did. He gripped Náli’s hips tight in both hands, withdrew a fraction, and thrust back in. There was no pain, now, only fullness. Náli made an encouraging noise, and Mattias did it again. And again.

“Good?”

“Yeah – yeah – don’t stop. Just…” Náli took a double handful of his tunic and hauled himself upright.

“Whoa, Náli, what–”

The change in positions, the new way Mattias fit inside him like this, left Náli dizzy, but he reached down to claw at Mattias’s belt anyway. Sentences were beyond him. He struggled with the buckle. “Off. Wanna see you,” he slurred, and, thankfully, Mattias understood.

“Gods. All right. Yes. Hold on.” He eased Náli back down to the mattress and then tore at his own belt. The buckle finally came loose with a clang and he tossed it, heedless, across the room. As it landed somewhere distant with a clatter, he ripped off his tunic and undershirt in a mad rush, wisps of long hair coming loose from his braid in the process.

He stilled a moment, after, save the flexing of his arms as the gripped Náli’s waist again; save the heaving of his chest as he took a massive breath.

The sight of him like that, all golden swells of muscle carved with shadows from the candlelight, eyes black with want, breathless, sheened with sweat, struck Náli in a wholly new way, now that he was spread beneath him, impaled on his cock and utterly helpless at his hands. It stripped away the last of Náli’s fronts. No part of him could hide, now; there was no sense in playing the lord like this, which left him free to ache, and want, and beg.

He reached up for him. “Matti–”

And Mattias swooped down to capture his lips in another kiss. This one was messy and frantic. Mattias ground his hips forward, close circles that pressed him deep inside. Náli wrapped his legs around his waist and urged him on with his heels; with the way he opened his mouth beneath the press of his tongue; with the way he clawed at his bare shoulders. More, more, more. Ruin me.

Mattias pulled back and thrust back home, a little farther, a little more forcefully each time, until their hips met with a smack of sweat-damp skin each time. Until he broke the kiss in favor of panting against Náli’s cheek, brows drawn together, grunting on every forward thrust.

That’s because of me, Náli thought with what little awareness remained. The way his mouth fell open and a growl built in his chest; the way all the tendons stood out in his neck and down his arms, the way pleasure looked almost like pain in the harsh set of his face – that was for Náli.

He’d known power all his life, and learned to exercise it to its best advantage…but he’d never exercised this kind of power. The most personal kind, achieved only by existing, by being here with the person who loved him most in the world.

And that was the heart of it, wasn’t it? Love wasn’t just a word to Mattias. He meant it when he said it. He loved Náli. Náli’s love was reciprocated, was mutual.

His eyes filled with tears, and he didn’t try to blink them away or turn his head. Let them build and slip hot down his temples.

Mattias noticed, and his rhythm faltered. He lifted a hand from his death-grip on the bedding and thumbed wetness from Náli’s face. “Does it hurt? Did I–” He tensed all over, as if prepared to leap away.

Náli gripped the base of his braid, right at his nape, and held him tight. “Nothing hurts.” He smiled, though his voice was wobbly and breathless. “I love you.”

He’d never said it outright and simply before, only ever during arguments or stressful moments or in advance of a criticism – usually about Mattias’s refusal to do something about said love – and he had the pleasure of watching the words, voiced sweetly and honestly, hit Mattias like a physical blow. He blinked, and his throat bobbed, and his cheek twitched as the words pierced him.

And his cock kicked where it was buried inside Náli.

Eyes still brimming, Náli grinned and said, “Liked that, did you?”

“Brat,” Mattias accused. “I love you, too.” Then he sat back, drew his hips nearly all the way back, and slammed back in.

Náli made an undignified sound and tightened his thighs. Went readily when Mattias manhandled him in closer, took a firm grip on his waist, and set about fucking him in earnest.

All of his power, witnessed so often in the sparring ring, was focused now on thrusting into Náli, again and again, gaining speed, shoving him up the bed so that he had to slap a hand up against the headboard to keep from knocking into it. Náli could do nothing but take it – and enjoy the view. The sweat beading and pearling down Mattias’s chest, the hard flex of his stomach as his hips worked, forward and back, forward and back. Skin slapped skin in an obscene, staccato crack that echoed off the room’s granite walls and floor. The competing tempos of their harsh breaths filled the space between them. Náli gripped at the linens, at Mattias’s forearms, at his own cock, finally, when the roll of oncoming pleasure became too bright and fierce and all-encompassing to ignore any longer.

“Gods,” Mattias panted, gleaming and working and the picture of masculine beauty there between his thighs. “Gods – fuck – you’re so tight.”

“Do – do I – feel good?” He needed to know, craved the praise like the brat he was.

“You feel perfect, darling.”

Náli tugged hard on his cock, and let himself go over the edge; came in messy, hot ribbons all over his own stomach. He cried out, as the pleasure crested and the tension snapped – and then again when Mattias adjusted his hips, shifted the angle, and thrust in hard right against the spot he’d hit earlier with his fingers, so his nerves fizzed and sparked.

It was too much, but in the most wonderful way. His body was awash in sensation, tender all over as a fresh bruise, and he was only dimly aware of Mattias thrusting, and grunting, and then finishing, grip bruising on Náli’s waist, wet heat blooming deep in his gut where Mattias was buried.

Mattias bent forward, a slow collapse, and pressed their foreheads together. They breathed hot and frantic there, still joined, and Náli could feel the throb of his heartbeat, a stronger, steadier echo of his own, like signal drums calling and echoing across the mountaintops at night.

22

Náli woke the next morning with Mattias’s arm heavy around his waist, and with a new determination. He was smiling before his eyes opened, because if he had Mattias – finally had him, completely, with no more denial or self-flagellation – then he could survive any maelstrom of magic required of him to alter the course of his destiny.

He stretched luxuriously, spine popping, ankles cracking, and hissed a laugh when he felt how sore he was in a host of new places. “Gods,” he murmured, chuckling under his breath. “It’s as bad as fighting, isn’t it?”

“What is?” Mattias asked behind him, voice a sleep-rough rumble that sent a thrill down Náli’s spine.

He smiled so wide his cheeks ached, and decided not to temper that; he dared Mattias to be grumpy this morning. He rolled over, careful to keep within the loose hold of Mattias’s arm, so they faced one another in the faint, silvery glow of first dawn.

With a jolt, he realized he’d never seen Mattias like this. With his face half-pressed into the pillow, his braid unraveled, streaming in ribbons over his shoulders. The covers had pooled beneath his rib cage, and gooseflesh covered his bare arms, his nipples hard points that threw shadows. Eyes half-lidded, short beard bristly and in need of a morning’s fresh trim. He’d only ever been polished and put together in Náli’s presence; had only slept when Náli was unconscious. He’d seemed invincible, in that respect. Inhuman, really.

But there was no mistaking him for a flesh and blood man, now. With sleep in his eyes and a yawn cracking his jaw. With his skin uncovered and warm when Náli burrowed in closer and spread his hands over his chest, delighting in the heat and smoothness, the faint rasp of hair.

“You’re very alert,” Mattias observed, once he’d finished yawning.

Náli curled his fingers through chest hair and tugged, lightly. “I’m planning.”

“Hm. Ominous.”

“Exciting,” Náli corrected.

Mattias’s arm tightened, hand landing on his spine, and smoothing down to cup bold and casual against the curve of his backside. He squeezed, and dragged Náli in close enough to kiss.

Oh, Náli thought, soft and swoony. I get to have this. I get to have him.

But what he said, when Mattias pulled back, was, “Your breath is foul, my love.”

Mattias smirked and kissed him again, lazy and deep, and Náli had never found morning breath endearing before.

“Gods,” Mattias said with a groan, as he pulled back, and then kept pulling back. He sat up and scrubbed a hand down his face. Pushed his loose hair over his shoulder. “I should have been up an hour ago.”

Náli sat up as well, and propped his chin on Mattias’s strong shoulder. “Why? So you can bring me tea and toast? I’d rather have you here.” Beneath the covers, he reached over Mattias’s thigh and into his lap, backs of his fingers teasing along his half-hard cock. “Like this.”

Mattias gave a grunt of surprise and jerked all over.

Náli smiled into his skin, pleased to have shocked him, to have thrilled him.

“Yes, well,” Mattias said, stuffily, drawing his walls back up. But then he turned his head, and their cheeks brushed, bristled to smooth, and his breath left him on an unsteady sigh. He reached up to cup Náli’s cheek and tilt his head for another kiss, this one not so lazy. “Good morning,” he murmured against his lips, between kisses, thumb sweeping along his jaw. “My lord.”

“I liked ‘darling’ better.”

“Good morning, darling.”

“Mm.”

One quick rap at the door was all the warning they had before it swept open. They froze, and Náli glanced from the corner of his eye to see Einrih coming in with his breakfast tray.

If he noticed them, he didn’t falter. Set the tray on the table like usual, and went to stoke up the fire and swing the kettle over it.

Náli pecked Mattias once more on the lips and drew back with a sigh, finger-combing his hair. “Good morning, Einrih.”

“Good morning, my lord.” He went to the wardrobe, bending to collect Náli and Mattias’s hastily discarded clothes without so much as a blink. He dropped them in the big wicker hamper by the door and set about choosing one of Náli’s many gray-on-gray outfits for the day. “Your mother has suggested a morning ride with Lady Frida. Will you want the fitted trousers for that?”

“Einrih.”

“Yes, my lord?”

“Einrih, look at me.”

He paused and turned toward the bed, arms laden with clothes.

Mattias fidgeted, a quick involuntary movement, and Náli poked him in the side with one finger. Stop that.

“I want to commend you on your composure,” Náli said, “but I must say I’m disappointed that you’re not a little bit shocked.”

“Náli,” Mattias chided.

Einrih’s gaze shifted between them, and his brows drew together. “Forgive me, my lord,” he said, formally. “But Mattias’s affection for you, and your affection for him in turn, have not been a secret for some time.”

“Yes, but–” Náli gestured to himself, to Mattias; to the rumpled sheets and their naked torsos and the whole scandal of it all.

Einrih bit at the inside of his cheek. “That’s not much of a secret either, I’m afraid. You were – that is, you weren’t quiet, my lord.”

The words landed…and heat flared in Náli’s cheeks. It was his turn to fidget, then. “Ah. I see.”

Mattias snorted, and he poked him again, this time with an elbow. He tried and failed to recall exactly what sorts of noises he’d been making. Probably the sort he should be embarrassed about…but that was a shame he would have to endure because, whatever they’d been, he wanted Mattias to inspire more of them in the very near future.

He adjusted the blankets in his lap and sat up, determined to push forward, blush or no. “Very well. I’ll wear the dark gray, if you will. As for my mother, tell her…” He faltered. First instinct was to say tell her to go kick rocks, I’m not riding with anyone. But things were different; things were going to get even more different, before the night was through. If the spell worked, if he split the magic successfully, and broke the chain of early death and forced heir-begetting, he’d have to break the news to his mother. He might as well avoid any advance apoplectic fits before that.

“Tell her I’ll be down shortly,” he said, and both men blinked at him in shock. “I’d like to delay her inevitable tirade until after the ball tomorrow night, if I may,” he explained. “Or at least until the end of it. I don’t want her histrionics interfering with tonight.”

“Tonight?” Einrih asked, and sounded almost…eager? Perhaps. Or that was wishful thinking on Náli’s part.

“Yes. I don’t want to delay.” He snuck a sideways glance at Mattias to search for disapproval, or doubt, or some facial twitch that betrayed he was thinking better of his decision in the light of morning. But Mattias watched him with open approval. To Einrih, he said, “Tonight, I’ll attempt the spell. If it works, then the entire balance of power in the Fault Lands will be shifted.

“If it doesn’t, I suppose I’ll have to choose a woman to hump tomorrow night after the ball and see about that whole heir business.”

Einrih’s eyes widened.

Mattias sighed.

“Tell the others.” Declaration thus made, Náli flung off the covers and slipped down out of bed into his slippers, biting back a hiss when the landing sent a jolt up his legs, through his hips…into more sensitive areas. “Shit,” he muttered. Lifted his arms as Einrih rushed forward to offer the sleeves of his robe. As he secured the belt, he heard the mattress shift and creak as Mattias climbed out on the other side.

Náli turned, already smiling to himself, because Mattias had no robe of his own, and walked naked toward the washstand, his chiseled, bare form bathed in gray dawn light. He had a lovely array of scratches down his shoulder blades, angry red lines from Náli’s nails. Náli studied them and ghosted a hand over his own hip, where finger-shaped bruises were coming in blue and obvious, tender to the touch.

The door whispered open.

“Einrih,” Náli said.

“Yes, my lord?”

At the washstand, Mattias straightened and reached for a length of towel, light catching the water droplets on his face, sliding down his neck and chest like beads of crystal. Drying his face set the muscles in his back and ass to flexing in a delightful way; even his smallest movements spoke of his prowess as a warrior, spoke of his strength.

Náli said, “Mattias was telling me the most interesting stories last night.” He turned, then, so his smirk was directed at Einrih, standing caught-out at the threshold. “He had some complimentary things to say about you, and I said I might like to witness certain sparring formations to judge your prowess for myself. That’s within a lord’s purview, don’t you think?”

Einrih blanched…and then blushed. “I. That. Well–”

Náli waved him off. “Only a suggestion. You’re dismissed.”

“I – yes, my lord.” He shut the door solidly as he rushed out, and Náli laughed.

“Don’t torment the man,” Mattias admonished. He’d turned away from the basin, now, and was combing a dollop of Náli’s favorite oil back through his hair, preparing to braid it, which bunched his biceps and pectorals up in a delightful way.

Náli sobered. “Matti, if what we’re planning actually works, talking of one another’s cocks will be the least of our indignities. We’re talking of sharing magic. That’s…well. I’ve never done that before. But it’s going to require a certain intimacy.”

