Heart of Winter by Lauren Gilley

16

By Friday, Oliver was out of bed and on his feet.

More or less.

Revna had shown up with sturdy, warm Northern clothes, all of them taken in and hemmed to fit his smaller frame, all of them in the noble house colors. He knew they’d all come from Erik, or Leif, or Rune, and he found that he didn’t mind that, even if he did draw some startled glances from the merchants and nobles having breakfast in the great hall. Tessa walked at his side, her arm looped through his, and he hated that it wasn’t just for show, that she was providing a considerable amount of support.

His knees threatened to give out every other step, and his legs felt weak as water.

“It’s not too late to go back to your room,” Tessa whispered.

“Oliver!” Rune shouted, standing up from his table, and waving enthusiastically with both arms.

“I rather think it is.”

They got settled on the bench across from Rune, with Oliver not quite falling in the process.

Rune pushed his empty plate aside and leaned forward to put his elbows on the table. “How are you feeling?” he asked, excitement giving way to notch-browed worry. “You’re pale, still.”

“Yes, thank you, Rune, I’d noticed,” Oliver said, but couldn’t help but smile. “I’m feeling much better.”

Rune tilted his head, doubtful. “Are you sure?”

He chuckled. “I’m conscious. And upright – mostly. I’ll be fine.”

Rune beamed – and traded grins with Tessa, his dark eyes going momentarily soft. “Are you hungry?” he asked Oliver.

“A little.” He twisted around to look toward the buffet table. “Did I see griddle cakes over there?”

“With jam.” Rune bounced lightly to his feet. “I’ll get you some.”

“Oh, you don’t–”

“Be right back.”

Oliver watched him go, shaking his head. “In the last week, I’ve had a king bathe me – twice – a princess sit watch over me, and a prince go to fetch me breakfast.”

Tessa giggled. “So much for the Barbarians of the North, hm?”

“Indeed.”

There were indeed flapjacks, with strawberry and fig jam. Rune brought them both plates heaped with far too many cakes slathered in jam, and with piles of bacon and hash on the side. With the food in front of him, Oliver found his stomach growling, and his appetite returning, and he dug in with grateful thanks for the hand-delivery.

Oliver ducked his head over his plate, but stole glances toward Tessa and Rune, noting the way they couldn’t seem to look away from each other. Tessa all but ignored her food in favor of laughing and exclaiming in all the right places of Rune’s complicated story about a reindeer sleigh race gone wrong last winter.

“What’s that?” Tessa asked, breaking off mid-sentence.

Oliver lifted his head in time to see that, as the breakfast-goers drifted off elsewhere in the palace, and kitchen staff came to clear the plates and wipe the tables, a group of burly young men were carrying in great armfuls of greenery. Pine boughs, Oliver realized.

“They’re decorating,” Rune said, launching from one excited tone to another. “The solstice is next week. By that time, this whole hall will look like a forest, and on the night of the feast, they’ll bring in the great yule tree and everyone in the palace will help to trim it.”

“Oh!” Tessa exclaimed, cheeks pink with delight. “A real Northern Yuletide celebration!” She grabbed at Oliver’s arm. “Remember how lifeless they are at home?”

“Vividly.” In the South, belief in the gods had become a sort of…obligation. More often than not, they were invoked in curses and pleas, but rarely in prayers. The Yule Feast in Drakewell was a ball: an excuse for nobles of all sorts to dress in finery and frippery and spill out of carriages into cresset-lit ballrooms where they drank, and danced, and plotted, and ridiculed one another. There were a few sprigs of holly, and some pine boughs, yes, but nothing greater to differentiate it from all the other balls that took place. They were occasions to strut, and show off, and gossip, but not places to come together, and celebrate the solstice, and feel closer to the heavenly halls of their creators.

Oliver hated those bloody balls, and, to his surprise, found himself looking forward to a Northern Yuletide. He could only think, based on experience so far, that this Northern tradition would be another that left him quietly in awe of their new Aeretollean friends.

Friends? That word again. It felt mostly true, by this point.

~*~

Leif arrived, just as they finished breakfast, and Tessa accepted an invitation to go hawking with him. “Just beyond the gate,” Leif assured Oliver, after expressing his own gladness to see him up and feeling better. “We’ll be within shouting distance of the guards, I promise.”

Oliver nodded in silent thanks to this bit of caution. “Happy hunting.”

For his own part, he fixed a second, stronger cup of tea and made his slow, careful way back up the stairs with a mind on conducting more research – who knew what other secrets of his homeland he might discover in this foreign library? – and ran into Olaf on the landing.

“Ah, just the patient I was coming to see.” He gripped Oliver’s arm with one gnarled, surprisingly strong hand, and steered him the opposite way from the library, toward a part of the palace he’d never visited before.

