Heart of Winter by Lauren Gilley
8
If not for last night’s eavesdropping, Oliver would have been even more worried by what he’d just glimpsed. He liked to think that he could read his cousin fairly well, and despite King Erik’s assertion that she could have Leif for husband, Tessa’s attention most definitely kept straying toward Rune. The cold could be blamed for the pink in her cheeks, and the rapture in her gaze – but Oliver was well aware that people got a certain look about them when they spotted someone who stirred the fire inside them.
He couldn’t say that he blamed her. Rune was pretty in a masculine way; he was effervescent and eager and all the things young maidens might find attractive. In a few years, once he’d matured, he would be a sight to behold.
Now, though, he didn’t have any of his uncle’s…
“Look,” Tessa said, sitting up straighter, “the king.”
Oliver chose to label the sensation that ripped through him and left him jerking upright as fear, though he knew that wasn’t right at all. His palms tingled and prickled, and he shoved his hands into his armpits and schooled his features with the force of long habit. It was a shame no one ever invited him to play cards, because he was an excellent bluffer.
Flanked by two mail-clad, helmeted king’s guards, Erik stood with arms folded, weight shifted negligently to one foot, gaze trained on his sparring nephews. He wore crimson today, a richly embroidered tunic cinched around his trim waist with a wide, jewel-studded belt, over dark leggings, and his heavy, fur-topped boots. A knee-length leather coat swirled around his calves, along with the dark cloak whose fur padded out his shoulders.
His face Oliver looked at last, the clean, harsh set of jaw, and brows, the proud nose, the eyes clear and cold as the frozen landscape around them. The wind caught at his hair, set strands waving across his face, and he tossed it back with a quick, mindless flick of his head.
And then his gaze shifted and met Oliver’s.
That sensation rippled again – flashed, a bolt of heated, fractious, unwanted thoughts and emotions that speared right through him, and left him fighting to keep his expression neutral.
It was over in a moment, Erik looking back toward his nephews. “Rune,” he called, “shore up your grip.”
Tessa made a small, amused sound beside him.
“What was that?”
“Sorry, I had a tickle in my throat,” she said, sweetly, and a glance proved she had fingertips pressed to her neck, expression one of gentle concern.
Oliver snorted.
When he looked back toward the action, Erik was shrugging off his cloak, handing it to one of his guards, and taking Rune’s sword for himself. “Now, watch,” he told his nephew, as he circled Leif, twirling the sword, shifting it effortlessly from hand to hand as he warmed up. He didn’t merely walk, but stalked. Leif looked ready, but no longer so confident. “It’s good to be eager,” Erik continued, “but you move too much. You give yourself away.” He settled into a ready stance, utterly still, not so much as a tremor in the sword. “You make it too easy for your opponent to–”
He cut off mid-sentence, and struck.
Leif got his sword up in time, and the blades struck with a sound like the harsh crack of a bell in winter. Leif and Rune had crashed together much the same way, and Rune had pushed back when Leif sought to press his strength advantage.
Undoubtedly, Erik was the stronger party, here, but he pulled back, rather than press. Leif pursued, and then it was a flurry of strikes and parries, steel chiming and scraping.
Oliver had always enjoyed watching this sort of thing; it had become a sort of game for him, predicting who would come out victorious. He liked to study technique, footwork, compare approaches and tactics. He always knew who was about to cheat, and who would eventually outmuscle the other party. He’d known, for example, that Rune couldn’t last against his brother, and had been keeping up a running checklist of all the ways the brothers differed, and approached the craft of swordsmanship the same way. They’d been trained by the same hands, held the same heroes on pedestals, but each brought their own particular strengths to bear.
He was ashamed to admit that he wasn’t watching for footwork and gauging striking distances now. His gaze kept catching on the flare of Erik’s coat when he spun; the visible play of tendons and muscles in his wrists when he brought the sword down; the way his breath steamed white through parted lips, and the way he almost looked like he smiled a time or two, a quick curl at the corner of his mouth. His movements were a blend of Leif’s and Rune’s, part dancer, part deadly bludgeoner, honed, perfected, polished by years of training, and hard, bloody battle experience.
Even alone with his nephew, only playing with a blunted practice sword, he was a sight to behold.
He was, in a word: magnificent.
Wild, Birger had called him before. But less happy. Oliver could almost see him, then; could almost overlay the stern, joyless, burdened king that he’d met with the flashfire, angry spark of a young man good at killing, and better at driving half the kingdom mad.
Leif’s sword went flying, and he let out a dismayed cry, right before the tip of his uncle’s sword came to rest at his throat.
“And you’re dead,” Erik said, matter-of-factly.
Leif grimaced, panting to catch his breath.
Rune laughed over his brother’s defeat.
Erik held a smug smirk for a long moment, and then he blinked, and stepped back, his sword falling. Oliver didn’t think anyone else noticed that, for a moment, the king’s face was stamped with horror, his gaze faraway. Erik stood a moment, sword tip resting in the snow, strong chest heaving as he fought for breath, all the color of exertion bleeding out of his cheeks.
Then the king turned, and caught sight of Oliver, and Oliver saw the wall come up; saw the awful, iron mask of indifference cover Erik’s features, until he was back to stern and scowling, and Oliver thought that moment of memory and loss had only been his imagination.
Tessa started clapping, gloved palms coming together delicately. “That was wonderful!”
Rune was still laughing.
Leif looked shame-faced.
Erik inclined his head and said, “Don’t judge my nephew too harshly, my lady. He would have bested anyone else.”
“I thought he was splendid,” Tessa said, and one corner of Leif’s mouth hitched upward in a softer version of his uncle’s quick smile.
“And what of you, Mr. Meacham?” Erik asked, and it took every ounce of self-control Oliver possessed not to startle.
