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The next few minutes turned into a whirlwind of repositioning. I felt strong enough to drag myself to the side and to sit with my back against a crate as Gennadi and the other young man, Avenel, brought me food and water. Lefric left his friend, Olympus, to sit by my side so he could make certain I drank the water and ate the bread slowly. It was a good thing, too. I was so thirsty and famished that I was sure I would have made myself sick.
Constantine enlisted the help of one of Magnus’s men to cut and peel Ludvig out of his clothes. I felt as though I should have been the one to bathe Ludvig with the sponge and washbasin that were brought. Ludvig’s body had been my concern for almost two years, though I still blushed to think about it.
Lefric and Peter and Jace and the rest of the Sons would make fun of me for it, I was sure, but I was still shy about sharing my body with someone. I liked fucking, and Ludvig was good at it and always made sure I came, but no matter how many times Ludvig or my friends told me there was nothing wrong with feeling desire, I was still haunted by the memories of lusting after my own father and the bitterness of Father choosing Dane instead of me.
“Easy now,” Lefric said, taking the mostly empty glass of water away from me when I started to choke. “I think that’s enough for now. Magnus, can we give him something more like tea? Something more nourishing than bread?”
“Give his stomach a moment to adjust,” Magnus told us as he took a seat on a barrel facing me. “And while you’re adjusting, perhaps you can take a moment to tell us what has happened in the last two months to bring you to this point.”
I nodded and finished the last few morsels of bread I’d been given. I was still weary down to my bones, but the food and water had restored me a bit.
My other friends were gathering as well. Neil had gone back to the cabins at some point, either to fetch Peter or just to be with him, but Jace and Gennadi, Sebald and Avenel—who seemed to bewithhim—gathered around me. Gennadi and Avenel sat on the deck, but Jace and Sebald sat on crates. There was something about the arrangement that made me take notice, but there were too many expectant eyes on me to think much about it.
I felt better having my friends around me. For the first time in months, I felt supported and like I was a part of something. Seeing the other Sons around me and having Lefric seated so close to my side that our legs brushed made me feel right again somehow. It made me feel ready to tell the whole story of the last two months.
ChapterTwo
“Nothing felt unusual about the trip when we first set out,” I began, glancing longingly at the glass of water Lefric had taken away from me. At least he was refilling it from a pitcher one of Magnus’s aides had offered. I trusted he would give it back to me once my throat started to go dry, which I was certain it would, considering how much I had to tell.
“Ludvig and I prepared meticulously. We had all the supplies we would need for what we’d thought would be a month-long sojourn. We took hearty horses, kept to the river and streams at first, and for the first week or two, everything went the way we thought it would.
“There isn’t as much to report from the area close to the Wolf River,” I went on. “There are people living in the forest near to Meadowbrook and Kettering. Some of them are wolves who were loyal to Edik and want nothing to do with the rest of us now. Some are refugees from the cities who had no idea the Wolf River Kingdom existed, other than the rumors they’d heard but didn’t really believe. We convinced a lot of those people to move to our cities. Then we stopped at Kettering to spend some time with Dushka, and with Conrad before he departed for the Old Realm.”
“Did Conrad travel with you into the forest at all?” Sebald asked. His friend, Avenel, leaned his head against Sebald’s leg, and Sebald was stroking his hair, almost like the young man was a pup. “The only path through the mountains is in the north, near Tesladom, so it would stand to reason.”
I shook my head. “We were traveling over land. Conrad took the hidden branch of the Kostya River to the main river where it diverges between Tesladom and Neander. He said he was already on track to be late for the beginning of his healing course, and he didn’t have time to wander in the forest, as much as he wanted to join us.”
I swallowed hard as I remembered our final conversation. “He said we were lucky to be going on such an adventure while all he was doing was going to the Old Realm for school. It turned out to be much more of an adventure than we bargained for, and I’m glad he wasn’t put through that.
“Incidentally,” I went on, turning to Magnus, “there’s could be another passage over the eastern mountains to the Old Realm, in the south.”
That bit of information had everyone sitting up straighter, even Magnus.
“If there is, I would have heard of it,” Magnus said, not exactly questioning me, but puzzled all the same.
“It’s new,” I said. “I guess it doesn’t truly exist yet since it’s still under construction.” I lowered my head a little. “That’s another reason you have to keep Dmitri alive long enough to get him to talk. He knows all about that second pass. He worked with the wolves who are clearing the land and constructing some of the bridges they’re trying to make before ending up back in the forest.”
“The terrain is too treacherous through those mountains,” Constantine spoke up as he finished bandaging Ludvig’s side. “I may just be a soldier, but I served on the eastern frontier, near the mountains, five years ago, when the old king still had soldiers patrolling the land you’re talking about.”
That was news to me. I hadn’t realized there had always been soldiers in the eastern forest and that it wasn’t just General Rufus and his men now.
Magnus shook his head. “Your patrols were small and didn’t range the whole length of the mountains. We wolves would have known if you’d encroached so far into our territory.”
“But is that wolf territory?” Lefric asked. “I thought it was a sort of no man’s land.”
“Sai used to say it was a no man’s land under the old king’s influence,” Jace spoke up, then frowned. “But now I’m not so sure he was right. My brother used to say a lot of things with authority that turned out to be rubbish.”
The way Jace frowned and rested his hand on the back of Gennadi’s neck made me think that something had happened between Jace and King Sai, something after the interactions they’d had at the battle of the coronation. I would have to find out about that.
Later.
“From the little Dmitri was willing to tell me,” I went on, “the Old Realm has always thought it controlled the land near the mountains, and the wild wolves have always assumed the land was abandoned. In practice, ithasbeen abandoned. At least, it was abandoned and empty until Gomez and the Dying Winter pushed all of the smaller packs and lone wolves into that part of the forest. A lot of them moved right up against the mountains, even into the mountains, where the terrain is rockier, but the forest isn’t as dense. They think that will get them far away from the nonsense of the west, as they call it.
“The wild wolves think all of us are idiots and weaklings,” I went on before anyone could interrupt. “They don’t see much difference between city-dwellers and the Wolf River Kingdom these days. They view us all as spineless weaklings and tamed dogs.”
“I’d like to see them head west and tell that to our faces,” Jace growled. “Then they’ll see how well we can fight.”
“They’d see how comfortably we live too,” Magnus said. “Which is far more of a sign of strength, if you ask me.”
