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He halted three steps from the emperor’s chair.
Romanus watched him, lilac eyes passive and unaggressive, mouth soft in his pale, pale face. His hair lay like a shining spill of milk over one shoulder, leaping with firelight, and rather than armor, he wore a finely-wrought golden tunic, its ivory ties set off-center in a way that highlighted the broadness of his shoulders and chest, the narrowing of his waist, even while seated. His trousers were dark and soft-looking, tucked into buttery black boots with gilded tops over each knee. A massive amethyst winked on the ring on his first finger when he raised his wine to his lips and took a sip.
“Won’t you sit?” The lilt of his accent lent the question a certain lightness – and an authority. It was a request, yes, but one he expected Oliver to obey without question. He’d conjured this moment, after all.
Oliver waited a moment, debating. Noted the table at Romanus’s elbow, the crystal decanter, the spare glass. Considered trying to claw his way back to the waking world, but knew he’d never manage. He decided that it was better to appear composed and in control of both his senses and temper in front of this man, and so he nodded, and murmured, “Thank you.” Took the chair across from the emperor, and arranged his traveling tunic over his knees. Crossed his legs and rested his sword over his lap, marveling internally that he’d been able to keep it.
Once he was settled, Romanus poured a second cup of wine, and Oliver leaned forward to take it with another murmured thanks. Their fingers brushed, in the exchange, and that was real enough – as were the goosebumps that broke out down his arms in reaction. The emperor’s skin was smooth and cool, firm as the marble underfoot.
Oliver sat back, and peered into his glass. The wine was a translucent, rich plum color, and its bouquet fruity, when he sniffed it. Saliva pooled on his tongue in anticipation, and he swallowed it down and rested the foot of the glass on his knee, undrunk.
One corner of Romanus’s mouth twitched. “It isn’t poisoned, I assure you.”
“Enchanted, then. One can never be too careful in this sort of situation.”
Romanus tilted his head, as though studying a fascinating insect specimen, pinned and wriggling under glass, a mystery still. “What sort of situation would that be?”
“You tell me. You’re the one who brought me here.”
A slight lowering of pale eyelids, and then a subtle nod, easy to miss if Oliver hadn’t been studying him. “Yes. I did bring you.”
Oliver allowed his expression to ask a silentwhy?
Romanus swirled the contents of his glass, wine climbing up to the very lip, but not spilling. The deftness of the motion spoke to a larger competence; it was all too easy to imagine him outclassing Náli with a sword. Knocking his blade aside and bearing down on him like–
Belatedly, Oliver realized the emperor had begun to smile. A faint upward curve of his pale lips, stained faintly in the center from dark wine.
“Worried for your necromancer?” he asked.
Fuck. He can read my thoughts, Oliver thought, before hastily trying to wipe his mind clean.
“I can only read them because they’re so loud. And because you don’t yet know how to shield them from me.”
I can shield my thoughts?Oliver cursed himself the moment he thought the question, but Romanus nodded.
“With enough practice, yes.”
For a moment, in the face of new information, Oliver forgot their identities, their roles, their status as enemies, and leaned forward in his chair. “How? What sort of practice?”
The smile came again, so slight it wouldn’t have been a smile at all on anyone else. “Would you like for me to teach you?”
“Yes.”
18
Amelia thought it prudent to stay with the company as it proceeded back to the manner. She woke from her dream in the Between in a cold, nervous sweat, visions of wolves fighting men while she flew blissfully unaware overhead driving her straight to a saddle she hadn’t occupied in far too long. Shadow actually swung his head around and nudged the toe of her boot once she’d mounted, the look in his black eyes full of judgement.
“I know, I know, I’m sorry.” She stroked his neck and promised him one of their dwindling supply of shriveled apples when they returned.
She’d had a moment, when she’d first mounted, when it felt as if she’d grown so used to riding a drake that she’d forgotten how to ride a horse. A silly notion soon dispelled, but a guilt she feared she’d tend for as long as she split her time between mounts.
Since he’d come on this trip riderless – she liked bringing him along whenever she could, in case she needed to ride on the ground, as she did today – Shadow was frisky and full of energy. She let him have his head a bit, cantering up and down the line as it found the main road, and progressed along the edge of the Inglewood, toward the manor, and camp.
The sun was out, warming toward proper spring, and Shadow’s neck was steaming, and Amelia’s skin slick with sweat beneath her riding clothes and amor by the time she slowed the stallion to a swinging walk and settled in for the last leg of the trip.
Connor and Reggie rode six or seven lengths ahead of her, and she stifled a grin at the sight of the display they made: Strangers to Connor’s free side, and L’Espoir men to Reggie’s. The pale blue, white, and silver of a poncy lord, and then the shifting grays, browns, and greens of forest outlaws. There were no proper Dale men left, after the Sel occupation of the manor, and so Connor was making noises about granting land and titles to his woodsmen. A scandal that would have been the talk of the countryside once, but of which Amelia now approved. A lord, a general, needed men of his own, and Connor’s were exceedingly capable, even if their table manners were lacking.
Shadow tensed beneath her; his ears swiveled, and he let out a loud, warning exhale as he turned his head to the right. Not a warning for her, but for whomever was walking up beside them. The horse could strike out with his forelegs quick as lightning, and so Amelia tightened her reins and gave him a little tap with her spur to hold his attention.Not yet. Not until I say so.
