Page 49 of Blood of Wolves

“But that’s just it: they’rebowing and curtsyingto you. Because you aren’t their friend. You’re their lord and master.”

He could tell that Mattias was listening intently, the way his breaths came so shallow they didn’t stir his shoulders.

“Say you are a sixteen-year-old, who wants and feels things intensely – who wants to play, and nap, and learn how to kiss properly – and you’re also in charge of making sure the whole kingdom isn’t buried in ash thanks to the fire mountain you inherited. It’s hard being both things: being a lord…and being a real boy, too.”

Mattias’s next exhale came audible and shaky. He rested the whole of his hand on the back of Náli’s head, cradling him.

“It isn’t my place to say, and it’s too bold, I know, but Náli isn’t afraid of tomorrow’s journey. He’s afraid his life will be short, and painful, and that he won’t ever get to have what he really wants.”

A beat passed. Mattias turned his head a fraction, pain trying to bleed through his stoic façade. “You’re right, your grace,” he said, quietly. “It isn’t your place.”

Leif nodded. “I’ll leave him in your capable hands, then.” He left without waiting for an answer, the image of the strong warrior kneeling helplessly by the bed one that tugged at his heart.

~*~

“Shit,” Oliver murmured, blinking his eyes open. He’d only thought to rest them a moment, but he’d fallen asleep. He lifted his head from his rather hard makeshift pillow – Erik’s shoulder – and failed to stifle a yawn.

Beside him, Erik inhaled in that deep, full-body way that he always did when he woke in the morning, so at least Oliver wasn’t the only one losing the sleep battle.

Oliver glanced over and watched him dash surreptitiously at his eyes with one ringed knuckle, smiled to himself, and then looked out into the courtyard.

They sat on a bench tucked into the lee of the tunnel that led from courtyard to stable, out of the snowfall, if not out of the cold. He’d first sat down at Snorri’s urging, when his jaw-cracking yawns had begun to interfere with his speech. Erik had sat beside him, for warmth, he’d explained, tucking a thick stable blanket around them both together.

The sound of hammer and anvil rang out from the smithy across the way, fire-yellow light from the forge pooling out onto the snow. The crew was working, and the drakes had been left to their own devices, curled up in a sleepy pile just a few paces away, the gentle rush of their breathing loud as blacksmith bellows.

The snow had stopped falling, finally, the sky above netted with bright stars.

“I wonder what time it is,” Oliver mused aloud.

Voice low and thick from sleep, Erik said, “Just after midnight.”

“Hm. My studies never did get so far as learning the star charts.”

“There’s a whole section back home. In the library.”

If home is still intact, Oliver thought with a lurch, and, based on Erik’s silence, one he felt as well.

They were running out of time.

“You need to get some sleep – in a real bed. At least a few hours,” Erik said.

Oliver sighed. “I know.”

“You can’t fly to Aeres if you slide right off the dragon’s back.”

“I know, I know.”

Footsteps crunched through the snow, and the bench creaked as someone sat down on Oliver’s other side: Leif.

“Shouldn’t the two of you be in bed?”

“Shouldn’t you?” Erik countered.

“I’m waiting on Mattias to get Náli out of my bed.”

Oliver absorbed that sentence – then felt his brows shoot up. He turned toward Leif, and the bench creaked as Erik leaned forward to see his nephew around him.

“What?” they both asked together.

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