Mattias’s expression turned grim, which stung at first. But then Náli realized what it meant, since there could be no question now of Mattias liking intimacy between the two of them.

“Wait.” He felt another smile forming. “Are you jealous?”

Mattias turned to pluck a leather tie from the dressing table. “No.” Said in a fussy grumble so out of character it drew Náli around the end of the bed and across the room to him.

“You are,” Náli said, as he wound his arms around his waist and propped his chin on his chest so he could grin up at him. “You’re jealous. What’s the matter? Don’t want to share me?”

“No,” Mattias said, matter of fact, and it took all the fun out of teasing. “I don’t.”

“Matti. You know that I have never, nor will I ever love anyone the way that I love you. Right?”

He felt a tremor move through him, a quick breath. Mattias left his hair half-finished in favor of taking Náli gently by the waist, gaze wondrous as it locked with his. His throat jumped. “Yes,” he whispered, as if scared to believe it.

“But don’t tell me about all your illicit conduct and expect me not to get excited by it.”

Mattias frowned. “You’re going to be a needy little terror, aren’t you?”

“Oh, yes.”

~*~

“Oh, yes,” he whined, a few hours later. “Matti…right there, yes. Like that.”

In all fairness, he hadn’t meant to get fucked up against the wall inside a hay shed, but he hadn’t been able to resist teasing Mattias until that happened.

His ride with Lady Frida had gone well – which was to say boringly. She was Northern on her mother’s side, and Rhentish on her father’s; almost thirty and looking for a solid Northern allegiance to aid in her father’s seafaring trade business. Serafina liked the match because the family was fabulously rich; likely she thought she could garner a coastal cottage on the picturesque island of Rhent off the coast of Nede, in the South. Frida, by contrast, looked less than enthusiastic about the prospect of making this craggy, barren, smoke-shrouded place her new home, much less snaring a husband not yet twenty.

They chatted about the weather – bleak – and their surroundings – bleaker still – and about the courses to be served at the ball tomorrow evening – those would be rich and studded with as many Southern imports that Serafina had been able to scrounge up in wartimes. They’d parted at the stable with a cordial smile and well-wishes, where a servant had been waiting to inform Náli that he was wanted in for a light luncheon in the Southern salon with his mother and the rest of their houseguests.

“Tell her I’ll be along shortly,” he’d said, sent the man off, and then turned to Mattias. “Captain, might I have a word in private before we leave?”

Enter the aforementioned hay shed, and the low shelf along the wall used for storing rakes and tongs, which Náli now gripped with white knuckles as he rocked backward into the slap of Mattias’s hips against his ass.

Mattias had tried to protest, even once Náli had heeled the heavy door shut and fisted the front of his tunic. “You’re too sore.”

Náli had arched a brow. “Oh, but I wasn’t too sore to sit a horse for the past hour? That was a delight let me tell you.”

Mattias had frowned. “All the more reason to resist.”

Náli had batted his lashes and simpered like a not-so-innocent maiden, sliding in close until their bodies brushed together and he could roll his hips with intent. “Or you could kiss it better.”

To his surprise and delight, Mattias had done so. And when he was on his knees, working Náli sloppily with his mouth until he was biting back keening whines, Náli had produced a vial of oil from his pocket and passed it back, hoping, wishing. Too far gone at that point, growling low in his throat, Mattias had taken the oil, and prepped him, and fucked in deep and slow on one smooth slide.

Náli was, in fact, very sore, and the initial stretch brought the sting of tears to his eyes. But be blinked them away and arched his back prettily until Mattias took a firm grip on his waist and began fucking him properly.

“Gods – yes – that’s – there. Yes. Matti. I–” He bit off a moan – he really was trying to be quiet – and leaned more of his weight into his hands, seeking the angle that would find that magic spot, the one Mattias’s cock kept grazing, every few thrusts, but which he wasn’t hitting dead-on the way Náli wanted. “Please, just–”

Mattias angled his hips down with one hand, and reached between his legs with the other to capture his weeping cock.

Náli howled. Came all over the hay, and his own boots, and the wall, and shuddered and shook as Mattias came after.

He winced when Mattias withdrew, but went easy and pliant when Mattias lifted him upright to lean back against his chest. Mattias kissed the side of his face, breathless himself. “You really are far too loud,” he murmured fondly, and kissed him again.

“Don’t care,” Náli panted.

He did care, though, at least a little, when they walked through the stables, and then the service entrance at the back of the Keep and staff of all sorts took note of his rumpled tunic, the hay that Mattias plucked out of his hair with a quiet curse, and his no-doubt-awkward gait. He needed a long, hot soak in the worst way. He always had been one to push himself too far, and apparently that applied to sex as well.

Soreness would fade.

It was the looks he worried about.

The staff had always been leery of him. Servants at Aeres curtsied or bowed to Erik, greeted him with all the respect he was due – but though some of the new young ones looked on their king with awe sometimes, none of them darted the sorts of flighty, skittering looks the members of Náli’s household sent him. Erik was a strong, austere king who’d proved himself in battle and presided over Aeretollean politics with firm decisiveness.

But Náli was magic. Náli was in charge of keeping the mountain from erupting, and most of the time that meant swooning in the hallway, or being carried, or talking with dead men, his eyes glazed white, a voice from beyond the veil falling out of his mouth.

To say that he unnerved the staff was putting it mildly. Magic hadn’t been a given in the North for generations; it was abnormal. It was feared. And therefore, so was he.

A stable lad toting a hamper of lunch out toward the barns paused when they passed him, eyes widening as his gaze landed on Náli before he ducked his head and hurried away. A kitchen girl sweeping snow from the threshold flitted out of the way as they approached the door, chewing at her lip and wringing the broom handle.

Was this their normal fear? Or could they see the wrinkles in his tunic, some smudge he hadn’t wiped off his boots? Did they know what he’d been up to in the hay shed with his Guard captain, while a whole house of eligible brides awaited him indoors?

There had been rumors, Klemens had said once, years ago, that the people of the Fault Lands grew panicked when Náli’s father took too long to marry. He’d been twenty-one, which was considered old for a Corpse Lord to begin the process of securing an heir. And then, to everyone’s further horror, he’d died before he could provide a spare or two.

The whole duchy was depending on his marriage and his offspring. How furious would they be if they knew he had no intention of marrying at all?

Sex-flush summarily cooled, he smoothed the frown from his face and stepped into the salon, where the ladies swooped toward him like so many birds, skirts rustling like feathers. His Guard went to their posts along the wall, and Náli spent the next hour forcing smiles, kissing the backs of hands, and feigning interest in the inane chatter all around him. Mother kept shooting him approving looks, so he must have been pulling it off convincingly; she also kept tilting her head to indicate certain ladies she wanted him to attend to, and he kept moving outside of her orbit each time she joined a conversation cluster.

The only man in attendance, alone in fielding their attentions, the headache that settled around his temples like an iron band was inevitable. When he spotted Brigida sitting alone by a window, he excused himself, plucked two cups of tea off the sideboard, and went to join her.

She noticed him, and blinked the far-off look from her face. Accepted the offered tea with a small smile of thanks.

“Not interested in joining the rest of the flock?” he asked, and folded up a leg to perch sideways on the window embrasure across from her. That proved a mistake when the movement, and the landing, tweaked every sore muscle. He hissed, and then stilled, biting his lip, trying to control his expression.

Her brows lifted in silent question. “Flock? That’s complimentary.”

Náli adjusted himself gingerly and sipped his tea to regain his composure, grateful she hadn’t asked about what had made his eyes pop wide just now. That would have been fun to explain. “How shall I describe this spectacle, then?”

“A travesty, perhaps?”

He snorted. “Sounds about right.” He let his gaze wander across the salon, surprised that the other ladies hung back, talking with one another or with their chaperones, rather than joining them here at the window. “Brigida. Are you a social pariah?”

“Goodness,” she said in a dry tone. “And everyone wonders why you’re still unmarried.”

“I’m only curious.”

“You’re only hopeless with women,” she retorted, offhand, sipping her tea. “And,” she went on, voice lowering, “I’m afraid you’re rather obvious.”

“Hm? How so?”

“Every single time I’ve been in your presence, ever since we were children, your gaze has continually, repeatedly sought that man standing over against the wall.”

Náli’s insides turned frigid. His stomach clenched and his teacup trembled, faintly, in suddenly-numb fingers. He kept his tone casual when he asked, “Which man?”

The look she slanted him said she wasn’t fooled, but was indulging him anyway. She tilted her head and said, “That one. The one with the very wide shoulders and the very stern look on his face. He’s one of your Dead Guard. The captain, it would appear, judging by the array of patches sewn onto his tunic.”

Taking a steady breath was difficult, as was not whipping his head around to shoot a glance at Mattias. He swallowed the lump in his throat. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Like I said: hopeless.”

“And you are a social pariah,” he bit back, rather nastily.

Brigida shrugged. “There’s also the added evidence that you were trying to get me to look at your other Guard.”

Damn. That had been too bold.

Color suffused Brigida’s cheeks, a sudden, hot blush that left her glancing back out through the window, knees drawing up tighter to her chest. “I do think he’s handsome,” she said. “In case you were still wondering.”

His brain was struggling to keep up with this turn of events. “Who?” he asked, louder than he should have, bristling with anger. “Mattias?”

“Given that look on your face, I take it Mattias is yours?”

“Yes–”

Her eyes widened.

“No, I mean no. They’re all mine. They’re my Guard, they–”

“My lord.” Mattias had moved across the room unnoticed and stood beside them now. “It appears you’ve become agitated,” he said, firmly. “Perhaps you’d like to step outside a moment?”

“I…”

Brigida giggled.

Náli rounded on her with a glare. “What are you laughing at?”

“My lord.” Mattias gripped his arm and deftly took his cup before it spilled. “You’re alarming the ladies.”

“Oh ho, don’t go alarming the ladies, Náli,” Brigida said, laughing outright, now.

“I – ack.” Mattias hauled him ungently to his feet and fairly dragged him from the room.

“Náli!” Serafina called out, shrill and unhappy.

Mattias kept going. When they passed through the open doors, he spun Náli around like a doll and gripped both his shoulders so he could march him down the corridor.

“What are you doing?”

“You were causing a scene,” Mattias hissed, his captain act from inside the salon abandoned. “Is it your goal today to let everyone in the whole Keep know that something untoward is going on between us?”

“Untoward?” Náli protested, shocked by the sharp sting of the word.

Mattias pushed him along to the juncture of the next hall and finally allowed him to turn, hands going to his hips. “Be reasonable.”

“Oh, so now I’m unreasonable? Now I can’t have a bloody conversation without–”

“You were on the verge of hysterics.”

Hurrying footfalls signaled the approach of the rest of the Guard, but Náli didn’t care.

“If you dare compare me to my mother–”

“Well, she is your mother after all.”

“You–”

“Náli!”

They both froze. Mattias’s eyes popped comically wide and Náli would have laughed in another situation. If Brigida hadn’t come jogging down the hall toward them, skirts lifted out of the way as she moved around his Guard, still laughing, a smile splitting her face.

Einrih made a grab for her as she passed him. “My lady!”

But she was lithe as a yearling and avoided him; arrived, breathless and pink-cheeked, in front of Náli.

“What was that?” she asked, dropping and smoothing her skirts, smile wide and eyes glittering with mirth. “I was only teasing, but I must have guessed right, eh?” Her gaze shifted from him, to Mattias, and back again. She looked nearly smug.

Mattias, pale faced and big-eyed, as openly panicked as he’d ever looked, said, “My lady–”

Náli snatched her wrist – “What?!” – and then it was his turn to be the one dragging someone along.

“Náli, what?” But she came along willingly enough, her long legs keeping pace with his own as they turned the corner and started down the next hall.

“Náli,” Mattias barked as he followed, so rattled he’d left off the my lord, even in front of a lady.

From farther behind, shrill and floating: “Náli! Where are you going?” His mother.

Náli broke into a run, tugging Brigida along with him, who laughed some more. The regimented thunder of booted footfalls at their heels signaled the whole of his Guard following as well.

They went around another corner, and another. Up a short flight of four stairs. Right, left, straight, through an empty hall with its furniture pushed into the corners. Onto another hall, and another flight of stairs.

“Náli, where are we going?” Brigida finally asked, all her laughter gone. She twisted her wrist in his grip, and he released her.

The door to the long-unused parlor he’d brought them to closed, and he didn’t need to look to know that it had closed with his Guard inside with them.

“No one ever comes to this part of the Keep,” he said, gesturing to the thick layer of dust on the floor, the cold and empty hearth. “No one will overhear us.”

Across from him, face flushed, fine hairs come loose from her braid clinging and curling against the sheen of perspiration at her neck and brow, her expression slowly shifted. She edged back a step, eyes round, and darted a glance from him to his Guard, clustered at the door. “No one will overhear what?” She gripped her skirts and backed another step, her knuckles white, her brows knitted. Nervous. Worried.

Belatedly, Náli realized why. He let out a deep breath and forcibly relaxed his posture. “No, no, nothing like that. Calm down.”

“I am calm.” She was, mostly, but her pulse fluttered visibly in her throat and her face had gone nearly white in the pale glow of sunlight that filtered through the room’s single, dusty window.

“Shit,” Náli muttered. Not only had he spooked her – one girl alone in a room with six men, five of whom blocked the exit with those same broad shoulders she’d commented upon minutes ago. But they’d both left luncheon together and disappeared. If that didn’t show favoritism – or even suggest that he and Brigida had been intimate – he didn’t know what would.

Each moment that passed turned Brigida’s gaze a little more frantic, crimped her skirts a little further in her tight grip. Her breath was audible, now, a quick rush between parted lips. “Náli…”

He hadn’t intended to tell her about Mattias outright. People would talk, of course, if his spell was successful and he refused to take a bride. When he eventually recognized one of his Guard’s offspring as his heir, once one of them had courted a woman and passed along the magic. If Erik could choose an heir rather than beget one, why couldn’t he?

