Page 32 of Heart of Fire
“Where does your power comefrom?”
Shepaused.
“Did you think I hadforgotten?”
“No.” Freyja’s lips twisted. “It’s just... I don’t know where it comesfrom.”
Lie.It seared along his magic nerves, making himhiss.
“That’s not thetruth—”
But Freyja wasn’t looking at him. Her gaze settled on a point behind him, her lips parting with a faintO.
Rurik craned his neck. And there, pinwheeling above the glaciers to the south, was the smaller silver dragon he’d sighted that night inAkureyri.
On the edges of his territory, practicallydaringhim toretaliate.
“Go home,”he growled to her, his claws digging into the rocks as he drew himself to his fullheight.
“Wait!” Freyjacalled.
But Rurik wasn’t listening. Instead, he danced along the edge of the path, careful of her frail mortal body, and launched himself into the air with a powerful thrust of hiswings.
“Go home, little mouse, while I take care of thisvisitor.”
“Be careful!” shecalled.
“Always,”he sent back.“After all, you still owe me the answer to thatquestion.”
* * *
It had to be a trap.
He knew this, and yet he went anyway, because to ignore intruders in his territory went againstdrekinature.His.This land was his. Bought and bargained for with blood and death, and he could no sooner allow this transgression than he could roll over andsubmit.
Screeching a battle cry, Rurik roared through the skies. The power of the land shivered through him, until it felt like he’d captured the power of a storm, bottled lightning in hisbelly.
Ahead of him, the silverdrekispun, his wings stiff as he banked. There was the flash of a paler belly, and claw marks across thedreki’scheek, and then he withdrew in a dive that sent himfleeing.
“Andri.”The unexpected sight made Rurik’s wings skip abeat.
All of his earlier suspicions bore fruit. Of course his mother and uncle would send the kit he’d once considered a youngerbrother.
Rurik beat his wings as he dove after his younger cousin. Andri had been on the verge of adulthood, almost two cycles old, when Rurik left in exile. Now he was adrekigrown, though not quite as large as he himself was. A young warrior who would bear the mark of his father’s temper on his faceforever.
“Go home,”he told his smaller cousin.“And I shall forget thistrespass.”
Andri hissed at him as Rurik fell in beside him. The smallerdrekiwas fast, but Rurik’s strength and skill meant Andri would never lose him.“My father sends hisregards.”
“His regards? Or his son as a sacrifice?”Rurik spiraled in a slow circle around the otherdreki. Together they began a dangerous dance. Airborne battles were brutal, and a fall could shatter wings and bones, but he’d been primed for this fight since the day he was born.“Is Stellan so careless with his sons he would send one into a fight that is not hisown?”
Andri refused to comment. And Rurik began to grow suspicious. Was Andri here on his father’s terms—or did some part of the youth want to reach out to one he’d oncetrusted?
“I won’t kill you,”Rurik told his former squire, making a decision.“Unlike others, I made an oath to protect you and I intend to keep it. You shouldn’t be here. This is not yourfight.”
“I have a duty to fulfill,”his cousinreplied.
“If you come against me and I am forced to protect myself, I’ll knock you from the skies, but I won’t kill you,”Rurikwarned.
