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He reached the window, the night still black beyond its diamond panes, spun – and nearly ran smack into his brother.
“Gods!” He clapped a hand over his leaping heart and marveled, not for the first time, that Leif had become silent and sneaky as a ghost. The beads in his hair didn’t even clink when he walked, now.
Rune’s sudden fright was made worse by the way Leif’s head was cocked a fraction to the side, his gaze fixed and too intense: a wolf trying to make sense of a flighty human. There were times when he looked like Rune’s brother, soft, serious, and easy, the way he’d always been; but most of the time, he looked like a version of Leif who’d been tweaked a few centimeters. A doppelganger, like the old stories: a creature from the beyond wearing Leif’s skin. In the moment, with his nerves heightened already, Rune found it especially unnerving.
“Gods. Were you trying to scare the piss out of me?”
Leif blinked, and the predatory intensity melted off his face. “No. You were deep in your head, though.” He moved to the opposite wall, and perched in the window embrasure there, arms folded. His bare arms, Rune noted; he didn’t wear nearly as many layers as he used to. “Wedding jitters?” he guessed.
Rune sighed and slumped back against the window behind him, suppressing a shiver at the cold of the glass digging through his nightshirt. “Aye. But not the kind Bjorn was thinking.” He shivered again for a different reason. “He tried to have some sort of…talk after dinner.”
Leif snorted. “Is that what that was about? Haven’t you and Tessa already shagged?”
“Hey, now. That’s not a way to talk about a lady.”
Leif shrugged. “I’m only saying.”
Rune frowned. Leif had never been so indelicate before. If anything, he had been the inappropriate one, and Leif the one with an elbow or a smack to bring him back in line. The role reversal settled uneasily across his shoulders.
“Anyway,” he pressed on, “shagging isn’t what’s given me a belly full of tacks.”
The slight lift of Leif’s brows invited him to explain.
“It’s…” He’d never been eloquent when it came to giving voice to finer feelings. He could describe a hunt or a training bout or a win at an impromptu archery contest all day, but talk of feelings always created a logjam of inelegant words in his throat. Now was no exception. “I’m very glad to be marrying Tessa. I love her, truly, I do. But now I’m to be a husband.”
“Yes,” Leif drawled. “That’s generally how marriage works.”
“But my cloak. That silly ceremonial cloak with the runes stitched in it. Loyalty, Fidelity, Protection. I know I can be loyal, yes, but I have to provide protection.”
“I’m still failing to see how this is something to have a crisis about at three in the morning.”
Rune sighed. “It’s one thing to say I’ll protect her from brambles on a ride, or from court gossip, or from the affections of other men. But we’re at war, Leif. That requires a whole different sort of protection.”
Leif tipped his head in concession. “Aye, it is. But I don’t think she’s asking you to promise nothing bad will happen in war. She’s already seen it up close, right here in this palace, after all – and she handled herself remarkably.”
“But she shouldn’t have to. I was up there, falling through the ceiling,” he said, letting his desperation bleed through his voice. “And she was down here wielding a sword!”
“At Estrid’s urging, I’d imagine.”
Rune scowled. “I can’t stand her. Why does Tessa want to be friends with her?”
“Perhaps because Estrid treats her like an equal, and not a delicate flower.”
Rune felt as if he’d been struck. It felt like a betrayal, the sting of Leif’s accusation. “That’s not fair,” he said when he could. “I don’t think she’s delicate – not in the way you mean.” She had fine wrists and dainty ankles and skin soft as rose petals, but deep down, inside, where it counted, she had an iron core, same as any Northman; it was only her manners, ingrained from Drakewell, that made her appear delicate.
Unbothered, Leif said, “Then why are you so worried?”
“I–” He faltered.
“Everyone who loves someone worries,” Leif went on, sounding almost sage. “Uncle was a wreck when Oliver took off on Percy, headed for home without him. Mother lost Father – she knows all too well that loss is something that can and does happen. You can’t protect her from everything,” he added, gentle now. His eyes were very blue, in the shadows, bluer than they’d ever been. “You can’t protect her from the world and all its whims.”
“I know that…But. I wish I could.”
“That’s noble. I suppose.” A trace of mockery in Leif’s tone sharpened Rune’s attention on him; gods, but he was different.
I want my brother, Rune wanted to say. I wantmy real brother, not whoever you’ve become. A nasty thought, one he dashed as soon as it had formed. What if he himself hadn’t been such a fool as to get drunk and go shooting in the dark? He would never have been alone with Ragnar’s assassin; would have been able to travel north with Erik and Leif for the festival. If I’d been there, I might have stopped the attack. The wolf might have gotten me instead of Leif, and I would have deserved it.
He let out a deep breath that had Leif arching his brows. “Stop worrying about the things you can’t control,” Leif suggested, sliding gracefully off the window ledge and crossing the space between them, clapping Rune on the shoulder. It was an effort to stand still and accept the friendly gesture like he always had before and the wry twist of Leif’s mouth said he knew that. “It’s what I’m trying to do,” he said, gaze flicking away.
