Heart of Winter by Lauren Gilley

12

“I promise I’m fine,” Tessa insisted, then ruined the stubborn set of her chin with a great loud sneeze.

“Yes, yes, you’re very fine,” Oliver said, draping another blanket across her shoulders, noting the way she plucked it up closer around her throat with still-pale fingertips.

By the time they’re returned to the palace, the whole place was in an uproar, and Tessa was blue with cold. When her horse had thrown her, she’d been all but buried in a snow bank, and had struggled so long to get out of it that the wet autumn snow had soaked right through her clothes. Revna had met them at the door with her own personal maid, and bundled Tessa right upstairs and into a hot bath.

Her hair was nearly dry, now, curling as she sat by a roaring fire in her chambers, and she’d been wrapped in all manner of blankets, her feet bundled into a fur with a hot brick from the hearth underneath.

“I’m worried about Rune,” she said.

“Rune’s head is harder than most,” Revna said handing first Tessa, and then Oliver, hot mugs of cider. “Olaf says there’s no signs of distress, and he just needs a good night’s sleep.”

The prince, riding in front of his brother on the return trip, Leif’s arms holding him upright, had roused a few times, mumbling about Ris – his horse, Tessa had explained, one he’d been forced to destroy after a terrible fall – and, once, Tessa, his drowsy, half-conscious voice full of worry and pain.

“You should go to him, my lady,” Oliver said. “He may need you, and we want for nothing.” He offered a pathetic smile, and plucked at the front of the heavy fur-and-velvet dressing gown he wore. It was of a deep crimson stitched with blue and silver, its buttons set with gems, the sleeves trailing off his hands and the hem pooling on the floor around his feet. He’d caught one look of himself in it in the mirror and hadn’t dared asked who it belonged to, afraid he already knew the answer.

Revna propped her fists on her hips and said, “I’ll see to him later. I want to make sure the two of you are settled, first. My boys are used to all this cold – they were bred of Northern stock. It’s you two I’m worried about. Are you chilled? Can you feel your toes?”

He’d been given thick, ankle-high slipped, leather lined with soft fur, and he wiggled his now-warm toes inside them. He hadn’t had a bath, too worried about Tessa to take Magnus’s advice about the hot springs down in the caves. But he’d toweled his hair, and his dressing gown was a dream, and he could feel the heat of the fire on his face. “I’m quite well, my lady.”

She arched a single, dark brow.

“Revna.”

She nodded. “Good. Drink your cider.”

It was heavily-spiced, and spiked with some strong liquor; it burned his throat in a good way.

The maid, Astrid, put another log on the fire, turned down Tessa’s bed, laid more bricks to warm, and, after Revna had asked if they needed anything else, finally left with her mistress, closing the door on their way out.

Oliver dropped down into the chair opposite Tessa’s, and that was when he realized just how exhausted he was. Adrenaline had kept him sharp for the ride out and back, and through those first, frightening moments after their arrival, when they hadn’t known if Rune was going to be all right; but, now, afterward, he could feel himself flagging.

He took a few long swallows of cider. “Are you sure you’re well, Tess?”

“What? Oh.” She cradled her mug in both hands, staring down into its depths, but lifted her head at his question. “Yes, fine. Much better, now that I’m dry.”

He inclined his head. “I know you want to make a good impression on our hosts – you never did like to bother anyone. But this is me. Are you sure?”

“Yes–” She sat forward. “Ollie, yes, I wouldn’t lie to you. I was very cold, and very tired, and very frightened. And – oh, gods, you should have seen Rune. Poor Rune.” Her gaze skated toward the door, and her fingers drummed on her mug, and he thought that she wanted to go to him, to check that he was well for herself. “He’d had to kill his horse, and he’d climbed up this awful hill, and he wasn’t making any sense. He’d hit his head, and…” Her voice choked off, and her swallow looked painful. “It was terrible. But.” She offered him a wavery smile. “I’ll be all right, now. And hopefully Rune will, too. That’s what matters.”

