#TeaserTuesday: AOTE

 

*Drops cryptic teaser but tells you not to worry*

In all seriousness, though, please don't panic. Things are going to seem dire for parts of this book, but no one is going to mess up irreparably. The long-term plan I've had all along is still in full effect... save one romantic development. Like the teaser says: nothing is as it seems. It seems like Amelia is going to become a part of a certain relationship, but she's not. Oliver is behaving questionably, but he's not a traitor. Hold tight, let me cook, and it'll all turn out okay, promise. 

No release date yet; I'm still in very early stages and taking the writing slowly, but I'm hoping I'll have time to keep chipping away at it! 

Until then...

***

When his helm, pauldrons, breastplate, gauntlets, and grieves were all stowed in their shallow wooden chest, he straightened, and came face-to-face with his reflection in the looking glass atop the washstand.

Who is that? was the first thought that sprang to mind. 

He still wasn’t used to the way the North – the way Erik’s affection, and then his love, and Oliver’s new title, his claim to royalty – had altered the shape of him. His face sharper, harsher, dark across the bridge of his nose and both cheekbones from time spent outdoors. His shoulders were broader, sheathed in a tight, firm swell of new muscle that had never been there before, and his waist was narrower. He’d always been slender, but hadn’t realized, until now, that a life spent reading and attending musicales had left a gentle padding of softness around his middle. It was gone, now, as was his Southern mop of cropped curls. His hair fell past his shoulders now, still faintly curled at the ends, pulled back from his face in a series of narrow, intricate braids that ran back from his temples, the beads at the ends clinking faintly each time he shifted. Like the jangle of buckles, the sounds of the beads he wore had become a constant backdrop to his daily routines.

Amelia had long since stopped startling at the sight of him when they met in the Between, but he wondered what those who’d known him as Oliver Meacham would think of him now. His Lordship, King’s Consort.

The liar who visited with the enemy.

Disgusted, he frowned at his reflection, and bent to scrub the day’s grime from his face.

Through the canvas screen strung up to bisect the tent, he could hear the low rumble of familiar, masculine voices. He knew Erik’s, intimately and straight off. The others, he thought, belonged to Birger, Askr, and, at a guess, young Lord Sigr, a duke at fourteen, thanks to his father’s death at the battle for Aeres.

“…only a novice,” someone, Askr, he thought, was saying, as Oliver patted his face dry with a cloth. “He can’t be expected to be sure of things.”

A pause.

Birger said, “You’re magical yourself, then, are you? You’re an expert? You know what the lad can and can’t sense?”

Magic.

They were talking about him.

Askr scoffed. “Of course not. I’m only saying—”

“Something you shouldn’t,” Erik said, a hard-edged slice of a command, like a sword strike.

But no one had ever accused Askr of brilliance. “Erik, you know I like the boy.”

“Then you’ll hold your tongue,” Birger said.

“But,” Askr continued, “he’s not been wielding his magic his whole life, like the young Corpse Lord. There’s no way to be sure that—”

“I’m sure.” Erik’s voice was cold. Oliver shuddered at sound of it.

“Erik,” Askr started.

Birger said, “That’s enough, my lord.”

Askr harrumphed, but said nothing further.

“What say you, Lord Sigr?” Birger asked.

The boy stammered a moment. “Well, I—Your Majesty—I think that—that is, His Lordship is quite skilled with the drakes, Your Majesty, and I think—”

Oliver didn’t want to hear anymore. He tossed the cloth down and stalked toward the tent flap… Only to pull up short when he realized that if he ducked back outside, he’d have to contend with more of Tessa’s concern, and Náli’s derision, or the unwanted attention of any number of lords or soldiers.

He stood in the center of the rug, hands balled into fists, and felt a tightness in his lungs he hadn’t known since his last relapse of marsh fever.

In truth, he’d known it was too good to be true: the trust and faith of the Northern people. Of course some of them still had doubts. Of course they’d question his magic. No one alive in the North now had ever seen a drake, much less relied upon them for valuable tactical information. Askr’s questions were neither unwarranted, nor unexpected; he had a big mouth and he flapped it often, along with a complete lack of tact. Askr’s—everyone’s—doubt was understandable. Gods knew Oliver had learned to handle the doubts of others as a child.

And yet here he stood, breathless and trembling with anger.

It would have been easier to remain a bastard, unthought of and discounted, than to have spiraled up to the peak of authoritative consort, and then plunge back down to bitter reality. Wasn’t there a saying about how loving and losing was better than nothing? The same didn’t apply to power.

He closed his eyes and could see the Solarium. Swore he could smell the sweetness of the wine, and hear Romanus’s contemplative hum. The fog and vertigo of the Between beckoned, and he wanted to fall into it. Its pull had never been so tempting… and that frightened him.