Page 34 of Blood of Wolves

“It’s a smart match.”

Tessa turned back, and found Estrid regarding her over her shoulder, bow and half-nocked arrow held loosely along her thigh. “You and Rune. He’s rash, and immature. He needs a tempering influence. Someone quiet and thoughtful.” After a moment, she said, “That isn’t an insult.”

“Oh. It’s wonderful to have your esteemed favor.” This time, she drew on Oliver’s manner purposefully; tried to mimic his dry, unimpressed tone.

Estrid snorted again, brows lifting. If not for their previous encounters, Tessa would have thought she looked approachable, now; like the sort of girl she might have befriended, had the situation been different. Tessa was uncomfortably aware of the fact that she herself tended toward shyness, and a deference that bordered on meekness, on occasion. When it came to making friends, she’d always been drawn to girls who were louder and brasher; girls more like her sister than herself.

Again, she turned.

And again, Estrid’s voice halted her. “What are you doing down here at this hour anyway?” Genuine curiosity, and not a quip.

Tessa sighed to herself. Apparently, Estrid’s nastiness had been about Leif, and the shallow idiocy of that left her not wanting to respond. It would serve her right to walk away without further acknowledgement.

But Tessa wasn’t her sister, and definitely wasn’t Estrid, so she pivoted, and said, “What was that?”

“Why are you down here?” Estrid’s gaze had gone assessing. “Looking for more practice?”

“How did you–”

“I saw you, last night. My room overlooks the yard.” She gestured up toward the high palace walls, the glowing windows.

Tessa bit her lip and wondered how many others had seen them. There were dozens of windows up there. Word was sure to get back to Rune.

“I was surprised, truthfully,” Estrid continued, and though her tone wasn’t outright insulting, the words left Tessa bristling all the same. “Of all the things I expected from you, this certainly wasn’t one of them.”

Tessa schooled her features, carefully. The last thing she wanted was to appear affected at all. She thought she managed to sound cool and indifferent when she lifted her chin and said, “If you’re done throwing insults, it’s a bit too cold to be standing out here like this.”

She was three steps away, this time, before Estrid said, “Wait.” And then, with clear regret – and a note of what might,mighthave been contrition: “Lady Tessa.”

“What?” Tessa snapped, whirling to face her.

Estrid rocked back on her heels. Gathered a breath, as if to speak – and then held her tongue. One long moment, and another. “I had a suggestion,” she said, at last.

Tessa folded her arms, and waited.

A grin tweaked the corners of Estrid’s mouth – and not a mocking one, either – before she smoothed it away. “Revna’s a good teacher for sword work, to be sure. But your man’s an archer, right?” She hefted her own bow. “Why not learn how to shoot as well?”

8

The Great Northern Wastes

Snow sifted downy and soft as baking flour from a leaden sky. Behind them, the sunset kissed bronze in the gap where horizon met cloud cover, but the gloaming here, where they rode, had grown dark enough that the outriders had lit torches – that sputtered and hissed in the snowfall. The drakes circled overhead, dipping low enough, occasionally, to stir the clouds, dim shadows and a whirl of snowflakes beneath wide wings.

Oliver squinted against the swirl of white and gray before him, searching for the silhouette of Long Reach, for a distant flicker of torchlight. When he couldn’t find one, he closed his eyes a moment, rocked by his horse’s gentle plodding, and pressed at the faint blue glow that lived in the back of his mind, now. The hazy impression of a building – of the fortress, he realized, recognizing its flat façade and guarded roofline – formed, smudged at the edges, but distinct. He was given an impression of distance – measured in wing-beats.

He smiled when he opened his eyes, and blinked away the last of Percy’s vision. “It’s only another mile or so,” he announced.

On his right side, Leif made a surprised, inquiring sound.

On the other side, Erik said, “Who needs maps and landmarks when you have a drake, hm?” Tone dry – but not, Oliver didn’t think, skeptical and disapproving as it had been on the journey out.

“He–” Oliver started, and then distress rippled through his bond with Percy. A chime like a warning bell. He closed his eyes, opened himself up to the connection once more, and saw what Percy had seen: the drake had flown closer, and lower, and what at first looked like hasty, runic northern writing in the snow resolved itself into the signs of battle. Smoke – the remains of pyres. The still-steaming wrecks of siege engines.

He stayed in the bond long enough to see that the battle was over, that no enemies lay entrenched against one another now, and that the stag banner of Erik’s house still flew from the towers of the hold. Then he opened his eyes again. “Ragnar’s been here.”

Erik swore, and heeled his horse into a canter.

The horses were tired, and so were the men. Oliver and Leif spurred their own mounts forward – but the canter quickly fell back to a high-stepping trot in the deep snow. Oliver glanced over at his lover’s stern profile, noticed the harsh, grim downward curve of his mouth, and didn’t offer any platitudes or false assurances.

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