But he realized now, given Brigida’s fright, and the direction of the tongues already wagging back in the salon, that he owed her more than a casual brush-off. She was his favorite, after all.

“Brigida,” he said, tone soothing, offering an empty palm. “I’ll explain. I’ll explain everything.”

“Náli,” Mattias warned…halfway to pleading.

Náli couldn’t look at him, because he knew the sight of his face would crumble his resolve. “You were right,” he continued. “About my captain. About him and me.”

One of the others swore, softly.

Brigida’s brows lifted, some of the fear giving way to curiosity.

“It isn’t your fault I’ve always loathed these matchmaking parties. It isn’t anyone’s fault but my own. It’s not any fun to talk of marriage and the making of heirs when you’ve been in love with someone you can’t marry your whole life.”

Brigida gasped.

Clothes rustled and leather creaked as his Guard shifted on their feet.

He didn’t suppose he’d ever said it as plainly as that before, much less in front of anyone besides Mattias.

“I’ve always known that I would one day be forced to wed, for the sake of this mountain, and thus the whole kingdom. At worst, I looked on it as torture. At best, as a union in which I might at least find mutual respect, and even some affection.

“I do like you, Brigida. Choosing you would make it easier. I enjoy your company, and I think we could eventually come to a kind of understanding.

“But it wouldn’t be fair to you,” he went on, when he saw she meant to speak. “You’re too lovely a person to be stuck in a marriage with a man whose heart belongs to someone else. I would be a terrible husband to you.”

She frowned. “Then you’ll choose someone you like less? How is that better?”

“It would be better for you to spare you–”

“I don’t need sparing,” he said. “Don’t try to act noble about this. You walked into the salon earlier looking straight from a good roll in the hay. Don’t pretend this is about my happiness. You’d rather get tupped by your captain than tup me. At least be man enough to admit it.”

He recognized Klemens’ raspy chuckle.

Someone else let out a low whistle.

“I don’t take offense to that. I already told you you weren’t to my taste.”

“Shit.” That was Darri, trying to smother a laugh.

He tossed a scalding look toward them. “You’d think you’d all remember your decorum at a time like this.”

Mattias had a strangled look about him. But Klemens shrugged and folded his arms, unbothered. “The lady’s talking sensibly.”

Náli let his lip peel back off his teeth. “And here I was about to put in a good word for you, you traitor.”

“My lord,” Danski said, fighting a grin. Badly. “We apologize for–”

“I don’t apologize,” Klemens interrupted. To Náli: “What the fuck are you doing? My lord.”

“Seventeen years you pack of great louts follow me around, silent as mice, and today you decide to grow spines,” Náli seethed. It was wildly unfair – they were the bravest men he knew, ready to sacrifice themselves for him at a moment’s notice – but they were grating on his nerves at the moment. “There is a lady present.”

“A lady you’re spilling your guts to,” Klemens said, all professionalism stripped away. His regard was casual, but cutting. The real him, the dry, always-slightly-put-out man who lurked beneath the Dead Guard façade. Náli had caught glimpses before, but never been pinned beneath his real stare before like this; he resisted the urge to squirm. “The way I see it, if you’re going to go changing everything, you should stop expecting things to carry on as they’ve always done.”

“You…” He had a point, actually. Náli heaved a deep sigh and scrubbed at the headache forming between his brows. “I have no idea what I’m doing,” he grumbled.

“We noticed, my lord,” Einrih said, helpfully.

Náli shot him a glare, and got a smile in return.

“Um,” Brigida ventured.

Náli took a moment to breathe; to acknowledge the stark truth that, if his plans panned out, and he managed to imbue his Guards with his own magic…if he bought himself freedom that way…then things would change. He would always be the Corpse Lord – even Lucian had called himself that – but his Guard would no longer merely be his protectors and keepers. He hadn’t thought that completely through, yet.

Brigida cleared her throat delicately. “I feel as if this isn’t a conversation I should be a part of.”

Mattias’s look clearly agreed with her assessment.

Náli turned to her again, thoughts spinning in a dozen directions. Nothing would work out if he couldn’t perform the spell, if he couldn’t share the magic. He might very well die tonight, and then the mountain would erupt, and the kingdom would be covered in ash, and everyone would die.

Or he might succeed, but Klemens might not fancy Brigida, or she might not fancy him.

It might be years before an heir was born or it might be never.

Nothing was decided. Everything was at risk.

So he said, “Would you like to see a dragon?”

Brigida’s face smoothed with shock. “A what?”

“A dragon. A drake. Even if he is a little shit.”

~*~

Said little shit took an immediate shine to Brigida.

Valgrind loped circles around her, jaws spread wide in a toothy grin, blue tongue lolling like a panting dog’s. He warbled and chirped and paused now and again to sniff her dress and hands, very curious about her long, rustling skirts and the soft-soled boots she wore beneath, more delicate than the boots Náli and his men wore for riding and traveling.

Brigida clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes huge when Valgrind first emerged from the shadows, but after a few minutes, her shaking eased, her hand lowered, and she wound up smiling and giggling at Valgrind’s antics. Náli showed her where he liked to be scratched along the jaw and behind the horns, and the beast was purring beneath her touch within moments.

After, he settled down to gnaw at a bit of bone, the crunch and crack of it echoing through the cavernous spaces of the catacombs. Náli sat down on the cold, hard ground and leaned back against his side, Brigida seated cross-legged across from him. As succinctly as possible, he told her everything, and watched wonder and understanding bloom across her face, until she was pitched forward eagerly, elbows braced on her thighs.

Klemens kept flicking glances toward her, Náli noticed.

“Do you think it will work?” she asked, refocusing his attention. “This spell? Can you control that much magic at once?” She cast a doubtful look over her shoulder toward the well, where the white water lay still and slick as glass. Her shoulders curled inward, an unconscious shrinking away from that unnatural pool, and the wealth of magic at the bottom of which he'd spoken.

“I am quite powerful,” he said.

She rolled her eyes as she faced him again, but the quip had succeeded in relaxing her. “And oh so modest.”

“I’m fairly bursting with positive attributes.” He sobered, then. “Truthfully…I don’t know. But I want to try. I have to. Otherwise, I’ll be stuck here in this Keep for the rest of my days while my king and the rest of my countrymen march to a war in which I could assist.” He picked at the loose skin of his cuticle.

“I heard the Sels were stopped at Aeres,” she said. “Is that true?”

Clever, he thought. Not defeated and not an assumption of victory, either, but a question.

“The entirety of the force that attacked Aeres was eliminated – mostly thanks to the drakes.” He smoothed an absent hand along Valgrind’s neck and he purred in response. “But they’re slowly overtaking the South.”

“And King Erik’s going to march to aid them?”

“He promised he would, after the last war. That was the whole point of the Drakes coming up here – a royal marriage and a royal consort, it turns out, to seal the arrangement.

“Also,” he said, wincing a little, “there was a captured general who leveled threats. And some traitors amidst our allies that proved the whole situation is much more complicated than one put-down siege.”

She jolted upright. “Traitors?”

“Let’s just say you should never trust a man who wears wolf fangs on a cord around his neck. Nasty business.” He made a dismissive gesture, not wanting to sidetrack them onto the topic of Ragnar, and Leif, and that entire mess. “In any event, war is here. War will continue to shape the future of the North. And I think it’s important for me to have a hand in that.”

She nodded, and settled. And then smiled.

“What?”

“You sound very responsible.”

“I am responsible.”

“Ah. And now you sound petulant.”

He snorted and bit back a reply that would make him sound extremely petulant. “Well. Now you know,” he said, switching topics. “That’s the situation in the Fault Lands.”

She nodded again, smile fading. She adopted a serious expression. Glanced toward his Guard, and then the other way, at the well again. “I don’t envy you,” she murmured.

“No one ever does.”

Silence reigned a moment. One of the Guards coughed, quietly, and Valgrind gnawed at his bone.

Color slowly bloomed in Brigida’s cheeks, and her head tipped down shyly, fingers toying with the embroidery on her skirt as she whispered, “You said his name is Klemens?”

Náli grinned. “Shall I introduce you?”

23

The rest of the day seemed to creep. But then supper had been eaten, and it was time for Náli to prepare for the spell, and the evening flitted past after that.

His pulse fluttered quick and unsteady in his throat and wrists and ears, and his breaths came in sharp, airless little gasps as he sorted through his supplies and packed them into a satchel.

He'd never been so nervous in his life, and the way Mattias stood silently supportive across the bed from him said he knew it. Náli kept waiting for the inevitable out: you don’t have to do this; we’ve lasted this long the way things are; perhaps you should truly consider marriage. But when Náli fastened the satchel, and ducked through its strap, and lifted his head, finally, Mattias offered a smile.

“Ready?”

He took a huge breath and let it out in a rush. “As I’ll ever be.”

He moved around the bed toward the door – and Mattias caught him around the waist and hauled him in close. Pressed them together, his body a solid, reassuring heat, as was the firm kiss he pressed to Náli’s mouth. Not the heated, passionate sort of kiss from last night or this morning in the barn, but one that said I’m with you. I have you.

Náli allowed himself the indulgent comfort of wrapping his arms around his neck and clinging to him; he broke the kiss in favor of pressing his face into Mattias’s neck and breathing deep the scent of leather, and soap, and the peppermint oil he used on his beard and hair. “I’m afraid,” he admitted, a whisper tucked into the collar of his tunic. “Isn’t that awful? This whole thing’s been my idea from the first, and now I’m frightened.”

Mattias stroked up and down his spine. “I’d be worried if you weren’t at least a little afraid.” He patted his hip. “Come on, then.”

“Right.” Náli withdrew with reluctance, but had smoothed his face and lifted his chin high by the time he stepped out into the hall where the rest of his Guard awaited.

Past midnight, the Keep lay still and silent, cold and echoing, darkness pooled in every corner, as forlorn as a mausoleum. Fitting, Náli thought, but it left him grateful for the Northern tradition of cremation; he’d never liked the idea of his bones sealed up in a frigid granite vault for all eternity. Klemens led the way, carrying a lantern, its glow peeking oddly around corners ahead of them, so that the shadows seemed alive, shrinking away from their party. Their footfalls echoed off the high ceilings, rebounded off doorways and tumbled down staircases. No one spoke, as they pressed on, all the way to the door that led down into the catacombs, their procession funerial and grim, outwardly; for Náli’s part, he buzzed on the inside, and detected similar anxiety in the curl of Klemens’ fingers on the lantern handle, in the occasional deep breath Danski let out behind him.

It might very well be their last trip of this sort, Náli reflected. In looking for a bright side, he found that he was glad he could walk toward his doom on his own feet without assistance, at least. And that he’d had the chance, however brief, to love Mattias fully, and be loved equally in return.

It took ages.

It took the span of a heartbeat.

Then they stood on the worn-smooth granite floor deep at the foot of the mountain, water plinking ominously somewhere distant, the well as shiny and still as a sheet of ice.

Valgrind was dozing, but roused to greet them, eyes at half-mast and low crooning noises rough from sleep.

Náli took him a morsel of ham, and nearly got bowled over when Valgrind came instantly alert and started shoving roughly at his pockets for more.

“No – no. Down. Sit down, you demon.” When the drake plopped down on his backside, tail flicking at the tip, Náli fixed him with a stern look and said, “Now, I have no way of knowing how much language you actually understand.”

Someone behind him snorted.

“But given your insubordination, I think it’s rather a lot. I want you to listen and listen well. I need you to go down there” – he pointed to the water – “but don’t cross over. Do you understand? Stay on this side.” He pointed at his feet. “Collect the diamonds at the bottom of the pool” – he lifted the one he wore around his neck as an example – “and bring them all back. Can you do that? Go get the diamonds. Bring them to me.”

Valgrind’s nostrils flared and he cocked his head. “Kirik?”

“Go down there, and bring them back. Yes?”

The long, white tail thumped hard against the floor. “Kirik!”

He sighed. “You have no idea what I’m saying, do you?”

“Kirik,” Valgrind chirped again, turned – nearly taking Náli’s head off with his tail – and dove neatly into the pool without a single splash.

“Odds he comes back with a rock?” Náli muttered. It was the sort of comment he’d been making since boyhood. Early on, his Guard had established themselves as a sort of echo chamber, offering bits of useful advice if he asked for it directly, but otherwise murmuring soothing words, hanging back behind him, in their proper place.

But things were changing, as Klemens had said; every moment shifted the balance. Which explained why, for the first time, Mattias stepped up beside him where he stood at the water’s edge, and offered a smile. “I dunno,” he said. “The beast’s proved damn canny so far, hasn’t he?”

Náli stared at him in open wonder a moment – oh, how he’d always wanted this, having his rock beside him rather than behind – and then felt his own smile tugging at his mouth. “I suppose so,” he said, grudging, but smile growing even wider. “He’s occasionally useful.”

Mattias’s gaze went out across the pool, and he nodded. “Look.”

Náli did, and saw bubbles forming on the surface.

Valgrind’s head popped up into view, streaming water, his jaws held carefully ajar, diamonds glittering on his tongue.

~*~

There were five, just as Lucian had said there would be, and Náli sat down hard on the ground, stunned. “I don’t suppose I believed it, truly,” he admitted. “Didn’t believe him.”

Mattias, too, sounded awed. “He told the truth, then. Your dead man.”

“He’s not my dead man.” Náli frowned. “Well. Dead great-great-great grand-something, I suppose.” He shook his head as if that might clear it.

The diamonds, lying in a pool of milky water at the center of the circle they’d formed to inspect them, glowed faintly. Náli could feel the hum and pulse of magic, a staggering repository of it, right here at his fingertips. It would have been a lie to say it didn’t tempt him; even if he hated what his magic did to him, the magic itself was worth craving. Each gem was a replica of the one he wore: fat-bottomed teardrops with long tails like comets.

