Page 36 of Heart of Winter
Tessa was not, in fact, stopping for a mug of cider in the kitchens. The space was composed of three levels, with stairs leading down from one platform, to the next, to, finally a domed-ceilinged chamber where round balls of bread dough sat rising beneath towels on a staggering series of racks. Oliver stood beside the king on the second platform, where staff chopped vegetables at long wooden tables and kitchen boys and girls toted them up to the top tier, where three cooking hearths roared.
“No one’s seen them return,” Bjorn said, striding toward them.
Revna groaned.
Oliver closed his eyes and concentrated very hard on regulating his breathing.
“I love my sons, but sometimes they’re idiots,” Revna said.
“Where would they have gone?” Oliver asked, not proud of the way his voice shook, but not caring in the moment.
“Nobody panic,” Erik snapped. And then, with a slight softening of his expression, “We’ll find them.”
Oliver stepped in front of him when he turned to leave the room. “I don’t mean to disparage your nephews…”
Erik’s brows lifted. “Then don’t.”
Oliver held up a hand, when he started to step forward, keenly aware of the fact that Erik could pick him up like a toy and set him aside. He didn’t, though. “I’m only saying: they’ve been off together for hours, now. There will be talk.” He didn’t say:someonehasto marry her at this point.
“Not here, there won’t be,” Erik growled. “We don’t deal in gossip and backstabbing in the North.” He stepped around Oliver, and marched for the door.
Oliver stood with his pulse throbbing painfully, anger and panic warring for supremacy, both leaving him shaky.
“Mr. Meacham, are you coming?” Erik called over his shoulder.
He stuffed it all down and hurried to follow.
11
In truth, Oliver liked riding. His spotty health had left him a poor swordsman and archer; naturally slender, it would have required constant, rigorous work to become a proper warrior, and the fever always seemed to sweep over him just when he began to make progress. But riding was as much about sensitivity and intuition as it was balance and strength, and so he’d enjoyed escorting his cousins on his fleet-footed mare, cantering over the gentle hills and splashing through lazy streams.
This was to be an entirely different sort of ride.
A covered, torchlit gallery offered a clear path to the stables, and Oliver hurried along in Erik’s wake. It was snowing, he could see through the arched openings, a lazy spin of light flakes, patches of clear sky still visible overhead as the stars winked to life. His belly drew so tight he couldn’t speak, not as Erik ordered mounts ready for them, nor demanded that someone make sure Oliver wasn’t going to “catch his death.”
“Here, lad.” Magnus produced a heavy, fur-lined cloak from a cloak room at the front of the stable and slung it across his shoulders. “Make sure the hood’s up.” His smile was encouraging, but Oliver could only nod a response. He was given thick gloves, and then boosted up onto the broad back of a massive draft-cross gelding with white, feathered hooves, and a mouth that proved tough as an anvil when he played experimentally with the reins.
Bjorn and Magnus lit torches that blazed and spit sparks against the stone walls of the stable.
Erik gathered his reins, his own hulking mount pawing impatiently at the ground, and Oliver paused, a moment, in his spiral of worry, struck by the sight of him. Snowflakes swirled in on the breeze, catching his long, wild hair, blowing it like streamers back away from his face, so his regal profile was limned cleanly in the torchlight: the proud nose, the strong jaw, the high brow. Oliver had never before been made so consciously aware of the color of someone’s eyes, the way they burned like backlit jewels, always.
Panic, he decided, was making him even more fanciful.
“Let’s move,” Erik commanded, and then, before they did, glanced toward Oliver; locked gazes with him. “Hood.”
Oliver scrambled to drag the fur hood of the cloak up over his head, and his horse lurched forward with the others.
~*~
Tessa drew her cloak more snugly about her, for all the good it did, and tried unsuccessfully to keep her teeth from chattering. Her cloak was sodden; her dress was sodden; her boots were holding steady, the sturdy waxed leather and fur ones that Revna had loaned her. A small mercy for which she could be thankful – or at least try to be. The branch upon which she sat creaked ominously every time she shifted her weight. Her skirt had gotten rucked up, and the bark had scraped her knees.
But she was alive, and that beat the alternative.
Night had come on swift and bitterly cold, with just enough dappled moonlight through the patchy clouds to allow her to see the glow of white snow beneath her, and to see the white steam of her breath. It had started snowing, softly, only a light dusting, but she had no way of knowing if it would intensify – had no way of knowing if she could survive the night here, if it came down to that.
A hard chill nearly sent her toppling off the branch, and she rubbed ineffectually at her arms through the wet cloak, shrinking down even more tightly within its clinging folds.
I wish I was Amelia, she thought, eyes stinging again.Amelia would know what to do. She sniffed, and batted her lashes, and refused to give in to the tears that continued to threaten. Crying would do no good – the tear tracks would freeze on her face and give her frostbite.