“Oh, I was just going to–”

“That can wait,” Olaf said, sagely, marching him along. “First: an examination.”

“Fine.”

“Yes, it will be.”

Oliver bit back his sigh, and tried not to lean on the old man as much as he had on his cousin.

The hall ended in a wall set with a wide, arched, leaded window that overlooked the bailey, front gate, and the snowy road beyond that led down to the rest of Aeres, a series of cheerful dark smudges against the half-moon gleam of the harbor, trails of chimney smoke puffing up into the blue sky. Olaf steered him to the left, past tapestries stitched with great battles and hunt scenes. One, wildly impressive, showed a lioness and a wolf battling a reindeer with massive antlers, blood stitched with crimson thread.

“It represents the struggle within each Aeretollean king,” Olaf explained without slowing. “The battle between the Southern and Northern blood in each of them, ever since King Rolf the First was born of an Aquitainian mother and an Úlfheðnar father. The reindeer has always been the sigil of the Aretollean king, the beast of burden caught between two predators who would slaughter each other, or him, willingly.”

“The story’s a bit different in the South,” Oliver mused.

“Hm. No doubt. Here we are.” He led him through a heavy oak door and into a wide turret room with a soaring timber ceiling – from which dangled metal cages full of birds: doves that cooed, and ravens that cackled, and something that shrieked in a high, shrill, almost human voice. “You’ll have to excuse them. They always get excited for company. Sit there, please.” He directed Oliver to a low stool beside a work bench loaded down with bottles, and vials, and flasks of all sorts, the glass gleaming in the sunlight from a half-dozen windows, some of the contents jewel-colored liquids, other questionable, murky solids.

Oliver sat and surveyed the room – the surgery – while his host puttered about reordering items on a high, wide desk. There were dozens of shelves, each loaded with jars, and pots, and bottles. In one, Oliver recognized what looked like a fetal pig, preserved in clear liquid; in another, a human heart. There were shelves of books, too, heavy tomes, lines in the dust revealing which had been most-often consulted.

The room seemed to be split into two separate areas: one, the one in which he sat, obviously a study, a lab, a place to do research and fiddle with projects. But the other half boasted three long, scrubbed-white tables, unlit candelabrum stationed at the corners of each. A long, stone trough along one wall held basins and clean towels and linens. Three small, wheeled tables sat along one wall, lidded boxes on top. It wasn’t too dissimilar from the setup in Drakewell: the operating theater.

“Now, then.” Olaf came to stand in front of him, a large magnifying glass held in one hand. “Let’s have a look at you.” He pulled up Oliver’s eyelids and peered at his sclera; checked his throat by sight, and by feel, wizened fingers palpating at the glands there. Implemented a basic reasoning test to see that Oliver’s mind was functioning as it should.

After, he stood back, one hand on his hip, the other stroking at his beard as he looked at Oliver shrewdly. “How’s the head?”

“Fine. A little tender, still, but it’s always like that after a flare-up.”

“Mmhm. And your stomach? Breakfast going to stay down?”

“I think so.”

“Tired?”

“A little.” When that earned a look, he said, “More than a little.”

Olaf pinched the skin of neck between two fingers.

“Hey–”

“You’re still a bit dehydrated, but that’s to be expected, I suppose. Rest for the afternoon, don’t tax yourself, and drink plenty of water and tea.”

Oliver nodded, and made to stand – but a hand on his shoulder pressed him back down.

“Did you dream last night?”

“No. I slept like the dead – which I coincidently did not do when I felt as if I actually was dying.”

Olaf’s gaze narrowed. “You’re sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Oliver said, growing impatient, and then realized what this was about. “The ice rose.”

“Aye.”

“Does it have any lasting effects?”

“Not usually. You only had the one dose, and a small one at that.” He tipped his head, gaze still shrunk to mere slits. “Do you remember anything from that night? After I gave it to you?”

Oliver resisted the urge to squirm. Olaf was a physician, and his inquiry was likely academic. But when Oliver thought of that night’s unreal, pulsing blue awareness, he remembered the gentle heaviness of Erik’s hands on his skin. That soft shh, shh, it’s all right. He remembered gripping one of his braids, and pulling him down, and wishing he’d been in control of his body so he could have coordinated a kiss. He couldn’t remember exactly what he’d said, only that he’d said something, and that it had been too revealing, and inappropriate besides.

He couldn’t speak about that.

But Olaf was staring at him, so he blurted, “I was in a cave. There was all this ice, it was blue – the light was blue, I think, but maybe the ice was, too? There was a roaring sound. Like – like an earthquake. Or maybe some…some sort of animal.” Not like any animal he’d ever heard, though. There were foxes in Drakewell, their laughter ringing out across the lakes and streams on crisp autumn nights. He’d heard a puma, once, that dying-woman scream undercut with low harmonics.