He sipped more cider. “Yes, I suppose so.”

When her eyelids started to flag, Oliver urged to her bed, and then slipped next door to his own room. He shut the door, and leaned back against it a moment, watching the candles flames waver over on the desk. The cider had eased the last of the cold pain from his extremities, but the fatigue had hold of his bones at this point; he could feel the muscles in his face drooping. If he wasn’t careful, he might fall asleep leaning up against the door.

Until someone rapped against it from the other side.

He suppressed a groan and turned to open it – and then open it a fraction wider when he saw that it was Erik on the other side, his guards hanging back farther down the corridor.

Oliver stood up straighter, and tightened the belt of his gown – a movement that Erik’s gaze tracked, quickly, before returning to his face. “Your majesty.”

When their eyes met, a slow, small smile pulled at the king’s mouth. “So it’s ‘your majesty,’ now.”

“It always has been,” Oliver said, stiffly – at least, he tried. He blamed the teasing note in his voice, and the irrepressible tug of a smile, on exhaustion.

Erik’s grin widened. “Is your cousin well?”

“Yes, yes, she’s much better. Only a few scratches and some cold fingers. She should be fine. What about Rune?”

The smile slipped a fraction. “His pupils are retracting as they should, and all his reflexes seem to be in order, but he’s muddled when he’s awake. The physician says it should all be fine. He’s to be woken every hour through the night, and Leif insists he’ll do it, even though he needs to sleep himself. I imagine Revna and some of the lads will spell him.”

Oliver nodded. “Good. Glad to hear it.” He wasn’t able to catch his yawn in time, and had to cover it hastily with his hand.

Erik chuckled, a low, rich sound that, despite the fatigue, had goosebumps prickling down Oliver’s back. “And you, Mr. Meacham? Are you well?”

That question, said in that voice, was very, very unfair.

Oliver managed, “Yes, yes, fine.” Again, he would blame his tiredness, when, in a sudden surge of boldness, he fingered the fur collar of his dressing gown and said, “Your sister made sure I was bundled up nice and warm.”

The smile remained, soft as the fur under Oliver’s fingertips, but the blue gaze above it sparked with – something. Something intense and indescribable, as it shifted down the length of Oliver’s body, and slowly back up. “I’m glad that she did.” Erik dipped his head, and stepped back. “Sleep well…” Quieter: “Oliver.”

“You, too,” Oliver said. He watched him depart with his guards, then shut the door, and pressed his forehead to the cool wood, breathing out a shaky sigh. “Do not,” he scolded himself. “It means nothing.”

His dreams that night, though, didn’t listen.

~*~

Oliver woke next morning with a pounding head and aching joints. His eyes opened like rusty shutters, almost too heavy to lift, and he lay on his side a long time, blinking at the soft morning light coming in through the window glass, trying to work up the nerve to get up. Exhaustion dragged at him when he sat up, and the throbbing in his head was even worse.

He massaged at his temples, and then the dull pain in the sides of his neck for long minutes, telling himself that this was only to be expected after rushing about on horseback in the cold and dark. Panic often left people feeling ill – this was totally normal, perfectly fine, and nothing at all to get worried about.

When a kitchen boy brought him hot water, he scrubbed his face and hands, combed his hair, and dressed in his warmest clothes – though his bed was well-insulated, he’d begun to shiver the second he was out of it.

In the mirror, his reflection stared back: pale, tired, and wearing dark circles beneath drowsy eyes. Not at all the countenance he wanted to take to the king, because, now that everyone was home safe and sound – he meant to check on Rune first thing – there was the whole business of Tessa having been off in the wilderness with two princes to deal with. Hilda had been with them, and that counted for something; and Erik had assured him that gossip didn’t matter as much here.

Still.

He met Tessa as she was coming out of her room, and she gasped when she saw him.