Einrih stretched out the toe of his boot as if to kick at one, but withdrew. “Now what?” he asked.

Indeed. Now what?

Náli lifted his hand, and Mattias placed the satchel in it without being asked. “I learned something valuable about my abilities at Aeres, when I helped the Drake cousins enchant that torq for Ragnar. For the first time,” he said, as he rummaged for what he needed, “I was able to use my power for something that had nothing to do with death. Up until then, magic had always been a vehicle for communicating with those who’d already crossed over, or, in some cases, animating their corpses once they’d vacated the host. Dead and deader still. But with the torq – ah, here we are – I was able to imbue an object with magic and store it there, permanently. Granted, the Drakes helped, but the principle remains.

“My task is to take the magic stored here” – he gestured to the five new diamonds – “into myself, coalesce it, and then fragment it again in a new formation and imbue it into the five of you. Hopefully, the diamonds will then act as locus points, as my own does, rather than the repositories for the magic themselves – which is what you will all become.”

“That sounds…dangerous,” Darri said.

“Oh. It is.” From the satchel, Náli withdrew an old, yellow, crumbling scroll. He untied its ribbon slowly, and unrolled it inch by inch with delicate fingertips, smoothing it across a dry portion of floor. He anchored it at each corner with the iron candlesticks they’d brought, and then lit the tallow tapers set within them so he could read the old, faded words. “The risk is twofold: firstly, that I won’t be able to tolerate such a wealth of power on my own, and it will kill me dead. Secondly, that the transfer might kill one of you.”

He examined each of their faces in turn, meeting firm resolve, if grim, each time. He watched Mattias do the same, and he was the one who answered for all of them, as their leader and captain. He said, “We understand the risks, and we accept.”

“Good.” Náli’s nerves tightened, threatened to strangle him, and he swallowed resolutely and pressed forward with quick, efficient movements, trying to let momentum carry him toward something like bravery.

He set out his usual silver bowl, and his favorite knife, freshly sharpened. Rolled up his sleeves and secured them at his elbows.

“How will you do it?” Klemens asked.

Náli found a fat vein in the crook of his elbow and nicked it with the tip of the knife. Gritted his teeth as he turned his arm over the bowl and watched the blood trickle down into it with the sound of drizzling rainwater. “It isn’t an exact science, you understand. I can’t say a few magic words, turn around three times and…”

Klemens settled down across from him on the ground, expression unamused.

“Yes, well, you know that. You’ve all watched me flounder often enough.”

The others sat, too: Mattias on his right, Danski on his left, Einrih and Darri filling the other two gaps in their small circle.

“This” – he touched the edge of the parchment – “is a very old summons written by one of my dead, dusty relatives. A very specific kind of summons that, quite frankly, I’ve never had the nerve to try. It says here” – he traced the runic letters across the top – “that this particular combination of meditation and invocation invites ‘forces beyond mortal ken’ to enter the living vessel, which would be me, in this case.”

“Isn’t that what you already do?” Darri asked. “When dead men’s voices come out of your mouth?”

“A version, yes. But the dead men are dead, and were men, are not a ‘force beyond mortal ken.’ They are mortal – or were. This invites something wholly inhuman to come calling.”

“Like what?” Danski asked, frowning.

“That is the question. The language here makes me think it was something specific – at least for this particular relative. He had a definitive goal. As do I, which leaves me hopeful I can use this as a sort of guide. This volume of magic certainly counts as a force beyond my understanding. The trick will be opening the door to it…without letting in anything else.”

“Else?” Einrih echoed, brows lifted.

Náli twitched a wry smile. “The other side isn’t a cupboard that you step neatly into and back out of again. It’s a world unto its own. It has its own people, its own forces of nature. It has dangers as rich and plentiful as this realm. And, like here, wielding magic shines brightly. There’s always the chance you could…attract attention. The undesirable kind.”

He thought of a cave in the side of a mountain, a people hiding in the dark, and suppressed a shudder. If Lucian was being hunted, then so too would he be, when he crossed over.

A chill had settled over their group, one that Valgrind could sense, if his distressed rumble was any indication. He curled up around them, head propped on Náli’s shoulder, tail flicking up between Danski and Mattias.

Mattias took a deep breath and said, “Tell us what to do.”

Náli took a deep breath of his own and folded up his elbow, a wad of cotton batting pressed tight to the cut he’d made to stem the blood flow. He felt lightheaded, and didn’t know if it was blood loss or nerves; maybe a bit of both. “For now.” With his free hand, he set the silver bowl in the center of the parchment and dipped his forefinger inside. “I’ll need each of your foreheads.”

They leaned toward him, and he traced the necessary runes there on their brows. The last rune he drew on his own forehead, the blood hot and slick on his skin. All of them together, their circle read: The blood of the living shall welcome the blood of the dead. Old words, first spoken in the wild days of nomadic clans; words that tasted like fire and magic on the tongue. He had context, now; could imagine Lucian’s father, wild but beautiful, pale and austere, kneeling before the lovely, elfin woman brimming with all the magic that would grace the continent for centuries to come.

His pulse quickened, as he gathered the diamonds, and slipped them one by one into the bowl of blood. “The blood of the living shall welcome the blood of the dead,” he said aloud, in the old language. “I am the keeper of the Fault Lands, and the dead shall keep me.” They were only words, but they sent chills skittering across his skin like always. The back of his neck tightened and prickled. Only words…but they stirred the air around him, tugged at the pit of his stomach, the dead already reaching for him.

Ripples shuddered out across the surface of the blood in the bowl; the diamonds danced and clinked against the bottom.

“Gods,” Danski murmured.

“I’m going to cross over now.” He closed his eyes and felt himself slipping already; swore he felt the weight of the water crushing him. He’d never done this on dry land before, but he’d learned a valuable lesson when Valgrind ferried him across last time. The drake breathed cold air against his neck, now, trilling and chittering. Náli reached up and gripped one of his horns. “Valgrind will help you across when it’s time,” he said, with no idea if that was possible. He had to trust that it was; he had to loosen his chokehold on his magic and flow with it, let it carry him.

“Wait for me,” he said, as bright white light swelled behind his closed eyelids. “I’ll send for you.”

The light flared, blasted white and ice-cold throughout his body; filled his lungs and froze his limbs and choked him, choked him, squeezed him–

He gasped and opened his eyes to a cool, dim space that smelled of wet stone and wood smoke.

He took a moment to catch his breath and marvel at the ease of his crossing. He realized he was grinning: he’d done it! Closed his eyes and slipped straight into a meditative state and across the veil. No well, no drake towing him.

“Heh,” he said, chuckling quietly to himself. He was getting stronger.

“You made that look easy,” a familiar voice said.

He was seated cross-legged on the ground, just as he was back in his body, and twisted around to see Lucian step around a corner and into view. He appeared as he had last time, with his hair clean and shining and his cheeks clean-shaven, startlingly like the portrait of Náli’s father hanging above the mantel in the dining room.

He looked haggard, though; worn and tired, and too pale. Náli marked a certain blurriness about his edges, as if he were an apparition begun to fade.

“Easier than before,” Náli said, as he sat down across from him and mimicked his pose.

“It’s those.” Lucian nodded to the ground between them, and there were the diamonds, all five of them, clean and gleaming, lined up in a neat row across the cavern floor without a trace of blood nor bowl. Náli patted his chest and found his own where it should be, on its chain around his neck.

“I’ve not done anything with them, though.”

“No, but proximity is enough. The magic calls to the pieces of itself. It wants to be joined.”

Náli frowned. “But it won’t be joined, in the end. We’ll all be sharing it.”

Lucian cocked his head, his gaze boring through him.

“What?”

“I think you’re underestimating the intimacy of what you’re about to undertake.”

“No, I don’t think I am.”

Lucian shrugged. “We shall see. Now. Are you ready?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

Lucian sent him a withering look and fanned his hands open, placed them palms-down on the stone just shy of the diamonds. “First, you must absorb all that these contain.”

“I know,” Náli huffed, mirroring his pose, hands splayed open on the ground.

“No,” Lucian said, matter-of-fact. “You can’t begin to know what this is going to feel like.”

Náli gritted his teeth, leaned forward to put more weight on his hands, and took a deep breath, throwing open the doorways to his mind at the same time. He let his magic boil up out of his bones and fill him head to toe, the tingling, prickling cold of it, the thrumming like a new heartbeat.

Beneath him, the diamonds began to glow, faintly at first, but then it swelled, the same white, over-bright light that had looked like a sun at the bottom of the well; the same flare that drew him across the veil into the land of the dead each time. He could feel it, a discordant buzzing outside his body, a stronger, wilder echo of the pulse of magic inside himself.

He closed his eyes, his world awash in white, and reached through the open door inside his mind.

It burned. It felt as if he’d thrust his hand inside a campfire, or dipped it in a cauldron of boiling water. He might have made a sound; might have even screamed. Magic screamed at magic; his skin shredded and peeled off; wind buffeted his face.

And then in a great, rolling lurch, the magic boiled through the gap he’d left, the entirety of the well filling his soul, burning him alive.

~*~

The dragon kept up a continuous stream of low, distressed sounds, little wheezes and rumbles that echoed Mattias’s own silent worry. Once Náli said the words in the old language, his face had gone slack, and his pretty blue eyes had filmed over pure white: that eerie, vacant mask he wore when he communed with the dead.

Valgrind licked at the shell of his ear, a move that would have earned an exclamation and a shove any other time. When Náli remained fixed and still, Valgrind turned and bleated at Mattias, tail tip thwapping his shoulder.

“I know,” Mattias murmured, gaze pinned to Náli’s vacant face. “I know, but–”

The bowl of blood and diamonds, rattling faintly, leaped and tipped over with a loud metallic clang. Blood spilled across the parchment, soaking into the old paper, obscuring the runes. The diamonds vibrated, jumping like insects, pinging together and rebounding off each other.

“Gods,” Danski swore, and reached for them.

Mattias flung an arm out to stop him. “Wait! Don’t touch them!” They were glowing, a white light that pulsed like a human heartbeat. There was a humming, a low buzz growing louder, swelling inside their circle.

“We should stop it,” Klemens said, tone shockingly savage. He shot a glare at Mattias. “Wake him up. This’ll kill him.”

“He wants to try,” Mattias said. The diamonds jumped between them. “Let’s wait a little–”

A scream ripped through the air.

Mattias whipped around, gripped by panic, and saw Náli with his head tipped back, tendons stark in his throat, mouth open in a pained rictus.

“Náli!”

A hand gripped his sleeve and held him back. “Did you not just hear yourself?” Klemens asked, shouting to be heard above Náli’s screeching. “Look at him.”

Mattias was looking, heart leaping out of his chest, stomach twisting into knots. Náli was shaking, hair shivering where it hung down his back, veins standing out along his temples, sightless, milky eyes wide as he screamed and screamed and–

And his hands were glowing.

Mattias blinked to be sure, but, yes, his palms were emitting a faint glow, one that swelled brighter as he watched.

“Don’t touch him,” Klemens said. “You have no idea what might happen.”

None of them did, but Mattias’s hands flexed on empty air, and his breath hitched, because it physically pained him to witness this. To hear the sharp, pained screams.

Screams that Valgrind echoed, head thrown back in imitation of Náli, his inhuman voice echoing in a high, batlike shriek off the ceiling above.

Darri clapped his hands over his ears.

Einrih swore.

“Náli,” Mattias tried again. He shrugged out of Klemens’ grip. Damn it. Damn it all, he was going to touch him, no matter what anyone said. He reached out again–

And Náli pitched violently forward and vomited blood.

“Náli.”

Náli gave a great, sucking gasp afterward and lifted his head, lips dripping crimson, eyes still the color of fresh milk. He said something low, and guttural, and wet in the old language that Mattias didn’t understand, then he lunged forward, quick as a blink, and slammed his blood-smeared mouth into Mattias’s.

~*~

Náli’s blood boiled, and his bones melted into foaming hot magma. It was too much magic, too powerful, too concentrated, and he was only one, not-large boy, slender as a willow and more bark than bite. If he’d been a big, strapping lad like the princes he might have been a worthy vessel, but no, he was him, and he was burning up from the inside out, shredding and crisping and dissolving. He tasted blood. Pain was the only sensation.

I’m dying, he thought, in some dim recess of his mind that was still capable of higher function. This is the end.

Then the pain crested to a higher peak, and he ceased to exist at all.

Some indeterminate amount of time later, awareness returned.

Fine, faint prickles of it. A sense of being. Ripples of pain and darts of cold. He shuddered, and could feel it, despite the seeming absence of limbs. He felt, yes, but didn’t feel like himself. He felt…

As if he floated. Buoyant in a sea of whispering silk.

He cracked his eyes open, which proved that, one, he did have eyes, and two, that he was surrounded by light. Not the piercing, too-bright glare of before, but a gentle, warm glow, silver-gray, the color of goose down.

He had a mouth, too, because he was able to say, “Where am I?”

He didn’t expect an answer, but a high, clear chiming filled his ears, soft and pleasant, like the garden bells in summer.

“Hello?”

The chimes came again, cascading musically. He turned – he could turn, and when he glanced down saw that he was whole, at least on this plane, and clothed in a robe of softest gray, his diamond winking around his neck – and surveyed the endless expanse of gray around him. There was no ground visible, though his bare feet were firmly planted. No sky above, no grass, or trees, or village.

He lifted his hands to his face and turned them, flexed them, examining their smooth, unblemished lines. No sword calluses or old scars. He reached up to his head, and ran his fingers through clean, silken hair. He felt…

He felt wonderful, actually. Pain-free and calm and strong. He took a deep, deep breath, what felt like the first he’d taken in ages, and it came to him, then, as the chimes rippled.