He lifted his brows as mildly as he could. “Beg pardon?”
With an easy flick, Erik tossed the sword, gripped it by its dulled blade, and offered the pommel to Oliver. He was smirking now, subtly, blue eyes bright. “Let’s see what you can do.”
Oliver could only stare at him a long moment, until that infuriating smirk deepened. “No,” he finally said. “No, that’s – thank you, but I can’t do anything, really. It wouldn’t be much fun to watch.”
The sword thrust in closer. “I insist.”
Oliver scolded himself for all such unhelpful thoughts as magnificent. For not denying Tessa’s claim that there was kindness to be found here.
He hated this man. And his smirk, and his blue eyes, and the sweat at his temples, and his windblown hair, and the way his tunic clung to his chest.
He almost refused. But he could hear Leif and Rune murmuring to one another, and the guards were watching, and a clear challenge shone in Erik’s eyes. This was a man who wouldn’t be satisfied until he’d humiliated him. Until he’d proved his worthlessness in front of witnesses.
Perhaps hate wasn’t a strong enough word.
Stomach churning with nerves and fury, Oliver reached up and gripped the sword, gratified by the quick flicker of surprise on Erik’s face.
Then the king turned away and went to retrieve another sword from the rack.
“Ollie,” Tessa whispered. “You don’t have to.”
“Oh, yes I do. He’s seen to that.” He stood, and took a few deep breaths. Shook out his hands and arms.
“Cloak,” Tessa said behind him.
“Right.” He unpinned it, and she stepped up to pull it off his shoulders. When he glanced back to throw her a grateful look, she offered an encouraging smile. It didn’t serve its purpose, but it was nice to think that one of his last sights would be of his cousin’s sweet gesture.
Without his cloak, the cold pricked right through the light, Drakewell wool of his clothes, chilling him immediately. His toes were already numb from sitting out here in his thin, kidskin boots, and his first steps across the yard were clumsy and unsure, pain spiking through the soles of his feet.
He didn’t bother to stretch. What was the use?
When he’d found a spot in the trampled snow that seemed as good as any, braced his feet, gripped his sword with both shaking, clammy hands, and lifted his head, he found Erik poised and ready across from him, his face a blank wall, save his eyes, which glittered. A quick glance revealed – to his surprise – that Leif and Rune stood shoulder-to-shoulder, and they didn’t look eager for the spectacle to come, but, rather, concerned, brows knitted together so their family resemblance was more pronounced.
Huh, Oliver thought, that’s interesting.
And then a flash of movement snared his attention and he lifted his sword and focused on staying alive.
The first impact hurt. The impact juddered up the blade, into his hands, his wrists, his arms, his shoulders. Oliver felt it in his chest, a resonance that echoed the clang of steel, and he couldn’t stop the gasp that burst up out of his throat. Immediately his hands and arms were all pins and needles from the shock, but Erik was already swinging the next blow.
Clang.
Clang.
Shlick. His numb fingers closed on empty air, and the sword went spinning off to land soundlessly in the snow.
Erik stepped back, and lowered his own weapon. “Go pick it up.”
“Uncle,” Leif said.
Erik tipped his head toward the lost sword in silent command.
Teeth gritted, body vibrating from the exchange of blows, Oliver went to fetch the sword. When he returned to his place, it began again.
And again, his sword went flying.
Chin tucked, glowering at Oliver through dark lashes, Erik said, “Pick it up.”
The thought of that, of doing it again, and again, and again, until he had frostbite, and a chill, and hurt all over, and had been made an utter laughingstock left Oliver’s eyes stinging. His father’s voice filled his mind: “Pick it up! You useless worm! Pick it up!”
He didn’t go retrieve the sword. He put his hands on his hips, sucked in a breath of cold air that burned his lungs, and said, “You’re a bully.”
Silence reigned for the span of a few heartbeats, throbbing hard in Oliver’s ears. He heard the distant sounds of habitation at the palace behind them; heard the cackle of ravens flying overhead.
Erik said, “What?” in a very flat voice.
Passive-aggressive Amelia had called him once, grinning. When you finally blow, you blow hard.
He took a step closer to the king. “You, your majesty, are a bully. I told you I was no good with a sword, but you handed me one anyway. You are ordering me to fight you. Does it give you pleasure to pick on people smaller than you? Weaker than you? Do you enjoy the thought of making a fool of me in front of others? When will you be satisfied, hm? When you’ve got me flat on my back and begging you?”
“Gods,” Rune breathed. “Uncle’s going to kill him.”
“Ollie,” Tessa hissed.
He ignored her – ignored everyone save Erik, who he matched glare-for-glare. He didn’t care if his own scowl was a pitiful, too-pretty thing; knew he must look ridiculous with his windblown curls, and his red nose, and his tear-bright eyes, in his stupid Southern wools in pale blues and greens and creams. He bared his teeth in a sad attempt at a snarl and said, “I expected better of you, King Erik. What sort of warrior attacks the defenseless?”
“Going to kill him,” Leif said.
At another time, Erik’s expression would have been remarkable. It flickered between flashes of some intense, nameless emotion that pressed grooves between his brows and brightened his eyes, and then he’d go utterly blank and slack, like a carved bit of statuary.
He said nothing, though. Not a word. Held his body eerily still; if not for the occasional glimpse of life in his gaze, and the visible throb of the pulse in his strong throat, Oliver might have thought he’d been turned to stone.
When no answer came, Oliver held out a hand. “Come on, Tessa, and let’s see what’s for lunch.”
After a moment, her hand landed in his, and he closed his own around it, too tight – but she squeezed back. And he managed to walk them away, back toward the palace, without having to crouch down and put his head between his knees.