Heart of Winter (The Drake Chronicles Book 1)

by Lauren Gilley

  “No doubt,” Erik said, fondly, still smiling. Then sobered. “Why did you never speak of it before? If we’d known…”

  Oliver shook his head. “Because I don’t like to be judged for it – no,” he said, when Erik started to protest. “I know that you would have. I turned up on your doorstep small and weak and short-haired and nothing like you Northmen. I didn’t need to add ‘sickly’ to your list of reasons for despising me on sight.”

  Erik looked unimpressed. “I did not despise you on sight.”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “Do you presume to read my thoughts?”

  “Er, no,” Oliver had to admit.

  Erik nodded toward the bed. “This is why you never became a soldier.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not suggesting there’s any shame in that.”

  Oliver realized he’d frowned, and smoothed his features.

  “The world has plenty of soldiers – more than it needs.”

  “Said the solider.”

  Erik shrugged, a negligent, one-shouldered movement, dismissive. “It’s how I was brought up. It’s what I was bred for. What I’m good at. You are good at other things.” His gaze dropped to the book in Oliver’s hands.

  He shut it, and showed Erik the cover. “Reading silly books in bed, apparently.”

  Erik smiled when he read the title. The man smiled all the bloody time now, damn it. It was too distracting by half. “That was always my sister’s favorite as a girl.”

  “Tessa’s too.”

  “She used to tell us that she liked The Battle of Evernight best, but Arne found that tucked beneath her pillow, and she turned scarlet when he asked her about it.” His grin widened, one of fond remembrance. “She always wanted to keep up with us, to spar and climb trees; she rejected all of Mother’s efforts at making her a proper princess – Mother was from Veniscall, you understand. Very Southern manners. Rev was embarrassed that we’d caught her reading, as she so eloquently put it, a ‘book for stupid girls.’” He shook his head. “Arne laughed, but I told her there was nothing stupid about the book, or girls. Or love. She was – and is – a great romantic at heart.”

  Oliver couldn’t disagree, not after the prodding Revna had given him earlier, even if he refused to accept the idea that it was love she was prodding him toward, love with her brother. “The boys’ father,” he began, carefully. “He’s…?”

  Erik sighed. “Dead. Fifteen years now. Rune was only two.”

  “Gods, that’s terrible. I’m sorry.”

  “Torstan,” Erik said, wistfully. “He grew up with me. Tor, and Bjorn, and me, thick as thieves. We terrorized Aeres together,” he said, chuckling. “I didn’t realize he was moony-eyed over my sister for years. It was Revna who told me he’d asked for her hand. Then I…might have punched him in the mouth.”

  Oliver snorted. “Of course you did, you great brute.”

  “She was my little sister!” Erik protested, laughing. “I had to defend her honor.”

  “I’m guessing she didn’t want it defended.”

  “Not as much. She rather…beat me about the head and shoulders with a riding crop.”

  Oliver laughed.

  “She was on horseback at the time. She had the advantage,” Erik conceded, cheeks pink, grin wry. “In any event, I hadn’t knocked any of Tor’s teeth out, and they were wed in the spring.” It was a sad thing to watch his smile fade, and his remembered humor and joy along with it.

  “What happened to him?” Oliver asked quietly.

  “Set upon by Beserkirs. Father managed to broker a peace, afterward. But the perpetrators – them I slew myself.”

  “I’m sorry,” Oliver said again.

  Erik nodded. “Thank you.”

  A silence descended, one full of old, remembered sadness, and, on Oliver’s part, sympathy, but it wasn’t an awkward one.

  Finally, Erik drew in a deep breath, and resettled his shoulders with an air of moving on. “I came because I wanted to say, formally, that, when you’re well enough, I think it’s time we started discussing our alliance in earnest.”

  Oliver felt his brows go up. “How forward-thinking of you.”

  “Hm.” The glare he got was mostly smile, a playful sort of warning that sent a thrill through Oliver’s belly. “Yes, well. It’s been pointed out to me that I might have been a little–”

  “Ridiculous?”