He was inside the magic. In the true, actual well of it. “Did I do it?” he asked. “Did I actually take hold of it all? Or am I truly dead this time?”

He turned in circles, though, and could find nothing of the plane of death.

Wait, though. Lucian had talked of multiple planes. Of the Between, and of Hel’s halls.

This certainly wasn’t a hall, nor was there a goddess to greet him.

The magic, then. The heart of it.

“Now what?”

In the distance, a light winked.

With nothing else to do, and no obvious idea how to get back into his body, Náli shrugged and walked toward it.

It was unnerving, stepping on thin air. He felt cool, smooth stone beneath his feet, not unlike the floors of his bedchamber, and so he looked ahead, rather than down, when the sight of so much nothing beneath his feet left his head spinning. On and on he walked, the distance immeasurable. It could have taken seconds or hours, could have been upside down, for all he knew. But finally, the winking light grew and took form as he neared it.

It was a flame. Fire burned in a wide, shallow stone bowl cut with black veins, perched atop a waist-high pedestal. The flame itself burned orange, but blue closer to the center, and at its very heart, the deepest purple unlike any fire Náli had ever seen.

Like the Selesee banners, he thought with a ripple of disquiet.

He walked slow circles around the pedestal, surprised to find that there was no fuel for the fire: no wick and no oil, no wood, no coals, no peat. Its source was invisible, though he felt the hard press of its heat against his face.

He walked another lap, glanced up–

And saw a man standing across from him.

Lucian, was his first thought. And then, no.

The hair was the same, at least. Long and white, it fell in silken sheets across broad, bare shoulders. Stripped to the waist, his torso was that of a warrior, padded with heavy, chiseled muscles, veins standing stark beneath skin smooth and white as marble. He wore loose, silken trousers that threatened to slide off pointed hipbones. His face was stark and sharply-angled, jaw like a blade, cheekbones like cut crystal. His eyes, tilted at the outer corners, were the most faded shade of blue, nearly colorless, fringed with white lashes.

A beautiful face. A cruel one. The arms of a swordsman.

Shock knocked the breath from Náli’s lungs, and when he inhaled next, he breathed, “Sel.”

“Northman,” the man responded, his accent that soft, lilting drawl of the Sels.

Náli’s pulse thrummed in his throat and temples. He swallowed and fought to keep his expression neutral.

“From which clan?” the Sel asked.

“None.” He didn’t know the best way to answer, and in his panic, the truth won out. “I’m the Corpse Lord of the Fault Lands. Necromancer of the North. Demon of the Dead.”

Bloodless lips spread in a tight grin. “That’s a lot of titles for one so small.”

Náli stood up straighter. “You’re trespassing in my magic. I don’t have to justify my titles to you.”

A single, white brow lifted. “Your magic?” He moved, and Náli did too, so they circled one another around the pillar. The light of the tricolor fire danced up the Sel’s face, casting purple shadows beneath the sharp cut of cheek and jaw. “You claim to own it, then?”

Why was this happening? How had this man – a disconcerting head and shoulders taller than him, by the way – found his way into Náli’s consciousness? Into the pulsing center of his power? He wanted to ask Lucian, but Lucian wasn’t here, so he kept moving, step after step, speeding up as the Sel’s stride lengthened.

He kicked his chin back and adopted an imperious tone. “I was born with this power. It was passed down to me generation after generation, since magic first arrived in the North.”

The Sel grinned without humor, a baring of stark white teeth in his ivory face. “Since the traitor Lucia fled the shores of Sē, you mean. Since the power of my ancestors was stolen from our people.”

“We both have magical ancestors, then,” Náli said, stepping quicker to keep pace – to keep away. “La-dee-da. Magic can’t be stolen if a person possessing magic chooses to leave home and make a new home elsewhere among new people. You might want to come up with a new narrative, friend.”

The Sel’s lip curled, half-snarl, half-smile. “You think you’re clever.”

“I know I am, but thank you for noticing.”

“Tell me then, clever Corpse Lord Náli of the Fault Lands, Demon of the Dead: if your magic was honestly obtained, why has the North pushed it further and further outside the realm of common use? Why has magic become so rare and weak? If this power” – here he gestured to the dancing flames, purple bleeding blue bleeding orange – “belongs to you, why have you never been able to find this place before now?”

“It’s complicated.” Náli affected a sniff. “I’m afraid you wouldn’t understand.”

“Hm,” the Sel hummed, gaze falling to his feet, hands linking behind his back. A contemplative pose, white lashes on his nearly-white cheeks, white hair sliding forward over his shoulders and chest. “Yes. Magic is complicated. It requires complete and total devotion. A craft more intricate and demanding than any ever attempted by an artisan.”

“Yes,” Náli said. “So we agree, then: magic is a right pain in the ass. Having thus agreed, I think it best we wish one another farewell and be about our business. Separately.” He edged backward a step–

And the Sel leaped. Too fast for Náli to react in time, he jumped up and over the pillar, straight through the fire, and tackled Náli to the ground with ease.

“Oof!” He landed flat on his back on the cool, unseen floor, and the Sel caged him in, one knee and one boot planted on either side of his hips, one hand knotted in the front of his robes, beneath his chin. He lifted his other hand aloft, and a knife materialized, long and jagged, its hilt carved obsidian set with diamonds.

“Wait!” Náli tried to buck him off, failed miserably, and lifted his empty palms in supplication. “Wait, wait, just – stop.” The point of the knife lowered, hovering over his eye, and he broke out in a cold, terrified sweat. Where had the knife come from? How could he conjure his own? How was this beast so gods damned strong? “I don’t want to fight you,” he panted. “Can’t we just – we can talk, can’t we? Who are you? What’s your name?” The man’s face was a harsh mask, his eyes flat and unfeeling. “I gave you mine. It’s only fair to tell me yours.”

He flinched inwardly, after. But he forced himself to meet the man’s stare, rather than shut his eyes or turn his head away from the threat of the knife.

“I’m curious,” Náli ventured, aiming toward flattery, “how you came to be here. You must be very powerful.”

“Hmph.” The man spread his hand wide, but pressed down, once, against Náli’s breastbone, a clear order to stay. Then his touch climbed, until his thumb rested against the point of Náli’s chin. He studied him a long moment, gaze unreadable – before he shoved Náli’s head to the side, leaned down, and licked his neck.

“What?” Everything in him rebelled. He twisted, and kicked, and scrabbled with both hands to tear the Sel’s hand away, but he was immovable. Strong and heavy and rooted like a tree above him. “Stop – get – no–”

Teeth nipped him, and the Sel hummed low in his throat, sounding pleased. “Little pretty Corpse Lord. Do you think you’ll save them all? Do you think you can overpower me? You and that redheaded whore?” His voice turned savage at the end, dripping contempt, his breath hot against the side of Náli’s face.

Oliver, Náli thought wildly. He means Oliver. He remembered the general’s snarl back at the palace, the hatred in his gaze when he looked at the king’s consort. His assertion that Oliver would prove Erik’s downfall.

What did it mean? What did any of this mean?

Cool lips pressed to his ear, and a warm, wet tongue slithered inside it.

“Ah!” Náli fought hard, and was as effective as a pinned butterfly, shredding his wings uselessly against a strength that was crushing him.

“It’s him I want,” the Sel murmured. “But you’ll do for now.” His hand slipped down, grip closing tight around his throat.

Náli tried to call out, and had the breath squeezed out of him. He was choking, choking, choking–

A shriek pierced the air.

Valgrind.

The Sel’s weight lifted off of him. Náli sucked in a breath and rolled onto his side, coughing. He shoved up onto one arm, heard a grunt of effort between rasping breaths, and saw that Lucian was there. He held a sword with both hands, lifted it, and caught the strike of the Sel’s blade, which had grown to the length of a massive greatsword.

Lucian gritted his teeth, arms shaking beneath the press of the Sel’s sword. “Náli,” he managed. “Get the flame. Hurry. Go to it. Consume it. Share it.”

Unsteady, pulse pounding, Náli scrambled to his feet.

The Sel glanced toward him, face contorted with fury, but Lucian swiped at his middle, and he had to retreat and parry.

“Go!” Lucian shouted, and Náli went.

He stumbled to the pillar and gripped its edge, knees so water-weak with stress he thought he might fall. Had this been the mortal plane, had he held a sword – but nothing was as he knew it, and that was a Sel inside his magic, and, and…

He had no idea what consume meant, in this instance. He watched the flame twist and writhe, far more agitated than it had been before. Cautiously, he reached toward it. Slow, slow, slow. The heat washed over his hand, hotter every inch. Would it burn him? Could he actually touch it?

“Náli!” Lucian shouted. “You have to eat it!”

He snatched his hand back. “Eat it?”

Lucian went to one knee beneath the force of the Sel’s next strike, face red with strain. “Do it!”

Náli looked back at the fire. It crackled, just as a real one would, hot enough he wanted to step back from it.

Somewhere distant beyond the veil, Valgrind screamed again.

Lucian let out a pained cry, and an ugly, wet sound followed.

Right, then.

Eyes half-closed, cursing wildly under his breath, Náli grabbed at the flame with both hands, convinced his flesh would be seared from the bone. Instead, the fire lifted, its unfueled source cupped in both palms, and though the heat touched his skin, it didn’t burn or blister it. How the bloody hell do I eat this? he wondered, but didn’t ask. Lucian was probably dying, and then that pale monster would come for him, and there was nothing for it, really.

He lifted the flame toward his mouth, and as he did, it seemed to shrink down into itself, compressing and compressing, until the heat of it tickled over his lips. “Bottoms up, I suppose,” he muttered, tipped his head back, opened his mouth, and poured it in.

It went down like strong liquor, liquid heat that seared his throat and settled like banked coals in his belly. Oddly comforting.

Between one blink and the next, he marveled. I’ve done it. And he could feel it already crackling through his veins, the dizzying headrush, the staggering thrum of power in every limb.

Then, he turned and bolted.

The landscape into which he fled had changed. It was still awash with soft gray light, but now, rather than an empty canvas, an endless stretch of a dream, he could see the ghostly shapes of houses. Small, sod-roofed cottages with fenced yards. There was ground beneath is feet, now: a path that wended between the modest homes. It was the village, the one he'd been visiting since infancy, where he’d first met Lucian. Indistinct, shrouded in mist, but there. Real. As real as anything could be in this realm.

His spirits soared. Now he knew where he was. He could get back home from here!

A wordless, human roar of rage sounded behind him, followed by the thud of running footsteps.

Náli lengthened his strides, pitched forward as he ran, arms pumping. Some instinct was drawing him toward the longhouse. If he could reach it, he could barricade himself inside and open a door back home.

Pain lanced through his belly. The heat of the flames swelled out, sharp and sudden, and forced the air from his lungs. He staggered and went to his knees, gasping. It was like the twisting of a hot knife. It was ripping him open.

Too much. It was too much magic for one person. He coughed and spat blood on the path, while the Sel’s footsteps rushed up behind him.

There was no time. No time to get to the longhouse, no time to work out how to open a gateway and cross back over. He had to go now, and he had to purge some of this magic, or he’d die here beneath the stroke of a magical Selesee sword.

Or meet a worse fate.

The pain branched through him like lightening, stabbing, shredding, clawing. Náli closed his eyes, took the deepest breath he could, and pictured the one thing that called to him from the other side. The thing that had drawn him back, conscious or comatose, from the world of the dead each and every time.

He pictured Mattias’s face, that forever-worried notch between his brows, and the automatic reach of his hands, ready to catch him, and comfort him, to carry him, if he must. He imagined the low, rumbling timbre of his voice, and it was almost as if he sat across from Náli on the path, within reach.

“…Náli. Náli!”

Oh. There was his voice. Laced with panic, even more so than usual. He was such a fusspot, that man. As doting and concerned as a nursemaid.

“You would run from me?” the Sel asked, panting with effort as he drew up behind him. “You don’t know the first thing about this magic. You can’t hope to control it.”

“Náli!”

Through the awful churning pain in his gut, Náli managed to lift his head, and Mattias was there. So close! Take some of this, he thought, but couldn’t say. I need you to take one more burden, my brave captain.

His face was a mask of fear, the slant of his brows heartbroken, his dark gaze frantic. He was reaching out, but someone had hold of his sleeve; Náli saw a strong hand gripping him, holding him back.

That wouldn’t do.

Something whistled in the air overhead.

The pain reached a violent crescendo.

Náli pitched forward, grabbed Mattias’s tunic, and thrust their mouths together. The moment he felt lips against his own, the knowledge filled his mind, and he breathed a morsel of power across his lover’s tongue.

Mattias jolted against him. Hands lifted to grip his shoulders – but they didn’t shove him away. Mattias’s mouth softened against his own, and Náli could feel him swallow; could feel him accept that which was offered.

The vicious pain eased enough that Náli could pull back and take a deeper breath. His vision was blurred at the edges, but he recognized the catacombs, the dim lantern light, the faces around him. He’d made it, then. Had crossed back over and into his own, living consciousness.

Mattias gasped, face touched now with shock. He pressed a hand to his throat, his chest. His breath steamed as if he were outdoors, and his voice was ragged when he said, “What? What did–”

Náli coughed, and felt the hot trickle of blood run down his chin. The pain swelled again, and he bit back a cry. “It’s not…finished. It’s…”

Someone crowded in beside Mattias, and took Náli by the back of the neck. Dragged him in. It was Klemens, his face grim, his grip firm, as he initiated the press of lips to lips. “Do it,” he murmured against Náli’s mouth, and so Náli thrust his tongue between his lips and fed him a mouthful of death magic.

Klemens reeled back, coughing, face turning away, but his hand stayed steady on the back of Náli’s neck, holding him upright when he would have swooned. His mouth was smeared red.

Then fingers touched Náli’s cheek, turned his head, and Danski kissed him.

