Page 90 of Edge of the Wild

The girl archer moved to stand beside him, and he rested a hand at her waist.

“I apologize, my lady,” he said, “for the circumstances of our meeting. We mean you and yours no harm. If you’re willing, we need your help.”

11

It snowed most of the day. Thick, fat, softly falling flakes that floated down from a leaden sky. An occasional wind gust swirled them across the path – which didn’t appear to be a path at all, to Oliver’s eyes, but an endless stretch of white tundra. With visibility low, he had no idea how the sleigh drivers knew which way to go, but he rode alongside, hunched low in the saddle, his hood up, and entrusted them with a fair amount of doubt.

Erik rode a dozen paces ahead, straight and proud in his saddle, Birger alongside him. Occasionally, they leaned closer together as they conversed, when the wind threatened to snatch voices away.

Crusted snow crunched, alerting Oliver to the presence of another rider. Leif spurred his mount forward in a few trotting steps so they rode abreast. Like his uncle, he sat tall, shoulders back, hands steady on the reins; the snowflakes caught in his braids and short beard went unheeded.

“Are you feeling all right?” he asked, having to shout a little against the next gust.

“Y-yes,” Oliver said, and, having not spoken for hours, realized his teeth were chattering. Wonderful.

“We’ll be there soon,” Leif said, spurred his horse again, and trotted up to join his uncle and Birger.

On his other side, the reindeer leaned into their harnesses, moving swiftly across the snow on their cloven hooves.

The day had started in much the same odd way that the last had ended.

Last night, after his fireside refill with Birger, Oliver had gone up to bed, a little fuzzy around the edges, tired, heavy in the limbs – but no less troubled.He loves you, Birger had said, and though that knowledge would have lit him up with joy a few hours before, it now landed in his mind as more of a question. Did he? If he had, would he still? Oliver knew all too well that perceptions of love could be flawed and fleeting. Simple physical desire could cloud the mind and leave the impression of true emotions.

He’d found their royal guest suite empty, and, feeling sorry for himself, had gone to bed alone. He’d awakened alone, too, with a sore head and a sick lurch in his stomach that had nothing to do with the ale he’d drunk the night before. The bed linens beside him were cold, and the pillow undented: any hope that Erik had returned silently, and slept a while next to him, had been dashed by that lack of physical evidence. He’d washed, shaved, dressed, tidied his hair…and, when the braids proved too hopelessly mussed to fix himself, slid the beads into his pocket and gone down to breakfast with his hair loose.

Erik had been at breakfast already, sitting in a place of honor, dressed, hair neatly braided. When his gaze lifted to Oliver, it lingered a moment – searching, Oliver thought; he had to have noticed his lack of braids. But his expression revealed nothing, and after a very polite good morning had gestured for Oliver to join him. He had, because sitting away from his lover would have stirred up gossip and drama.

More of it, anyway.

Predictably, Askr had been the first one to say anything. “Now see here, Your Lordship Oliver: where the bloody hell’d you learn to talk to dragons?”

Someone else said, “I thought the cold-drakes had all gone.”

Another said, “Maybe it was just a great big bear that looked like a dragon,” and was told to shut up by several.

Askr wasn’t swayed. Across from Oliver, his stare was fixed, his large body pitched forward eagerly against the table. “Well?” he prompted.

“Oliver isn’t obliged to indulge your curiosity,” Erik said, without looking up from his plate. His tone was mild – if you ignored the sharp edge of steel that lay beneath.

“If there’s dragons on my lands, I want to know where they’ve come from,” Askr said, but he did sit back on the bench.

Oliver hadn’t had the stomach to so much as touch his honey cakes and sausage yet. He reached for his tea instead, and said, “If you’re hoping I understand it any better than you, you’ll be disappointed.”

Erik said, “We depart in an hour,” and that was that.

They hadn’t spoken since save for the most basic transfers of information. The one saving grace, Oliver supposed, was that their day’s trek – though bitter and blustery – hadn’t been hounded by bloodthirsty Beserkirs.

He hadn’t felt so much as a prickle at the back of his mind, and the only blue he’d glimpsed had been a few ragged patches of sky overhead before the clouds sealed them off again. He had the sense that the drake was well out of reach, now.

The wind kept blowing snow into his face, and he’d developed a tendency to duck his head. He lifted it when his horse ground to a halt, and found that it stood nose to nose with Erik’s horse, reined up in their path. Erik, dark hair flecked with snowflakes, wore an expression that could only be calledpolite. The same maddening, detached face he’d worn this morning, and all day, each time he deigned to speak to Oliver. He said, “We’re approaching the gates.”

“Already?” He’d lost all sense of time in this weather – fast becoming a full-on white-out. When he squinted, he thought he could make out the flicker of orange torchlight, through the haze.

“Just ahead,” Erik said, and, with a few deft flicks of his reins and presses of his heels, maneuvered his horse around so it stood beside Oliver’s. “Ready?”

Oliver’s hands tightened on his own reins, until his horse gave an unhappy tug at the bit. They were to ride through side-by-side, giving all appearances of a king and consort on good terms. He took a deep breath. “It’ll be good to get out of the cold.”

Erik didn’t respond, but heeled his horse forward, and Oliver did the same.

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