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There would be no swaying her, he saw. Her toe was even tapping the sawdust floor of the shed, muscle ticking in her jaw as she clenched her teeth and braced herself for further argument.
Oliver felt a slow smile overtake his face.
In turn, her face smoothed with surprise. “What?”
“In case I don’t say it enough in the days and weeks to come, I want you to know how very proud I am of you.”
She frowned – but her cheeks pinked. She folded her arms even tighter – but she scuffed her toe across the floor. Her gaze flicked away, and she said, in a bitter undertone, “Everyone always trusts Lia. Send her off to war, no questions, but oh no, Tessa has to be locked up in a tower.”
“Tessa,” he said, seriously. When her gaze returned, he said, “You’re right: we need all three drakes. We need a whole flock of them – but we’ll take the three brave ones we have. And their riders.
“You should expect arguments from the others, though. Rune will want you to be safe, and Erik will want the same, only he’ll be much sourer about it.”
A smile touched the corners of her mouth. “All I ever do these days is argue my case. I’m well-prepared.”
He nodded. “Aye,” he said, in a poor imitation of Bjorn’s broad, Northern accent, and startled a laugh from her.
Oliver leaned down toward the wooden caddy at his feet and withdrew a second rag and pot of beeswax. “Here, then.” He held them out to her. “Check your tack and give it a good oiling.”
She flashed him a girlish grin straight out of their childhood, snatched up the items, and whirled away. A few minutes later, she was humming under her breath…
And Oliver was dreading yet another argument with his king. He might as well bang his head directly against the wall now and save himself half the trouble.
~*~
Percy and Alfie circled one another in lazy, swooping turns high above the main road, in a cerulean sky brushed with faint white clouds. To one direction, the palace seemed no more than a child’s play castle of wood and papier-mâché, the guardsmen down on the road nothing more than ants. And in the other, the snaking brown ribbon of the road, exposed, now, as the snow began its long, slow spring melt, the fields and forest around it still white with snow, but drippy and soggy. The snow sounded like the sloshing of water in a jug when you walked in it, these days. From above, Oliver could only hear the whistle of the wind in his ears, and the steady rush of Percy’s wing-flaps and breath; the little sounds he traded with Alfie when they passed one another.
Oliver was anticipating Náli’s arrival, but thanks to their bond, Percy knew that his son was coming;hisanticipation was like a tightly-coiled spring, brimming with an eager fondness that had infected Oliver, until his fingers were buzzing on the reins.
The sun had turned the tree tops to a scattering of loose diamonds when a high shriek pierced the clear morning. Oliver turned his head, and Percy was already angling his wings, tucking and banking so they were headed down the road. Alfie let out a shriek of her own and swooped in to fly just beneath them. Oliver caught a glimpse of Tessa’s bright hair, uncovered where her hood had slipped down. She leaned low and easy over Alfie’s withers, smiling in a way that Oliver felt himself echoing. The drake family was to be reunited again, and it was impossible not to share in the dragons’ excitement.
A silhouette appeared, backlit by the midmorning sun. A shape of gleaming pearl, the arch and flex of wings and the backward whip of a tail. Valgrind didn’t fly as straight nor as elegantly as his parents. When he was near enough to be very clearly a drake, and not simply a vast bird, he gave another bugling cry and rushed on toward them, flapping furiously, head darting snakelike.
Rather than swing wide so they could all spiral down to the ground in formation, he shot the gap between his parents, and as he did, Oliver could hear Náli aboard him.
“…stupid fucking…no! No,do not!”
Oliver laughed aloud, and craned his neck to see as the pair darted beneath them. He caught a glimpse of gleaming silver harness and bridle, reins winking diamonds, a saddle of bleached-white leather.
“…absolutely not –will you listen?” Náli fumed, before they were too far and the wind snatched away the words.
Oliver straightened in the saddle, and saw more ants marching down the road toward them: a great many. Náli’s Guard, and the men he’d brought for the war.
Oliver’s laughter faded. Though the drakes’ joy at reunion washed through him, it was far from a joyous occasion that brought them back together.
~*~
Wine, hot cider, and trays of cold meats and fresh breads were laid out in the royal family’s dining room, so they might all meet and converse without the whole palace listening in in the great hall. Oliver’s first thought, when they were inside, cloaks flung off in the warmth from the hearth, was that Náli must have been feeling poorly from the first moment he met him, at the Yule festival, because he was a young man transformed, now.
He was naturally pale, with his nearly-white hair, and fine-grained skin, but there was color in his cheeks not merely the result of flying, and he’d lost some of his hollow look: still wasp-waisted and lean as a blade of grass, but not gaunt or hunched. He stood tall and strong, vital, and his eyes had a new sparkle to them.
Some of that was thanks to his new balance of magic – which he explained to them in great detail over lunch – but most of it, Oliver thought, secretly, was down to Mattias, who stood closer than was proper for a guard captain, and who shifted food from his own plate to Náli’s; who touched his arm to get his attention. A dozen small, unremarkable signs of intimacy that had been lacking before, but which he felt comfortable displaying now.
“Doubt Oliver all you want,” he said, peeling a slightly-wrinkly pear with a knife from his belt, words addressed to Erik.
“Hey,” Oliver protested, and was ignored.
“But you’d be a fool to doubt me.”
