Winter Reign: Rise of the Winter Queen

by N. M. Howell

  “Forth!” I command. “Make haste to the other side!”

  My battalion races for their lives. But I hear someone screaming. A familiar voice. It is Floron. He is still chained to the tree and white flames have reached him. I race forward casting a spell to break his chains and another to encase him in ice. I float him down and call my horse. I float Floron beside me. I look back, remembering Rhon, but there is just enough time for me to see his body catch flame. I am arrested, ashamed for the first time in years. There are tears in my eyes. But I cannot save him now. I take off. When we reach Erglon and my blade, I cause them to float at my other side. And I flee.

  All night we flee the flaming forest. Giants run, Fox Lords dash, Aiglon fly, and horses race for the other side. As my body heals, I use the winter magic in bursts to keep the fire from my battalion. By the time we clear the forest the sun has risen. We slow our pace, but do not stop until we have risen the steady incline of a thousand feet and left Night’s Deep. When I finally look back, most of the forest is still aflame, a blazing white sea of destruction. Even from here, we can still feel the heat.

  As we enter the land of Gloromere, we are welcomed by the Gloriana, the people of this kingdom. They have already sworn allegiance to the side of light. They are a quiet people, not terribly brave, but kind beyond measure. They shave their heads and tattoo their lineages across their scalps, a kind of tribute to all who came before. I remove the ice from Floron and the young woman who tends him has a long family line, her tattoo coming down over her forehead and down her cheek. Floron is very badly burned and I attempt to speak to him, but he won’t even look at me. In fact, all of the Aiglon have turned away from me. It does not matter. I take my blade and Erglon aside. To show him my gravity, I cut off one of his leaden arms and his silver leg. He is in agony. It pleases me beyond explanation.

  “I need not ask,” I say. “You know to speak what you must.”

  He begins to laugh some, the black magic filing him with arrogance and pride. But he looks up at me.

  “Sit, Winter Queen, and hear the tale which your heart seeks.”

  I conjure a chair and wait, my blade pointed at his throat.

  “You’ve no idea what power you face in my mistress,” he begins. “Her daughter Craetyne would have defeated you with ease had she not been so far from her mother. Her unique birth requires her never to be too far. The other sorceresses were mere pawns, byproducts of the true darkness. Our forces are innumerable, immovable. And my mistress is nearly healed. The destruction of the Doomed Mountains drained her much, but she is recuperating across the sea.”

  “Across the sea?”

  “Of course. My mistress’s fortress is in Targaross, across the sea on the other side of the world. There she amasses her forces for the largest assault since the four Heavens clashed so long ago.”

  “What is her aim? Why does she oppress the earth and murder without conscience? Surely she must have some goal?”

  “She desires one thing. The place of the Almighty.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Certainly not. The Almighty draws his power from the souls who worship him. If she can destroy those souls or seduce them to follow her, she will weaken him. Every soul lost is strength taken from him. And over the last three years she has sought the secret to the Stones of the Almighty and at last we’ve found it.”

  I rise. It is worse than I feared.

  “Legends led us to a village in Targaross where the Almighty buried tablets with the secret to the power of the stones. Vierg’lumière. The purest form of magic, with allegiance to neither the side of light nor the side of dark. It runs in his blood. Your Eduard.”

  I reach out over him and, using magic, I begin to disintegrate his skin.

  “Where is he!”

  “He is beyond your reach, meager Queen! Bravely and powerfully did he fight at first, and we feared his power greatly! Untold numbers he slaughtered upon waking, but he was no match for her! The great Grandestor! The vierg’lumière in his blood is tainted, but if he were to sire a child the magic would be clean in it!”

  “Eduard has no child, nor could he father one with the Empress!” I yell.

  “But he could with Delara! As the right hand of my mistress, she would be ideal! She is already with child!”

  I stop. Stunned. Broken. Has Eduard truly lain with Delara? What evil has passed in these long years we’ve been apart? I look down at Erglon, his skin now almost completely gone, and I can see he has no reason to lie. But there is a way I might know the truth. I slice his throat. I kneel down and touch his face. The Orwirl opens up to me. I see Eduard, see him fighting and massacring the enemy. I see him beaten by the Empress and Delara. I see his imprisonment and torture. I see a strange land. A red sky. I see him laying on bed and Delara approaching. I release Erglon. I stand and with a wave of my hand and a great gust, turn Erglon’s body to ash and sweep it into the sky.

  And for a number of days I do not speak, do not eat, do not sleep. I lay in darkness and hurt.

  More days pass and I give the order to move out. If I was hardened before, I am steel now. After a week we reach the Winterlands. It is difficult to tell what we see upon arrival. I had already relinquished all hope, but what I see before me now is total obliteration. There is nothing upon the face of the earth as far as the eye can see. No life or structure. Not a blade of grass. Were my heart not already so pierced by Erglon’s words I would feel this pain like no other, but I am empty. Hollow as a

  rotted thing and too broken for my spirit to hope or dream or love. We ride forth some way, looking for survivors or clues. Looking for anything at all. But it has been razed beyond belief. So end my hopes of ever restoring my people. Of ever going home. Radluff comes to me, still limping from the battle.

  “Queen, a party approaches.”

  “Form ranks!” I command. Archers ready your bows! Giants to the left and Fox Lords behind the men and women! Shields at your right!”