“You look terrible!”

“Thank you,” he muttered. “I would return the sentiment, but that’s never true.”

Indeed, she looked refreshed and lovely this morning, the color back in her face, her hair clean and shining, braided up like a true Northern girl’s. Astrid was behind her, hands clasped demurely in front of her, and the intricate plaits were clearly her doing.

“Oh, no,” Tessa said, laying a hand on his arm. “I only meant that you look as if you don’t feel well.”

“I’m fine.” He offered his arm. “Shall we go down?”

Breakfast was well under way in the great hall, and despite what Erik had said, there was chatter as they entered the wide chamber. There were looks, and there were hurried whispers across tables, and Oliver wished he could spare his cousin this. “It’s fine,” he said, laying his hand over hers.

“Yes, I know,” she said, absently, and he realized she wasn’t at all fazed by the snippets of conversation breaking out around them. “Look, here’s Birger, we can ask him about Rune.”

“He’s awake,” Birger informed them as they filled their plates. “He’s feeling badly about his horse – he broke Ris to saddle himself – and he’s embarrassed about all the fuss he caused – or so he says. He didn’t cause it, and we’ve assured him of that. You can’t cause wolves. I don’t think he’s listening. He’s got his uncle’s gift for self-flagellation, I think.”

Oliver thought of Erik’s assurance that he wouldn’t return to the palace before they’d found them. It had felt like a vow, his voice solemn and resolute.

“He’s been asking after you,” Birger continued, turning a twinkling grin on Tessa. “He’s very worried. I told him you were quite well, and better off than him besides, but I don’t think he’ll believe it until he sees you for himself.”

“Oh.” Tessa’s face pinked. “Would it be alright to visit him later?”

Birger winked. “Just so.” Then he turned to Oliver, growing more businesslike, but no less warm. “Now, then. Erik tells me you’ve got some concerns about propriety and the like.”

Oliver realized he still stood with his hand hovering over a basket heaped with scones of some sort. He selected one, though the thought of eating it turned his stomach. “Yes, well.” His headache was making it difficult to put his thoughts into words. Probably eating would help; he added a slice of cold ham. “I think anyone would have – have those sorts of concerns. It’s only proper.”

When he lifted his head, Birger was studying him, unsmiling.

“Are you al lright, lad?”

“Yes, I’m fine. Shall we sit?”

They did, only for Oliver to realize he’d forgotten tea. “Oh, drat.”

“I’ll get you some,” Tessa said, up off the bench and heading back for the buffet before he could protest.

Across from him, Birger said, “I understand your worry. I hear it’s very important in the South – having proper escorts and doing things by the books. You don’t want tongues wagging at court.”

“Young, highborn, unmarried ladies don’t go off alone with young men back home.”

“But she wasn’t alone. Her maid was with her.”

“Yes,” Oliver conceded. He picked up his scone – it had some sort of berry in it – and then put it back down, nauseous at the idea of tasting it.

“And the boys,” Birger went on, “I can assure you, while impulsive, and pig-headed as their uncle at times – they have his sense of honor as well. They would never…”

Oliver waved and nodded. “Yes, I don’t really think they would – do anything.”

Birger studied him another moment, then smiled. “It’s in your nature to worry, though, isn’t it?”

“Well, someone ought to. War, and wolves, and marriage contracts. Someone’s got to worry about all that.”

Birger chuckled. “Right you are. Maybe we should keep you.”

Magnus had said the same thing his first night. Before Oliver could come up with an answer for that through his brain fog, Tessa returned with his tea. “Thank you. You didn’t have to.”

“It was no trouble.” She touched his shoulder – and then her hand slid up, quick, and he felt the tips of her fingers on his neck. They were shockingly cold, and he flinched away from them – and that was before he realized what she was doing.

When he turned his head, she stood frozen, frowning at him. “Ollie,” she started. “Are you sure–”

“You should be in bed, lad,” Birger said.

