Heart of Winter (The Drake Chronicles Book 1)

by Lauren Gilley

  This, though…the Palace of Aeres…

  Despite a backdrop of snow-capped peaks, it stood on its own majesty: a colony of up-thrust round towers leaking steam against the sky, their windows small and leaded and shuttered. Gray building stone against the natural gray stone of the hills, it was hard to see where man-made edifice gave way to the rock outcroppings that must surely house the cellars, and kitchens, and hot springs.

  A high, stone wall encircled all of it, its drawbridge lifted, its moat frothing in the breeze where it wasn’t a flat plane of ice. The portcullis was down, formidable, dark iron.

  This was a castle. A place from which to repel a siege.

  Oliver swallowed with difficulty.

  “Aye, it’s rather grand, isn’t it?” Bjorn said. He clucked and slapped the reins, and the sleigh surged forward.

  A yell startled Oliver – and Tessa, too, if the way she gripped his arm was anything to go by. He glanced over to see a rider coming up on their right: a fur-wrapped man astride a horse that high-stepped through the snow. His hand lifted, and Oliver nearly waved back, stupidly, before Bjorn shouted laughter and called, “Don’t lame your horse, you idiot!”

  “He can’t,” a voice called from the left, and Oliver turned to find another rider, astride a stout bay, one hand held loosely on the reins, the other lifted in greeting. A steady seat; a glimpse of blond hair, and a beard, and bright blue eyes. “He’d have to go faster than a trot for that.”

  Bjorn laughed again, and the two riders surged forward, cantering ahead, toward the gate; they passed the train of sleighs and drew together in front of the first, leading the way. The portcullis went up before them, and the drawbridge came down, soon enough that their caravan didn’t have to slow.

  “The crown princes,” Bjorn explained. “Leif and Rune.”

  The names reminded Oliver of his research. “The king’s nephews?”

  “Aye, from his sister. His heirs.”

  His heirs for now, Oliver thought. If the marriage happened, and Tessa proved fertile…

  He recoiled mentally at the idea, thrusting his poor cousin into the role of unwilling mother like that.

  The caravan jingled to a halt in the middle of a bailey of tall, hard stone walls, flickering braziers, snow, and small, wood-tiled outbuildings.

  Bjorn climbed out, graceful for all his bulk, and reached in to lift Tessa out with both hands at her waist, handling her as if she weighed nothing – which, to him, she must.

  “Oh!” Tessa’s hands fluttered a moment, but then she was on the ground, and safe, and Oliver was hurrying out of the sleigh to double check.

  Bjorn swept his arm out in a grand gesture toward the crenelated towers and wall-walks encircling them. “Welcome to the Palace of Aeres. Pretty remarkable, eh?”

  Oliver said, “That’s one word for it.” He spotted at least six guard towers, snow clinging to the arrow slits, and didn’t doubt there were unseen murder holes up there, too. Guards in thick furs and gleaming steel helmets walked there, pikes on their shoulders. For a place that lay beneath a blanket of quieting snow, it seemed no measure of defense had been spared.

  The arched stone mouth of a stable offered lamplight, and cozy hay smells; a contingent of grooms came out for the reindeer, and for the princes’ horses. The heirs had dismounted, handed off their mounts, and joined them.

  Both princes wore leather under heavy, fur-mantled cloaks; fur wrapped their boots, and trimmed their hoods; both wore blades at their hips, and the dark-haired, younger one carried a bow and quiver on his back, but neither exuded Bjorn’s ursine wildness.

  “Prince Leif,” Bjorn introduced. “And Prince Rune. These are our Southern guests.”

  Leif was the older by a few years, Oliver knew; tall, and strong-looking, with a blade for a nose – but a quiet, friendly softness to his smile. He wore his beard short, and his blond hair in a sequence of small, elaborate braids that he’d tucked behind his ears, the rest hanging loose down his back. Blue eyes. Pretty, Oliver thought.

  His brother, Rune, wore his brown-black hair in a hasty knot, windswept from riding, one unraveling braid hanging down in front of his ear, its end adorned with silver beads. His beard was short, just a dusting of stubble, really, and his smile was boyish, betraying just how young he was beneath all that fur and leather – and, yes, a bit of mail, too. Gods, were they expecting an invasion at any moment?