“Blue ice?” Olaf asked; he sounded far more interested than anyone should have been in a weed-enhanced fever dream.

“Or blue light. There was ice, too. It’s all very indistinct.” Save for the memory of Erik’s hands; when he closed his eyes, he swore he could feel them still, smoothing across his collarbones.

“Hm.” Olaf stroked his beard, expression serious. “And this animal sound. That of a predator?”

“It was a sort of growling – not a puma, I know what that sounds like.”

“A bear?”

“I’ve never heard a bear.” But there had been that voice, in the back of his mind, not his, and not Erik’s: That is no bear. A familiar voice, but not one he could place just as yet.

“Hm.”

“It was only a hallucination,” Oliver said. “It didn’t mean anything.” Aside from that whole wanting-to-shag-the-king bit.

“Yes, well, I am a man of medicine, but one can’t be too dismissive of certain…visions.”

“Visions?”

Olaf waved a dismissive hand and retreated to one of his shelves. He returned with a small, blue glass vial stoppered with a bit of cork. “Here, take this.”

Oliver did so, carefully. “What is it?”

“An experiment of mine. I’ve ground ice rose, tempered it with a few herbs, and created a suspension. Should you feel the fever begin to return – you’ll know the early signs, I’d imagine, even if you sometimes ignore them,” he said with a pointed tilt of his chin.

Oliver’s face heated. “Yes.”

“Take three drops of that, under the tongue, just before bed. I’m working on a theory.”

Oliver glanced at the bottle dubiously – but he wasn’t averse to actually using its contents, should he feel himself relapsing. Lying on his back for five days, useless and stupid, was no way to live. “All right. Thanks.”

“Oh, and…” Olaf went to fetch another bottle, this one clear, full of a viscous, pink-yellow oil.

“What’s this one?”

“Rose oil.” When Oliver glanced at him in question, Olaf winked. And smirked. “Never know when that might come in handy.”

Face burning, Oliver thanked him again and hurried out.

~*~

The mews was attached to the stable via a covered walkway, and Tessa was immediately charmed by it. The flags of the floor were covered in straw, all save a clean area in front where coals simmered in braziers, heating the whole of the small space. It was styled after one of the timber houses she’d seen in Aeres proper, by the harbor, its peaked roof laid with sod, and overgrown with cold-weather mosses; toasty warm inside, it boasted perches down both sides where hunting hawks and messenger falcons were tethered. Each had its own dish of water, and room to stretch his or her wings. Windows on the far wall let in light, illuminating dust motes as the birds ruffled their feathers and groomed themselves.

“It’s lovely,” she said, pushing back her hood and surveying it.

“You think so?” Leif sounded surprised.

“There’s something very peaceful about an animal’s house,” she said, and turned to find him regarding her with a muted sort of delight. His smile was a small thing, but the emotion shone through in his eyes.

“Yes, I think so, too.”

His favorite bird was a large female with a creamy, brown-flecked breast and a barred tail. She was one of the few left unhooded, and she cocked her head to fix Tessa with one large, round, amber eye. Tessa had the sense she was being weighed and judged.

“This is Él.” Leif stroked the top of her head and her chest with one finger. She nipped at him delicately, and then shut her eyes and leaned into the touch. He smiled. “She can be a bit particular, but she never misses.” He glanced toward Tessa. “You want to touch her?”

“No.” She folded her gloved hands together in front of her. “That’s no way to make friends with someone particular.”

That earned her another approving look.

She stepped back and let Leif ready Él. He hooded her, and donned a thick leather glove; he tucked another in his belt, and she had the sense that she would be offered a turn, if she wanted; Tessa didn’t feel she’d earned the honor yet, at least not with the hawk.

With a pouch full of raw meat scraps from the kitchen, and Él perched securely on Leif’s gloved forearm, they set out across the stable yard and through a postern gate to the flat, snow-covered field beyond.

It was the same gate they’d set out from on horseback seven days ago; the tracks they’d left had been filled with fresh snow, and new tracks marked its surface now: messengers coming and going, the smooth sleigh tread of deliveries; the hoofprints of hunters’ horses, or those of some noble off for a good canter to clear his head. The sun rode high, nearly midday, the sky a clear, crystalline blue. Their breath steamed in the chill air, but the sun was bright enough to warm her skin, and there was no wind. A gorgeous morning, sugar-frosted and glittering.

They walked for a way, headed toward the tree line, and stopped when Leif noticed a much smaller sort of track in the snow. “Rabbit,” he explained, pointing out the little snowshoe prints to her. “Él’s favorite.”

Tessa studied the bird, still hooded, sitting upright and alert on Leif’s arm, but easy for all that. She had a sense of readiness about her, but not nerves. “She’s much larger than the birds in Drakewell – my brother used to go hawking,” she explained. “Does she ever bring you back anything besides rabbits?”