Oliver glanced around, already drawing himself up for an argument – how could Birger possibly know – but he was talking to Leif, who stood now beside their table, all but asleep on his feet.

The prince wore a rumpled tunic, and the same dirty leggings and boots from yesterday, stiff where mud and snow had dried on them. His hair was a wild snarl of tangles and unraveling braids, and blue shadows like bruises lay heavy beneath his eyes. His face had that same slack, sick look that Oliver’s had in the mirror earlier.

“No,” Leif said, and all but fell onto the bench beside Birger. “’M fine.”

Birger sighed and slid his own plate over in front of the boy. “He doesn’t want for eyes to watch over him. Eat something and then go lie down for a little while.”

Leif took a half-hearted bite of ham and didn’t respond.

“Leif,” Tessa said, and at another time, Oliver might have laughed at the way the prince’s gaze snapped up to her. He was so tired he hadn’t even made note of her presence yet. “Birger says that Rune should make a full recovery. I’m very glad to hear it.”

Leif’s smile was an unsteady, painful thing, only a flicker, and then gone again. “That’s what Olaf says.”

“You must be so tired if you sat up with him all night. I’m so sorry.”

Another fleeting smile, this one even less steady. “Thanks.”

“I’ll go and get you some tea.”

Leif’s gaze followed her a moment, exhausted, wistful – hopeless – and then dropped to his plate again.

Oliver knew well the expression of a man who realized he was not the apple of an intended lover’s eye. It was yet another face he’d met in the mirror oftener than he ought to have.

~*~

“Ollie, I’m worried.”

Tessa expected his response, that dismissive little half-wave that was totally undermined by the pink in his cheeks and the glassy gaze. His movements weren’t as crisp as normal, he’d barely touched his breakfast, and when she’d pressed her fingers to his neck earlier, she’d found his skin over-warm.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“We’ve got to stop using that word so much,” she muttered.

“What was that?”

He wasn’t keeping up with conversation very well, either; she added that to her mental checklist. He might have caught a cold traipsing through the snow last night – or, she feared, his marsh fever might be flaring up.

“Nothing,” she said. They were climbing the grand stairs, and a darted look showed that Oliver was gripping the bannister tight, his brow furrowed. “I’m off to see Rune. Do you want to come?”

“No. I think I’ll – do some more reading. Maybe.”

Oh, he really wasn’t well. She wanted to march him back to his chamber and force him into bed. Amelia could have done so, but Tessa doubted her own forcefulness.

“We can meet up for lunch later, then.”

“Sure.”

She watched him go into the library and lingered at the threshold, biting her lip, searching for further signs of weakness. He went straight to a shelf, as if familiar with it, and hovered a fingertip over the spines there, choosing a book.

With a sigh, she resigned herself to the fact that she could do nothing for him until he needed her help, and continued on.

The royal apartments were on the third floor, the same as her own room, but it was only now, as she passed her door, that she questioned the placement of their guest chambers. They were only just down the hall from where the king and his family slept, and that struck her as strange. At Drake Hold, guests were always housed in a separate wing, clear on the other side of the manor. Here, though, she passed their chambers, and through an open set of double doors flanked by guards who nodded pleasantly at her, and entered a wide chamber with a vaulted ceiling, and hallways branching off from it on three sides.

For all of its soaring ceilings and formidable stone walls, it was a cozy space, full of Southern sofas and armchairs, a fire crackling in a massive fireplace carved with wolves and reindeer. The tapestries on the walls were ornate and richly-detailed, scenes full of many people, all of which would require a closer inspection to understand, though the one above the fireplace clearly showed a coronation of some sort, a dark-headed man kneeling as a crown was placed on his head. There were bookshelves, and a table full of cups and decanters, pegs that held cloaks. She spotted a pair of boots by the hearth, and an open book on a tufted footstool. An abandoned mug on a side table; a small knife and a piece of half-finished whittling on another.

