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“I am quite powerful,” he said.
She rolled her eyes as she faced him again, but the quip had succeeded in relaxing her. “And oh so modest.”
“I’m fairly bursting with positive attributes.” He sobered, then. “Truthfully…I don’t know. But I want to try. I have to. Otherwise, I’ll be stuck here in this Keep for the rest of my days while my king and the rest of my countrymen march to a war in which I could assist.” He picked at the loose skin of his cuticle.
“I heard the Sels were stopped at Aeres,” she said. “Is that true?”
Clever, he thought. Not defeated and not an assumption of victory, either, but a question.
“The entirety of the force that attacked Aeres was eliminated – mostly thanks to the drakes.” He smoothed an absent hand along Valgrind’s neck and he purred in response. “But they’re slowly overtaking the South.”
“And King Erik’s going to march to aid them?”
“He promised he would, after the last war. That was the whole point of the Drakes coming up here – a royal marriage and a royal consort, it turns out, to seal the arrangement.
“Also,” he said, wincing a little, “there was a captured general who leveled threats. And some traitors amidst our allies that proved the whole situation is much more complicated than one put-down siege.”
She jolted upright. “Traitors?”
“Let’s just say you should never trust a man who wears wolf fangs on a cord around his neck. Nasty business.” He made a dismissive gesture, not wanting to sidetrack them onto the topic of Ragnar, and Leif, and that entire mess. “In any event, war is here. War will continue to shape the future of the North. And I think it’s important for me to have a hand in that.”
She nodded, and settled. And then smiled.
“What?”
“You sound very responsible.”
“I am responsible.”
“Ah. And now you sound petulant.”
He snorted and bit back a reply that would make him sound extremely petulant. “Well. Now you know,” he said, switching topics. “That’s the situation in the Fault Lands.”
She nodded again, smile fading. She adopted a serious expression. Glanced toward his Guard, and then the other way, at the well again. “I don’t envy you,” she murmured.
“No one ever does.”
Silence reigned a moment. One of the Guards coughed, quietly, and Valgrind gnawed at his bone.
Color slowly bloomed in Brigida’s cheeks, and her head tipped down shyly, fingers toying with the embroidery on her skirt as she whispered, “You said his name is Klemens?”
Náli grinned. “Shall I introduce you?”