  Belatedly, Oliver remembered his manners. “This is the Lady Tessa.” He hooked his arm through hers in a show of support. “I’m her cousin, Oliver.”

  Rune’s brows shot up. “The bastard? The one who didn’t want to go to war?”

  His brother elbowed him in the ribs. “What did I say about that?” he asked from the corner of his mouth. To Oliver: “Ignore him. Mum dropped him on his head as a baby.”

  “Hey!”

  “Lord Alfred’s son, right?” Leif asked.

  “Um.” Oliver had faced any number of insults about his bastardy from courtiers of both sexes; snide comments and veiled looks. But though the word would always carry a sting, Rune hadn’t sounded rude – and now his face had fallen, his dark eyes guileless and defensive.

  “I didn’t mean anything by it,” he said, half to his brother and half to Oliver. He mumbled, “Sorry, my lord.”

  Oliver took a breath. He’d expected savagery in this strange land, and doubtless it was here, but so far there was nothing coy and cutting in evidence – an unexpected, but refreshing change from home. “No, no, not a lord. I am a bastard. But,” he added, feeling his face heat, “I was ill when the war started, and then encouraged not to come to the front.”

  Rune’s nose wrinkled. “Really?”

  “Rune,” his brother hissed, “stop asking awkward questions.”

  “No, it’s fine. I’m not exactly a soldier,” Oliver said, lifting his arm in helpless invitation for them to examine his absolute lack of a soldier’s physique.

  “So?” Rune said, shrugging. “You could learn.”

  Leif stepped on his foot.

  “Ow!”

  Then he bowed to Tessa, the beads in his hair clicking together as it fell in gold waves over his shoulder. “My lady.”

  Oliver bit back the sudden urge to smile, thoroughly charmed by this point, even more so when Rune gave his brother a rude shove in the shoulder that didn’t manage to disturb Leif’s very respectful bow.

  They were cute.

  Gorgeous and gallant, even.

  “Oh,” Tessa said, with a little sucked-in breath. “Oh, um, hello.” Her cheeks were pink, and Oliver didn’t think it was only from the cold.

  When Leif offered his palm – calluses from hunting, and hard work, flash of silver rings, just visible with his fingerless gloves – she set hers delicately, trembling, into it, and he bent to kiss the back of it.

  Tessa’s flush deepened.

  Leif’s mouth curved in a small, pleased smile.

  For Tessa’s sake, Oliver hoped the boys’ uncle was equally handsome and charming.

  “All right, all right, you sheep heads,” Bjorn said. “We’re going in. Lead the way.”

  ~*~

  Open stone archways led onto what Oliver realized was a flagstone-floored gallery that overlooked what must have been a garden in warm months. A sequence of heavy oak doors and stone hallways fed, eventually, into a vast stone chamber with soaring, timbered ceilings, and three fireplaces, all of them tall enough to walk inside, all of them roaring. Oliver’s cloak was immediately too warm; walking ahead of them, snow was melting on Leif and Rune’s shoulders.

  They were in a great hall, Oliver noticed, as Tessa’s hand tightened on his arm, one filled with people, and very large, shaggy dogs lounging across the flags, and one dominated at one end by a dais, and a massive banner hanging on the wall behind it. The banner was crimson edged with blue, and in its center, a reindeer with massive antlers picked out in white thread.

  Then Oliver laid eyes on the figure seated just below the banner, and
everything else faded to a dull roar and a blur of color.

  At a distance, Oliver caught only the fact that the man had Leif’s nose – or Leif had his – and Rune’s dark hair, in loose waves on his shoulders, shot through with lines of silver. Broad shoulders, large hands on the arms of the chair, rings glinting in the firelight, and in his hair – more beads, like the princes.

  A strong man, a man like a lounging predator, his faint scowl exuding threat and impatience.

  An unapproachable man.

  A massive hand landed on Oliver’s shoulder, and Bjorn said, “Aye, there’s Erik.”

  “I figured,” Oliver said.

  Bjorn steered them in closer.

  The king, it appeared, was listening to petitions.

