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“You look tired,” Oliver observed, when he materialized in the Immortal Emperor Unchallenged ’s solarium. It wasn’t truly the emperor’s. It had looked familiar upon his first visit, and in the intervening visits since, Oliver had finally placed why: he’d seen it in a book before. An illuminated compendium on the architecture of the Crownlands. The emperor was in the palace at Aquitainia. In the king’s solarium, no doubt drinking his wine as well, a glass of which he held now, delicately, between the fingertips of both hands where he sat by the fire, head bowed, hair mussed along the crown of his head as though he’d been raking his hands through it.
He lifted his head as Oliver approached, and his fatigue became even more apparent. He was already so pale that he couldn’t get sallow, but his eyes were pouchy, and his face drawn, the lines around his mouth deeper than normal; his expression stormy and troubled and withdrawn.
Oliver poured himself a glass of wine from the usual, small round table and took the chair opposite. He crossed his legs, and leaned an elbow on the arm of the chair, and put on an expectant, though carefully concerned expression.
When Romanus spoke, his voice was raw-sounding, scraped and scratchy as though he’d been shouting. “I am tired.” He eased back in his chair with the faintest wince, and took a long sip of wine, voice clearer afterward. “But it’s no matter.”
“It matters to me,” Oliver said, and cocked his head just so. “Why are you tired? Are you having trouble sleeping?”
Romanus sent him a narrow look: he wasn’t fooled. “Don’t play ignorant. It’s unbecoming on you.”
Oliver smiled, subtly on the outside, but hugely on the inside, because his efforts – employing Romanus’s teachings – were paying off. He was shielding his thoughts, and Romanus could have been lying, but he – like Erik, actually – tended not to lie, blunt, and forceful, and rude, and too forward, but not slithery and dishonest. At least not in Oliver’s brief experience with him. And the sourness of his expression, as his gaze traveled all the way down to Oliver’s boots and back up again, said he was prying at his mind, but unable to penetrate.
It was dangerous, being here like this. Speaking with him.Learningfrom him. Oliver hadn’t told anyone: not Tessa, not Náli, and especially not Erik. Náli and Tessa would have lifted their brows and cautioned him. He didn’t want to think of Erik’s reaction. He said that he was practicing shifting between planes…and hewas…but that wasn’t all he practiced when he came here.
That first surreal visit, with his heart in his throat and his palms clammy on the pommel of the sword he’d clutched like a lifeline, Romanus had looked on him with mocking amusement. “If I wanted to kill you,” he’d said, the lilting accent making the words somehow more threatening, “I would have done so already.”
Stiffly, Oliver had said, “I think my caution is understandable, given the circumstances.”
“Circumstances?” Romanus had spread his hands to indicate the room around them. “I have brought you here to my most private space.”
“Yes. And we both known nothing ever happens in an emperor’smost private spaces.”
A head shake, a dismissive snort. “I’m not going to ravish you, little whore.”
Oliver had gritted his teeth, and tried not to think of anything that might stir his imagination in that direction.
Romanus had taken a last sip of wine and set his glass aside; laced his fingers and flexed his hands, so his knuckles cracked loudly. “Your mind is as open as an unrolled parchment. Come. You must learn.”
The lessons had proved both easier, but far more complex than his sword training. He didn’t have to cross blades with anyone, side-stepping, and blocking, and parrying, lungs burning from the cold air as he fought to keep from tripping over his own feet. But the mind was a much more delicate instrument than the body, and he couldn’t simply hack at his problem, here.
“Everything you require is already inside you,” Romanus had said. “You must learn to tease out the threads and use them separately at will – and then use them together.”
“Juggling while riding a horse, essentially.”
Romanus’s brows had quirked, the faintest hint of a smile touching his lips, but he’d tipped his head in concession. “Essentially.”
Between the second and third visit, Oliver had stopped bringing a sword along.
This particular trip, his body was currently atop Percy, flying above the Phalanx as it marched south, Tessa and Náli flying alongside him. Tessa had swooped in close on Alfie minutes ago, face flushed, eyes brimming with worry as she explained that Amelia had called her and Náli from the Between, wanting advice: Leif and the wolves had joined them last night, and today, on the road, they’d been attacked. Some sort of rift in the air that expelled Sel enemies.
Oliver had sought Romanus, and found him like this: head dragging on his neck, hands lax, eyes bleary.
Oliver sipped his wine, and tested the strength of his own shield. Drawing it up had become nearly comfortable, now. The first few times, he’d erected it stone by stone, the strain of setting it in place leaving him drained and breathless. Now he could throw it up all as a piece: not a stone wall, but a shield, hammered steel, with a hand at the back, so it could be wielded quickly and efficiently, as a soldier would in the field. He knew that Romanus could have pierced it, if he’d battered at it hard enough. But there was no pressure against it today, not even when he entertained the thought of taking advantage of the emperor’s weakness. He imagined surging to his feet, bridging the gap between them, and sticking a knife in the man’s white throat.
Romanus didn’t react.
Oliver said, “You did it yourself, then. The gateway. That’s why you’re so knackered.”
Romanus had his head cocked toward the fire, but his eyes slid over, and touched him briefly, the sort of penetrating look that left Oliver suppressing a shiver. It was the sort of look that he could have compared to one of Erik’s – and thereweresimilarities – but that would have been a mistake. This man’s thoughts did not begin to run along the same track as Erik’s. The moment he allowed himself to think that would be the moment he blundered his way into a trap.
Isn’t this already a trap?a voice of reason asked in the back of his mind. Quickly shoved aside.
“The Sels are famed for their shamans,” Oliver said. “I’ve seen the sketches in books. My nephew’s a bloodywolfthanks to their handiwork. Why do such a thing yourself?”
Romanus’s gaze slid back to the fire. A log popped, and shifted, showering sparks, and Oliver thought he didn’t mean to answer. Finally, however, he said, “You do not understand magic. Not truly.”
Oliver shifted forward in his chair. “Well, I still have a lot to learn, but I’m getting a late start on it, after all.”
