Page 46 of Edge of the Wild

“Náli himself is a brat,” Erik said. “He’s showy, and that wins him no favors with the other young lords. But it’s what you just saw downstairs that makes everyone avoid him.”

“I can imagine. It sounds lonely.”

Erik tilted his head. “We’re all lonely for some reason.”

That was true enough. Oliver nodded. “What do you think it meant? What the dead man said?”

Erik shrugged. “Leif said there was a man with antlers. A headdress, most like,” he added, in response to Oliver’s lifted brows. “I’ve not seen the like in a long time, but there was a sect of shamans, in the Waste. They believed that humans could become animals, and vice versa.”

“Ah,” Oliver said, pulse skipping. “That doesn’t sound nightmarish at all.”

“To my knowledge, none are still practicing.”

“Not that your knowledge isn’t as impressive as the rest of you, dear” – Erik’s lips quirked up in a grin in response – “but you can’t know that for sure. And Leif did see a man with antlers – as did the dead man. Gods, that’s strange.” He gave in to the impulse to rub at the back of his neck. “I listened to adead mantalk tonight.”

“I would say you get used to that, but you don’t.”

“It doesn’t seem likely.”

They regarded one another a moment, and Oliver sensed that Erik was wondering if he’d damned himself, in Oliver’s eyes. Uncertain of his acceptance.

“Any other of your lords hiding supernatural powers?” Oliver asked, lightly.

Erik’s grin spoke of relief. “Not to my knowledge.” His head tilted the other way. “Unless of course you are, your lordship.”

Oliver groaned. “Don’t call me that. I’m not a lord.”

“You’re mine,” Erik said, easily. And then, unrelenting, gaze narrowing, “What happened out on the parapet?”

“I don’t know,” Oliver said, which was the truth, but he squirmed a little, because it wasn’t the whole truth.

Erik lifted a single brow.

“It’s like I said before,” Oliver said. “It reminded me of when I was sick: the flash of blue light, the growling. I wasn’t here anymore, but I don’t know where I was, exactly.”

“What sort of blue?”

“Bright. Like the very top of the sky – only, brighter.” He frowned. “What does that matter?”

“I’m trying to understand.”

“So am I. This has never happened to me before. Does the ice rose have lingering aftereffects?”

“Not this long.”

“There was something else there.”

“So you said.” Erik’s expression had gone tense. “You keep saying something. And not someone.”

“I’m not sure it was a person.”

“What else could it have been?”

A log shifted and fell on the fire.

Erik toyed with one of his rings, a habitual gesture fast becoming familiar to Oliver. He glanced toward the hearth again, jaw clenching beneath his beard.

“The shamans you mentioned,” Oliver said. The prickling unease had crawled all down between his shoulder blades, now, and was spreading. “Let’s say, for a moment, that they really could transform into animals.”

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