The branching hallways led doubtless to private chambers, bedrooms and wash rooms, but this was the place where the royal family spent cold evenings, reading together, sharing a drink, talking freely, out from under the scrutiny of court. Here they could truly be a family, and not a king, and a lady, and two princes.

Tessa felt suddenly that she was intruding.

But then Revna appeared at the mouth of one hallway, and smiled in welcome. “There you are. Right as rain this morning. Feeling better?”

“Much, thank you. Astrid’s been wonderful.”

“Glad to hear it. Are you here to see the patient?” Her smile took on a mischievous glint that reminded Tessa of Rune. “He’s past ready to be gallant and beg your forgiveness.”

“Oh, that won’t be–”

“Hush now. It’s high time my son learned to beg properly.” She held out a hand. “Come on, he’s just had breakfast.”

Revna’s hand was warm, but surprisingly callused. The smooth, hard, established calluses of someone who’d done the same sort of work over and over again, until the habit was a part of their skin. Not the tough fingertips of someone with a deft hand at needlepoint. Calluses from riding, perhaps – the boys had pointed out their mother’s horse yesterday.

The hallway was short, and ended in a glorious stained-glass window that depicted a howling white wolf atop a mountain peak, a crescent moon overhead.

“That’s lovely,” Tessa said, nodding toward it.

“A nod to the old Úlfheðnar blood,” Revna explained. “Father never wanted us to forget that, no matter how Southern we became, we originated up in the wild mountains.”

A door stood to the left, and one to the right. “That’s Leif,” Revna said of the one on the left. “And here’s our invalid,” she said, fondly, and opened the other door into a large, well-lit chamber heaped with the particular clutter of a boy fast becoming a man, caught a bit between both worlds. A desk held an untidy pile of books, a map pinned down with heavy silver candlesticks, and a parchment marked with writing, the quill left stuck in the inkwell. A wooden knight on horseback perched on the corner, a child’s toy, the sight of which charmed her.

Rune’s bed was a grander affair than the one in her own guest chamber, as to be expected: a heavy four-poster carved with bold lines, and stylized wolves. Rune sat propped against a stack of pillows, a fur across his lap, dressed in a soft-looking cream nightshirt with the laces open. Tessa stole a glimpse of sharp collarbones and the defined line between strong, dark-furred chest muscles before focusing her gaze on his face. His hair was loose, and rumpled from the pillow. He had a black eye, and a nasty bruise at his temple, a gash shiny with ointment. But his gaze, thankfully, was his own today, if tired, and not the glassy, distant one of last night. A gaze that landed on her – and then shifted to panic.

He bolted upright and scrambled to fling the covers back. “Lady Tess–”

Bjorn was seated at a chair on the far side of his bed, and put a giant hand on his shoulder to pin him back against the pillows with minimal effort. “Stay down, you fool,” he said, with stern fondness. “You’ll only pass out in front of the lady, and then where will you be?”

Color infused Rune’s pale face, but he subsided with a glare for Bjorn. One that melted into a pleading expression when he looked back to Tessa. “Tessa, I’m so sorry. Are you well? You look well – er, that is, you don’t look injured, or sick, not that you don’t look pretty, also, you do, but – er–” His blush deepened.

Bjorn chuckled under his breath.

Rune’s brow furrowed. He took a deep breath, and let it out with a determined air. “I’m sorry to have led you into danger, my lady. And I’m sorry that I wasn’t myself last night.” He nodded, afterward – so there – and he resembled his uncle in that moment, save the quiet desperation in his gaze. His guilt was palpable – and endearing.

There was a chair on the near side of the bed, right up close, and Tessa took a seat there. Rune’s hand lay on top of the covers in front of her, and she didn’t resist the sudden impulse to cover it with one of hers. She heard his quick, indrawn breath, and felt the way he stiffened, suddenly, through the throb of tension in the back of his hand.