The moment he withdrew, Einrih was there, angling his head anew, thumb brushing along his jaw.

His eyes slipped closed, but he could feel the difference in Darri, the shape of his mouth, the flick of his tongue, when he kissed him last. It took all of Náli’s awareness to break off a bite of magic and lay it over their tongues with his own. Exhaustion gripped and dragged at him – but the pain eased, with each transfer, the shredding roar of power in his chest slowly fading to a warmth that was almost pleasant. It swamped him, surging and flowing, so that he once again felt suspended in a silken sea, the way he had when he first woke on the other side.

But this time, he could feel the strong, supportive hands of his Guard holding him up. Could feel their breath and hear their low murmurs, the catches in their voices as they struggled to help him and to understand. His head lolled, and was cupped in a wide palm. Arms caught him around the shoulders, and he knew without looking that it was Mattias who’d taken him, who’d bundled him into his lap.

“Náli,” a low murmur in his ear. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes…”

And then sleep dragged him under.

24

Náli woke with a start. He lurched upright and found himself in the mountain cave where Lucian’s people had retreated away from the village. He thought he knew now who’d been hunting them; who’d chased them across a dead countryside, and he whipped his head side to side to search for that tall, murderous, neck-licking Sel on instinct.

“He’s not here,” a voice rasped.

He faced forward, across a fire – a normal fire, one built of a tangle of stacked branches, yellow and orange and crackling merrily – to see Lucian. His tunic was torn, bloodstained down the front. Lucian himself was pale and sallow, face sheened with pain-sweat. He sat hunched to the side, one bloodied hand pressed to his side.

Náli made to get up, to go to him, and was stayed by a lifted hand, one smeared with blood, also.

“No, no. I’m already dead, remember?”

Náli swallowed down a surge of panic. “Then how are you bleeding?”

A wry grin tweaked his mouth. “I’m not a god. It was the magic that held me here, in this mountain, and now the magic is no longer tied to the mountain.”

There were…several parts of that sentence he found concerning. “This mountain. Is this, then–”

“The fire mountain, as it was in my time. Before it had ever erupted. Do you not recognize this cavern?”

He tried to recall the lay of the landscape when he and Valgrind had first approached this peak. Could recall no smudge of smoke belching from the top, no sulfurous fumes.

Then he thought of the great welcoming hall of Naus Keep, the natural dome of its ceiling, and gasped.

“Yes,” Lucian said. “My son began the building of the Keep right here, and his son after him, and so on. Until it became what you know today.”

That revelation gave way to the next. Finding that it hurt more than he would have ever expected, Náli said, “You’re fading, aren’t you?”

“A mortal man must seek his final rest, eventually. The magic that you and I share was rooted in a place, and so I was able to draw upon it so that I might stay in the Between.”

“And now I have it all.”

“You and your Guard,” Lucian corrected. “It will be as it once was for me: a sort of sharing that can shift. You as the direct descendant will possess the greatest portion, but you can divvy up more to a Guard when the need arises; likewise, you could take it all back, if you needed to.”

“That nearly killed me.”

“It’s quite a lot of power. I suspect you’ll learn to manage it, in time.”

“But you won’t be there,” Náli said, half guess, half mounting dread. For years he’d cursed this man, fumed over his riddle-speak…but when he was gone, there would be no one. Not even the most prosaic of advice on-hand. There would only be Náli, the living Corpse Lord, and his five Guards.

“No,” Lucian confirmed, sadly. “I won’t.”

“But what if I have questions?”

“You’ll find the answers on your own.”

“But what if–” His breathing had grown rapid, his pulse fluttery in his throat. “What if I get it wrong?”

A soft chuckle. “You’re assuming someone along the way got it right. Magic is always guesswork, lad. It’s a tool, same as a sword or an axe. It allows you to exert your influence upon the world. Your purpose, your reasons for using it, those can be just or unjust. But it’s not possible to get it wrong.”

Náli wasn’t sure he believed that, but perhaps there was something bittersweet in one last dose of cryptic wisdom.

“Helpful as usual,” he said, and earned another grin, this one pleased. He would miss this old bastard, he realized. Had been visiting him since before he could talk.

And, apparently, he wasn’t the only magic-user stalking these gray lands.

“What of that Sel?” he asked. “Will I meet him again?”

Lucian sighed, pain crimping his brow as he shifted, and his smile slipped away. “Most likely. I’ve been evading him for a long time, now. Several generations, at least.”

“What? The same one? But he doesn’t look forty!”

“Nor will he. The man you met is no mere shaman. He is the Immortal Emperor Unchallenged, Romanus Tyrsbane.”

Náli gaped at him. “That was their emperor?”

“Yes.”

“He’s…immortal?”

“Also yes. Or, rather, he’s very old and doesn’t look it. He wields magic in a way that I never could – that I’ve never heard of. He’s wickedly powerful.

“And now,” he said, head tilting for emphasis. “He has your scent.”

Náli chewed at his lip. “Clearly” – he nodded toward Lucian – “he can wound a person on this plane.”

“He can do more and worse than that. You need to avoid him at all costs. And tell your friends to do so as well.”

“My Guards?”

“Not just them. Your friends, also: the shifters and dragon-riders. He found you first, but he’ll be hunting all of them.”

“Gods.”

The fire leaped, and Lucian seemed to fade, his features less distinct, his edges blurred.

“Wait!” Náli stood. “Wait, just – there’s so much I still don’t know. I don’t…” There was an ugly clenching in his chest, and his eyes stung, and he wasn’t ready. Everything was changing, and there was a wealth of information left to learn. “Please…”

But Lucian continued to fade. “You’re strong, Náli. Far stronger than you know. As are your friends. Rely on one another.” He’d begun to shimmer. “Romanus is wrong: your magic is your own, handed down from your ancestors. Guard it well. The worst is yet to come.”

“The worst? You–”

He burst apart with a puff of smoke, and dissipated.

Was gone, nothing but tatters of vapor in the fire-heated air.

“No,” Náli said, to no one. “No. I…” In a tiny voice, he said what he’d always feared, but had never been willing to give voice to: “I don’t know if I can do this.”

Someone shoved him hard from behind, right between the shoulder blades.

He stumbled forward and whirled, grasping at his hip for a sword that wasn’t there, debating the wisdom of snatching up a burning brand from the fire. But his fright gave way to relief, and then an unexpected surge of gladness, as Valgrind thrust his pointed snout into his face and bleated loudly, cold breath blowing his hair out of his face.

“You stupid beast,” Náli said in an unsteady voice, and then launched himself at the drake; wrapped his arms around his neck and held on tight.

Valgrind pressed his head to his back, holding him in return. Drakes could hug, he thought with a wild inner laugh. He was glad to see him, but his belly was steadily hollowing with an unexpected grief as the truth set in: that his only guiding force in this realm beyond the mortal plane was gone for good, snuffed out by Náli’s selfish need to reclaim the whole of the Power over the Dead for himself.

“Náli?”

With a start, he pushed back, half-convinced the bloody dragon had spoken to him.

But, no. That was Mattias, standing at Valgrind’s shoulder, one hand settled on his smooth scales, his expression awed as he surveyed their dim surroundings. “Where are we?” he asked. “Am I…is this the other side? Did I pass through the Nágrindr?”

“Indeed,” Nali said. “Did Valgrind bring you?”

“I don’t know. I asked him to.”

“But he couldn’t do that if you didn’t have a bit of magic in you.” Náli’s pulse gave a leap of excitement. It had worked! He’d known it had, had felt the transfer of power – but here was proof! Mattias in the world of the dead, in the flesh. Or, well, in spirit, to be more precise.

“What is this place?” Mattias asked. “A cave?”

“The cave that was the start of Naus Keep.”

His brows lifted, gaze finally landing on Náli. “Are you serious?”

In answer, Náli tackled him in a hug.

Mattias let out a quiet oof of surprise, but his balance never wavered, arms lifting to catch him easily. He stroked Náli’s loose hair, and pressed their cheeks together. “Can you come back, now? There’s something I want to show you.”

Náli closed his eyes, fingers clenched tight in the back of Mattias’s tunic, and pictured the other side. Imagined walking through a physical gate.

Sensation of spinning.

When he opened his eyes, his lungs filled with the familiar damp scent of the catacombs, and his eyes filled with the dim glow of lanterns, their light reflected eerily, as always, in the veins of diamonds that laced the cavern’s ceiling. He was seated, here, cross-legged as he’d been before, slumped back against Valgrind’s cool side, his breathing a steady bellows that lifted and lowered, lifted and lowered. The others, he saw, as he blinked his vision clear, stood at the edge of the well, looking down into it.

Mattias knelt beside him, one hand on Valgrind’s shoulder, the other on Náli’s. He smiled when Náli met his gaze, and his face seemed almost to glow, his skin bright and smooth, free from the constant grooves of stress.

Náli smiled in automatic response, seeing him like that. Seeing him happy – the happiest he’d appeared outside of the bed they’d shared the night before, when love and passion had managed to burn away his ever-present worry.

“Can you stand?” he asked.

Náli tsked. “Of course.” But he was surprised that he could. That he didn’t wobble and stumble and have to lean on Mattias, though he offered an arm for that purpose just in case. His power no longer lay at the bottom of the well; the lifelong tug-of-war between them was at a close, and Náli felt…he felt good. Strong, and steady, and humming faintly beneath his skin; he wanted to burst into a run, to work through a series of sword forms. To sling a leg over Valgrind’s back and take to the sky.

At the edge of the well, Einrih glanced over his shoulder, grinning. “Come and see, my lord.”

Unassisted, Náli crossed the floor and took up a stance beside Klemens. There, he gasped aloud. Because the well…the well was…

Clear.

He stared down into crystal-clear, translucent water, and the smooth stone basin at the bottom. He could see the dark veining in the pale granite, the ridges and stalagmites that marked it, unseen until this moment.

“We all blacked out for a bit,” Klemens said. “…After.” After the power shared with deep kisses. His tone squirmed away from the truth of it. “And when we woke up, the water was like this.”

Náli crouched down and trailed his fingers across the surface, watching the water ripple and swirl, clear as fine-made glass. “It must have been the magic that clouded it.” That was the only explanation.

It wasn’t as deep as he’d always thought, either. The pool he’d spent his whole life fearing looked benign, now. Positively inviting. He wiggled his fingers in it, and it was warm, for a first, the way a pool at the foot of a boiling fire mountain should have been, nearly as hot as the springs beneath the palace at Aeres.

Somewhere above, there came the patter of running footsteps.

Valgrind trumpeted.

“Fuck,” Klemens muttered, steel whispering over leather as he drew a knife.

Náli stood and turned to find Brigida poised at the top of the stairs, hair loose and fluttering as she came to a sudden stop, her eyes wide. She wore a dressing robe over a night rail, its lacy hem peeking through at the bottom, above slippers that had been the source of the light slap-slap-slap of her footfalls.

It was the middle of the night, and she’d come in a hurry. Alone, thankfully.

Náli called up to her. “Yes, can we help you?”

Someone – he thought it was Darri – snorted.

“You’re alive,” she said, like she’d expected him not to be.

“It would seem so.”

“The whole Keep’s been shaking and rattling,” she said, a little breathless. “It’s wakened the whole household. Your mother was threatening to send men down here, so I slipped away and came to warn you.”

Náli turned to look at his men; felt something send out a call in his chest, and echo against them; a feedback loop of power. “Did anyone feel anything?”

Shaken heads, bewildered glances.

“We were rather busy,” Mattias said, wry.

“With your tongue down our throats,” Klemens said, sourly.

Sound had a funny way of carrying down here in this cavernous space. He hadn’t spoken loudly, but Brigida let out a sound and clapped a hand over her mouth in reaction.

Klemens muttered a curse, gaze slanting up toward the stairs.

“Now you’ve done it,” Náli said, fighting a grin. “You’ve scandalized your prospective lady.”

“His what?” Brigida exclaimed.

“Not to mention,” Náli continued. “If you remember correctly, you were the one who kissed me, sir.”

Klemens scowled, cheeks pinking. “Better to get it bloody over with,” he muttered. “Since you were screaming and swooning.”

“No,” Náli said, “I think you were overcome with passion.” He swayed forward, lips puckered up in an exaggerated kissy face, hands grasping, laughing when Klemens made a face and dodged him.

“Náli,” Mattias said, his serious tone sobering. “You should go up and reassure the house.”

The tremors that had stirred everyone to panic must have been the mountain’s last, great shudder as it relinquished the power stored inside it. It would still be a fire mountain, yes, as it had always been, but a much less volatile one.

Náli nodded. Then a thought occurred. He met Mattias’s gaze. “Yes. Except it’s we, now. We should go up.”

For the first time since the reign of the original Corpse Lord of the Fault Lands, the master of the dead had help.

25

Upstairs, it was pandemonium. There had long been protocols in place for moments such as these: for eruptions. The housekeeper ran monthly drills with the staff, timing their responses, pushing them to go quicker and in a more orderly fashion. There were a few items, precious family heirlooms and ceremonial swords and the like, that would be packed up quick and moved, but most residents were charged with grabbing up anything they wanted to and could manage on their own before they went dashing to one of the “safety rooms.”

In truth, no room within five miles of the Keep was safe during an eruption. There were only small eruptions and large eruptions; only different portions of the Keep carved off by lava flow and then carefully rebuilt. But the front façade was farther from the magma spill, and so that was where everyone evacuated. There were similar drills run at the stables and outbuildings, plans for saving the horses and sheep and grain stores.

Náli had lived through these panics before, but this one annoyed him because the mountain wasn’t truly about to blow.

“My lord!” a terrified maid cried as she passed him, arms laden with an over-large basket that smelled of bread. “What’s happening? Why is it angry?”

Náli bit back a sigh and forced a soothing tone. “Nothing’s happening. The mountain isn’t–”

“My lord!” This time, the call came from a kitchen boy, red-faced and panting as he pelted down the hall toward them. “There’s a–”

“My lord!”

