Wordlessly, Oliver turned Percy back the way they’d come, and trusted the others to follow, which they did.
Percy’s vibrations through the bond were an inquiry, a demanding ruffling at the back of Oliver’s mind, that he pushed down with pat platitudes.Are you well? Yes, I’m fine. Clever though he was, Oliver wasn’t sure how to present the idea of subterfuge for the sake of reconnaissance to a dragon.
When they caught back up with the Phalanx, the tidy, marching lines had pooled together into one mass, busy as ants when viewed from the sky. They were making camp.
Oliver landed Percy well away from the action, unsaddled him, and told him to go off and hunt for dinner; there were deer aplenty in this region. Percy agreed with a toss of his head, but waited for his mate and son to venture off once more.
“Wait and we’ll walk back with you,” Tessa urged, when he gathered up his saddle, and harness, and bridle, and started toward camp.
Oliver pretended not to hear her.
Náli, of course, said nothing.
Erik’s campaign tent was always the first erected each night, and Oliver found it easily: the high tent poles tipped with banners, the rippling sigils of stag and wolf.
Two guards stood beside the main flaps, which were tied back with strips of leather. Oliver nodded in response to their murmured “Your Lordship” greetings, and went around to the rear flap, also guarded, where he was also greeted. The tack weighed heavy on him by this point, so he grunted a hello, ducked inside, and quickly shed his equipment on a scrap of rug beside the sleeping pallet. Then he began the tedious process of doffing his helmet and armor. The chime of buckles was once a sound that had sent a hot thrill up his spine, because it hadn’t been a sound he associated with himself, only with the sorts of strong men he liked to bed. Now, that thrill was replaced by a slow unclenching of tensed core muscles, a flood of relief to be rid of the heavy, stiff vestments of war.
When his helm, pauldrons, breastplate, gauntlets, and grieves were all stowed in their shallow wooden chest, he straightened, and came face-to-face with his reflection in the looking glass atop the washstand.
Who is that?was the first thought that sprang to mind. He still wasn’t used to the way the North—the way Erik’s affection, and then his love, and Oliver’s new title, his claim to royalty—had altered the shape of him. His face sharper, harsher, dark across the bridge of his nose and both cheekbones from time spent outdoors. His shoulders were broader, sheathed in a tight, firm swell of new muscle that had never been there before, and his waist was narrower. He’d always been slender, but hadn’t realized, until now, that a life spent reading and attending musicales had left a gentle padding of softness around his middle. It was gone, now, as was his Southern mop of cropped curls. His hair fell past his shoulders now, still faintly curled at the ends, pulled back from his face in a series of narrow, intricate braids that ran back from his temples, the beads at the ends clinking faintly each time he shifted. Like the jangle of buckles, the sounds of the beads he wore had become a constant backdrop to his daily routines.
Amelia had long since stopped startling at the sight of him when they met in the Between, but he wondered what those who’d known him as Oliver Meacham would think of him now. His Lordship, King’s Consort.
The liar who visited with the enemy.
Disgusted, he frowned at his reflection, and bent to scrub the day’s grime from his face.
Through the canvas screen strung up to bisect the tent, he could hear the low rumble of familiar, masculine voices. He knew Erik’s, intimately and straight off. The others, he thought, belonged to Birger, Askr, and, at a guess, young Lord Sigr, aduke at fourteen, thanks to his father’s death at the battle for Aeres.
“…only a novice,” someone, Askr, he thought, was saying, as Oliver patted his face dry with a cloth. “He can’t be expected to besureof things.”
A pause.
Birger said, “You’re magical yourself, then, are you? You’re an expert? You know what the lad can and can’t sense?”
Magic.
They were talking abouthim.
Askr scoffed. “Of course not. I’m only saying—”
“Something you shouldn’t,” Erik said, a hard-edged slice of a command, like a sword strike.
But no one had ever accused Askr of brilliance. “Erik, you know I like the boy.”
“Then you’ll hold your tongue,” Birger said.
“But,” Askr continued, “he’s not been wielding his magic his whole life, like the young Corpse Lord. There’s no way to be sure that—”
“I’m sure.” Erik’s voice wascold. Oliver shuddered at sound of it.
“Erik,” Askr started.
Birger said, “That’s enough, my lord.”
Askr harrumphed, but said nothing further.
“What say you, Lord Sigr?” Birger asked.
