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“Shit!”

Percy sent a frantic burst of worry through the bond, asking if they should flee.

But at the last moment, the drake above angled its body, tilting into the wind, and sailed off away from them.

“We stay,” Oliver repeated, though less steadily. He’d begun to shake – inwardly, for now.

Percy grumbled, but reached back to nose at his knee, silent encouragement.

“Thank you, dear heart,” Oliver murmured, and reached to stroke his face, one quick touch.

Fifty yards away, the other drake landed. The last, hard flaps of its wings bent the grass double, and beat flecks of grit against Oliver’s face that he blinked away with aid of his sleeve. Percy grumbled a threat, and shook his head, vivid blue eyes blinking same as Oliver’s.

The other drake – the wyrm – was an impressive creature, half-again Percy’s size, crouched like a buzzard on the grass with its strange, fused wing-arms, sharp, clawed tips pointing skyward while its weight balanced on a pair of batlike knuckles at the midpoint. In the blurry sunlight, its scales were an iridescent purple-black, glistening like the flocking of a butterfly’s wing. Its head was large, blunted at the snout, eyes topped by a set of spiny, heavy brows. Four horns sprouted from the crown of its head, rather than Percy’s two, and the spines down its back were jagged and ferocious; they looked as if they’d cut a man’s hand if touched.

All of this Oliver noted with an absent glance, his attention snapping to the figure who sat tall and imposing in the drake’s saddle. A man with a narrow waist and broad shoulders, a long sword strapped to his back. He wore a helm crested with short, dyed-purple horsehair bristles. And the armor was a flawless, gleaming gold.

A Sel.

He knewwhichSel, straight off, though he refused to think the man’s name nor title. Maybe it wasn’t him…maybe it was a minion. A foot soldier. Someone who’d fallen asleep and crossed over accidently, just as Oliver had.

The man swung his leg over the saddle and dismounted in one fluid leap, landing lightly, despite the obvious weight of armor and blade. He paused a moment, to stroke his mount’s nose, the drake whuffing affectionately and nudging his shoulder. He spoke to the beast in that odd, lilting Selesee language that sounded more like spoken poetry than prose.

The he turned toward Oliver, and Oliver felt the weight of his gaze through his helmet, and across the distance, over the waving stalks of grass.

He failed to suppress a shudder, but stayed his ground; gripped the high pommel of his saddle and kept his back straight, his shoulders square.

Movements slow, deliberate, the armored man reached up to unbuckle his helmet; he drew it off, tucked it under his arm, and shook loose a sheet of straight, white hair that reached the middle of his back, scraped back at the crown and secured at the back of his head. His skin was nearly as pale as his hair, face stark amidst the grays and creams of the landscape.

Oliver took a slow, unsteady breath as the man caught and snared his gaze, and strode toward them.

He thought of waking in a Fang cell high in the mountains; swaying under the effects of ice rose, and watching an army of skeletons sprout from the ground like spring flowers. Thought of screams in the night, and antlered shamans in the shadows of the trees. Thought of that first night he’d met Percy, riding out from the gates, seeing this great, awesome creature who’d become his friend, a stranger still, a threat, squared off from his lover. Thought of flying back toward Aeres, afraid of what he’d find there; thought of crumbling walls, and the snap of trebuchets, the screams of wounded and dying men.

Thought of all of that…and knew an outsized, foundation-shaking fear at sight of the man walking toward him.

Towardthem. Percy lowered his head, steepled his wings protectively around Oliver, and hissed.

We’re all right, Oliver thought, though he didn’t believe it.I have you, and you have me, and we’ll manage.

Percy sent a disbelieving trill through the bond. But outwardly, he snarled at the approaching Sel, a nasty sound Oliver had never heard from him before.

The Sel kept coming. As he neared, he lifted his free hand, palm toward Percy’s head, the smooth, dark leather of his glove seeming to glow.

He didn’t cow Percy completely, but Oliver could feel the way he pushed some sort of magic toward him; a sympathetic buzzing in the back of Oliver’s head, a hum unlike anything he’d heard, and an intense wave of sluggishness.

“Percy? Percy! Oh, damn, damn, damn.” He slapped lightly at the drake’s withers, and Percy snorted, and shook his head, as though trying to shake out the hum. His wings dropped, lay like white, fallen leaves against the grass, and the Sel walked right up to his side, close enough to reach for Oliver’s foot in the stirrup, which he did.

Oliver could feel Percy’s sleepiness dragging at him, making his head heavy, clouding his thoughts – but he could tell it was because of the bond, that he himself hadn’t been afflicted; the trick was to fight it.

“Stop!” he shouted, when the Sel’s gloved hand was inches from the stirrup. “You there, stop! Stop right now!”

Miraculously, he did. His hand hovered a moment, before it lowered slowly to his side.

Percy swung his head around clumsily, snorting loudly, crooning. Wanting to help Oliver, wanting to fight for him.

“It’s all right, darling.” Oliver patted his neck, took a deep breath, and caught the gaze of the man standing below him. It was a shockingly bright blue verging on lavender.Lilac, Oliver thought with a shudder, recalling Náli’s impossible story. Not so impossible now – at least parts of it were true. The Sel stared up at him with unflinching intensity, his expression calm, calculating, but his eyes burning in his pale face, as the breeze lifted his hair like a white banner. The worst part was that he was beautiful, in his harsh, too pale, terrible way.

No, the worst part was that he was staring a hole through Oliver’s skull, a covetous, devouring gaze that left him squirming inside.