Page 92 of Blood of Wolves

If pressed under pain of death, Náli would have admitted that flying was better than anything he’d ever experienced. He loved riding, but, in those moments, one of his Guard was always alongside him, darting glances toward him, ensuring his safety. It was a respite from his mother’s serious talks, and the pressures of his strange, unique life, but only a brief one. And he still felt tethered to it, even with the wind in his face.

On the back of a drake, though, he could finally, truly escape his earthbound worries. And even if Oliver checked on him with the occasional glance, it wasn’t with any of the Guards’ dour, existential dread. It felt…

Well, it felt almost as if he was with a friend. And bar his domineering of poor Ulf, he’d never had one of those before. Not one who saw him as an equal, and didn’t treat him like glass – or like a keg of Selesee black powder ready for a match.

He was exhausted, weary down to his bones in a way that left him aching and heavy-limbed; no matter how much he loathed it, he needed the well, he knew. Needed it soon. But the cold wind in his face, and the tattered cloud streamers trailing off the drake’s horns, the strong flex of her wings and spine, soothed the call of his homeland, and his damnable power.

Below, he recognized the jutting knobs of a rock formation peeking above the snow, bumps like a spine visible through skin. They were close. The sun was beginning its quick descent past the midday point, and, soon, the palace towers would be visible along the horizon.

He couldn’t convey what he wanted to the drake like Oliver could, but when Náli leaned low on her neck and heeled her in the ribs, she stretched out her neck, swept her wings back and propelled them forward to fly alongside Percy.

Valgrind followed, looping, and rolling through the air, playful as a puppy.

Náli spared him a smile, a little disgusted by the surge of fondness in his chest, and turned to shout at Oliver. “We’re nearly there! Maybe five more miles!”

Oliver nodded, gaze serious, jaw clenching tight beneath the strap of his helmet.

It was a little bit adorable how determined he was about all this.

Náli would rather dwell on that than the very real knowledge that he himself had never been involved in a siege before. If one was to do it, he thought doing it from dragon-back was the safest, surest option.

An updraft caught them, lifted the drakes higher on belled wings. The ramparts appeared, distant smudges.

Náli pointed, and Oliver nodded again.

Then the drakes shrieked.

~*~

It was going to happen. Tessa was going to have to defend herself.

She’d known that, from the moment she accepted the sword from Estrid, but it wasn’t a stark reality until a Sel in gleaming gold bowled past the defensive line and reached her in two long strides.

Block.

She managed to lift her sword in time to block the falling stroke of his. The collision tolled like a dinner gong. The impact rattled her teeth; numbed both her arms and shoved her effortlessly to her knees. She couldn’t bite back a gasp. His eyes bored down into hers, impossibly cold, devoid of all emotion.

He was going to kill her. The sword slipped in her hands, and her body tipped back, and she was frozen, was too weak.

“Tessa!” someone shouted.

And then everything went blue.

~*~

“…what in the – Oliver, what’s bloody wrong with your dragon?” Náli demanded, the words snatched from his mouth as the drake ducked her head and her wings beat furiously. Náli fell back against the saddle, and the straps on the pommel were all that kept him from tumbling end over end off her back as she accelerated.

Oliver shouted something in return, but Náli couldn’t hear it. He tightened his hands on the reins, slack until now, but the drake didn’t respond. Her wings beat furiously, propelling them straight toward the palace – and, he saw, stomach swooping as they drew nearer – the army entrenched before it.

~*~

Everyone in the stable gaped at him when Rune demanded horses saddled for himself and the handful of soldiers he’d managed to collect on his way down the rear staircase.

He hadn’t encountered his mother or Tessa, and it took every ounce of self-control not to abandon everything and rush to them, wherever they were. If he didn’t do something about those trebuchets, though, the palace would be reduced to rubble, and none of them would survive this.

They rode out of the east gate, where the coast was a tall, unclimbable cliff face bordered with pines. Through the trunks, the fading sunlight gleamed on the water; the crash of waves on rocks below drowned out by the sounds of warfare. A barricade had been set up, a berm, and a ditch lined with shaved-down log spikes. The men manning it were shocked to see Rune.

“Your grace!” one exclaimed. “Where are you going?”

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