  “Less than even-handed about the idea so far. If Tessa is to marry my nephew, then it’s time we sorted out the particulars of such an arrangement, you and me.”

  “It just so happens that’s the reason I’m in your bloody cold country in the first place,” Oliver said dryly, and earned a wider, truer grin for his efforts. His reaction to which couldn’t be good for his poor overtaxed heart.

  “Good.” Erik stood. “Rest up, then, and we’ll talk soon.”

  When he turned to go, Oliver felt suddenly bereft. As bad as it was to be smiled at and flirted with and confided in, it hurt much worse to think of all of that getting up and walking out of his room. Oliver hated himself for such weakness. What they had, this rapport they’d developed, was so unexpected, and so wonderful – it was priceless all on its own, and could shatter like dropped glass if he pushed things too far. Even if Erik had, as his sister had said, affections, they weren’t the sort that could be acted upon. Not given their social standing; their fortunes; their responsibilities. Not given who they were in all ways. It didn’t matter if Revna was encouraging – there was a whole world out there that wasn’t, and Oliver could not ruin his family’s chances for sustainability over a flutter of butterflies in his stomach.

  Knowing all that, his traitorous mouth still said, “Your majesty,” when Erik was at the door.

  Erik paused, glancing back over his shoulder as Revna had done earlier, though his expression was entirely different.

  “Thank you,” Oliver said, and that was all he said, his throat closing on him, suddenly.

  A long beat passed, before Erik’s own throat bobbed. His voice was a little rough when he said, “My subjects call me ‘your majesty.’ I’d like you to call me Erik.”

  Oliver took an unsteady breath. “Thank you. Erik.”

  “Sleep well, Oliver.” Then he was gone.

  16

  By Friday, Oliver was out of bed and on his feet.

  More or less.

  Revna had shown up with sturdy, warm Northern clothes, all of them taken in and hemmed to fit his smaller frame, all of them in the noble house colors. He knew they’d all come from Erik, or Leif, or Rune, and he found that he didn’t mind that, even if he did draw some startled glances from the merchants and nobles having breakfast in the great hall. Tessa walked at his side, her arm looped through his, and he hated that it wasn’t just for show, that she was providing a considerable amount of support.

  His knees threatened to give out every other step, and his legs felt weak as water.

  “It’s not too late to go back to your room,” Tessa whispered.

  “Oliver!” Rune shouted, standing up from his table, and waving enthusiastically with both arms.

  “I rather think it is.”

  They got settled on the bench across from Rune, with Oliver not quite falling in the process.

  Rune pushed his empty plate aside and leaned forward to put his elbows on the table. “How are you feeling?” he asked, excitement giving way to notch-browed worry. “You’re pale, still.”

  “Yes, thank you, Rune, I’d noticed,” Oliver said, but couldn’t help but smile. “I’m feeling much better.”

  Rune tilted his head, doubtful. “Are you sure?”

  He chuckled. “I’m conscious. And upright – mostly. I’ll be fine.”

  Rune beamed – and traded grins with Tessa, his dark eyes going momentarily soft. “Are you hungry?” he asked Oliver.

  “A little.” He twisted around to look toward the buffet table. “Did I see griddle cakes over there?”

  “With jam.” R
une bounced lightly to his feet. “I’ll get you some.”

  “Oh, you don’t–”

  “Be right back.”

  Oliver watched him go, shaking his head. “In the last week, I’ve had a king bathe me – twice – a princess sit watch over me, and a prince go to fetch me breakfast.”

  Tessa giggled. “So much for the Barbarians of the North, hm?”

  “Indeed.”

  There were indeed flapjacks, with strawberry and fig jam. Rune brought them both plates heaped with far too many cakes slathered in jam, and with piles of bacon and hash on the side. With the food in front of him, Oliver found his stomach growling, and his appetite returning, and he dug in with grateful thanks for the hand-delivery.

  Oliver ducked his head over his plate, but stole glances toward Tessa and Rune, noting the way they couldn’t seem to look away from each other. Tessa all but ignored her food in favor of laughing and exclaiming in all the right places of Rune’s complicated story about a reindeer sleigh race gone wrong last winter.