“My lord!”

“Lord Náli!”

Too many voices, too many faces converging on him all at once. He needed to be able to address everyone at once. To make an announcement.

Beside him, Mattias cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted. “Everyone, remain calm!” he boomed, voice echoing down the long corridor. “There is no eruption! Make way for Lord Náli! Move to the great hall!”

People slowed, and stopped, and gaped. Then the talking started up again, a flurry of questions, voices blurring together until the hall buzzed like a hive of bees.

“Go now!” Klemens roared, and even Náli jumped. He couldn’t remember him ever shouting like that. Nor clapping, as he did after, the smack of his gloved palms ringing down the corridor. “To the great hall, go!”

Náli sent him an impressed glance, as, slowly, the Keep staff turned and scurried in the proper direction.

Klemens eyed him sideways. “I don’t think one of your snarky comments was going to do the trick,” he said, flatly.

“I had no idea you were so insubordinate under that strong, silent type routine,” Náli observed. “If it wasn’t so entertaining, I’d upbraid you for it.”

Klemens snorted. “You’re welcome to try, my lord.” He started down the hall at the head of their party.

Náli turned to Mattias as they walked behind him. “I feel as though I’ve unleashed a terror upon the world with that one.”

Mattias looked like he suppressed a smile. “Such is the price you pay for dabbling in new magic.”

Náli felt the best, most mature response was to stick his tongue out at him.

It was a long walk to the great hall, but since that was one of the “safe rooms,” it was relatively easy to herd the panicked household in that direction. People came spilling in from every cross-hall, clutching those belongings they’d deemed precious – one of the footmen held a fiddle, of all things – and asking what was happening. Klemens shooed them forward firmly and loudly, chopping the air with his hands and scowling when anyone tried to press for more information.

By the time they’d reached the great carved doors, with their woodwork rams with diamond-set eyes, Náli had heard more than one person remark that there had been no more tremors. “Indeed, no,” he said, stepping around Mattias as they entered the room. Brigida walked behind him, and he felt a tug at the back of his robe as she hurried to keep up, and keep from being lost in the press of bodies.

The hall wasn’t so grand as the one at Aeres, but it was a wide, deep room walled with fireplaces, its ceiling lost in shadows high overhead, beyond the reach of the candle flames. It seemed small, though, packed full with all the Keep’s residents. A dais of gray granite stood at the far end, where the high table sat, a crude, polished slab of granite on thick wooden crossbeams, more than a century old, a relic of Náli’s predecessors.

Serafina stood in front of it, wrapped in a jeweled dressing gown, hair tied back in silk ribbons the way she wore it to bed. Her thin hands were knotted together across her middle, and her gaze, hawkish and piercing, found and locked onto Náli as he approached.

He slowed his steps on purpose, and mounted the dais with deliberate casualness. His magic hummed inside him, a well of strength the likes of which he’d never known, and it made him feel powerful, in this instance; rendered her blistering gaze more amusing than anything else.

“Hello, Mother.”

“Where have you been?” she hissed. She clutched her gown tight around her throat and bared her teeth at him like a cornered animal. “What have you done to cause all of this?”

He gave her his flattest stare, his driest tone. “Yes, of course it’s something I’ve done. It’s always my fault, isn’t it?”

“Well,” Brigida said behind him, “technically, this is your doing.”

Serafina’s gaze shifted to her, and widened. “What are you doing with her? The ball is tomorrow – if you’ve been out cavorting with–”

“How quickly,” Náli interrupted, “you go from fearing for your life to fearing that I’ve been dallying with the young ladies. Speaking of interruptions…”

He turned away from her to face the assembled crowd, ignoring her splutters and protests.

The dais had been positioned so that any speaker’s words would project down the length of the hall, the high ceilings allowing a voice to carry and reach even those standing at the very back of the room. When Náli cleared his throat, the sound echoed along the hall like a growl, and the milling, worrying crowd fell silent; gazes lifted and heads swung his direction. He could watch panic bleed into relief on more than a few faces; they were already reassured by his presence. Their Corpse Lord knew of the disturbance, and was here to make it right.

The realization hit him like a sucker punch. Had no one ever looked at him like that before? Or, consumed by his own self-centered thoughts, had he never noticed it?

He called out: “Everyone, please stay calm. Please. There’s nothing to fear. The mountain isn’t going to erupt.”

“But the whole Keep started shaking!” a man hollered up to him.

“A shudder only,” he said. “Do you feel it now? Is the Keep still shaking?”

Heads shook, and a series of “no”s rippled through the hall.

“What happened?” one of the visiting ladies’ chaperones wanted to know. “The mountain isn’t supposed to do that if you’re here.” She scowled, a disappointed matron who wanted him to answer for imagined crimes.

“What happened tonight was an anomaly. One that won’t repeat.”

“Náli,” his mother said, and it might have been a warning or admonishment; either way, he ignored it.

“In fact, it’s a good thing all of you are gathered here now,” he continued, “because I need to make an announcement about tomorrow evening’s festivities. They will no longer be a matchmaking ball.”

Murmurs. Muted questions.

“Náli.”

“All of Aeretoll knows that Corpse Lords don’t have very long lifespans. All of us have been burdened with short, draining lives dominated by the boiling and shifting of this mountain. A dependent relationship established by the very first Corpse Lord, Lord Lucian, generations ago.”

The whispering intensified into a steady droning. No one would have heard of Lucian.

“It’s a dependent relationship that I learned how to sever for good. That I have severed for good. As of this moment,” he said, chest swelling with a pride that had him standing up straighter, head held higher, “I will no longer need to return to the well beneath this Keep to soothe the mountain’s ire. I will not weaken and be forced to seek rest here, languishing in a sickbed while other men represent the Fault Lands on the battlefield.” He pointed toward the door, the one that had seemed barred to him forever…until tonight. “The Fault Lands as we all know them are forever changed. Tomorrow night, we celebrate that. We celebrate the liberation of all the Corpse Lords to come after me, untied from the mountain at last.”

The crowd bubbled over with exclamations and questions, a little excitement, a little worry, much confusion.

Bony fingers grabbed the back of his arm and pinched. Hard. His mother’s furious whisper filled his ear. “Come with me. Now.”

~*~

There was yelling. A great deal of yelling. Náli stood with arms folded and expression placid, accepting it.

When she bent forward and clutched at her stomach to take a huge, wheezing breath, he said, “Are you finished?”

There was more yelling, after that.

“…intolerable. Your father–”

Náli snapped. “My father is dead – was dead before I was even born – because this fucking mountain was holding all the power that should have been his!”

Her teeth clicked as her mouth snapped shut. Her eyes – narrow, furious slits before – flew wide.

But he was too angry to enjoy having shocked her into silence, for once.

“When did you start trying to marry me off? Eleven? Ten? It was before my voice broke. And it was the same for my father, wasn’t it? That was his sole purpose besides feeding power into the mountain: breeding.

“Only,” he went on, sneering, now, “you couldn’t conceive at first, could you? You were slow. And so Father sired only one son – one son” – he slapped his own chest – “with the weight of a whole kingdom’s safety riding on his shoulders!”

“Náli,” Mattias interjected, moving to his side.

“No. No, I won’t stop. She’s spit at me like a cat my whole life, shoving women in my path, hating me. It’s to mask your own guilt, isn’t it?” he asked Serafina. “You couldn’t provide another heir, and so you’re constantly petrified you will have doomed us all. You don’t care about me, about what I want, or what it’s like for me. It’s nothing but pure selfish–”

“Náli,” Mattias said again, more insistent, and gripped his shoulder. “She’s…”

Oh. She was crying.

She’d shielded her eyes with a trembling hand, but tears coursed down her cheeks, winking in the candlelight of her bedchamber. Náli couldn’t think of a time when he’d seen her like this, and it instantly deflated him. His anger bled out to the sound of her sniffles and hiccups.

He sighed. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Mother.”

She didn’t try to call him back, and he didn’t allow his gaze to linger on the concerted expressions of his Guards, nor the worried, unhappy ones of Serafina’s maids.

He was an ass. He knew this already.

Guilt needled him, on the long walk back to his suite, but he didn’t wish he hadn’t said what he did. They were words he should have spoken long ago, and that she’d needed to hear.

“She’ll get used to the idea,” Mattias said, when they were alone in the suite, and he was swinging the teakettle over the fire.

Náli hopped up to perch on the edge of his bed, feet dangling, heels drumming against the bedframe. “Why did you step in? You’ve never liked her.”

“I don’t see the wisdom in making an enemy of your own mother if you can help it,” Mattias said, crossing to the side table to fill a sachet with tea leaves and lavender blossoms.

Náli frowned. “I wasn’t making an enemy of her. “She’s browbeat me my whole life. I was standing up for myself.”

“True,” Mattias said. “I’ve never approved of her methods. She has a sharp tongue and lacks all maternal softness.”

“I’m sensing a but.”

“But,” Mattias said, a touch wry, and turned around so he could lean back against the table. “She wasn’t ever wrong about the bloodline being necessary. About your magic needing to be passed on.”

He held up a hand when Náli started to protest. “I know that’s changed, now – though, for the record, you’re putting an awful lot of faith in Klemens reproducing, if you ask me – but your mother had no way of knowing that until tonight. For her, the Corpse Lord breeding an heir isn’t just an ugly prospect looming in the distance. It was her life. She was a young, beautiful, frightened girl shipped off to the north to live at the foot of a mountain that might kill an entire kingdom at any moment. The entirety of Aeretoll’s future rested on her shoulders in that way, just as it now rests on yours.

“A baby isn’t something a father sneezes into his hand,” he said, stepping closer. “There’s a mother, too. Did you ever stop to consider that, no matter how unpleasant she is, she’s carried the same weight that you have? That she’s been just as frantic?”

“She…But I…”

Mattias drew closer. “You haven’t ever considered that before, have you?”

“What? Of course I have.”

Smile plucking at the corners of his mouth, Mattias closed the last bit of distance. He placed a hand on each of Náli’s thighs, bared as the robe slipped and parted in front, and spread them enough to step between, right up against the bed. He smelled a little of ozone, like the air after a storm, and that was different. “It’s all right,” he assured. “You can admit that you think only of yourself.”

“Oh.” Náli smacked him in the arm, and earned a chuckle.

Then he sobered. “I know it’s not been fair, but you’ve never been ordinary. Neither have your responsibilities. But I’m glad you’re happier, now.” That damnable groove appeared between his brows. “You are happier, aren’t you?”

Don’t let it have been for nothing, his face said. Tell me it was worthwhile, breaking with centuries of tradition.

“I am happy, yes,” Náli assured, and gripped the front of his tunic, just to feel the steady thump of his heart against his knuckles. “What about you, though? Are you happy? Wishing, now that you’ve had a taste, that you’d broken your vows for a winsome young lass instead?” A not-small part of him would die if Mattias showed any doubt or regret.

Mattias seemed to sense that. His smile came back, instantly soft, and he cupped Náli’s cheek in one careful palm. “Yes to the first, no to the second.”

Náli swallowed. “You’ll have to be more specific. I’ve forgotten which order I asked in.”

Mattias huffed a quiet laugh, and leaned in to kiss him.

“Oh!” Náli jerked back and gripped Mattias by both biceps.

“What?”

“You…taste different.”

Mattias cocked his head. “What…do I normally taste like?”

“Like – like you.”

“Helpful.”

“Shut up. You’re always chewing those mint leaves, and you drink strong tea. And you – I don’t know, you taste the way a man ought to.”

“Hm. You’ve only tasted my mouth, though.” A leering glint came into his eyes, and Náli shoved him – which didn’t budge him, of course.”

“You’re horrid. I’m being perfectly serious, and you’re being horrid.”

“Fine. What do I taste like now?”

Náli stretched up to press their lips together. Lingered, dipped his tongue between Mattias’s lips to trace the backs of his teeth and his palate. He licked his own lips as he pulled back. “All right. So. It’s not so much a taste as it is…” Another kiss; this one he pulled Mattias into, hands on his lean cheeks. “It’s a feeling,” he murmured against now-damp lips. “Can you feel it, too?”

“Yes,” Mattias said, hushed, all traces of amusement gone, now. The hand he rested on Náli’s thigh flexed, fingertips digging into flesh. “It’s…a kind of tingling. Like you’re vibrating and it’s catching. Like it’s going into me.”

“That’s magic,” Náli said, with relish, and kissed him again.

Kissing was its own sort of magic. The slotting and gliding and clinging of lips. The soft, wet sounds of coming together, again and again.

There was a new humming sensation, now. Náli’s power was much stronger, and now Mattias had power of his own. It fed on itself, flowing between them, back and forth, without any effort. Náli could easily see how he could put force behind the transfer and shift the tides of magic between them, sharing more, taking more, as needed.

It inspired a thought, though.

He pulled back. “Wait. Does this mean that if I need to draw magic from one of the others, or offer them more of mine, that I’ll have to kiss them?”

Mattias’s color – high from necking – deepened. “Am I already so insufficient?”

“Of course not. But you’re the one who mentioned Einrih’s, quote, ‘not small’ endowment. You can’t blame me for being curious – ah!” The last turned into a shout as Mattias scooped him up and dumped him onto his back on the mattress.

Mattias prowled over him on hands and knees, pinning him, laughing, down to the bed. His lips twitched, as he tried to stay in character, eyes brimming with laughter – with happiness, yes. He was happy, just as Náli was, and Náli’s laughter died away in his throat as the enormity of that simple fact struck him full-force.

“Kiss me,” he demanded, voice choked, and Mattias did.

It was different than last night, in a better way. No longer the first time, momentous and nerve-wracking, Náli knew what to expect: shivered only with anticipation, without a trace of apprehension, as Mattias peeled off his robe and touched him all over with hands and mouth. Was greedy in turn when Mattias stripped off his own clothes, his touch bolder and more assured as he traced the grooves between strong muscles, and appreciated the flex of back, and hip, and flank.

