Chapter 17 #2
Leif grinned, and leaned in to bite quick and sharp at Ragnar’s bottom lip.
“Ow! I said prince, not brat, you fucking welp,” Ragnar complained, but was grinning, too, already licking the blood off his lip.
Leif smacked him lightly on the cheek and withdrew. “Stop being so insubordinate.” He turned, and started back up the hill, not doubting for a moment that Ragnar would follow. “If you’re good, I’ll let you ride Amelia’s horse.”
“Oh, thank you, your grace,” Ragnar said, dripping sarcasm. He caught up to Leif’s steady stride with a few jogging steps, until they were side-by-side. In a low, completely respectful, and, more importantly, sincere voice, he said, “Thank you, alpha.”
Leif bumped their shoulders together, and though the situation at large was grim, Ragnar exuded a tail-wagging sort of relieved happiness, and Leif felt ready to lead.
~*~
It was midday by the time their war council—such as it was—met in the dining room of the chateau.
All the chairs were missing, a few broken bits of leg by the hearth revealing their fate as firewood, so they stood around the table, the ever-present maps spread across the dusty wood, curled at the edges, spotted with muck of unknown origin from traveling, loathed by all of them at this point.
Reggie moved to stand at the head of the table, and no one dissented.
He noted that Leif had brought his thrall, the two of them standing shoulder-to-shoulder, arms folded, like equals.
Ragnar wore a disturbingly smug expression that Reggie didn’t trust at all; he wanted to ask that he be sent out of the room, but he didn’t outrank a prince, not even a Northern one.
And Leda had vouched for his bravery when the Sels entered camp.
With an inward sigh, Reggie put him out of his mind, and focused on the real task at hand.
“We,” he started, and his voice got stuck in his dry throat. When Connor nudged a cup toward him, he drank deep, and then continued, voice stronger. “We have scoured the camp, the surrounding hillsides, the entirety of this chateau and its grounds, and have found no trace of Amelia.”
They all knew this, of course, but Leda still pressed her lips together and shook her head, angry, disbelieving.
“Without a body…” That hurt to say. “We can only come to the likeliest conclusion: that she was taken by the Sel forces. Either on foot, or, as Prince Leif thinks, through one of their portals.”
“That’s how they entered the camp,” Edward said, “and the chateau grounds.”
“The prisoner is missing as well,” Colum said, his always-dour face grimmer than usual. “The Sel that Amelia insisted we bring along with us.”
Reggie was glad he wasn’t the only one who’d thought it unwise not to slit Cassius’s throat from the first.
Leda splayed a ringed hand on the table beside Colum’s and said, “He was being cooperative, providing her with intelligence.”
“He seemed cooperative,” Edward said. “And likely planning to get her alone and steal her away for his emperor the entire time.”
“Amelia’s not to blame,” Connor said. “We are, for letting her play at general when she had no prior battlefield experience.”
Leda scoffed. “That’s rich coming from the man who spent the war playing woodland outlaw with his child bride. She wasn’t playing at anything, you sniveling sod.”
Reggie had been afraid of this. He lifted a hand. “I think—”
“I like Amelia as well as any of you,” Connor said, tone hardening. “But she went straight from her mother’s parlor to the battlefield, and she wasn’t ready for it.”
Leda’s eyes blazed, and she drew herself upright, stiff and quivering with temper. But she didn’t refute him.
“She’s forceful, to be sure,” Connor continued, “spirited, brave, and a true daughter of Aquitainia: her loyalty to our country and king, and to her friends and allies, is commendable. But if we’re all being honest with one another, here in her absence…
” He panned a look around the table, touching on all their faces.
“Her voice at our war table was so strong because she’s the only one of us who has drakes. ”
Leda muttered something, and shook her head, but glanced down at her hands rather than meet the pointed look Connor sent her.
“Obviously,” Connor said, “we want to rescue Amelia, if it’s possible. And unless all of you want to follow my lead and melt away into the forest, then we’d best find a way to press on, and use the drakes to our advantage.”
Leda’s head snatched upright, expression smoothing with surprise. “You’re not serious.”
Connor leaned forward and braced both hands on the table. His hair swung forward—getting longer by the day—and he tossed it back with an impatient shake of his head. “I’m completely serious. Without the drakes, we’re cannon fodder marching to our doom.”
“What of you, your grace?” Edward asked, looking across the table at Leif. “You’ve a magic of your own. Does it extend to the drakes?”
Leif frowned, and shifted his weight, contemplative.
Reggie’s stomach quivered in a funny way. It felt a little like relief—good, let the wolf prince take Alpha’s reins; let him risk life and limb climbing aboard a dragon’s back. But it also felt like…disappointment. As though something was slipping through his fingers.
No, he thought, unbidden. Not him. It should be me.
It was a silent, staggering moment of realization, and he held his breath as Leif spoke.
“I don’t feel any sort of connection with them,” Leif said. “Not the way Amelia does. They’re animals to me, same as a horse or a cow.”
Ragnar snorted. “A cow, yes.”
Leif sent him a quelling look without much heat. “I can try,” he said, turning back to the rest of them. “If you—”
“No.” Reggie didn’t realize he’d spoken aloud until all heads turned his direction.
Beside him, Connor’s lips twitched as he tried to restrain a smile. He winked, where only Reggie could see. Go on, his expression said.
Reggie sighed. And then rolled his shoulders, and stood up straight again.
“There’s no need, your grace,” Reggie said, as respectfully as he could.
He sounded stiff and formal. “You may of course attempt to make friends with Alpha if you’d like to, but I—” He had to clear his throat, and when he did, the rope scar across its center seemed to tighten, a phantom noose.
“I intend to ride one of the females. Valencia.”
Leda’s eyes widened.
Edward said, “You what?”
Oh, he felt so stupid. Like a child proclaiming he’d climb aboard his father’s war horse, a boy with fanciful ideas of playing at manhood. But he pressed on. “I’ve developed something of a rapport with her. I feed her, and visit with her, and she’s quite affectionate.”
“Affectionate,” Edward repeated, deadpan.
“Is your horse not affectionate? Your hunting dog? They’re animals, same as any other. You can earn their trust, and learn to trust them in turn.”
Colum said, “Surely you’re not comparing those creatures to horses.”
“Why shouldn’t I?” Reggie found that as he argued, his temper heated, and, in turn, his confidence swelled.
This was the correct course of action, and he grew surer of that by the minute.
“I can’t speak mind-to-mind with my horse, but we communicate.
I’m the finest rider amongst all the nobles of the South, and that is an undisputed fact. ”
Connor made a soft noise, and a darted glance proved he was smirking. He looked, dare Reggie think it, proud. It gave him that last nudge of bravery.
“I’m going to try, at least,” he said, like a declaration. “What’s the harm in that?”
The sideways twitch of Edward’s mouth said there was the potential for much harm.
But Leda’s expression was considering, and a little surprised, he thought; she hadn’t expected this of him.
Prince Leif put his shoulders back and puffed his chest in a very kingly way that left Ragnar smothering a laugh in his palm. He said, “You have my vote. What do you need?”
The actual riding would be the hard part, but Reggie still felt as though he’d cleared a hurdle. He let out a breath. “A saddle, for starters.”
The meeting turned to the practical and serious talk of dragon riding, after that.