Page 102 of Blood of Wolves

“And he wasn’t above using foreign enemies and all variety of magic to obtain it,” Leif said, and his snarl was the real kind, the animal kind; everyone startled back from it, gazes snapping to him. “Oh,” he said, belatedly, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Sorry.”

“Where’s the rest of his pack?” Erik asked.

“Pack?” Bjorn wanted to know.

“I left them in the bailey,” Leif said, embarrassment sliding off his face as he turned fully to Erik, jaw firming. Erik was struck by the change in his nephew, by the new assuredness of him; the way he held himself. Leif had always been a strong, confident lad…but there had been an easiness to him, a deference. He was perfectly happy as the peacemaker and the conciliator, and never felt the need to throw his weight around. But, now… “They’re alive,” he said. “They bent the knee to me.”

Erik couldn’t prevent his brows from jumping in surprise.

Leif nodded, firm, sure. His eyes were…different. A wolf’s eyes, now.

“What’s going on?” Revna asked in a suspicious tone. “Who ‘bent the knee’ to you? What’s this about a ‘pack’?”

Leif sighed as he turned to her. “It’s a part of that long story I mentioned, Mother.”

“On which you failed to offer any insight last night,” she huffed, then held up a hand. “I know, I know: priorities. But your uncle needs to eat, so you might as well play storyteller while he does.”

Leif’s lips twitched like he meant to argue, then he nodded.

“Eating can wait,” Erik said. “I’ve got a dozen wounded men in my train, and frozen or not, we need to ascertain if the enemy is properly routed, and–”

“And we can explain all of that while you eat,” Oliver said, materializing at his elbow and giving it a gentle tug. “And then you can have a bath and sleep.”

Erik shot him a scowl, one he couldn’t lever any heat into.

Like Leif, Oliver’s regard was different: surer, firmer. Loving, yes, but it brooked no arguments. Gods, how he’d grown since he’d first stepped foot in this hall.

“I don’t need food. I need to–”

“Eat. And sleep. In that order,” Oliver insisted.

“He’s right,” Revna said. “You’re dead on your feet, Erik.”

“I–” His stomach growled, loudly.

Oliver chuckled, and Bjorn gave a suspicious cough.

“This way,” Revna said, turning around, motioning for them to follow. “We’ll eat in the kitchen.”

~*~

Down its flight of stairs, deep in the safe heart of the palace, the kitchen was the one room that never truly shut down, not even during a battle. The fires were lit, the vaulted space full of its warmth, and good food smells, and Erik hadn’t realized how bloody cold he was until he was pressed down into a chair at a plain, scarred wooden table and offered soup, bread, and ale. It was a good thing he was meant to listen, rather than talk, because the first bite proved he was famished, and he couldn’t exactly paint a kingly portrait as he hunched over his bowl. Thankfully, no one sitting with him cared.

Revna expanded on the note she’d sent: told him about the arrival of the ships in the harbor, and the way they’d evacuated the city and fortified the palace. Bjorn wanted to go out and examine the Sel ships in the morning to determine how craft that large had managed to get through the frozen waterways.

As for the Sels themselves, Oliver explained, with not a small amount of pride, they’d managed to locate the general’s tent in the enemy camp, wall it in with ice, and then capture the general himself.

“He’s in the dungeon with Ragnar,” Oliver said, and Erik was pleased to see everyone else gazing on him fondly, as he puffed out his chest a little. “When Percy stuck his head through the tent flap, he came more or less willingly.”

Náli, he learned, had fallen asleep halfway through his own bowl of soup last night, and been carried to a pallet made up in the guardroom, where he slept still. Too pale and cold to the touch, Oliver said, with obvious worry. The journey had been draining for an already-drained necromancer.

“You told his men where to find him?” Erik asked.

“The moment they arrived,” Revna assured. “They’ll be with him, now, I expect.”

Oliver snorted. The look he sent Erik echoed Erik’s own suspicions on Captain Mattias’s dedication to his master.

“Fifty dead, all told,” Bjorn reported. “Mostly soldiers. A few civilians, those that got caught in the collapses.”

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