“Rune, there’s no need to apologize,” she said, smiling at him, watching the shock on his face slowly melt to something so sincere it left her a little breathless. “You couldn’t have predicted the wolves.”

His lips pressed together; his gaze dropped, and his hand curled to a fist beneath hers. “I knew there were wolves in the forest – I heard them singing last week. It was a risk taking you there.” He looked despondent, and Tessa didn’t know enough about the habits of wolves to dispute him with any confidence.

It was Bjorn who offered solace. “The wolves haven’t set upon a party on horseback in twenty years. They’ve been meek as mice for longer than you’ve been alive, lad. What happened yesterday wasn’t to be expected.”

Tessa sent the huge warrior a grateful look, and focused on Rune again, tightening her hand over his. “The important thing is that we’re all back here safe, and on the mend.” Too late, she remembered the crumpled shape of his horse at the bottom of the cliff, blood staining the snow in a corona around him. “Rune, I’m very sorry about Ris.”

He stared at his free hand a long moment, fingers curled tight in the covers. His lashes flickered rapidly against his cheeks, dark screens that concealed his eyes. “Leif was right: I shouldn’t have taken him.”

“I’m sorry.” It was all she could say, and she felt helpless for it.

Then his hand turned beneath hers, so they rested palm-to-palm, and his head lifted, his eyes shiny and wet, but the tears held in check. His voice was thick with them, but didn’t waver. “Uncle’s always telling me that it’s time to grow up and employ some good judgement. He’s right – he’s always been right. It’s time for me to start listening.” He attempted a smile, brave for all that it trembled.

His palm, where it was pressed to hers, bore the same pattern of calluses as his mother’s.

Calluses from the bow, from the sword.

His mother had a warrior’s hands, and so did he.

It was easy, in that moment, with the sun streaming in through the window, unkind to the bruises on his face, to see the sort of man he would grow into – a sight that left her chest warm, and bright, and her lungs struggling to draw breath.

~*~

Oliver jerked upright with a start. For a moment, he was aware only of the throbbing of his head, the sharp pain in his eyes, and his empty, churning stomach. His head was nearly too heavy to lift.

But he blinked, and recalled that he’d been in the library – that he still was; he’d fallen asleep face-down in the book he’d been reading, a dry tome about Northern botany. His vision was blurred, but he was soon able to identify what had awakened him.

Little Bo, his hair blazing in the slanted sunlight, sat perched opposite, all buy lying on the tabletop, propped up on his elbows, staring with rapt fascination at him.

Oliver rubbed the grit from his eyes. “May I help you?” His voice was hoarse and croaky.

“You were snoring,” Bo said, matter-of-factly. “You sounded like a bear.”

“Doubtful.” Oliver scrubbed at his eyes again, but they refused to clear completely. His neck tweaked as he sat back from the table, and he winced at the soreness there.

“Why were you sleeping?”

Normally, Oliver found precocious, undeterrable children amusing – he envied their boldness, to be honest – but he was exhausted, and achy, and not in the mood today. “Because I spent half the night on horseback in the bitter cold.”

“Why?”

Oliver sighed. “I was looking for someone.”

“Who?”

“My cousin.”

His already-big eyes widened further. “Oh! Is she the girl with the red hair like me?”

“Not quite as red as yours. More like mine.”

“Is she gonna marry Leif, then? Is that the one?”

He sighed again. His head felt awful. “I don’t know who she’ll marry.”

“But Ivar said–”

The blond boy, presumably Ivar, appeared behind his younger friend and gripped his sleeve. “Bo,” he hissed. “Olaf is going to–”

“Bo Borson!” a deep voice boomed from the doorway. “Leave the poor man alone and return to your studies!”

“Told you,” Ivar said with a huff.

The boys scrambled back to their own table, toward Olaf – the white-bearded gentleman Oliver had seen before. The physician, he realized, remembering what Birger had said that morning.

