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There had been a few days on the trip back from the festival, separated with Oliver approaching the palace on dragon-back and Erik following along behind, when Oliver had known the terror of wondering if he’d ever get the chance to kiss him again. He was determined not to waste any opportunity to kiss him going forward. He wound Erik’s long braids around his hands and parted his lips in instant, melting invitation, gratified by the hot flicker of Erik’s tongue between his teeth, the scrape of his short beard against his chin.
Erik gripped his waist, just shy of too hard, fingertips digging into flesh through layers of linens and velvet, and he tugged Oliver’s bottom lip between his teeth, a languorous scrape that spoke of those teeth in other places, leaving flower marks on delicate skin that Oliver would admire in the mirror later.
Oliver released his hair in favor of hooking an arm around his neck, confident in Erik’s ability to hold all his weight. Maybe his hands would slide lower, would grip his thighs and hoist him up; Oliver could already feel the phantom scrape of the stone wall at his back in anticipation.
But all too soon, Erik pulled back, albeit slightly out of breath. He rested their foreheads together, and sighed a warm, wine-scented breath against Oliver’s lips. “They’re waiting.”
“Isn’t someone always?” Oliver traced a regretful hand down his chest, hooked his fingers into Erik’s intricately tooled belt.
“Aye. Go any lower, and they’ll have to wait some more.” He sounded nearly hopeful, but Oliver knew, even if he managed to lure him down the corridor and into a private dark corner, Erik would regret having shirked his duties.
He sighed. Stepped back. “Very well. Lead the way, Your Majesty.”
Erik smirked, and tweaked his nose between two knuckles for his cheekiness – “Hey, now.” – and ushered Oliver to proceed him into the study.
“A king and a gentleman,” Oliver mused, and earned a light smack on the ass just before he opened the door.
The moment this meeting was done, he was dragging Erik down to their makeshift pallet of furs and pillows.
Oliver’s good mood lasted until he crossed the threshold and walked into a wall of tension.
With Erik and Oliver using the study as a temporary bedchamber while the royal apartments were repaired, the large room had been made smaller thanks to some rearranging. Their trunks, personal things, and pallet bed had been positioned in front of the hearth, for warm sleeping, and the desk, sideboard, chairs and maps had all shifted closer to the window, the area lit by two dozen tapers in various sticks and candelabrum, the flames carving eerie hollows in faces usually more cheerful than this.
Bjorn had taken the largest chair, as was his due, and Oliver thought the tension in his bare, folded arms wasn’t simply a trick of the light. The groove between his brows was definitely true, and not something one expected to find on the face of a man newly united with his longtime love.
Rune, always the first to interject, innocently uncaring of propriety and sure of his welcome and acceptance, sat on a low wood bench along the wall, one boot braced on the edge of the seat, worrying a jagged thumbnail with his teeth. His hair was neatly braided, beads and gems catching the firelight in fast glimmers: Tessa’s handiwork.
Birger behaved the most normally of them all, seated at his usual place beside Erik’s desk, small, half-moon spectacles already perched on his nose as he read a scrap of parchment held close to a candle flame.
“Ah, there he is,” he said, glancing up to see them, offering Oliver a quick smile. “We can begin.”
It still staggered Oliver that this group of men, relatives, friends, most trusted confidantes who’d earned their places at the king’s side ten times over, had not only allowed him into their circle, but sought his opinions on all manner of kingdom business. “Revna’s not coming?”
“She’s neck-deep in wedding planning,” Bjorn said, then shuddered. “I’d rather dig a latrine, myself.”
Rune snorted.
“Where’s–” Oliver started, and then spotted Leif.
He sat perched on the window ledge, one leg braced across it and the other dangling off the side, aligned almost perfectly with a wedge of shadow so that he was merely an outline, save his eyes, which glowed an unnatural blue in the dimness. He had his back to a wall, Oliver realized – or, a window, but it was a similar thing, he guessed. It put him outside the circle of discussion, and behind Erik, peering over his shoulder. It was the place, Oliver thought, that any clansman of the Waste would have chosen, rather than sit civilized and comfortable in a carved chair.
Erik’s step faltered for one heartbeat – thoughts likely running along the same lines as Oliver’s, with more internal anguish – and then he rounded the desk and took his usual, ornate chair at the center of their group.
Oliver sat down across from him, as had become custom.
“Right, then.” Birger handed the parchment he’d been reading to Erik, who had to adjust it a bit before he found a comfortable reading distance. Oliver bit his lip to keep from smiling at the idea of Erik with spectacles of his own. “That scribe you sent along with Oddmarr has proved valuable. This arrived only an hour ago by falcon.”
Bjorn chuckled. “Poor lad’s probably shitting himself around that lot.”
“Hm, better them than the Jotunns,” Birger said. “‘No’ isn’t really a part of their vocabulary.”
“He says,” Erik said, sternly, “that they’ve reached the Jagged Coast and found a land bridge there.”
“A what?” Rune asked, curious.
“A what?” For his part, Oliver couldn’t believe it.
The Jagged Coast was what the Northerners called their side of the Narrow Strait, and the Southerners called it the Merchant’s Widowmaker. The Northern and Southern kingdoms were separated by a winding ribbon of water known by different names at different points. At its western mouth, between the Crownlands and Radial, the wide, deep waters of the King’s Strait welcomed merchants and travelers to ports on either side, and a gentle trip farther downstream. At its easternmost termination, amid the ice floes and marshes, it was the Blue Strait, where Southern merchants traveling up Aquitainia’s eastern coast accessed the Blue Harbor, and traded with the kingdom of Aeretoll.
