Perhaps his eyes had only been playing tricks before.
“Does it do anything?”
“Does it need to?” Oliver’s voice was softer, and less prickly than it had been all day, and Erik found that encouraging. He relinquished the sapphire when Oliver’s fingers ghost over his own; whether it served a purpose or not, it was Oliver’s, to do with what he would. “I think it was helping hold Alfie and Valgrind in that cave. Somehow.”
He lifted the sapphire high, so the light glanced off it with a bright wink, and then tucked it back into his tunic pocket.His voice falsely cheerful, he added, “I don’t understand how, obviously. I’m an infant when it comes to magic after all.”
Erik sighed, and squeezed him tight, not surprised that Oliver remained stiff within his arms. “I was afraid you heard that. Askr is a fool.”
“He’s one of your most loyal lords.”
“That doesn’t mean he isn’t a fool.”
“I’ll be sure to tell him you said that.”
“Please do. What will he do about it? I’m his king.”
Oliver snorted, and the rigid line of his back finally softened a fraction. “How tyrannical of you.”
“You like me tyrannical,” Erik said, and pressed a smiling kiss to the side of his throat, where he smelled of dust and tasted of clean, dried sweat.
Oliver reached to wind a thick lock of Erik’s hair in his fist and tugged lightly. “You know me too well.”
He’d thought so. For a time. But lately…
As though realizing what he’d said, Oliver went still, and then released his hair. When he shifted forward, Erik let his arms drop, and let Oliver step away from him.
The air that slipped between them was cool after the warmth of Oliver’s body—too cool for comfort. The day’s travel, its effects suppressed in the way that Erik had always suppressed hunger, thirst, and exhaustion, slammed into him with sudden force, and he stepped to the side and dropped down into a waiting camp chair.
When his head listed to the side, he let it; propped his temple on his knuckles and watched, tired and helpless, as Oliver began to slowly pace the width of the rug, fiddling with the ring that Erik had given him.
“I don’t blame Askr,” he said. “Nor any of them. I’m still new to this, and there are elements of it I can’t hope to explain to anyone who hasn’t experienced it firsthand.” He gave a one-shouldered shrug mirrored by the humorless lift of half his mouth. “Most days I’m not sure I believe myself.”
“Ibelieve you.”
“You’re biased.”
Erik felt a fast, but quickly-killed flare of temper. No one had ever questioned him as much as Oliver; it was his right as a consort… but this wasn’t questioning. Not really. “If you’ll remember,” he said, levering fondness into his tone, “Iwas the one who toldyouof the existence of drakes.”
Oliver kept pacing, but shot him a sideways glance, loaded with sass.
Erik sat back in his chair, relieved at the sight. “I was raised in the North, darling. I don’t doubt magic, nor do the others.”
Oliver’s lips pressed together, a wry, flat pretend smile. “So it’s me they doubt.”
“Ollie—”
He lifted a hand in a bid for silence, and turned to walk the length of the rug once more. “No, no. They’re right to.”
“What?”
Oliver stopped, and turned to face him, hands clasped together. His expression did something tense and unfamiliar that Erik didn’t like at all.
His pulse kicked up a step, and Erik repeated, “What?”
Oliver’s look of indecipherable concentration intensified. “They’re right to doubt me. Probably they shouldn’t listen to me at all. And neither should you.”
It was, without question, the strangest thing Oliver had ever said to him. It wasalarming. Erik’s heart slammed inside his chest.
