Page 45 of Edge of the Wild

“Yes.” Náli’s voice was raspy, but his own. Shocking, after hearing someone else’s issue from his lips. “I tried to hold him, but–”

“You did your best,” Erik said. “Sit down before you fall.”

“Yes. Good idea.” Náli set down the bowl, staggered backward a step and all but fell on the crate behind him. He rubbed at his face, and he looked young again, like a boy thrust into a world of men, in over his head.

Erik took one last grim look at the body on the table, and then turned away.

Oliver already had his brows lifted. “All right. What wasthat?”

~*~

“Do you remember that time you told me that dragons existed?” Oliver asked two hours later. The castle had finally quieted and their chambers – a lavish, tapestried guest suite with a massive bed and plenty of furs spread across the floor, with a silver mantelpiece that carved out a portrait of wolves chasing deer – were lit by a crackling fire. Oliver paced back and forth in front of the hearth, in his nightshirt and dressing gown, feet in the fur slippers he’d brought, while Erik sat on the bench at the end of the bed and made faces. “This now? Tonight? Twice as alarming.”

Erik shoved an impatient hand back through his unbraided hair. “Yes, well, we do call him the Corpse Lord.”

“Erik,” Oliver said.

“Fine, fine.” Erik waved, and then sighed. “He’s the Corpse Lord for a reason.”

Oliver folded his arms and squared off from his lover; sent him ago onlook.

Erik rolled his eyes – but nodded. He motioned to the empty section of bench beside him – a bit of tufted leather meant for more than one – and Oliver finally sighed and went to sit down. Erik immediately put his arms around Oliver’s waist, and pulled him in close. Tucked his kingly chin over the top of Oliver’s head.

Only then did Oliver realize how tightly he’d been holding himself. He sighed, and relaxed against him.

“It’s an inherited title,” Erik explained. “His father was the Corpse Lord before him, and his grandfather before that. It seems to be a hereditary condition.”

“Being able to talk to the dead?”

“That’s one aspect of it. I don’t claim to know all the details. It’s an inexact science.”

“It’s not a science at all,” Oliver countered. “It’s magic.”

“Well. I suppose.” He sounded hesitant.

Oliver snorted. “You’re the one who told me about dragons, but you don’t believe in magic.”

“No, I do, it’s…” He blew out a breath that ruffled Oliver’s hair, warm and tickling against his scalp. “The lords of Naus Keep tend not to live very long. It sickens them, over time: what they do. Náli’s father was all but a wraith by the end. A white-haired skeleton bundled up in furs, shivering all the time.”

And Náli had watched his father’s decline. Had seen him whither, and fail, and die, and been handed the mantle of lord too soon.

“Why do they do it, then?” Oliver asked. “Why use that power if it shortens their lives?”

Erik’s next breath pressed his ribs against Oliver’s; his exhale sounded heavy. “Because their king asks them to use it.”

Oliver sat up – Erik gripped at his sleeves a moment, then let his hands fall away – and turned to they could face one another. Erik’s expression was chastened.

“It’s a service the Corpse Lord of Naus has always provided to the crown,” Erik said, gaze flicking away, toward the fireplace.

“Interrogating dead men?”

“And maintaining the Fault Lands.” Erik’s gaze flicked back. “I don’t know if it’s to do with the fire mountain, but the Fault Lands are – a strange place. Down in the diamond mines…things stir. Things that are not alive.”

Oliver felt the fine hairs at his nape prickle. “Spirits?”

“Some. And – others.” Erik shook his head, and he looked the closest to wary that Oliver had ever seen him. It was unnerving. “There must always be a Corpse Lord. There always has been. Náli will need to produce a biological heir soon. If that bloodline were to end…I’m not sure what would happen. When he’s away from Naus for too long, the mountain begins to rumble. It was the same with his father and grandfather. The last eruption happened shortly after my grandfather became king. The old lord had died, and his wife and infant heir were away with her family. She hurried back to Naus, but not before the mountain started spitting fire.”

“Gods,” Oliver murmured.

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