Page 99 of Blood of Wolves

“Oliver did,” someone said.

Tessa startled, as a strange silhouette stepped into the hole where the doors had once been. It was tall, and too broad, a strange, unbalanced shape.

But the voice – the voice had been–

Revna gasped.

“I suppose it was Náli, to be more accurate,” the familiar voice continued, as the silhouette stepped down into the great hall, and started toward them. “The drake he was riding. But having them at all is down to Ollie, really.” The figure stepped into the light, the gilded, last light of a violent day, pouring into the jagged wound in the front of the palace.

Leif.

It was Leif. Carrying a man over one shoulder. Blood on his mouth, drying black, but alive. Alive, andhere.

“Leif,” Revna breathed in a ruined voice that brought fresh, stinging tears to Tessa’s eyes.

With an effortless shrug, he tossed the man he carried to the floor, and opened his arms. Even as she marveled at his presence, Tessa couldn’t help but notice that he held himself differently; that there was something wholly new and sharp-edged about his expression. Somethingother, that sent a frisson of unease down her back.

Estrid saw it too, if her quick indrawn breath was anything to go by.

But then his face softened, as Revna reached him, and he enfolded his mother tight and pressed his face into her dusty hair, eyes closing a moment, whole large frame shivering.

Revna drew back, finally, and caught his face in her hands, like she couldn’t bear to let go of him. “How…? When did you…?”

A faint smile touched his bloodied lips. “We got your message. Él reached us at Long Reach.”

“Is Erik–?”

“On his way. I ran ahead.”

She moved her hands to his chest and pushed back at arm’s length. “Ran ahead? And what about Oliver? You said he was here – you said there weredrakes. What’s happening? What happened to your face?” She touched his short beard, the black, dried blood in it.

“Is that…?” Estrid began, and Tessa followed her gaze toward the man Leif had thrown to the floor at their feet.

“Ragnar,” she gasped, shocked.

“Ragnar?!” Revna echoed.

Leif sighed. “I’ll tell you everything. But it’s a very long, very strange story.”

A sudden gust of wind buffeted them, strong enough that Tessa staggered, and Estrid caught her by the sleeve. It came from above, funneling wild down through the gap in the front wall of the palace. A sound accompanied it, a strange, rhythmic clapping, loud as the crack of a ship’s sails catching a strong draft. Something massive blotted out the bright gleam of the sunset, flashing, flashing, and then settling. A four-legged creature of smooth, pearly white edged with blue, its wide wings giving one last flap before they folded neatly back.

For several long, breathless seconds, Tessa refused to believe that she was looking at a dragon. A real, live, actualdrake, like Oliver had shown her in the books in the library. A drake with a person sitting astride it. A person in patchy leather and steel armor, with a conical, plumed helm like the ones in the books back in Drakewell, like the knights had worn during the Founding War.

Leif glanced up over his shoulder at the creature, and grinned, sharp again, nearly feral, and that proved to Tessa that she wasn’t hallucinating.

A quick pulse of blue flashed at the edges of Tessa’s vision, the same blue as before, in the tunnel, but softer. A sense of warmth, of gladness, of relief filled her, and it wasn’t her own, but it was friendly, she knew, right away. The drake lowered its head, and tested the air with slanted nostrils, and it was catching her scent, she thought. Everyone else’s yes, but hers specifically, was searching for it, and she had no idea how she knew this, only that it was true.

Hello, she thought, and felt her welcome echoed in the back of her mind, a pleased, humming purr.

Oh. Whatwasthis? It was…rather wonderful.

Bjorn broke the silence. “Gods.Gods. You did, didn’t you, you foxy little shit? You found one.”

The figure on the dragon unclipped something from the – yes, that was a saddle. Dismounted with a lithe hop, and drew off its helm. His lips were chapped, and his too-long hair was matted and sweaty from the helmet, but he was grinning, freckles stark on his pale face.

Oliver.

“I found three, actually,” he said, voice a little hoarse. Then he looked at Tessa, and his face threatened to crumble. “Tessie. Are you all right?”

---