  “What’s that?” Tessa asked, breaking off mid-sentence.

  Oliver lifted his head in time to see that, as the breakfast-goers drifted off elsewhere in the palace, and kitchen staff came to clear the plates and wipe the tables, a group of burly young men were carrying in great armfuls of greenery. Pine boughs, Oliver realized.

  “They’re decorating,” Rune said, launching from one excited tone to another. “The solstice is next week. By that time, this whole hall will look like a forest, and on the night of the feast, they’ll bring in the great yule tree and everyone in the palace will help to trim it.”

  “Oh!” Tessa exclaimed, cheeks pink with delight. “A real Northern Yuletide celebration!” She grabbed at Oliver’s arm. “Remember how lifeless they are at home?”

  “Vividly.” In the South, belief in the gods had become a sort of…obligation. More often than not, they were invoked in curses and pleas, but rarely in prayers. The Yule Feast in Drakewell was a ball: an excuse for nobles of all sorts to dress in finery and frippery and spill out of carriages into cresset-lit ballrooms where they drank, and danced, and plotted, and ridiculed one another. There were a few sprigs of holly, and some pine boughs, yes, but nothing greater to differentiate it from all the other balls that took place. They were occasions to strut, and show off, and gossip, but not places to come together, and celebrate the solstice, and feel closer to the heavenly halls of their creators.

  Oliver hated those bloody balls, and, to his surprise, found himself looking forward to a Northern Yuletide. He could only think, based on experience so far, that this Northern tradition would be another that left him quietly in awe of their new Aeretollean friends.

  Friends? That word again. It felt mostly true, by this point.

  ~*~

  Leif arrived, just as they finished breakfast, and Tessa accepted an invitation to go hawking with him. “Just beyond the gate,” Leif assured Oliver, after expressing his own gladness to see him up and feeling better. “We’ll be within shouting distance of the guards, I promise.”

  Oliver nodded in silent thanks to this bit of caution. “Happy hunting.”

  For his own part, he fixed a second, stronger cup of tea and made his slow, careful way back up the stairs with a mind on conducting more research – who knew what other secrets of his homeland he might discover in this foreign library? – and ran into Olaf on the landing.

  “Ah, just the patient I was coming to see.” He gripped Oliver’s arm with one gnarled, surprisingly strong hand, and steered him the opposite way from the library, toward a part of the palace he’d never visited before.

  “Oh, I was just going to–”

  “That can wait,” Olaf said, sagely, marching him along. “First: an examination.”

  “Fine.”

  “Yes, it will be.”

  Oliver bit back his sigh, and tried not to lean on the old man as much as he had on his cousin.

  The hall ended in a wall set with a wide, arched, leaded window that overlooked the bailey, front gate, and the snowy road beyond that led down to the rest of Aeres, a series of cheerful dark smudges against the half-moon gleam of the harbor, trails of chimney smoke puffing up into the blue sky. Olaf steered him to the left, past tapestries stitched with great battles and hunt scenes. One, wildly impressive, showed a lioness and a wolf battling a reindeer with massive antlers, blood stitched with crimson thread.

  “It represents the struggle within each Aeretollean king,” Olaf explained without slowing. “The battle between the Southern and Northern blood in each of them, ever since King Rolf the First was born of an Aquitainian mother and an Úlfheðnar father. The reindeer has always been the sigil of the Aretollean king, the beast of burden caught between two predators who would slaughter each other, or him, willingly.”

  “The story’s a bit different in the South,” Oliver mused.

  “Hm. No doubt. Here we are.” He led him through a heavy oak door and into a wide turret room with a soaring timber ceiling – from which dangled metal cages full of birds: doves that cooed, and ravens that cackled, and something that shrieked in a high, shrill, almost human voice. “You’ll have to excuse them. They always get excited for company. Sit there, please.” He directed Oliver to a low stool beside a work bench loaded down with bottles, and vials, and flasks of all sorts, the glass gleaming in the sunlight from a half-dozen windows, some of the contents jewel-colored liquids, other questionable, murky solids.