He was sore, still, tender from last night, and this morning, but insistent. Mattias stretched him thoroughly, and gently, until the pleasure warmed through the burn of the stretch and Náli was begging on hands and knees, back arched, thrusting back against the fingers that worked him open.

But it turned out he didn’t really know what to expect, not completely, because Mattias stretched out with his head on the pillows and pulled Náli astride him. Took his oiled cock in one hand and urged Náli down, down, down with the other, until he breached and then filled him.

It was overwhelming. Pleasure and intense fullness, the hot press of him filling him at new angles, sparking new nerves until his belly was lit up like sparks. Náli groaned, unselfconscious, and let his head fall back on his neck, weight of his long hair dragging at him, while Mattias rubbed little circles down low on his belly, and on his hip.

“Oh. Oh, that feels…” He shifted, rocked his hips, and was rewarded with a low grunt from Mattias; with a stirring of acute sensation in his guts. “Can I…?”

“Like a horse, yeah? Up and back.”

Náli had always been an exceptional equestrian. He moved slow at first, just rocking. Mattias gripped his hips and guided him, stroked down the length of his thighs until they flexed beneath his palms, as Náli lifted and dropped, lifted and dropped, a little higher each time, dropping a little faster, harder. Until the room filled with the rhythmic slap of sweat-damp skin.

Náli raked his nails down Mattias’s chest and rode him hard, panting, jubilant, burning from the inside out. He could feel the magic beneath his skin; could feel it singing where he and Mattias were joined, each time he smacked down and Mattias’s cock made him see stars. Mattias was gorgeous beneath him, sweat-sheened and straining, tendons leaping and muscles twitching as his hips lifted to meet the fall of Náli’s, thrusting up into him when Náli’s legs threatened to give out.

“We did it,” Náli gasped, planting a hand over Mattias’s thundering heart and bearing down hard. “Gods, we really did it – we did it.”

“You did it,” Mattias said, and thrust up hard.

Náli came with a shout, flush with love, and wonder, and pleasure, and magic.

26

The matrons and chaperones were all a bit ruffled, and Mother’s face looked carved from the same granite as the high table at which they sat, but the Keep in general seemed easier and livelier as the promised ball unfolded in the great hall. The young ladies, too, seemed greatly relieved to not be marketing themselves as brides tonight, but merely enjoying the food and wine and the small band of musicians in the corner that filled the hall with sound.

Náli was dressed for the occasion in a dove-gray velvet tunic stitched at the shoulders with diamonds. His boots had been polished and Mattias had braided his hair elaborately, the ends clinking softly against his chest and shoulders with lover’s beads that had been noted with startled looks, but not yet remarked upon by anyone.

Out on the floor, the trestles had been cleared and the young ladies had put together a sequence of stiff and complicated group dances usually performed by couples. They kept giggling and losing their seriousness, much to their chaperones’ displeasure, judging by the looks on their faces.

Náli perked up in his seat when he saw Klemens step away from the foot of the dais and stride with purpose across the floor. Brigida stood at the edge of the dance floor, talking with one of her friends, lovely in pale wool and fox fur. She glanced up with a start as Klemens approached, and a blush stained her cheeks like two ripe apples. She passed her cup over to her friend, though, who was goggle-eyed, and placed her hand in Klemens’ palm.

Náli smiled to himself.

He’d thought his mother was staring into the middle distance, rather than paying attention, but she made a little shocked, angry noise as Klemens led Brigida out to dance, and he knew that she’d missed nothing.

“Mother.” He stood and offered a hand down to Serafina. “Would you care to go and have a look at the stars with me?”

She stared at him a long, long moment, her gaze savage, before finally placing her small, papery hand in his grip and rising stiff-backed and pinch-faced.

At the back of the hall, tucked away behind the dais and its tall, granite-edged chairs, was a narrow door meant for private use. It let out onto a balcony big enough for half the party inside, if they’d only known about it. Fire had been lit in the braziers, pushing back the early spring cold, and beyond the granite handrail, the base of the mountain fell away in a dramatic, black waterfall of old magma. Far below, candles glowed in cottage windows, beneath a sky smudged phosphorescent yellow.

Serafina walked to the farthest edge, and rested her hands on the rail, diamonds on her rings glimmering faintly. “There are no stars,” she observed, head tilted toward the sky. “There never have been.” Quietly: “It’s one of the things I’ve always hated about this place.”

Patience, Náli reminded himself, with a deep breath. Mattias had been right last night – about several things. Chiefly that he’d never stopped to consider the fear and misery of his mother’s life, in relation to his own; hadn’t considered that she’d carried his burden once, herself. And that making an enemy of her served no one…especially now that he’d achieved what he’d set out to.

“I’m sorry you hate it,” he said. “I hate it, too.”

She turned to look at him – not with the whipping action he’d come to expect, but with exhausted slowness. Her gaze wasn’t so much angry, now, as defeated. “There was a boy I wanted to marry, back in Norbury. Not a lord, but a plain old gentleman. He had the warmest brown eyes.” She turned away, again, to look out across the lava field, but not before he saw the flash of pain in her eyes. An old wound, but one not forgotten; one that had healed poorly. “And your father offered my parents their house’s weight in diamonds, so I went North instead. And when I got here, to this ugly, starless place, I found out that he didn’t want me at all, but that he’d needed me. For an heir. A little Southern blood to keep the old Northern stock from getting too inbred.”

She sniffed. “I didn’t want that life for me, or for you: but that’s the life you were born to. I thought saying I felt sorry for you would make you soft.” She shook her head, and wiped quickly at her eyes. “All it did was make you hate me, and you did what you damn well pleased, despite its risks to your people.”

He swallowed down his automatic retort, and let the weight of her words sink heavy in his belly. He’d explained tonight, at the start of the festivities, how he’d come across the means to reclaim his magic, and his reasons for weighing the risk as worthwhile. He didn’t repeat them now; didn’t point out that if the kingdom fell to invaders, none of his people would be safe here, on this mountain, when the Sels came to pillage and subjugate. She knew that…but it didn’t change the hurt she felt.

“You’ve uprooted tradition,” she accused.

“I have.”

“One of your men is inside dancing with one of your potential brides.”

“Yes. I encouraged that, actually. Did you know that this magic can be passed down from any wielder, and not just me?”

She turned again, gaze watery in the strange, ambient glow that kept the Fault Lands from ever being truly dark. “He gave you those beads in your hair, didn’t he? Your captain.”

There were a dozen things he could have said in his own defense, justifications and reasonings and impassioned vows. But all he said was, “Yes.”

Serafina studied him a long moment, nodded, and turned away. Her slippers moved near-soundlessly over the granite slabs of the balcony. “Tell him to come out of the shadows, then, and quit lurking,” she said over her shoulder.

Náli turned to watch her slip back inside, and then saw a shadow detach itself and step forward as Mattias came to take her place at the rail. He looked a little stunned. “That sounded almost like getting her approval.”

Náli snorted. “Best to focus on the almost rather than the approval.”

“That was very good of you, the way you handled things with her. I’m proud.”

“Oh, ugh. Just because I don’t have a father doesn’t mean I want you taking the role.”

“Well, when you consider our history, I have been rather–”

Náli slapped a hand over his mouth. “No. Don’t muddy those waters. I forbid it.”

Náli could feel the shape of his smile against his hand, see the laughter in his eyes. The softest brown eyes, his mother had said of the boy she’d wanted to marry instead, and maybe the two of them had that in common, too.

He dropped his hand and leaned sideways into Mattias instead, his solid heat and unwavering strength. A breeze touched his face, lifted his hair and set the beads to clacking. It shredded some of the haze.

“Look,” Mattias said. “There’s a star.”

But Náli was looking at the rail, where the breeze also stirred a small, dead moth that lay folded there, waving like a shred of parchment. “Matti. You’ve not tried to use your magic yet, have you?”

Mattias tensed beside him. “No,” he said, carefully. “I haven’t really the first clue how to go about it.”

“Here.” Náli scooped the dead moth off the rail. “I’ll show you.”

Mattias made a reluctant noise, but cupped his hands beneath Náli’s, and let him set the moth in his palm. “What do I do?”

“When someone or something is dead, the spirit is gone, but the body has a sort of memory. I can find souls that have recently crossed over – that’s when I do the voice trick – or, since the vessel is empty, I can fill it with my magic and move it about like, for lack of a better word, a poppet. That’s what you’ll do here. Simple reanimation.”

“Simple,” Mattias said, dryly.

“It is. Look, it’s only a little thing. Close your eyes, if it helps.” He left his own open, in a way he hadn’t done before, his magic close beneath his skin, the veil thin and easy to feel. “Concentrate on your power. Push all other thoughts aside and let it fill you. When it’s humming through you, you’ll see the gate.”

Mattias’s brow crimped. “There’s only…mist.”

“Yes. It’s not a physical gate. Look for the moth.”

Crossing over had always begun with a sense of falling. A downward drag that yanked on him each time he closed his eyes and let his diamond draw him through the blood of a dead man toward the gray Between. A sensation he could now attribute to the heart of his power residing at the bottom of the well. Now, he felt a new pull, like the gentle strumming of a lute; could sense Klemens, and Danski, and Darri, and Einrih. And Mattias, of course, right here in front of him. It wasn’t an ugly, disorienting pull, but a chime and echo, almost musical. Reassuring, bolstering.

He reached through the veil as easily as he would part the curtains in his bedchamber, and crossed over between one blink and the next, the balcony and the mountain giving way to the village, its flag path silvered by moonlight, stars wheeling bright overhead. Mattias still stood before him, cupping the moth, eyes still tightly shut.

Náli smiled. “Matti. You made it.”

His eyes cracked open – and then flew wide as he noted their surroundings. “How…where…?”

“A place I know well,” Náli said. “I’m pretty sure this is the birthplace of one of Lucia’s suitors. My great-great-great-great-grand-whatever.”

Mattias grinned, teeth bright in the gloaming.

“Now. The moth.”

“Right.” He stared at it with comical concentration, and Náli felt the stir and ripple of the magic they shared…before the moth stretched and fluttered its wings.

Mattias’s smile reappeared, awed and lovely. The moth flitted up into the air between them, spiraling with a soft, papery sound of beating wings. “I did it!”

“You did.” Náli knew that his own smile couldn’t possibly encompass the wealth of pride and wonder that filled him. It was staggering, what they’d managed, all evident in the looping flutters of a dead moth.

“I hope,” an accented voice said behind him, “you don’t think that’s anything worth boasting about.”

Ice skittered down Náli’s spine. The moth dropped, drained of its magic, as Mattias stepped around him, smile vanished, and drew his sword with a loud rasp.

Náli turned, already knowing who he’d find, and flung out an arm to keep Mattias back. The Immortal Emperor Unchallenged, Romanus Tyrsbane, stood a dozen paces away, clothed in Selesee purple stitched with gold, his sword belt gold and heavy at his waist, his hair tightly plaited.

Náli tsked. “You don’t think we’d be so flagrant with our real power, do you?” We have to go back, he thought, frantic. But he had to make sure Mattias came with him.

“It didn’t kill you, I see,” Romanus observed. “Pity.”

Mattias gripped Náli’s arm. “Get behind me.”

Romanus tilted his head. “Your dog thinks he can protect you. How sweet.”

Náli gripped Mattias’s sleeve. Please, he thought. Just stay here. We have to go! “Not a dog,” he snapped at Romanus, teeth bared. “If you’re expecting to sweep this side of the world with magic, don’t think it’ll be so easy. There’s far more sorcery here than you’re anticipating, and you’ve already failed in Aeretoll.”

Romanus smirked. “Have I?” he asked, voice like silk. “Was that a failure?” He took a step, and Náli pushed Mattias a step back with difficulty. “Because I like to think of it merely as a beginning. A chance to test your sorcery.” His tone dripped scorn, his sneer vicious.

“The thing you must ask yourself, pretty little Corpse Lord, is if you and your sorcerers will have any control over your magic when its mother calls.” He lifted an empty, pale palm.

“Matti, go. Cross back over!”

The world crackled and sparked with lightning.

THE END

~*~

Náli, the Aeretolleans, Aquitainians, and their drakes will return in

The Drake Chronicles book five:

Fortunes of War

About the Author:

Lauren Gilley is the author of over thirty novels, including the Dartmoor Series, and her Sons of Rome paranormal fantasy saga. She writes contemporary and historical novels with a focus on found family and surviving tough odds. She blogs, sometimes, at hoofprintpress.blogspot.com, and accepts emails at authorlaurengilley@gmail.com. When she’s not writing, she’s mucking horse stalls, or walking her giant dog.

You can also find her on:

Instagram: @hppress

Twitter: @lauren_gilley

Facebook: “Lauren Gilley – Author”

Other Titles by Lauren Gilley:

The Dartmoor/Lean Dogs Legacy Series (in reading order):

Fearless

Price of Angels

Half My Blood

The Skeleton King

Secondhand Smoke

Snow In Texas

Tastes Like Candy

Loverboy

American Hellhound

Shaman

Prodigal Son

Lone Star

Homecoming

The Wild Charge

The Sons of Rome Series

White Wolf

Red Rooster

Dragon Slayer

Golden Eagle

Lionheart (coming soon)

The Hell Theory Series

King Among the Dead

Night In A Waste Land

Mystic Wonderful

Vanish Into Light

The Russell Series

Made for Breaking

God Love Her

Keeping Bad Company

The Walker Series

Keep You

Dream of You

Better Than You

Fix You

Rosewood

Standalones

Whatever Remains

Walking Wounded

Shelter

The Drake Chronicles

Heart of Winter

Edge of the Wild

Blood of Wolves

Demon of the Dead

Fortunes of War (coming soon)