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“No,” Magnus laughed as Sebald skipped forward and opened the door to his cottage, gesturing like a perfect host for us to all walk in. “Whatever makes you say that?”
Jorgen and Hati exchanged a look.
“It could be the odd way you’re pushing us into this little cottage as if a storm were about to start,” Hati said in a flat voice.
Avenel and Gennadi stepped out of the kitchen as we all filed into the room. They wore smiles, as if they were glad to see their men were home at last, but those smiles dropped in a hurry. As soon as everyone was there and Sebald came in, shutting the door behind him, the mood of our group changed so fast that I was surprised lightning hadn’t actually struck the house.
“Why were the two of you and your men camped outside of Yakutsk two months ago?” Magnus asked immediately and forcefully. “And don’t try to tell me it was because you wanted to have a faire.”
Jorgen and Hati were startled by the sudden vehemence of Magnus’s question.
As soon as Jorgen recovered from his shock, he scowled at Magnus and said, “I don’t think you’re one to go making demands about—”
“We don’t have time for this,” Magnus cut him off, taking a step closer. “I need to know what you know and what you’re plotting, and you need to know the same about me. Sai is a good man, but he has much to learn about being a leader, and my deep suspicion is that the Old Realm, more specifically, my brother, is not going to give him the time he needs to learn his position and build his authority before he moves in for an attack, one way or another. If you’re trying to pick off the northern cities of the Kostya Kingdom to expand your territory, tell me now.”
Dead, cold silence filled the room. Which was saying something, since there were so many of us crowded into the relatively small space.
Jorgen’s startled look disappeared in a hurry. He glanced to Hati. The two of them seemed to have a quick, silent communication before Jorgen let out a breath and turned to Magnus.
“It wasn’t an attack or an invasion, it was an assessment,” Jorgen said, adopting the same no-nonsense, urgent tone Magnus had. “You know that Boris and Yates have aligned their little kingdom, if you can even call it that, with the Old Realm, don’t you?”
Magnus blew out a breath and rubbed a hand over his face. He walked deeper into the room, Peter and Neil following him, allowing the rest of us to spread out in the space as well. Sebald crossed to take Avenel’s hand and Jace walked over wrap his arms completely around Gennadi, as though he were in imminent danger. It made me shuffle closer to Olympus, even though I wasn’t his pup.
“I’ve long suspected Boris and Yates of allying with the Old Realm. Tesladom is more or less an Old Realm city and the first point of contact on this side of the mountains. Everything that happened at Neander was too smooth, too easy not to raise suspicion.” He stopped near the large fireplace and turned to look at Jorgen again. “You didn’t answer my question, though. Yakutsk has nothing to do with Boris and Yates.”
“It doesn’t,” Jorgen agreed, crossing his arms. “But if King Julius sends his armies over the mountains to invade the frontier, Yakutsk could be one of the last points my people could defend to keep those armies out of our territory.”
“So you want to use the city as a buffer?” Magnus asked, narrowing his eyes.
Jorgen shrugged. “It would make a better buffer than Seymchan. As far as I’ve been told, Seymchan is either on the brink of abandonment, or it’s about to fall into Boris and Yates’s hands.”
That was news to Magnus, I could tell. And everyone else in the room. Which made Jorgen smile. He finally knew something no one else knew.
“So it’s Boris and Yates who are seeking to expand their territory to the west by taking Seymchan?” Magnus asked, though to me, it looked like he was thinking aloud. “Berlova in roughly the same position on the other side of the river.”
“And it has already been abandoned by King Sai and invaded by lone wolves and small packs,” Jorgen said. “Though how they all manage to live in one place, a city, with forest rules is beyond me.”
Magnus was silent for a moment as he watched Jorgen. The air in the room crackled. I peeked at Olympus to see what he thought about of the exchange between the two wolf leaders. He was paying rapt attention, probably trying to catch up with the state of the frontier. People in Good Port really had no idea.
Finally, Magnus seemed to make a decision. “Ludvig and Anton are currently assessing the situation in the eastern forest. They’ve been there for a month, surveying the wolves who live there, looking for refugees from the cities who might want to move on to the Wolf River Kingdom, and learning what they can about the level of organization those wolves have. I’ve had one communication from them so far that indicates things are chaotic.”
“Which either means that part of the frontier is ripe for the Old Realm’s picking, or King Julius will stick his hands into a hornet’s nest that he never could have anticipated if he does stage an invasion,” Jorgen said. He shifted his stance and stared hard at Magnus. “Which do you think it is, King Magnus? It’s your brother we’re talking about here.”
Magnus laughed out loud. “Julius has always been a preening, ambitious prick,” he said. “But he’s a smart prick. I haven’t seen him or spoken to him in nearly twenty years, but if he’s managed to cut his way to the front of the line of succession for the throne, then he’s done so through cleverness and treachery. He most likely has further ambitions to, as he would see it, reunite a rebellious kingdom, so he can take advantage of the resources of the frontier to restore the Old Realm. But he would also recognize his limitations, after the disastrous war our uncle, the old king, plunged everyone into, not to mention the famine and plague.”
I suddenly stood straighter as the pieces fell into place. “Would he try to retake the frontier by getting rid of the old leaders and putting new, inexperienced leaders who are loyal to the Old Realm in their place?”
Everyone turned to me.
I flinched a little, glancing around at my friends and the older men. Then I shrugged.
“I still think everything is connected—Gomez, Boris and Yates, the election in Good Port, and probably a lot of other things we don’t know about that didn’t succeed,” I said. “I think the Old Realm is already attacking the frontier and trying to get it back. We aren’t waiting for a war to start, we’re already in the middle of one.”
I hadn’t really thought about it like an attack, but as the words left my mouth, it all made sense.
“Your pup is clever,” Jorgen said, grinning at Olympus.
“He’s not a pup,” Peter growled.