Their physician back home had often brewed feverfew tea for Oliver when he fell ill, during one of his flare-ups. But this wasn’t a flare-up, he told himself sternly. Only a little cold. A little lingering ache from last night’s adventures. He hadn’t had a flare-up in a long time, and he wouldn’t have one here, so far from home, a guest of foreign royalty.

Please, gods, no, he prayed.

Olaf began a lecture for the boys, and Oliver abandoned his day’s reading – if it was putting him to sleep, it wasn’t that worthwhile anyway – and made his slow, worryingly-unsteady way down to the great hall to see about lunch.

He’d missed it, a fact that dismayed him more than it should have. The trestles were being wiped down, and mugs and plates toted in baskets back toward the kitchen.

Cold fair remained on the sideboard, though. Oliver fixed himself a ham roll without any relish, but knowing he had to eat at this point, and turned to find Magnus sitting alone at the end of one trestle, applying himself to a whole, heaped plate of ham rolls.

Oliver supposed men this large had to eat more than they did in the South. Too tired to worry about his usual nerves, he dropped down opposite the guard, and was greeted warmly.

“Don’t take this as an insult, now,” he said, and Oliver paused with his roll halfway to his mouth. “But you’re looking a bit peaky, there. You didn’t catch cold out there in all that snow last night, now, did you?”

“No.” A hard chill chose that moment to ripple through him, and he couldn’t help but to shudder. “Maybe,” he conceded, and put down his food as his stomach clenched tight. “I’m not – I’m not sick. Just…” He hated the way he felt shamed by the admission, angry, but too tired to even fume properly. “Been a bit off all day.”

Magnus nodded sagely. “Happens to the best of us. I spent four days laid up last winter. Felt like I’d taken an axe to the head.” He polished off his last roll and licked his fingers. “I know just what you need.”

Which was how Oliver found himself following Magnus down the wide, spiral stone staircase that led down into the caves upon which the palace had been built.

He’d always thought of caves as dark and dank, with low ceilings, and unidentifiable slime underfoot. These caves, though…The stairs deposited them in a warm, high-ceilinged space of smooth stone, with cressets mounted to the walls, their soft, flickering glow picking out pale veins in the stone, seams of what looked like silver and gold, warm and gleaming. The air was shockingly fresh, snow-scented. There were vents, Magnus explained, shafts that led to the outdoors, tall enough to walk through, for a whole company of soldiers to march through, and sealed with heavy iron grates locked shut against invaders. There were ways to seal them off, he said, should the need ever arise, but in peace times, the airflow made it rather pleasant down here.

Oliver didn’t disagree.

Tunnels branched off, leading to storerooms, Magnus explained. But the main tunnel, which widened as they traversed floors worn even from the passage of many feet, led to the baths. The scent of water reached them; moisture clung to the walls in droplets that welled and broke, tracking like tears down the stone. The air grew warm, and humid.

They reached a fork. “That’s for the ladies.” He pointed to the right. “And for the lads.” To the left. Then he glanced back over his shoulder and waggled his brows. “But that’s more a generally-accepted suggestion and not a rule, per se.”

Oliver found himself chuckling, despite the weight of fatigue. He followed Magnus down the left fork, where they passed first through what was obviously a dressing room, with pegs and shelves along the wall, and benches for sitting, and cubbies full of clean white towels, and cakes of soap, and an assortment of sponges, bristled brushes, and oils. Beyond lay a vast chamber full of sunken pools, all of them steaming like soup kettles. The water was a clear, mineral blue, and he could see where stone benches had been set down in the water, along the edges of each pool. Footpaths wound between them, broken by the occasional stalagmite. The low murmur of voices echoed from deeper in, too distant to make out the words.

Oliver said, “How many pools are there?”

“I’ve never counted,” Magnus said. “Plenty. Some are nice and big – you can conduct meetings in them. But there’s smaller ones, too; nice and cozy, fit for a little privacy.”