“Martins, occasionally. She killed a fox, once.”

“Really?”

He grinned and stroked Él’s feathers. “It was too heavy, so she could only carry it a few feet at a time. I saw her sort of hopping along with it.” He demonstrated with his free hand, chuckling at the memory. “And when I got to her, she was so proud. She’d caught it right in the eyes with her claws.” He jabbed his fingers at his own eyes. “A lucky strike. She must have killed it straight off.” He glanced toward Tessa and winced. “Sorry. That’s not a pleasant image.”

“But a true one.” She smiled at him. “I grew up with a brother – and a sister as bold as one. I’m not as delicate as you might think.”

He returned her smile. “Never said you were.” Él shuffled on his arm. “She’s not impressed with our conversation, are you, girl? You ready to fly?”

He removed the hood, and Él rotated her head, back and forth, pupils shrinking against the light. Tessa swore she could see the moment the hawk recognized her surroundings. She sat up taller, and gave a few quick, shuffling flaps of her wings. Made a high, chirping noise and glanced off toward the trees.

“Ready?” Leif asked her. He chucked her under the chin like one would a baby, then lowered his arm, and lifted it quickly. “Off you go.”

Él launched off his glove, wings beating the air, and went winging off across the snow, climbing and climbing.

“She’s beautiful,” Tessa said, watching her shrink smaller and smaller with distance. Leif didn’t respond, and when Tessa turned to him, it was her he studied, rather than the bird.

There was an intensity to him that reminded her of Erik. An air graver and more serious than that of his brother. He was still growing into it; it gapped in some places, and let youth and exuberance peek through, but there was no mistaking it for what it was: a kingly bearing. He wasn’t merely the older brother, but the heir, too. There was something wonderfully magnetic about it, for all that the sight and sound of Rune put butterflies in her stomach.

She’d meant to ask him something about hawking, some benign bit of conversation that, like most of their conversations, helped her learn more about her new home, but which failed to address one pertinent fact: that she was meant to marry him. So, instead, caught in the blue of his gaze, she said, “My brother said something to me once, and I suspect he heard it from Father. He said, ‘Knowing that you are to inherit is not a blessing or a thrill. It’s a weight that you carry with you always. To know that the safety and happiness of an entire people rests on your shoulders is a heavy thing.’”

His eyes widened, and then he nodded. “He had the right of it.” His gaze scanned out across the field, toward the distant, huddled shape of Aeres. “I imagine for some princes, it’s great fun to think about the jewels, and the fine horses, and – I don’t know, Birger talks about the great adoring crowds of admirers for the crown prince in the South – but it isn’t like that here.” He smiled a little ruefully. “Uncle never let us forget growing up that it was a privilege and a responsibility. It’s not all balls and beauties up here.” He didn’t sound bitter, exactly, but a heavy note touched his voice.

“Do you ever…” Maybe she shouldn’t ask that.

But he said, “What?” his gaze soft when it returned to her. Inviting.

“Do you ever wish that your uncle had married? That he’d had sons of his own?” So that kingship hadn’t fallen in your lap?

He took a deep breath, and considered a moment. “Not at first. It seemed like a high honor when I was little – and it is, don’t get me wrong. But lately it’s felt – it’s felt immense. Something sure, like death; I’m hurtling toward it, and I can’t change it.” His mouth tugged sideways. “I guess that’s how Uncle feels most of the time, so it’s only fair.”

“Does he not” – she knew she was overstepping, now, but couldn’t resist – “want a family of his own?”

Leif’s expression shifted, from a quick pulse of what she swore was fear, to something more careful and guarded. “He has a family,” he said, firmly. “All the family that he needs.”

She thought of Erik bent over Oliver’s bed, one hand cupped beneath Oliver’s head, the other resting on his chest. Did Leif know? Did he understand? Surely he must, but… She bit her lip. “He’s lucky to have all of you,” she said. “He’s a very sweet man, and he deserves to be loved.”

His brows lifted. “Sweet isn’t the word most people use.”

“I’ve seen him be sweet. He was very caring with Ollie, while he was sick.”

Leif’s nostrils flared, and his gaze narrowed. Worried, now, for sure. He glanced away, off into the distance where Él had disappeared. “Yes, well…”

“Family’s important to me as well,” she went on, her tone gentle, hoping that he could understand what she was driving at without her having to say it outright. “It’s only Mother, and Lia, and Ollie and me left, now, thanks to the war. Oliver can be prickly, and insubordinate, and I know he isn’t a proper warrior like everyone up here in the North, but he’s kind, and brave, and he always wants what’s best for us. He’s very dear to me, and I would like to see him happy. I like when I can tell that others see him as I do, for who he really is, and not merely for his lack of name.”