  Oliver sat and surveyed the room – the surgery – while his host puttered about reordering items on a high, wide desk. There were dozens of shelves, each loaded with jars, and pots, and bottles. In one, Oliver recognized what looked like a fetal pig, preserved in clear liquid; in another, a human heart. There were shelves of books, too, heavy tomes, lines in the dust revealing which had been most-often consulted.

  The room seemed to be split into two separate areas: one, the one in which he sat, obviously a study, a lab, a place to do research and fiddle with projects. But the other half boasted three long, scrubbed-white tables, unlit candelabrum stationed at the corners of each. A long, stone trough along one wall held basins and clean towels and linens. Three small, wheeled tables sat along one wall, lidded boxes on top. It wasn’t too dissimilar from the setup in Drakewell: the operating theater.

  “Now, then.” Olaf came to stand in front of him, a large magnifying glass held in one hand. “Let’s have a look at you.” He pulled up Oliver’s eyelids and peered at his sclera; checked his throat by sight, and by feel, wizened fingers palpating at the glands there. Implemented a basic reasoning test to see that Oliver’s mind was functioning as it should.

  After, he stood back, one hand on his hip, the other stroking at his beard as he looked at Oliver shrewdly. “How’s the head?”

  “Fine. A little tender, still, but it’s always like that after a flare-up.”

  “Mmhm. And your stomach? Breakfast going to stay down?”

  “I think so.”

  “Tired?”

  “A little.” When that earned a look, he said, “More than a little.”

  Olaf pinched the skin of neck between two fingers.

  “Hey–”

  “You’re still a bit dehydrated, but that’s to be expected, I suppose. Rest for the afternoon, don’t tax yourself, and drink plenty of water and tea.”

  Oliver nodded, and made to stand – but a hand on his shoulder pressed him back down.

  “Did you dream last night?”

  “No. I slept like the dead – which I coincidently did not do when I felt as if I actually was dying.”

  Olaf’s gaze narrowed. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure,” Oliver said, growing impatient, and then realized what this was about. “The ice rose.”

  “Aye.”

  “Does it have any lasting effects?”

  “Not usually. You only had the one dose, and a small one at that.” He tipped his head, gaze still shrunk to mere slits. “Do you remember
anything from that night? After I gave it to you?”

  Oliver resisted the urge to squirm. Olaf was a physician, and his inquiry was likely academic. But when Oliver thought of that night’s unreal, pulsing blue awareness, he remembered the gentle heaviness of Erik’s hands on his skin. That soft shh, shh, it’s all right. He remembered gripping one of his braids, and pulling him down, and wishing he’d been in control of his body so he could have coordinated a kiss. He couldn’t remember exactly what he’d said, only that he’d said something, and that it had been too revealing, and inappropriate besides.

  He couldn’t speak about that.

  But Olaf was staring at him, so he blurted, “I was in a cave. There was all this ice, it was blue – the light was blue, I think, but maybe the ice was, too? There was a roaring sound. Like – like an earthquake. Or maybe some…some sort of animal.” Not like any animal he’d ever heard, though. There were foxes in Drakewell, their laughter ringing out across the lakes and streams on crisp autumn nights. He’d heard a puma, once, that dying-woman scream undercut with low harmonics.

  “Blue ice?” Olaf asked; he sounded far more interested than anyone should have been in a weed-enhanced fever dream.

  “Or blue light. There was ice, too. It’s all very indistinct.” Save for the memory of Erik’s hands; when he closed his eyes, he swore he could feel them still, smoothing across his collarbones.

  “Hm.” Olaf stroked his beard, expression serious. “And this animal sound. That of a predator?”

  “It was a sort of growling – not a puma, I know what that sounds like.”

  “A bear?”

  “I’ve never heard a bear.” But there had been that voice, in the back of his mind, not his, and not Erik’s: That is no bear. A familiar voice, but not one he could place just as yet.

  “Hm.”

  “It was only a hallucination,” Oliver said. “It didn’t mean anything.” Aside from that whole wanting-to-shag-the-king bit.