Oliver chose not to respond to the look that accompanied that tidbit of information. 

“This is – incredible, really.”

“And it’ll do you a world of good, too. Have a nice soak, and see if you don’t feel better after.”

Magnus had evening guard shift tonight, so he headed off with a soap recommendation, and left Oliver to it.

He stood a long moment in the dressing room, once he was alone, thinking that he ought to go and find Tessa, that he ought to inquire after Rune’s health. That soaking in a hot spring wasn’t furthering his cause at all: he was here to broker a marriage and an alliance, not to steep in lavender oil for his own enjoyment.

But he felt wretched at this point, and one whiff of the un-stoppered lavender decided him. He would take five minutes. Ten, maybe, to let the hot water ease the ache from his joints, and chase the chill from his skin.

He undressed in a hurry, fingers fumbling, keenly aware of the sleek, slender, pale lines of his body, and how they were nothing like those of the hardened warriors that filled this place. He gathered towel, soap, oil, and went to find a pool. He chose a small one, tucked around a stalagmite, one that offered a bit of shelter and privacy. Then he climbed in.

The water was heavenly. The first touch enveloped him like silk, and he slid right down, until his head rested against the rock edge of the pool, with a deep groan. “Oh, gods.” The heat of it pressed the cold back; he could feel all of his muscles unclench, and only realized then how very tense they’d been all day, since waking. Steam rose up all around him, kissing his face, obscuring his vision.

“Ten minutes,” he told himself, and let his eyes slip shut.

~*~

He drifted. The heat dragged him under, and though he would rouse himself, eyes cracking open now and then, he fell into a sort of trance in which he could no longer tell if he was asleep or awake, only that he was comfortable, so, so comfortable.

He dreamed. Dreams in which fantasy intruded – the sorts of fantasies that he wouldn’t allow himself when he was awake. The dangerous sort that set aside propriety, and cultural expectation. The sort that ignored a person’s bad qualities, the impossibility of such things, and left him a purely physical being, with purely physical desires.

He dreamed of winding dark, silver-shot hair round his fingers; of the rough scrape of a beard at his throat. The press of a solid, warm chest against his own, and big holds squeezing at his waist. Blue eyes – he’d never seen such eyes. They haunted him.

“Mr. Meacham.”

He frowned, because he didn’t want to be Mr. Meacham in this dream, the dream of skin-on-skin and warm furs underneath and hot breath in his ear. Ollie. He wanted the king of Aeretoll to call him Ollie in his low, rich voice when he was–

“Oliver.”

That was better.

“Oliver.” A hand touched his face; cupped his cheek. A large hand, one rough with calluses across the palm, but the touch itself gentle. He felt something cool and smooth – metal, the bands of heavy rings. “Can you hear me? How long have you been here?”

He knew that voice – only now it was sharp with worry, rather than warm and rumbly with desire.

Oliver realized that his eyes were shut, and he cracked them open, slowly, painfully, to find a hazy face floating above his: sharp-featured, and bearded, and framed by the dark, silver-shot hair that he’d dreamed of tanging his hands in. He could see the vivid blue of the king’s eyes, but his vision was too blurred to make out the expression in them.

It’s not fair how beautiful you are, he thought.

But when he opened his mouth, he croaked, “Hot.” Because he was – he was boiling.

Erik’s broad hand shifted to his forehead, then his throat. “Yes, you are,” he muttered. “You’re blazing with fever. Hey – hey, don’t fall asleep. Stay awake, stay with me.”

But Oliver’s eyes were too heavy to keep open. “I would.” He was aware of his mouth moving, but had no control over it. “I would stay with you…if you asked me to…If you wanted me. I have…I have nothing. And you make me ache.”

Above him, there was a sharp breath. Then: “Holy gods.”

Oliver heard shouts, and the stamp of feet.

And then he heard nothing else. The fever claimed him fully.