His gaze cut slowly back toward her, his lips pressed together into a thin line.

She pushed on, pulse tripping: “I’m glad that your uncle and Oliver seem to have reached an accord. I think they could be great friends.”

His brows gave a single jump, and he twisted to face her fully. “Great friends,” he repeated, woodenly.

“Yes. Quite intimate friends.” She stared back.

And saw the moment he went from thinking she was probing about his uncle, to instead offering up her cousin’s truth – both of their truths. Understanding dawned, his smile wide and blinding as the snow all around them. “Yes. Yes, I think you might be right.” He laughed. “You’re a marvel.”

She flushed, but before she could answer, he stepped in close – very close. His free hand lifted, and his fingertips pressed lightly along her jaw, the pad of his thumb resting at the point of her chin, his skin cold, but his touch oh so gentle. “Oh,” she murmured, caught and held in his gaze.

“Tessa.” His voice went low, and earnest. “I know that you fancy my brother – no, I understand. Rune is handsomer, and more charming. Rune is fun in a way that I am not. He’s my little brother, and I love him dearly, and I would never stand in the way of his happiness – nor of yours.

“All that I ask, before you make a final decision, is that you consider. Consider me. Please.” And he leaned in and kissed her.

It was quick, proper and not untoward, his lips cold from the chill air, but it was a firm press, no hesitation. Not the awkward fumbling of a pompous lordling back home, but the swift, sure touch of a man’s mouth against hers.

He was smiling when he drew back, and she could only stare, as his thumb lifted and pressed against her lower lip, briefly, before he let go and stepped back. Still holding her gaze, he lifted his gloved hand, and Él landed lightly upon it with a flutter of wings, a dead rabbit landing with a plop in the snow at their feet.

Tessa finally breathed out, her breath a white mist between them, and she was most definitely considering.

~*~

Oliver’s lingering headache made reading difficult. His eyes kept glazing over, and he would snap back to attention to realize that he’d read whole pages without absorbing any of the information on them. With a sigh, he abandoned the library and made his shaky way down to the great hall to see what was available for lunch.

The king was hearing petitions, seated upon his throne, on his dais, before the reindeer banner. Food had been left out to the side, though. Oliver plated up some cold chicken, bread, and a bowl of soup, and sat at the trestle left available for anyone wanting to observe the proceedings. He was aware of the man two spaces down from him, a wealthy merchant by the richness of his clothes, giving him a suspicious, sideways look – whether because he was foreign, because he’d recently been ill, or because he was wearing what was very obviously one of Erik’s old tunics, given the fine, crimson velvet chased with silver, Oliver didn’t know, nor did he care – but Magnus was on the dais with the king, and he caught Oliver’s gaze and winked.

Oliver grinned, and dunked bread into his soup.

A woman stood before Erik, dressed in sturdy boots, thick, homespun wool, and a clean apron. Her face was weathered, but just as clean as her apron, as was her hair, braided into a tidy crown around the top of her head. She held herself tall and proud, though her hands twisted together in front of her in a show of nerves.

“They got two of the ewes, your majesty. Took them off in the middle of the night, and only a little blood and bit of wool left to show what had happened. I saw the tracks, though, and there was no mistaking them for dogs.”

Wolves, Oliver thought, with an inward shudder.

“We have fences,” the woman continued, “but the wolves got through the slats. My neighbor says I ought to have a wall, instead, but with my husband in the ground these past six months, and three mouths to feed…” She trailed off, and bowed her head, shoulders shaking fractionally as she fought her emotions. Not a single tear fell.

Oliver frowned to himself. It was easy, at moments, to feel overwhelmed by what lay ahead of him, and to get bogged down in his disadvantages. The war with the Sels, the threat to Drakewell, being here in a new country, as a landless, titleless bastard, negotiating a marriage contract and dealing with an ever-increasing attraction that got harder and harder to ignore. But this woman was a widow, and a mother, and predators were eating her sheep, and his own problems felt small and stupid by comparison.

Erik had listened in attentive stillness, one elbow braced on the arm of his throne, chin resting on his knuckles. The sunlight sparkled now on the beads in his hair as he leaned forward, hand falling, his simple shift in posture seeming to bridge the large distance between himself and his petitioner. When the woman lifted her head, face steeled against hope, he inclined his head to an angle that Oliver was coming to know, and to admire – for the way it highlighted the sharp-cut features of his sometimes-harsh face, and for the way it made his eyes seem so large, framed by black lashes, and serious brows. It was a sincere expression, one that battered down the invisible barrier between king and subject, so that he seemed only a man – albeit a regal and powerful one, rather than a heartless monarch.

“Don’t worry,” he said, voice a low, meaningful rumble that sent pleasant shivers rippling through Oliver’s stomach. “I’ll send my own men to build you a wall.”

