Page 109 of Blood of Wolves

“No one knows all the rooms of this place, save the maids, probably. You could get lost here.”

“I don’t know what it is,” Oliver admitted. “Revna put me in it last night. It’s a bedroom, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Erik echoed. He shifted, hair rustling on the pillow as he turned his head to examine the space. “And all to ourselves, when I know that, given the damage, we’re short on rooms.”

“Do you truly expect the king to be put in a barracks with everyone else?”

Erik’s answer was a hard swallow; Oliver felt the movement of his throat.Yes, that meant.Yes, I ought to be with the soldiers. Or:What have I done to deserve solitude? To deserve this title?

Oliver sighed for the both of them, because it seemed that they might be doomed to trade guilt back and forth; when one of them proved himself, the other would lag behind in some way.

“I don’t want to argue,” he said, because he didn’t, and he hoped to head off any fruitless conversations about worthiness, responsibility, or bloody damnedusefulness.

“Me neither,” Erik said, easily enough. He traced aimless patterns across Oliver’s back, hand tucked beneath his tunic and shirt, calluses pleasantly rough on his bare skin.

“What now?” Oliver asked, after a moment of not-uncomfortable silence. If he held still too long, he was afraid he’d fall asleep again.

Erik let out a deep breath, ribs heaving like the deck of a ship beneath Oliver. “Now, we rebuild. And, when we’ve gotten our strength back, we take the fight to them.”

23

In the days ahead, thick banks of clouds moved in, stacking atop one another and compressing, until a thick, slow, constant snow began to fall, the daylight hours a perpetual gloaming. Even so, there was an air of celebration. The masons and every able-bodied helper worked sunup to sundown, such as it was, whistling and singing. The pyres burned, the scent of roasted flesh and ash wafting in through the breach in the wall, until those bustling about were equal parts hungry and sick to their stomachs. Prayers were said, holes were patched, clothes mended, husbands grieved, bread baked and meals served. Life shook off the dust of war and continued on.

Leif dressed in warm furs and went out with the crews who were thawing and chipping the ice away from the frozen enemy. It was slow work that required picks and torches; Leif fared better than most, those that hissed and puffed hot steam into their cracked and chapped hands; his muscles didn’t grow as sore and he took twice as long to tire.

But it was eerie work, too. The faces caught forever in shouts, snarls, screams; the sense of being watched by hundreds of dead eyes; his hackles were up constantly, little shivers of awareness rippling across his skin. If he hadn’t already met the drakes who had done this, if he hadn’t trusted them before his turning, he thought he might have snarled constantly, the way his pack did, when he forced them to earn their keep and help.

They raided the camp and commandeered all manner of armor, weapons, foodstuffs and other supplies: gilded braziers, and folding cots, and whole trunks of herbs and medicines to boost Olaf’s stores.

Leif was sorting through a chest of gold chalices and serving platters in the general’s tent when he backed into a table, knocked something to the floor behind him, and turned to make a discovery. It was a scroll, its ends of ornate hammered gold, of course, and when unrolled proved to be a whole stack of tightly-pressed parchment pages. He couldn’t make heads or tails of the vowel-saturated Selesee language, with all its loops, and accent marks, but the sketches were clear enough: battle plans for the harbor at Aeres – and for other locations, too, ones he didn’t recognize. The last page drew him up short: it was a series of sketches. Diagrams. Of drakes outfitted with saddles and bridles, riders astride.

Pulse giving a quick, alarmed thump, he rolled it back up and tucked it inside his wolfskin jacket to take back to Erik.

He returned through the postern gate, as the faint daylight waned. His wolves clustered behind him as he went, their scents familiar now, almost a comfort if he allowed it. He paused on his way past the training yard, because it was full not of sparring soldiers, but of drakes. And Oliver, Náli, and Tessa.

“Go on ahead,” Leif told his second in command. “I’ll catch up.” Later, after supper, when it was time to sleep. His mother had offered him a bedchamber, but he hadn’t told her that, most nights, he slept in his wolf shape, in a pile with his pack, in a hollow they’d dug in the snow behind the mews. It was easier to rest like that, without human thoughts crowding his mind, keeping him awake and restless.

The other wolf chuffed an inquiring sound, but Leif waved him off – then leaned against the wall and watched.

The torches had already been lit, throwing orange streamers of light across the ground, flickering in the swirl of falling flakes.

Oliver stood at Percy’s head, scratching behind his horns; the drake had tilted into the movement, eyes closed; Leif could hear the deep, rumbling purr that issued from his chest, a sound that left his wolf uneasy, but which was oddly soothing, too.

“It’s all right,” Oliver said, chuckling, and beside him, Tessa took a deep breath, stepped forward, and offered her knuckles for the female to sniff, as if she were a dog.

“If she didn’t kill me, she certainly isn’t going to kill you,” Náli grumbled. He stood with his Guard captain behind him, arms folded in ready attendance. They smelled like one another, Náli and Mattias, and that wasn’t so odd for a Corpse Lord and his Guard, but Leif noted the subtle shifts in posture that were tells.Good, he thought, because he wouldn’t have to worry about unwanted advances anymore.

Probably not from anyone, once they learned what he was. It was one thing to see a flash of uncertainty in someone’s eyes – another to scent acrid fear wafting off of them.

The female drake blew softly over Tessa’s knuckles, and then a long, dark blue tongue snaked out to lick them. Tessa gasped, shocked, then giggled, and cupped the drake’s chin to stroke her there. After a moment, the drake’s eyes slipped shut in contentment.

“I still can’t believe you named her after Mother,” Tessa said, turning a laughing look toward Oliver.

“He’s an idiot,” Náli offered.

Oliver puffed up, a smile threatening. “I’ll have you know, I named her for a strong, formidable woman for which I have the highest respect. It’s an honor and a compliment.”

“Yes,” Tessa said, “but…Kat? Really?”

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