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“I don’t take offense to that. I already told you you weren’t to my taste.”

“Shit.” That was Darri, trying to smother a laugh.

He tossed a scalding look toward them. “You’d think you’d all remember your decorum at a time like this.”

Mattias had a strangled look about him. But Klemens shrugged and folded his arms, unbothered. “The lady’s talking sensibly.”

Náli let his lip peel back off his teeth. “And here I was about to put in a good word for you, you traitor.”

“My lord,” Danski said, fighting a grin. Badly. “We apologize for–”

“I don’t apologize,” Klemens interrupted. To Náli: “What the fuck are you doing? My lord.”

“Seventeen years you pack of great louts follow me around, silent as mice, and today you decide to grow spines,” Náli seethed. It was wildly unfair – they were the bravest men he knew, ready to sacrifice themselves for him at a moment’s notice – but they were grating on his nerves at the moment. “There is a lady present.”

“A lady you’re spilling your guts to,” Klemens said, all professionalism stripped away. His regard was casual, but cutting. The real him, the dry, always-slightly-put-out man who lurked beneath the Dead Guard façade. Náli had caught glimpses before, but never been pinned beneath his real stare before like this; he resisted the urge to squirm. “The way I see it, if you’re going to go changing everything, you should stop expecting things to carry on as they’ve always done.”

“You…” He had a point, actually. Náli heaved a deep sigh and scrubbed at the headache forming between his brows. “I have no idea what I’m doing,” he grumbled.

“We noticed, my lord,” Einrih said, helpfully.

Náli shot him a glare, and got a smile in return.

“Um,” Brigida ventured.

Náli took a moment to breathe; to acknowledge the stark truth that, if his plans panned out, and he managed to imbue his Guards with his own magic…if he bought himself freedom that way…then things would change. He would always be the Corpse Lord – even Lucian had called himself that – but his Guard would no longer merely be his protectors and keepers. He hadn’t thought that completely through, yet.

Brigida cleared her throat delicately. “I feel as if this isn’t a conversation I should be a part of.”

Mattias’s look clearly agreed with her assessment.

Náli turned to her again, thoughts spinning in a dozen directions. Nothing would work out if he couldn’t perform the spell, if he couldn’t share the magic. He might very well die tonight, and then the mountain would erupt, and the kingdom would be covered in ash, and everyone would die.

Or he might succeed, but Klemens might not fancy Brigida, or she might not fancy him.

It might be years before an heir was born or it might be never.

Nothing was decided. Everything was at risk.

So he said, “Would you like to see a dragon?”

Brigida’s face smoothed with shock. “A what?”

“A dragon. A drake. Even if he is a little shit.”

~*~

Said little shit took an immediate shine to Brigida.

Valgrind loped circles around her, jaws spread wide in a toothy grin, blue tongue lolling like a panting dog’s. He warbled and chirped and paused now and again to sniff her dress and hands, very curious about her long, rustling skirts and the soft-soled boots she wore beneath, more delicate than the boots Náli and his men wore for riding and traveling.

Brigida clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes huge when Valgrind first emerged from the shadows, but after a few minutes, her shaking eased, her hand lowered, and she wound up smiling and giggling at Valgrind’s antics. Náli showed her where he liked to be scratched along the jaw and behind the horns, and the beast was purring beneath her touch within moments.

After, he settled down to gnaw at a bit of bone, the crunch and crack of it echoing through the cavernous spaces of the catacombs. Náli sat down on the cold, hard ground and leaned back against his side, Brigida seated cross-legged across from him. As succinctly as possible, he told her everything, and watched wonder and understanding bloom across her face, until she was pitched forward eagerly, elbows braced on her thighs.

Klemens kept flicking glances toward her, Náli noticed.

“Do you think it will work?” she asked, refocusing his attention. “This spell? Can you control that much magic at once?” She cast a doubtful look over her shoulder toward the well, where the white water lay still and slick as glass. Her shoulders curled inward, an unconscious shrinking away from that unnatural pool, and the wealth of magic at the bottom of which he'd spoken.