“Oh,” the woman breathed, shoulders dropping with relief. “Your majesty…”

“If my stablemaster and my mason visit tomorrow, will you and your fellow shepherds be able to meet with them? If the wolves are having a lean winter, it may be necessary to fortify the entire city, and I can donate some of our excess reindeer herds to satiate their hunger.”

The woman’s tears fell, then, and she dashed at them with trembling fingers as she thanked him profusely.

Erik smiled, narrowly, but truly, a sad, sympathetic sort of smile.

He wishes he could do more, Oliver thought, and knew it was true. Because he was not an awful, arrogant prick like Oliver had thought at first. He was tall and strong and stern, yes, but he felt things – deeply – and he wanted to do right by people – random fits of overzealous passion in the sparring yard notwithstanding.

“Mr. Meacham.” Birger settled on the bench beside him. “Good to see you up and about.”

A quick glance proved his smile was warm and glad. Oliver twitched a smile back and returned his gaze to the dais. Revna was leading the now-crying woman away and a man was stepping up to take her place. “Good to be up and about.”

“It’s nicely done, isn’t it?” Birger asked, and Oliver saw him gesture toward the dais in his periphery. “For all his bluster, there’s a true heart underneath.”

Oliver wondered if every soul in Aeres was going to assure him of the goodness of Erik.

“Yes, it appears so,” he said, mildly, and Birger snorted.

“I hear we’re to begin serious negotiations in regards to a marriage.”

“You heard correctly.”

Birger chuckled again, for some reason. “We’ll go to the study from here. If you’re up for it.”

“Oh, I’m up for it,” Oliver blustered. He might feel awful, but he wasn’t going to let it be known just yet.

The man standing before the dais bowed his head, and took his leave of the king.

Erik stared a moment into the middle distance, after his departure, rubbing at the undersides of his rings with the pad of his thumb. Oliver remembered their cool, smooth silver surfaces all too vividly. Then he turned his head, caught Oliver’s gaze, and his smile was a subtle thing; it only touched his eyes, crinkles sprouting at their corners. It lit up Oliver’s insides as if it were a beacon.

“Ah,” Birger said, as Oliver returned to his lunch.

“What?”

“Nothing, laddie, nothing.”

Oliver spooned soup into his mouth, keenly aware the whole time of Erik leaving the dais, trailed by his guards, and approaching the trestle where he sat with Birger. He was careful not to look up until Birger said, “The wolves do trouble me.” Then he glanced up from beneath his lashes and saw that Erik stood right before them – before him, rather than Birger, his rings glinting in the sunlight where his hands rested with thumbs hooked behind his wide belt buckle.

“Aye,” Erik said, frowning at his advisor. “Me, too. We’ve not even reached the solstice yet, and they’re already bold enough to snatch sheep.”

Oliver said, “Is there a reason for it? A drought summer? Herds moving?”

“It was a boon summer,” Erik said, frowning thoughtfully. “If the herds have shifted, it’s for another reason.” He stared into the middle distance a moment, thinking, giving Oliver a chance to admire his profile. Then he shook his head and turned his gaze on Oliver, who was careful to school his features, whatever they might have been doing. “So. A marriage contract.”

His lunch only half-finished, but his stomach now alive with butterflies, Oliver pushed his plate to the side. “Yes. That’d be a good thing to discuss.”

He could see that Erik was holding back a smile, a bit of it peeking through in the way the corners of his mouth curved faintly upward.

Birger cleared his throat. Loudly. It startled Oliver, but, when he looked, he found the advisor smiling at both of them. “Shall we go up, then?”

~*~

By the time they reached Erik’s private study, Oliver was shaking, faintly, and wishing he’d choked down the rest of lunch. Or maybe been big enough to admit that another day in bed wouldn’t have been such a bad idea. He clenched his hands into fists to keep them from shaking visibly as he followed Erik inside a room that was familiar only thanks to spying through the crack in the door. It was larger than he’d originally thought, based on that one stolen glimpse: there was a reading nook in the bow window beyond the fireplace, a cozy spot with a huge chair heaped with furs, a book open on the footstool. It was a room that saw a lot of use, obviously: from the cup on the mantel, to the paperwork scattered across the desk, to the abandoned cloaks and gloves that littered tabletops amid stoppered flasks and bottles.

Erik waved to the two chairs situated across from the desk, and Oliver gratefully slumped down into one before his legs gave out. Birger had noticed, his frown one of concern as he studied Oliver.

Oliver said, “I’m fine.”

A cup appeared in front of his face, Erik’s rings flashing in the sunlight. “This’ll help,” he said, and, as Oliver took it with thanks, he realized that, though he hadn’t said anything, Erik had noticed his shaking.

