Page 15 of Edge of the Wild

“The clan leaders think you’re allying with Aquitainia and planning to usurp their territories. Uncle, this is the worst possible year for me to stay behind.”

It was. But the idea of dragging Leif away from his wounded brother at this moment was physically painful – for both of them, he could tell. Erik refused to be the one to insist on Leif’s coming, not if Rune…

No, no, he couldn’t think ofwhat if.Not ofif Rune…

“You–” he started.

“I am your heir,” Leif said, hitching fully upright in his chair; sitting forward, fingers closing on the edge of the fur that covered Rune’s legs. “We are both your heirs, and we’ve not missed a Festival since we were old enough – not even that year Rune had the terrible head cold. When you go, the clan leaders will already know what happened to Rune – Ragnar’s men will have already spread the gossip. They’ll know that he might not–” His sentence choked off, and he swallowed again; Tessa swayed forward toward him, across Rune’s sleeping form, russet brows knitted in concern.

Leif took a deep breath, jaw flexing, and said, more firmly, “If they know he was wounded, and that I stayed behind with him, you will show up without an heir. And they will say, ‘There’s Erik Frodeson of Aeretoll, with one nephew half-dead, and the other too lazy and frightened to come along,’ and you will lookweak, Uncle. And I can’t –wecannot afford that. Not now.” His gaze was pleading, and fierce, for all that his eyes were too bright from exhaustion, and from the tears he refused to shed yet for his brother.

Erik was struck by another memory: this one of Leif as a boy. Only five or so, with scraped knees, and a busted lip, and knuckles bruised from a scrap in the stable yard with another boy. An older, bigger boy, one whose father had then berated him for picking on a younger, smaller boy, and a prince at that. Erik had arrived upon the scene to find Leif standing with his lip stuck out, and his shoulders back, a miniature portrait of a warrior prince defending the honor of his family. But when Erik stepped before him, and shielded him from prying eyes with his cloak, Leif had crumbled; had pressed his face into Erik’s stomach and let the choked-back sobs come crashing out of his little chest. Erik had cupped a hand around the back of his golden head, and murmured soothing words.

He wanted to do that now, even though Leif was a man grown, and nearly Erik’s own size, now. Wanted to shield him from this, somehow…even though he knew he couldn’t.

“Leif,” he murmured, chest aching. “You don’t have to worry about all of us right now.”

The wry twist of Leif’s mouth was far too knowing. “Was there ever a moment when you stopped worrying aboutall of us? Have you ever not thought like a king?”

Last night, Erik thought.The night before. When he’d been thinking purely of his own wants and needs and fantasies. He’d not been verykinglywhen he set his sights on the pretty Southern boy who turned him molten inside.

“I’m saying you have a choice,” Erik said.

Leif glanced toward his brother, mouth set in a grim line. “No, I really don’t.”

~*~

Oliver wished he’d insisted on swinging past the kitchen, that he’d at least asked for a hunk of bread or a biscuit. Ignoring the empty ache of his stomach, he sat forward in his chair, gaze tracking over the map spread out across the table in the small meeting room where Birger had taken their party.

“As far as I know,” he said, “the Sels are trying to do this the easy way this time around. The king can’t force them out, and, given his reputation, they’re counting on occupying the Crownlands, cutting off all trade in or out, so that, eventually, the king will capitulate and abdicate. Winter is hardly the time to be setting up an overland campaign – even in the South,” he added in response to their skeptical looks. “There are mountain passes best left alone, and some of the roads through Inglewood are notoriously unsafe to outsiders or foreigners.”

Ingvar frowned. “Loss of life has never been a concern of theirs before.”

Oliver shrugged, and barely managed to stifle a yawn. Forget breakfast – he wantedtea. Lots of it. “Ideas change. King Vishna of Seles is not the man his father was, apparently. Wilier, for sure.”

“They’ll march farther inland after the spring thaw,” Askr said.

“Yes, I believe so. Once the Crownlands fall, they won’t even have to march – they’ll simply send appointed lords and sheriffs and agents to quietly take over control of every Aquitainian duchy. A few may resist – will at least pull up their drawbridges and try to hold out for a week or so – but they’ll all come under Sel control eventually.

“And then, my lords,” he said, meeting their gazes in turn. “They’ll set their sights on the North. Just as I explained during the council meeting.”

This meeting now, he’d long since realized, wasn’t really about the clarification of facts. These two Northern dukes wanted him alone – or at least away from Erik and the probing eyes of the crowded great hall – so that they could take his measure for themselves. This was about passing judgement on him; about seeing if he would prove an asset to their king…or a worthless distraction.

Bolstered by the memory of Erik’s teeth in his throat last night, hands leaving bruises on his hips as he moved inside him slowly, slowly, Oliver had no problem squaring up his shoulders, putting on his sternest face, and proving that he was definitely the former, and nothing at all like the latter.

“Much easier to take control of Drakewell through a marriage now,” Birger reasoned, “than to go knocking on its door once the Sels are installed.”

“Yes,” Ingvar agreed.

Askr stared at Oliver.

A stare that Oliver met and didn’t flinch from. “My aunt’s last letter arrived three days ago via messenger falcon. A Southern lordling is sniffing around my other cousin, and she fears, if a marriage contract isn’t ratified here soon, my cousin Amelia will be serving that lordling his balls on a platter.”

Askr stared a moment longer – and then his face creased with a wide smile and his booming laughter filled the room. “Ha! You’re just a wee thing, but you’ve got the old fire in the belly, don’t you?”

“It would seem so,” Oliver deadpanned.

The door opened and admitted Erik, who carried a basket under one arm and a steaming mug in one hand. Since Oliver had seen him last, he’d combed and braided his hair, and donned crimson and black velvet, and a long, open black coat of leather with a fur ruff around the collar. At sight of him, Oliver had to restrain the urge to smile like a besotted idiot; no one but Erik needed to see him looking like that.

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