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His brows lifted higher and he said, “Purpledrakes?”
“Urgh, that’s not important! I have to close the bloody thing! Can you help me or not?”
“Well,” he drawled, glancing at Tessa, then back. “If I knew what sort of portal it was, that would be a nice start.”
She growled through her teeth, and took two charging steps across the grass toward him, but he stayed her with a lifted hand.
His face grew serious, but thankfully less formal. “All right, all right. I don’t know for certain, mind you, but generally speaking, magic requires an offering of sorts from a magic user. When I practice necromancy, for instance, it drains me of my energy and leaves me swooning like a novel heroine. You said a girlexploded?”
“Into bits, yes.”
He nodded. “It was blood, then, that opened this one. All right.” He stroked at his chin, withdrawing into his own thoughts. “Okay, you’ll need blood to close it.”
“Blood? How much?”
“There’s no way to be sure, but it will need to be the blood of a magic user.” His gaze lifted and pinned to her, expectant.
“Mine?”
“Do you have any other magic users in your company?”
Tessa gasped, and both of them turned to her. “The wolves,” she explained. “You have them.”
Náli’s gaze returned, sharper, calculating. “The wolves reached you?” To Tessa: “You haven’t said.”
Tessa bit her lip. “I didn’t know how to broach the subject in a way that would get Erik riled up.”
Náli snorted. “All of them? Leif and his whole pack?”
“As far as I know. Will their blood work? And mine, as well. If we could collect samples from everyone–”
He swiped at the air with his hand. “No, just. Do whatever’s fastest. Get some sort of magicked blood into the opening. If possible” – flicker of a grin – “shove Ragnar’s traitorous hide through and kill two birds with one stone.”
Tessa swatted his arm.
Amelia said, “Leif will never allow that.”
Náli made a face. “Damn the man. I think he could seduce a felled tree if given half the chance.”
Amelia filedseduceaway neatly somewhere in the back of her mind, and pressed on. “Fine. I’ll get some blood into it. Got it. Anything else?”
“Don’t let any of those drakes escape,” he said. “Gods. What if they reproduced? They have to be stopped there.”
“What do you think I’m trying to do?” she snapped, closed her eyes, and went hurtling back toward her body.
The sound struck her first. An overlapping cacophony of shrieks, screams, shouts, and snarls. A host of ugly smells. She opened her eyes, and she stood to the side of the road, as she had before. Only seconds had passed, on this plane, but seconds were all that it took to shift the tide of combat dramatically.
With a hollow, sinking feeling in her belly, she realized that there was nearly an entire company of Sels soldiers on the road, and a glimmer of more gold beyond the purple edges of the portal. They had magic, and advanced weaponry, a ruthless, disciplined style of fighting, yes, but it was the Sels’ sheer numbers that had made conquerors of them. She saw now how they’d been able to invade so easily; they didn’t even need the ships, but used the towering cogs anyway, to strike fear in the hearts of their enemies.
Unnecessary, because that damn rip in time and space was doing a fair job of turning her knees to jelly.
As was the sight of Ragnar astride Shadow, the big stallion spinning and kicking and biting as if she herself were riding him, Ragnar hacking away at spear points and gilded helmets with a sword.
Hersword. A grab at her belt proved it was gone.
Then she saw the thing that had inspired him to steal her sword and climb aboard her horse and go charging into the fray. Leif lay, human again, crumpled on the shoulder of the road, his hair a spill of spun gold across the grass, his arms splayed lifeless before him. Even without seeing his face, she could tell he was unconscious. Whether or not he was breathing was another matter.
She set off at a run before she was conscious of moving. Ducked low as Strangers fired off arrows overhead. A skinny purple drake bleated in pain and crashed to the ground to her right, skidding on its face and sending up a choking cloud of dust. She ducked left and kept going, coughing and blinking her way through the grit in the air.