He sipped the wine and watched Erik move around to sit behind the desk, hie gaze lifting in a quick, unmistakable check of Oliver’s wellness. Oliver hated the idea of appearing weak in anyone’s eyes, but, strangely, this – Erik’s outward concern – didn’t feel like that sort of appraisal. Didn’t feel like he’d been measured and found lacking. All too vividly, he recalled the press of Erik’s thumbs against his wrists, when he’d held onto him and assured him that he had no reason to be ashamed or embarrassed.

His face heated, and he sipped at his wine.

Erik cleared a space at the center of his desk, and then unrolled a map gone yellow and soft-edged with age. He pinned it down silver candlesticks, and a small, silver statue of an Aeretollean warrior king with mail, and blade, and braids. The map was of northern Aquitainia.

The duchy of Drakewell, bountiful jewel of the kingdom, sat snug between Inglewood, to the west, and Nede, to the east. The northern border was crowned by the Whispering Hills, and, beyond, the jagged peaks of the Black Mountains, named for the black shale that crumbled away in your hands and under boots and had sent many a careless climber tumbling to his death.

Erik picked up a letter opener that looked more like a knife – probably the Aeretollean king didn’t own letter openers, and this was actually a knife – and tapped the point against the dot that represented the capital city: Aquitaine. “We received word two months ago that the Sels had put up a blockade around the capital.” He lifted his gaze to Oliver, verifying.

A strange way to start marriage negotiations, but Oliver nodded and sat forward to gesture to the map. “They anchored warships here, and here,” he said, pointing. Aquitaine sat at the end of a small jut of land that curved like a half-moon, providing a natural, wide harbor that could be blocked off with booms in the event of a siege.

It had also proved devastatingly vulnerable to an enemy blockade.

“There was a stroke of luck – a storm blew up, and smashed the Sel ships to bits, but, you know how deep their fleet is.”

“Hm.”

“There are Sel encampments here, and here, up and down the coast. Even here, out of the Crownlands and into Inglewood, but Drakewell was still free of them, when Tessa and I left.”

“Where are Drakewell’s troops?” Erik asked.

“They were at the front when the stalemate was called. Whether or not they’ve returned…”

“Doubtful,” Birger said, leaning in so that all three of them were bent over the map. “You don’t send troops back to their home fires when the enemy is camped on your doorstep.”

“Everyone knows Drakewell is the most resource-heavy duchy in Aquitainia,” Erik said, pressing his finger to it. “If the Sels are trying to establish a permanent base here in the east, then there’s slim chance they won’t at some point raid Drakewell.”

“Or be given tacit permission by the king to partake of it,” Birger added, grimly.

“So you can see why we’re here,” Oliver said.

Erik arched a single brow, his tone dry – his gaze bright with amusement, though. “Thought you’d come and fetch the Great Northern Phalanx to solve your troubles, did you?”

“My aunt’s idea, I assure you,” Oliver retorted, just as dry.

A smile threatened, and how had Erik’s face ever looked carved from stone when it was so mobile and expressive?

Birger cleared his throat, and Oliver did not jump as if burned. He took another swallow of wine and said, “Nede still stands untouched; we used their harbor to sail up the east coast to get here. But Lord Robert is in agreement with my aunt – and with me. If Aquitainian forces can’t expel the Sel army, and right now they can’t, then I think there’s a very good chance Aquitainia will fall to them. If they manage to take the capital, if the Crownlands fall to them…”

“Seles annexes the continent,” Erik finished, nodding. “Which would make them our neighbors to the south.”

“I’m not trying to make this your problem,” Oliver said, letting a bit of ceremony drop. The fatigue hit him all over again, honesty helped along by the wine. “But I don’t think Aquitainia can win this war. Not alone. It was a risk coming here, and asking for this alliance, but it was our best chance.”

Erik nodded. Then reached for a stack of unsealed letters at the edge of the table, the wax seals broken-open, each of a different color. “In the past week, I’ve had no less than seven offers from Aquitainian lords, all of them looking to trade a daughter for an army.”

“Oh.” The breath left his lungs in a rush. Oliver hadn’t even stopped to consider that – that they might have competition in this area. Katherine must have known, though. She’d all but pushed them out the door.

“Lucky for you,” Erik continued, setting the letters aside. “You arrived first. Now.” He reached for another sheaf of parchment. “Birger, do we have last year’s trade reports?”

~*~

Oliver wasn’t aware of drifting off to sleep, but found himself waking, some indeterminable time later. He had slumped down in his chair, and his neck was stiff, but the hand that had held the wine cup was empty, now. The fire popped and crackled; voices spoke in low, murmured tones.

Eyelids heavy and reluctant, Oliver let the sounds wash over him.

Birger’s voice: “Shall I rouse the lad and take him along with me?”

Erik: “No. I’ll send him to bed in a bit. Let him sleep if he needs it.”

