Of the Úlfheðnar, only Ragnar had attended the morning’s council, and even then he’d kept his distance. The rest of his men had stayed hidden in whatever accommodations Askr had afforded them.
Before Erik donned his mail, he sought out his cousin, and found him where he’d last seen him, on the third-floor rear balcony, staring out across the winter garden, and the mews, and the kitchen garden, all heaped with snow.
“You know,” he said, the moment Erik set foot on the flags, “I’ll give you fancy lords this: the view’s always much better from a castle than it is from the door of a longhouse.” He half-turned his head, smirking over his shoulder. “But I think being this high up leaves you all thinking you’re more important than you are.”
“Or,” Erik said, leaning on the rail beside him, “one could argue that a man with a perspective much closer to the ground tends to feel the need to overcompensate and prove his worthiness compared to that of a lord – and winds up making an absolute dick of himself instead.”
Ragnar gave a dry, humorless chuckle. “I forget how good you are at sparring, sometimes. No one expects a king to be clever.”
“And no one expects a man of the Waste to seek shelter with his soft, Southern relations,” Erik countered. “Will you leave before nightfall?”
“Leave? I’m to take my company to the western fields, we decided.”
“I saw your face during that council.” Erik turned to face him, met with his frowning profile. “You have no intention of staying and clashing openly with the Beserkirs in our company. You don’t want to be seen as on our side. So you will slip away quietly: either before we depart to our posts, or after. Which will it be?”
Ragnar sent him a darkly affronted look that Erik didn’t find at all convincing. “This is bigger than Waste politics now. They killed my men in an ambush, like cowards, and I don’t even know why. We’ll go to our posts, and we’ll stay there, and we’ll fight. Your doubt is offensive, cousin.”
Erik stared him down, searching for the lie, searching for cracks. He knew they were there, but he couldn’t see their shapes, yet. “For your own sake.” He stepped back, prepared to turn. “You’d better hope you’re telling the truth.”
When he was at the door, Ragnar said, “You’ve done nothing but threaten me lately.” When Erik glanced back, Ragnar’s expression had shifted to one Erik had never seen him wear before. Something that spoke of old, deep anger tempered with some new emotion. “You might want to be careful about that, once we get past your borders.”
“Is that a threat?”
Flicker of a smile. “No. A friendly bit of advice.”
I'll tell you a secret: very early on, when I was still drafting Heart of Winter, I considered having Ragnar die in the siege at Aeres, in Blood of Wolves. Drafting involves a lot of speculation: it's common for me to play around with all sorts of scenarios that never make it to page, and never even make it to my scattered jumble of Post-It notes. I like to take a "what if" and walk it through to its conclusion and decide how it will impact the overall story moving forward. In this case, I entertained the idea of killing Ragnar for about five minutes, and then quickly dismissed it. Ragnar is one of those "gift" characters: he adds so much spice and intrigue to the story, allows for so much turmoil and emotional upheaval among the other characters, that killing him would have been a waste. By the time I wrote the scene above, he'd cemented himself as necessary, and was providing great entertainment for me as I wrote Edge of the Wild. I highlighted him here for this post because he's going to be an integral part of the story going forward, and features heavily in Fortunes of War.
But though he's the architect of chaos in EOTW, this book is all about Oliver, and Erik, and the discovery of magic in Aeretoll. In book two, we finally get to "see" the drakes for the first time, and learn more about the history of the human Drakes.
It's also where we meet Amelia, and where Amelia meets her drakes. Looking back, I'm surprised how much happens in this installment: it really packs a punch for only 309 pages. Quite a lot happens in the South, from Lady Katherine's poor attempt at matchmaking between Amelia and Reggie, to Amelia and Mal encountering Connor in the woods, learning of the drakes. To being captured by Sels, and saved by Alpha, and losing Mal. That's a lot of action for one Southern lady.
This book remains my favorite of the series - thus far - and that's down to how fun it was to write. I remember sitting down at the computer every day excited to pick up where I left off: long days full of high word counts, and eager to continue even when I stepped back.
Two bits of trivia: there's two scenes, specifically, inspired by movie scenes, which I might have mentioned in previous posts. The first is Connor's tale of ending up with the Strangers. His recounting of floating face-down in the river, pierced with arrows. I drew that straight from The Fellowship of the Ring. Isildur, bobbing along with the current, bristling with arrows. And at the end, at the Fang encampment, Náli's skeletons were inspired by 1963's Jason and the Argonauts.
This book is also one in which Oliver struggles with his marsh fever - and seemingly cures it once he bonds with Percy. I say seemingly; we'll learn more about his fever, and its remission, and the power of magic in books to come. I love the way this book brings magic rushing back to the world, and the way it sets up new conflicts and alliances - but looking back, it's amazing how little our heroes still know at this point.
Fortunes of War is arriving very soon! Until then, get caught up with Book Two, and the whole series, to be ready in time.
