“Yes, thank you, cub,” Tai added.
Lan made a harsh sound in his throat, then said, “No,” his voice warning-soft.
“Only Lan may call me that,” Fen informed Tai, then inclined his head to her and the others now regarding him silently. “Fen will do, or ‘flower’ if you must. I will arrange food for you and—” He turned to Lan. “Do they have places to sleep?”
Lan’s eyes were dark and steady. “They’ll need that as well, cub. Thank you.”
“Yes, thank you, Fen,” the others said quickly, except for Race, who grinned like he had when Fen had first met him.
Fen offered a smile to them for that, gave a confused glance to Race, and then ducked his head to Lan before he headed off in search of Tellan and some of the cooks.
“That was very good, though I shouldn’t have surprised you.” Lan said later in the modest privacy of his tent.
Fen paused in the middle of his search through Lan’s belongings. In the chest alongside more knives and bits of armor that Fen had already decided to clean the next day was a leather-wrapped bundle of wooden hair pins and a comb, which was what Fen picked up with interest. Moments before, Fen had asked Lan if he ought to learn to carve so he could make a comb of his own and stop borrowing Race or Dol’s. Lan had directed him to dig through the chest for the spare.
“Keep it,” Lan added once Fen had opened the bundle.
Fen put everything else back in the chest as he’d found it, then sat on his furs to untangle his hair with his pretty new comb. “Thank you. It’s lovely.”
Lan cleared his throat, then, his boots and cloak removed, stopped in the middle of undressing to stare at Fen. The tent flap was open, the fires outside blazing as people sat by them to talk or sing songs in low voices. Lan made no attempt to hide his staring.
Fen felt himself growing hotter and hotter the longer the study went on. “Are you asking if it bothered me?” he finally wondered and shook his head, his hair spilling into his face. “The opposite. The Acana… I expect you know he wouldn’t have ever consulted me. I hope I helped.”
“Perhaps knowledge of the alliances and marriages of the nobles is a good thing to have,” Lan said, ever so slightly amused. “But that was not the sole reason you were there.”
“You want my thoughts?” Fen’s mussed hair could not conceal his blush. He could not look at Lan now, as though Lan had finished undressing and Fen couldn’t trust himself. “It’s good you have spies, especially those who want you to succeed. That says a great deal about how most others think of you. And it made me… I think I see another way to draw more to your side that does not involve a sword. Though that will still likely be necessary.”
He risked a look up.
Lan’s gaze made his mouth go dry. “Speak then, cub.”
Fen realized he’d sunk his teeth into his bottom lip and made himself let go, although the sound that then escaped him was worryingly hungry. He thought again, as he had thought it all afternoon and evening, that he was Lan’s cub. Tai was not allowed to call him that. No one was except Lan. Lan himself had said so.
“If your intent is to crush the nobles around you enough that you might return to the territory of The Ma—toyourterritory, and live your remaining years in peace, then I suggest you do exactly that. Crush enough of them that they will hesitate to strike out again no matter how angry they are. Although that will only grant peace formaybeyour lifetime.”
“A personal peace bought with the blood of others.” Lan dismissed it without hesitation. “You clearly disapprove of that option anyway.”
Lan read Fen with such confusing ease. Fen gave him another cautious glance. “Then there is what I mentioned before, although that can also be done in different ways. In one, you make it clear you will go beyond what even the cruelest Earl has done. Destroy everyone thoroughly and without mercy. Or… or continue as you have. Keep the sensible ones. Work with them and reward them. But deal with Earls who will not see reason as harshly as I said. You will have to start with the strongest opponents and make it clear why each one gets the fate they get so that the rest will understand.”
He couldn’t tell what Lan was thinking but at least Lan was still listening. “Yes, you did say that I should be head wolf in a pack of them.”
“A wild dog,” Fen reminded him. Though a wild dog might be part wolf.
“Wild Dog because they can’t imagine a dog with no master.” Lan’s amusement was bitter. “There is nothing wild about me.”
Fen put the comb down and shook his head when Lan actually seemed confused. “Maybe you’re not wild as they mean it, as an insult, as if their way was the only order that can ever be. But you’re doing what they won’t. You are outside their understanding. You have warriors and guards and friends here from all over the North. For many, that’s because they are angry and want to lash out as you have done, but they are also here because ofyou. You don’t want to see that because you don’t like to give up what is yours and you think you’ll have to. But I’m telling you that you don’t. You won’t. You have won them and you will win others. The lesser nobles first, then the few Earls who understand that the current way of things is wrong. You can win them all by treating them how you treat me.”
Lan exhaled noisily. “A few kind words and The Geon and The Savirin will want to sleep at my feet?”
“Give them kind words but also listen to them, and they will want to earn more of your goodwill.” Fen twitched, remembering his response to Lan’s kindnesses. “But they are not me, so they will also demand favors, boons, lands. You’ll have to keep them in line.”
“And you don’t demand lands?” Lan asked incredulously with a glance at the door as though someone had walked by or peered in. “You’ll have the whole North by the time you’re done.”
“Youwill have it,” Fen corrected in confusion. “A resolute and gentle master.”
Lan’s lips parted.
“You don’t deny it, or that you want it,” Fen observed quietly. “No matter how many times I say it. It’s often what you don’t say or do that matters. What spaces you leave. Do you already know you’re capable of this but have worried over voicing it?”
