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Estrid quirked a brow. “I’m not a Drake.”

This had become part and parcel for them, somehow: all that early antagonism, with Estrid vicious and Tessa uncertain and shrinking, had morphed into a routine bantering that Tessa found oddly endearing. This was just how Estrid was, and it beat the simpering, pretend will-wishes of the soft maidens back home.

Still…Tessa sighed. “Fine. I have no excuse. But.” She lifted a finger. “I think I’m perfectly justified in my trepidation.”

Estrid stared her down a moment, then cracked a true grin, snorting a laugh. “I still can’t quite believe Oliver and that little shit Náli did it willingly.”

Tessa let the insult to her cousin slide – truly, she was surprised as well. To think of Oliver, always cautious, slip-sliding on the icy docks upon their arrival, willingly climbing astride a dragon and taking to the skies, defied all her preconceived notions. That was the thing about notions, though, she supposed; it was almost impossible to know a person completely. To understand all the rooms of their heart, perhaps even a few they didn’t start out with the keys for themselves.

She reached to stroke the drake’s neck, the scales smooth as pearl and cool to the touch – though not unpleasantly so. “I suppose this place brings out the best in him,” she mused. The place, and, more importantly, its people. She’d always loved and valued Oliver as if he were her second brother – but there could be no denying that it was the love and admiration of a king that had put a new brightness in his eyes, and fueled him with a new purpose.

“Just him?” Estrid asked, tone no longer teasing, nor even blunt…but gently prodding.

Tessa whipped her head around, startled, and found the other girl regarding her with a quiet aura of encouragement.

“What can I say?” she said, shrugging in response to Tessa’s questioning look. “I prefer my friends brave.”

A smile tugged at Tessa’s mouth. “They’re keeping the saddles in the armory, aren’t they?”

Estrid grinned, wicked and pleased.

~*~

Náli secured the slim roll of parchment with a blob of black wax and a press of his skull signet ring, feeling a considerable weight lift from his shoulders as he passed it off to Danski to be taken to the mews, attached to a messenger falcon, and sent north and east. To the Fault Lands.

It was a brief message, but he’d spent the better part of the last hour composing it, belly squirming as he thought of his mother’s inevitable response – or, rather, lack thereof. No return scroll would follow, neither would Lady Serafina attend the wedding to which Náli had just invited her.

My Lady Mother,

Unforeseen delays have as of yet prevented my return to the Fault Lands. My assistance was needed amidst a battle here, at the capital, one from which we have emerged victorious and generally unscathed.

The king’s younger nephew, Prince Rune, is to be wed one week from today. The king extends you an invitation, of course. It’s to be a merry event. I plan to return home immediately following, to resume my duties as Corpse Lord.

Yours,

Náli

A week was a close timetable for a trip to Aeres from Naus Keep, but writing her any earlier had felt like inviting her wrath. Best to let her think that the battle had only just ended, and not that he’d been loitering around the royal palace for a month, resting, petting excitable young drakes, and…

“My lord?”

Best of all, trying to draw his Dead Guard captain into more and more compromising positions.

He flexed his hands atop his makeshift writing desk – two overturned barrels with a plank laid across – and turned to find Mattias propped in the open doorway, broad shoulders blocking an impressive amount of cresset light from the hall, even relaxed as they were.

“The letter to your lady mother?” he asked, head tilting in the direction Danski had gone. His tone was full of concern; he knew better than anyone how Náli felt about his mother.

“Yes.” Náli slumped backward into his chair, one elbow hooked over the back of it in what he thought (hoped?) was a fetching pose. Just the sound of Mattias’s voice had eased the jitters in his belly, and it was fast becoming second nature to arrange himself in such a way as to draw attention to the parts of his body he was quickly learning were Mattias’s favorites. It had been a fascinating month of research: watching Mattias’s gaze follow the motion of his hand as it gathered up his long, pale hair and drew it over his shoulder. Feeling the hitch in his breathing when his hands landed on Náli’s narrow waist. Hearing the low, murmured praise that seemed almost mindless when Náli hooked a leg around his hip and urged Mattias’s hand down the length of his thigh, lean and sinewy.

Their moments together were stolen, and not nearly as frequent as Náli wanted. The closer they moved toward inevitable departure, the more frantic he became. Mattias had kissed him, and touched him through his clothes, but nothing more. Even if they were guests in an incredibly crowded, incredibly loud and busy palace, moments alone rare and precious, he still felt like they had a better chance of being together here than at home. Home – where his mother waited, fretting, furious, and plotting another horrid matchmaking ball for him.

No. He shoved all such thoughts roughly away, and focused instead on Mattias as he stepped slowly into the room, and, with a glance toward the hallway, eased the door closed.

Náli bit back the wide, victorious grin that threatened, managed to tame it to something sultry instead. When Mattias turned back, he breathed a quiet laugh.

“Forgive me, my lord, but you are rather shameless.”

“What?” Náli gestured down the stretched-out length of his body. “I’m only sitting.”