Page 164

“Because I wanted you to have it,” he said, simply.

“But…why go to all this trouble? Anyone could see you here! You could be captured! Killed!”

A quiet breath of a laugh. “Does that worry you?”

“No!” Oliver protested, too loudly.

A shuffle of leaves, and then Romanus stood directly before him, close enough to see the smooth, white grain of his skin in the orange light; close enough to smell the lavender that always seemed to cling to him. Like Náli, but not. Not really. Náli didn’t leave his belly clenching this way.

Slowly, as though to give him a chance to resist, Romanus folded Oliver’s hands around the necklace and squeezed them tight. “Keep it. I want you to.”

“But–”

He stepped back, and turned away. Oliver glimpsed the toss of his hair, a flapping sheaf of white, like a banner of truce in the darkness, and then he was gone.

“Romanus?”

No answer.

Oliver stepped forward into the place he should have occupied, and found the air colder – cold enough to give him goosebumps. But no sign of the emperor.

He clenched his hand tight around the delicate chain and its medallion. Its jagged bit of amethyst.

I wanted you to have it.

He breathed. In, and out. In, and out.

Then he slipped the necklace in his pocket and turned back to camp.

~*~

The drakes had stopped attacking.

The drakes were gone.

The dead ones lay like limp ribbons across the ground, black blood reeking and sticky as tar. Men were picking themselves up, or calling to one another, or scanning the tree tops.

Percy landed with a heavy crash, tree tops snapping, splinters flying, and dropped the purple drake he held in his jaws so that he could set upon its corpse with his claws, eviscerating it in a messy spill that left Oliver turning his face away and choking down a gag.

“Oliver!Ollie!” Erik came charging toward him, leaping over scattered fire debris and felled drakes, his face contorted with worry.

He reached him, and gripped his arms, patted his chest, his neck; cupped his cheek, gaze raking over him, searching for injury.

“Sweetheart,” he said in a choked voice. “Are you hurt? Your helmet’s gone.”

“Oh.” It was, now that he thought of it. “I must have lost it somewhere.” He gestured vaguely behind him. “I’m fine.”

But Erik kept patting him down, breathing in ragged, open-mouthed draws.

“Erik. Darling.” Oliver rested a hand on his chest, stilling him. Offered a smile. “I’m unhurt. I swear.”

Erik studied his face a moment – and then dragged him into a crushing embrace. One so tight it lifted him clear off his feet, so that Oliver had a view of camp from over his broad shoulder.

He saw men dousing the tent fires with buckets.

Saw Rune giving Tessa a once-over just as Erik had done with Oliver, while Estrid stood aside with arms folded, her good eye rolling skyward.

He didn’t see a single dead man sprawled across the ground, only a few nursing minor wounds, thank the gods.