  Fashions were different in this part of the world, but Oliver knew a farmer when he saw one: the man stood with a woolen cap in his hands, his weathered face tipped up in entreaty. “You see, your majesty, it’s the glass in my hothouses. It’s all been shattered.”

  “By the cold?” King Erik asked. His voice was low, and deep, and rusted at the edges.

  “No, your majesty. It was – it was sabotage!”

  The king rested an elbow on the arm of his throne, and his chin on his raised fist. His beard was dark, and kept close. It still offered a glimpse of the hard line of his jaw. “An assumption?”

  “I found rocks, your majesty, and not decorative ones, neither.”

  “Hmm.” The king stroked his own chin in contemplation – and then his gaze lifted over the farmer’s head and settled on Oliver and his cousin and his escort, for one piercing second. Then away again. “Bjorn!”

  Bjorn stepped past them. “Aye?”

  “Send someone to have a look round Gorm’s farm. I want to know if someone’s breaking hothouse glass on purpose.”

  “Aye.”

  The farmer – Gorm – bowed, murmured his thanks, and left the hall.

  Which put them next in line.

  Bjorn fired off a command to one of the men lounging against the wall – who nodded and left – then his hand was back on Oliver’s shoulder, pushing him forward again.

  Right to the base of the dais, close enough to see that King Erik’s eyes were blue, but nothing at all like’s Leif’s, with their warm, quiet amusement. The king’s were hard, and flat, and unreadable – the nearest emotion seemed to be disdain.

  Oliver gulped, quite against his will.

  “These are the Southerners?” the king asked.

  “Aye,” Bjorn said, and shook Oliver. He felt like a puppy in a giant’s grip. “Cousins! Lord Oliver and Lady Tessa.” Oliver was tired of correcting him, at this point. Bjorn laughed. “Say hello to your bride, Erik!”

  Echoing laughter rippled through the crowd of bystanders, and Oliver bristled on his cousin’s behalf.

  But Erik lifted a ringed hand and the laughter cut off suddenly, and completely. He stared at them – Oliver struggled to keep his shoulders back, and his spine rigid beneath the cold, judgmental weight of that stare – and then finally curled a single finger and said, “Approach.”

  The princes stepped apart, their gazes watchful, and Oliver wasn’t going to let Tessa – now trembling – approach on her own. He covered her hand with his own where it rested on his arm, and they walked forward – up the three steps to the dais itself when that finger crooked again.

  “Your majesty.”

  “Your majesty,” Tessa echoed, softly, and executed a perfect, one-handed curtsy, though she shivered all over with nerves.

  The king studied them each in turn, cold blue eyes moving impersonally over them, head to toe. When it was his turn, Oliver felt sure Erik could see how nervous he was – how afraid.

  Watery sunlight pierced a high window, a single, white shaft that caught the silver of the heavy ring on the king’s first finger: it was shaped like a stag’s head, antlers and all, Oliver noted.

  Finally, King Erik nodded. “Yes, fine. You’ll suit.”

  “Beg pardon?” Oliver asked, as Tessa’s hand closed vice-tight below his elbow.

  Erik met his gaze, finally, managing to be both disinterested, and piercing. “She’ll do. We can draw up the contract after supper.”

  “Contract – your majesty,” Oliver said, trying to keep the desperation from his voice. “I’d thought you might like to get to know Tessa a little, before you agreed to marry her.” The king was certainly as handsome – gorgeous, his brain supplied, unhelpfully – as his nephews, but lacked all their charm.

  Erik tipped his head back a fraction, so he managed to look down his nose at Oliver, despite being the one seated. He snorted. “I won’t be marrying her, Mr. Meacham.”

  “But…the letter…” Oh, Gods, had there been some horrible miscommunication? Did Erik not know?

  Another snort, this one accompanied by the faintest ghost of a mocking smile. “Do I look like I’m in want of a teenage virgin bride? No. She’ll be marrying my nephew.”

  The statement should have been a relief – Tessa certainly relaxed with a sudden exhale – but it was said like a threat, and Oliver could sense nothing like a welcome.

