“The one and only.”
Amelia sat up, and clutched at the side of the cot when the tent tilted around her. “Oh. Bollocks.”
Leda sat on the end of the cot, dressed for the day in a brown riding habit trimmed in gold satin, hair neatly braided back from her face and jewels all in place. Amelia wasn’t sure how she managed to keep from looking as bedraggled and dusty as the rest of their party, and was half-convinced it was some undiscovered form of magic.
Amelia blinked her vision clearer, hand pressed to her rolling stomach, and saw that the tent walls around them glowed with early yellow light. She’d overslept.
“What time is it?” she asked, hauling herself back onto the cot before she was ready. She wobbled, and almost fell in her dizziness, but managed to get upright and keep from retching.
“Just past eight. Breakfast has been had and the fires doused. The men were growing worried when we didn’t see you, so I came to check that you’re well. It would appear that you are not.”
“No, no, I’m fine.” Amelia swallowed, and nearly gagged. “I’m tired, is all.”
“You screamed when I tried to wake you, and almost smashed me in the nose.”
Amelia winced. “Sorry.”
Leda studied her with familiar shrewdness. “It must have been a terrifying nightmare you were having.” Her tone suggested she suspected something more complicated than that.
“Yes. It was.”
Leda studied her a long moment, brows lifted, then stood and crossed to the sideboard. With her back to Amelia, she reached for a cup and a bottle. “That’s to be expected, given what we face.”
Amelia closed her eyes and massaged at the headache burning between her brows. She felt a presence there, like when her brother would hold his finger close at the bridge of her nose, not touching but almost, just to make her go cross-eyed. An ugly tingling feeling.
“Here,” Leda said, and she opened her eyes to find a cup of dark wine held before her.
“I need my wits about me,” Amelia protested.
“One cup won’t leave you staggering, and you can’t very well lead anyone anywhere if you’re swaying like a storm-tossed ship. Drink. It’ll settle your nerves.”
“Very well. Thank you.” When Amelia reached to take the cup, she saw a scabbed-over wound on her palm, and her heart leaped. The emperor hadn’t merely drawn her blood in the astral plane. He’d affected her physical body as well.
She tipped back the cup and drained it in a series of long swallows.
“You might have sipped it,” Leda said with a laugh as she dropped into a folding chair.
“I don’t have time for that.” Amelia attempted to stand, and was steadier, but not steady enough. She subsided back to the cot. “Can I tell you something and have you not repeat it to anyone?”
“Of course.” Leda’s gaze sparked with interest, and with mischief. “Does this something involve a certain Northern prince?”
“No.”
“That’s a shame.”
“I met the emperor of Seles.”
“You didwhat?”
“I didn’t do iton purpose. I’ve told you how I can convene with my sister and cousin while I’m sleeping?”
“Yes. Though it beggars the imagination.” Leda smoothed her skirt, patted at her hair, and composed herself after a momentary goggle.
“I was with Oliver in the Between. That’s the place where…” She moved along when Leda waved for her to skip the magical details. “And he confessed to me that he’d been meeting with the emperor there.”
“Holy Gods.”
“It began with the emperor drawinghim. Romanus Tyrsbane found him, and put him in some sort of magical mental construct of the Aquitaine palace solarium, and offered to teach him more about magic.”
