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Mattias thumped him lightly in the back of the head as he passed – “Uncalled for!” Náli protested – and came to offer Oliver his sword, pommel-first. He made the simple act of flipping the sword around and catching it by the blade look like the most intricate dance step.

“Thanks,” Oliver murmured, face warm.

Mattias offered a small, close-lipped, but reassuring smile. “I first put a sword in his hand when he was two. Granted it was wood, but we started early. He could disarm Klemens before he could write his own name.”

On the sidelines, Klemens groused, “That was one time, and I was fifteen, and hungover.”

Náli aimed his sword at him, grinning. “Still counts.” He turned in a circle, working through a series of stretches, and then faced Oliver again, falling into his ready stance. “Let’s go again.”

“No.” If he sounded petulant, so be it; they’d begun training by torchlight, before the sun had begun to flirt with the horizon, and were at it still, past breakfast, while camp broke down around them, and the Phalanx prepared for the day’s march. He felt unsteady inside; tired, yes, but quivery as well. Almost like he had when he’d been plagued by marsh fever, those early warning days that had always meant a full-blown fever was less than a week away.

But that wasn’t possible. He hadn’t relapsed since bonding with Percy. He even now carried the heavy sapphire he’d found on the wall of the Fangs’ cave in his pocket, a reassuring talisman for his continued good health.

Náli cocked his hips and fixed him with a serious look. “No? And what will you tell the emperor when he swings his great longsword at your head? No? No, thank you, I don’t want to fight today.” A mischievous sparkle entered his eyes, highlighted by the rosy dawn light. “Perhaps you can seduce him, the way you did Erik. Then you never have to lift a finger – or, well, maybe a–”

“Fine,” Oliver gritted out, and all his focus went into keeping his arms steady as he slid back into the proper stance. “Let’s go again.”

Náli’s grin was sharp and victorious, and he flowed immediately into an attack without asking for confirmation.

Oliver dodged – right, this time, because Náli came at him from the left. Side, side, back, block,clang. He gritted his teeth and pushed forward, using his slight height advantage the way Mattias had encouraged.

Náli grinned – but was forced to step back, and disengage. Light-footed as a snow fox, he got free of the clash, and circled, looking for a new opening.

“Better, Your Lordship,” Mattias called. “Search for openings. Weak points.”

Náli’s gaze was trained on Oliver – on his feet, to be exact; shit, Oliver had been watching Náli’s torso rather than his feet, the way he ought to. He forced his gaze down. “Who are you helping, here?” Náli called.

Mattias said, “The one who needs it more.”

Oliver watched snow-dusted boots step to the side, the side…Now!

He had his sword up, and was moving, rushing to meet Náli, before the strike could come. He offered a strike of his own, instead, right at Náli’s middle.

Náli parried, but not without a huff of surprise, and a grunt of effort.

Oliver shifted back, and this time, he was the one smiling.

Náli’s smile was half-grimace. “Don’t go thinking you’re better than me.”

Oliver laughed, and blinked the dark spots from the corners of his vision. He needed breakfast, he reasoned. A bracing cup of strong tea. “I wouldn’t–”

The clearing between the tents, the trampled snow, the drakes crunching up deer bones a distance away; their audience, and the shouts of the men calling orders, the lowing of the reindeer, and the hustle and bustle of a disassembling camp…gone. All of it.

Oliver stood on a floor of polished black marble, its surface gleaming beneath the glow of the cressets burning on the walls. Walls made of a glossy, rosy stone veined with white and green. He turned, and found that the room was a perfect circle, the torchlight reaching high overhead to flicker across the domed, glass panels of a see-through roof. The walls weren’t walls at all, but a series of arches, save where a man-high fireplace blazed along one five-foot stretch. Beyond the arches it was dark, and all was silent save the crackle and shift of the logs in the fire.

A round table sat just to his left, in the center of the solarium – that’s what it was. He’d not seen one in person, but had pored over architecture books in the library at Drakewell. Accordingly, the table was littered with star charts, and maps. Aquitainia, he saw.

By the fire was a chair, and in it sat Romanus Tyrsbane.

Oliver took a slow breath in and released it just as slowly. Willed his racing heart to calm. This wasn’t real – he knew it wasn’t. He wasn’t truly here, standing in the solarium at the Aquitainian royal palace. It was real in the sense that it was happening – but it was happening in his mind.

Against his will, without warning, the Emperor Unchallenged had dragged him out of the physical realm and onto this plane – whichever one it was – instead.

The scene was far removed from their last encounter. No drakes, no field, no obvious threat. The emperor sat facing the flames, a glass of dark wine held loosely in one hand, and he turned his head toward Oliver after a time.

Long enough for Oliver to have realized what was happening, and close his mouth, and regulate his breathing somewhat.

“Hello,” Romanus said, quietly. His voice was low and deep, resonant; it seemed to spread through the room like smoke, dissipating in the dark archways and curling up toward the glass ceiling. An insidious sort of reach; it curled round Oliver’s throat, hooked him by the ears and drew him forward unconsciously.