  4

  “But I didn’t want to marry the king,” Tessa insisted a half-hour later, once they’d been shown to adjoining rooms and left to unpack. “I will do it, surely, if I must, and gladly, for my family, but I’d much prefer – if I’m to be married off at all – Prince Leif to his uncle. King Erik is…frightening.”

  For his own part, Oliver would have said intimidating, but that was after pushing down the wild urge to curl up in a ball and protect all his most vulnerable areas. Even seated, and draped in furs, it had been obvious that King Erik was a physically powerful man, younger than he’d expected, despite those distinguishing silver threads in his hair – they matched the beads woven into his braids…

  Off topic.

  Irrelevant.

  “Be that as it may,” he said with a sigh, “I wrote asking if he was interested in marrying you. And he gave no indication that he wasn’t agreeable to that – or of anything, really,” he said, sourly, and dropped down to sit on the window ledge, which was padded with hide-wrapped pillows and a heap of furs – fur was a bit of a theme here, it appeared.

  Tessa shook out a dress and made a face at it – it was all soft, thin silks unsuited to this climate. “I don’t want to marry someone who doesn’t like me.”

  “He can’t dislike you, he doesn’t even know you. I need to at least have a conversation with the man.”

  Tessa shot him a look.

  “Tess.” He gentled his tone. “This is meant to be an alliance.”

  “And it still will be.” Politely insistent, but with a hint of steel edging her voice. For all her sweetness, she was her mother’s daughter.

  “At any moment now,” he said, patiently, “the ceasefire will end. It’s a matter of when, not if. When it does, it’ll be advantageous for you to be queen.”

  “I would be queen eventually, once Leif became king.”

  He offered a smile, and knew it was pathetic. “Will King Erik march forth to save his nephew’s wife’s family estate?”

  Her brow furrowed.

  “A man will go to war for his mate. But maybe not for a new niece by marriage.”

  Her frown deepened. “I hate it when you make sense.”

  “So do I.” He turned toward the window, and peered through the leaded glass at the kingdom that sprawled beyond – what he could see of it.

  Their rooms were on the third floor, along a straight stretch of wall, with windows that overlooked the snow-covered plains they’d cut across on their way from the harbor. The land sloped, faintly, and through a haze of mist, he could just make out the half-moon gleam of the harbor, and houses like little snow-capped building blocks. He saw a trio of riders coming up the road, and off toward the west, lines that he finally realized were fences mostly buried by snow drifts. A few stone walls. And the rumpled-quilt shadows of the foothills, folded together at the bases
of the high peaks, wreathed by fog.

  The scuff of slippers on carpet heralded Tessa’s arrival as she joined him. “It’s beautiful, in its own way,” she said, softly, her breath fogging the glass above his head.

  “Hm,” he hummed. “I miss the green.”

  ~*~

  Because Oliver had done his research ahead of time, he’d know that the Palace of Aeres would be warm and livable, and hadn’t expected goat-herding tents and shoes made of wood, but he still found himself surprised by the comfort of the place. Roaring fires beat back the chill in their rooms, and the stone floors were covered with thick, woolen carpets in swirling creams, reds, and blues – house colors, he’d realized, judging by the banner in the great hall. The bedframes were wood – heavy, dark wood carved with strong, geometric lines, runes etched into the headboards; feather mattresses and pillows piled with wool blankets and furs. His room also boasted a pair of wood chairs by the fire, a chest at the foot of the bed, and a table for the ewer, basin, and toweling. There was no bathroom with indoor plumbing like in Drakewell, but he’d known not to expect that, and Bjorn had boasted about the endless hot water in the baths, down below the palace in the network of inhabited caves. A small shelf housed books, some of them in traditional Aeretollean runes, but others in the Universal tongue.

  Tessa sat down at the desk in her room with parchment and quill to pen a note to her mother telling her of their safe arrival.

  Oliver unpacked his things into the wardrobe and chest in his room, and wondered if it would be impertinent to go exploring.

  When Tessa assured him she was fine without him – with a distracted wave of her quill – he headed down the hall, surprised at his own boldness.

  One floor down, in a hallway marked with flickering wall sconces, he found a set of wide, open double doors that led into a room whose scent drew him immediately: that of ink and parchment and leather and glue. The library.