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“Also yes. Náli, can you please stop panicking and listen to me a moment?”
“That would be easier to do if you weren’ttaking teawith the bloody fuckingemperorof Seles!” Náli shouted.
Somewhere, the clumsy beating of dove wings echoed across the field.
Oliver said, “Wouldn’t you have done it?” When Náli opened his mouth to protest, he said, “If he hadn’t come at you with a sword, and tried to run you through – if he’d offered you knowledge instead. If he’d wanted to sit down and talk magic over a cup of wine…wouldn’t you have let him teach you as well?”
Náli’s mouth worked soundlessly a moment, then he cursed and glanced away.
“You’re not a coward,” Oliver said. “Don’t ask me to be one.”
Náli let out a shaky sigh. His expression had softened a fraction, though, when he lifted his head. “There’s bravery, and then there’s stupidity.”
“He’s not shown himself to anyone but us. He’s not explained himself. I still don’t understand what this war is about, but I have a chance to learn something of it, talking with him.”
“What it’s about? That doesn’t matter. It’s about the same thing as every other war: conquest. Taking. His personal reasons don’t matter.”
They do to me,Oliver thought, but didn’t say.He wants me for a reason, and I want to know why. He tried a different tack.
“He’s haughty. He thinks he’s so much smarter than all of us, but that’s the sort of hubris that causes slips. If I can get close to him, I can learn his weaknesses.”
Náli’s mouth tugged to the side. “You already are close to him,” he said, sadly. “But you’re not in control of anything. Not with a man like him.”
Oliver took a breath…and released it without arguing further. There was no point. They had reached an impasse, and their conversation was reigniting his headache.
He said, “Don’t tell Erik. Please.”
Disgust tweaked Náli’s fine features. “What you do or don’t tell your lover is none of my business.” He grew serious. “But I will inform my king if at any point I think his consort has been compromised by the enemy.”
“Náli.”
“That’s all I have to say to you.” Náli turned away, and vanished.
“Fuck,” Oliver said to no one, closed his eyes, and opened them to see the inside of the small, private tent that was his and Erik’s alone.
As if conjured by Oliver’s guilt, the flap lifted, and Erik ducked inside. Whatever Oliver’s face did – flared hot with guilt, eyes widening – it caused him to pause a moment, and frown.
“All right?”
Oliver nodded. “I was speaking with Amelia. Tessa, and Náli, and I all were. Her army’s marching west.”
Erik made a grim face, and stepped fully inside, letting the flap close behind him. “I feared as much.” They had a low table that was really just a plank set on two crates, where cured meat, bread, and cheese had been set out, along with a flask of wine and two cups. He made straight for the wine, filled both cups to the brim, and turned to sit cross-legged as Oliver did. It was an endearing pose for a man as physically powerful as him, and Oliver smiled as he accepted the offered cup.
“What?”
“You’re very cute.”
Erik sighed, long-suffering, but his cheeks pinked as he took a sip. “I looked for you at the council table.”
Which was code for: you were supposed to show up.
“Ah. Sorry. Time tends to get away from you when you’re walking between worlds.”
“Hm. What other news did your cousin have to share?”
Oliver peeled back a fold of bedroll to get to the bare earth beneath. His knife – the small, less-fine one he carried for work rather than eating or fighting (gods forbid) – made for a decent stylus, and he set about sketching a crude map that included the Crownlands, Chartres, Inglewood, and the old logging road that Amelia thought they should use to come at the capital from the opposite angle.
“A pincher maneuver,” Erik said, and sounded as though he was impressed despite himself. “I’ve used one myself – but only when I lacked the numbers for a direct frontal assault.”
