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He lifted his brows. “Are you now?” He made the mistake of grinning, just a little.
She frowned, and for a moment he had a glimpse of what Katherine must have looked like at eighteen. “I’m not joking, Oliver.”
He smoothed his expression. “Clearly not.”
She folded her arms, now a portrait of Amelia.
Or perhaps, he thought, acknowledging that he wasn’t being charitable, a portrait of herself, as she’d always been, deep down, a chrysalis waiting to burst open, wings unfurled.
“You and Náli intend to take Percy and Valgrind to war, yes?”
“That is the plan, yes.”
“And you expect to leave Alfie and me behind, is that it?”
He winced. “Don’t think of it like that.”
“How am I supposed to think of it? How could Alfie possibly he content to stay here while her mate and her son fly thousands of miles away? How can she manage alone?”
“She won’t be alone: she’ll have you.”
Her gaze narrowed. “That isn’t the same thing and you know it.”
“Tessa–”
“Oliver. The drakes are the only reason we aren’t all dead and buried under two feet of snow right now. Or, worse, chained up in the hold of a Selesee ship, bound for a life of enslavement. Percy, Alfie, and Valgrind all three made the difference. Given our enemy, given these new developments, are you willing to leave one of those drakes behind?”
He started to protest – and sighed. In truth, he’d considered this very thing. There would always be a part of him that hesitated to include Tessa, out of simple protectiveness. He didn’t want to endanger her.
“We could take Alfie,” he began, and her eyes flashed.
“I’m her rider. If she goes, I go.”
He bit back another sigh. “You’re newly married. What about Rune?”
She shrugged. “Rune can come with us.”
Oh, to be young and optimistic.
“Tessa–”
“I know what you’re going to say.” Her chin clenched at a stubborn angle. “I know that you think I’m young” – hopefully she couldn’t readhismind the way she could her drake’s – “and too hopeful. That I’m over-confident after the siege. Everything worked out and now I think I’m a shieldmaiden.”
“Well…”
“No.”
His jaw snapped shut.
“I don’t think I’m a shieldmaiden and I don’t want to be one! I won’t have to be, from Alfie’s back. I don’t want to sword fight. I won’t need to.”
He offered a sympathetic smile. “That isn’t how war works, love. You never know what you might be called upon to do.”
She shook her head. “Then I shall face those challenges when they arise. But don’t march foolishly to war with only two drakes when there are three.”
“Amelia has drakes,” he said, a lame, last-ditch effort to stay her. “Five of them.”
“Then we shall have eight all told.”