A pause. A sigh. Birger said, “Ah, lad.”

“Birger–”

“I want – we all want you to find a bit of happiness.”

“Trust me: I’m in no danger of that.”

A huff of quiet laughter. “You’ve always been a terrible liar. But you can’t lie to me.”

“Hm.”

“If the approval of an old man matters–”

“Always.”

“–I like him. I have to say ‘be careful,’ because that’s my job.”

“Yes, yes.”

“Though you’re so buttoned up, I don’t suppose my caution is necessary.”

“Hey.”

A chair creaked, and Birger’s knees popped as he stood. His voice was full of fond warmth. “I mean it, though. The being happy part.”

“Duly noted.”

“And” – Birger’s tone turned sly – “if it’s reciprocation you’re worried about…I’d say you’re safe on that front.”

“Goodnight, Birger.”

The advisor chuckled, and ambled out, boot soles scuffing softly over the stones. The door shut. A log shifted on the fire with the quiet shush of falling ash.

Oliver was fully-awake, now, but kept his eyes shut, and his breathing slow and even. He didn’t want to give himself away, for Erik to know that he’d overhead – even if his heart thumped hard in his chest.

For a while, all was silent save the quietly crackling fire.

Then came the shift and rustle of clothes, the creak of a chair. For such a large man, Erik moved near-silently. Oliver didn’t realize he stood above him until he heard the quiet rush of a slow exhale. Unsteady, hitched. And then Oliver felt a touch against the top of his head: large fingers raking carefully through his curls.

Oliver’s mother had done the same thing when he was small. He held distant memories of having his curls petted, of her voice, warm with loving, calling him “my bright copper boy.” It had been soothing, then, and it was now – no one else had done this to him in the time since her death. No one until this beautiful warrior king.

Oliver was both electrified, and left with a lump in his throat at the same time. He failed to suppress a shiver. The gig was up, then, on feigning sleep. But he let his lashes lift slowly, in hopes he could play it off as if the touch had awakened him, and not the overheard conversation.

He expected Erik to withdraw. Instead, he stilled a moment, but then resumed, stroking along Oliver’s scalp again. His gaze, when Oliver dared to meet it, was heart-meltingly gentle.

Oliver didn’t take a breath for what felt like a minute. In this stolen slice of time, in the warm study, Erik backlit by warm firelight, his touch light and reverent through his hair, Oliver couldn’t lie to himself about the meaning of that look. It had been turned on him so rarely in his life…

No, never. He’d been looked at with fleeting lust, or dark want, furtive curiosity. He’d been looked at with fondness and love by his cousins, with regret by his uncle, and contempt from his father. His aunt looked at him like she understood his competence; it was an amenable and productive relationship, if not warm. But not since his mother had anyone looked on him with this quiet awe. Like he was precious, and special, and something to admire. A look that spoke of the potential for something so much realer and more devastating than simple, physical desire.

It was something that had the potential to break him, in every way possible.

He drew in an unsteady breath, finally. “How long have I been asleep?” Why are you doing this? I can’t defend against this.

A small, private sort of smile touched Erik’s mouth. “Only an hour or so. To be fair, talk of grain prices usually threatens to put me to sleep.”

It was a smile that Oliver couldn’t return, as another shiver chased through him. His throat had grown tight, and it was hard to swallow – harder still to push himself upright, so that Erik’s hand froze, and retreated.

No, wait, I don’t want to push you away. But he bit his lip, and didn’t say it, because it was better if he halted that moment in its tracks – it was downright necessary.

“Sorry,” he rubbed the grit from his eyes. “I’m still, er, not back to being myself, apparently.”

Erik’s arch glance said, We all already knew that. He retreated behind the desk. “More wine?”

“No, I should” – he gestured toward the door. “Get some sleep, probably. We can pick back up tomorrow?” He nodded at the table, and its spread of paperwork.

Erik inclined his head. “Of course.”

Oliver stood, gripping the chair arms until the last minute as dizziness made itself known. Erik made an abortive little motion, like he’d thought to lean over the desk and steady him. He subsided.

This…was the awkward part. This was the unspoken moment bristling with potential; Erik hadn’t drawn down a polite mask yet, and Oliver knew, he knew, that if he were to lean forward, and put his hands on the desk, and press forward into Erik’s personal space in invitation, he would get kissed to within an inch of his life. He envisioned all the ways it might unfold from there, from being dragged across the desk, to being thrown down on the fur rug before the fireplace. Thought of Olaf passing him that bottle of oil, and of Birger saying happiness. His breath caught again, because this could happen. It could be something real and not just a fever dream or a late-night fantasy.

But what then?

Oliver turned his face away, but not before he saw Erik begin to frown. “Until tomorrow, then.”

“Yes. Sleep well.”

He called himself a dozen kinds of fool all the way back to his chamber.