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Rune froze. His hand fell, and his face, too, mouth still open.
Revna’s chair creaked as she turned more fully toward him.
“I’m not staying,” Leif continued, and noted the way Bjorn’s brows lifted in response to his tone. He could hear the heartbeats of everyone in the room, the way they skipped and accelerated, scents infused with uncertainty. Not fear…not yet.
He turned to Erik. “I told you before, Uncle, that you should send the Úlfheðnar ahead. To scout and assess what awaits us in the South, and send report back. We can move quickly, and silently; we can see and hear what men cannot.” Recklessly, rudely: “You’d be a fool not to take advantage of us – and a bigger one to leave a skinwalker behind on your throne to frighten your people.”
Silence. Heavy silence bristling with thorns ready to slice the first who dared to breach it.
Rune’s jaw worked. He looked devastated – but he didn’t speak.
Revna, by contrast, became gradually furious, dark spots of color coming up in her cheeks and blue eyes flashing. She sipped her tea, though, and pressed her lips tight together until they were bloodless.
Bjorn shifted his weight and snuffed and snorted a bit, like a bull held back against his will.
Oliver was quietly shocked – and dismayed, too. Disappointed as though he were a true uncle, and not one simply by bedroom habits.
(An uncharitable thought he could never have conjured months before. Pre-turning.)
It was Erik who spoke, as was only right. He was, after all, the only one who could enforce or forbid Leif – not merely as his nephew, but as his lawful heir. A notch formed between his brows, and his jaw worked side to side.
“Leif,” he said, formally, which was a surprise given Leif’s absolute lack of respect. “You know that you are one of my most promising warriors. Save Bjorn, there’s no one stronger, no one more capable with a sword. As your uncle, I’ve always hoped that your sword was one that need never be bloodied.”
He inclined his head, gazing out from beneath his black brows, stern and serious. “But as your king, there’s never been any question that I want you by my side in war. It has all along been my intention to take you. I can acknowledge that your new…skills,” he stumbled over the word, “will be of great benefit on the battlefield, and during scouting as well.”
Leif’s worry eased…but he found that his muscles remained tense. He nodded his acknowledgement, and silent thanks – sensed his mother’s worry, and Bjorn’s approval – but found that he couldn’t remain silent on one point. “They aren’t skills.”
Erik’s expression flickered, a fast glimpse of doubt before he adopted his too-formal kingly visage again. “What?”
“You called themskills. They’re instincts. They’re a part of me, now. My nature. Because I am no longer a man.”
More silence.
Then: “Leif,” Revna said, pained.
Of all of them, only Oliver seemed sympathetic.
Erik said, firmly, “Whatever else you are now, you are also the man you’ve always been. Leif Torstansson is my nephew and the most honorable man I know. What’s happened to you doesn’t change that.”
But ithadchanged it, had changed everything, and every person in the room knew it, no matter what Erik said.
With their shifting uneasiness wafting on the air like the smoke from extinguished candles, Leif ignored the assertion. He said, “I’ll say again that you should send us ahead of the main party.” He didn’t say that if he didn’t get out of this palace soon, he thought he might start literally chasing his tail.
“And I still say no,” Erik said.
It was difficult to quell the frustrated growl that built in his throat. A little of it slipped out, raising eyebrows. “Why not?” The growl laced his voice, too. “I’m accomplishingnothinghere, waiting.”
Erik’s gaze hardened, from firm to flinty. “And who would you take with you, on your advanced departure?”
“My pack. I’ve told you.”
“And who is in this pack? The Úlfheðnar skinwalkers, yes. But what of Ragnar? Would you take him?”
He understood, then, with awful clarity, why Erik had been hesitating about this all along. Knew his reservations – and resented them.
He swallowed another growl – something that was getting harder and harder to do, the wolf wanting to slip to the surface in dozens of routine, nonverbal ways – and forced himself to consider it: leaving Ragnar behind. Taking him down into the dungeon from which he’d raised him, because no one left here would want him aboveground; thought about putting heavy manacles on his wrists, and chaining him to the wall. Instructing the guards to carry him a pail of meat every day, and maybe a wineskin, if he howled and pulled at his bonds until his skin chafed. Because he would do that, if left behind by his pack. And Leif’s other wolves would feel the loss of a packmate keenly.
Just as Leif would feel it, as if a part of his soul had been scooped out; an itch under his skin, and a fuzziness in his thoughts.