  The battalion forms to my command and I ride to the front. No sooner have I broken the front lines than I see them. Gold and bright and shining: hundreds of knights in perfect alignment. They halt their march and part so that a group of riders may move forward. They come directly to me, the golden eight-throated lion waving in the breeze above them. Lord Jacob, Lady Katrina, and Lady Thea, more beautiful than ever. They ride up to me and halt. They smile.

  Chapter 9

  In a dark and terrible corner of Targaross there sits a palace of unimaginable evil. Its topmost tower touches the sky. It is the palace of the Empress. At this very moment she walks the hall, fully regenerated and laying her final plans for attack. Evil though she may be, she is one of the most beautiful women to have ever lived. Brunette hair, hazel eyes, skin fairer and more flawless than any other on earth. To see her is to become entranced, trapped by the perfect vision of her face and body. She was the weakest of the Warriors to rebel because she was human. The very first human formed by the hands of the Almighty.

  She enters her grand hall and sits on her throne. Delara comes to kneel at her feet, clothed in beautiful white and gold silk, more powerful and stunning that ever.

  “What need have you of me, mistress?” she asks.

  “You must not kneel for some time yet,” the Empress says. “We do not wish to harm your child. Tell me, how large are our numbers?”

  “Our latest counts place us at twenty three million soldiers across the world, mostly here in Targaross. Though Yunger’s army is quickly increasing. Almost eleven million, primarily on the other side of the water. And of course, Nevena.”

  “You need not worry about her. The child will be born in mere months and we will launch the most devastating attack the world has ever known. We will break the foundations of the earth. And it’s time.”

  “Now, my mistress? Are you sure?”

  “Yes. You may speak my name. Laoren.”

  Nearly four centuries ago, in the realm of Targaross, there came a twilight stranger than an
y before. The sky ran as red as a lover’s rose. This was a time when people were free and everything was bountiful. The days of mor’lumière were both far behind and far ahead, and so the people did not worry. But under that so red sky, a cobbler and his wife lay in the brush of the great Targarossian Forest, praying for deliverance.

  There were only two women in all of Targaross with child. The cobbler’s wife was one of them. As she lay in the dirt and straw, shivering and in agony, her husband kneeled beside her, praying to the Almighty for mercy and relief for his wife. But there was no answer. Sorcerers, kings, and the highest priests of the land had all prayed to the Almighty, begged him to reveal himself and save the world from strife and trouble. Centuries had been spent—and would be spent—pleading the Almighty to return the world to the glory and peace of olden days. But if the Almighty would not answer kings and priests, it was certain he would not answer a poor cobbler kneeling in the dirt.

  The cobbler soon saw that his pleadings were of no use. Immediately he cursed the Almighty,

  spoke the cruelest words and shouted the most hideous profanities. He had never been so angry, so hurt. In her agony and delirium, his wife reached over to him.

  “Apostasy will not save us, love,” she whispered. “I should die most painfully to see you turn from the ways of our people.”

  “The ways of our people led us to follow this being. By not showing himself now, he shows himself to be a coward.”

  But the wife was not swayed. The sky rolled above, redder and redder by the hour until it was a sea of blood, a vision of the life essence of men. Even when the hour of night came, the sky ran ever redder. All through the watches of the night the cobbler’s wife fretted and battled with her pain until finally, just before dawn, the child came. She had time enough to say just this:

  “Never has a child been born here or in the far reaches of the earth who has been more loved by its poor mother. I fear I have not long to kiss you and so with this first, last, and ultimate press of my lips I claim your heart and spirit for the Almighty. May be breathe on you, my son.”

  She kissed him and died. Her name was Lorelai.

  That same night, two thousand miles away across the Wooden Desert and the harsh Rock Realms, far on the other side of Targaross, another son was born to a sad king and his wife, under that red twilight sky. The boy’s father would have cursed the Almighty like the cobbler, but he had not the heart for so strong a feeling. His wife, haven given birth to the child, was tended by royal physicians and survived, though she would be confined to her bed for the rest of her life.

  Her name was Lorelai.

  Years passed. The two sons grew strong, for the red sky had given them vierg’lumière, the purest form of magic, completely untainted and without allegiance to mor’lumière or soufflumière. This pure magic was never before or since seen among men. The cobbler’s son grew up poor and with little of anything but hard work. The cobbler, though he loved his son and did his utmost for him, had grown bitter with the death of his wife. The cobbler never forgave the Almighty and grew more cold-hearted and angry with each passing day. The son saw the terrible state of his father and vowed that he would never become that, would always maintain his honor and would only seek to be good. His father’s bitterness drove him to be kind and compassionate, so much so that the day came when his magic turned. It became something else.

  But time had turned the king’s son dark. The boy saw his father’s sadness and how weak and ineffective it made the king, and so the son promised to be powerful and hard. He would erase his father’s sorrow and self-pity, instead ruling with a heart of iron and a law of fire. The only thing saving the young prince from himself was his mother; so great was his love for her that he fought his own evil. In a world in which he saw only the weakness and smallness of people, the prince saw light and love and truth in his mother.

  And then came the Empress.

  In those days she was called Meeygra, one of so many names she would hide behind over the years. She pretended to be a poor maiden in need of work and shelter and so the sad king and his bedridden wife took her in. It took her mere weeks to corrupt the young prince—she was beautiful and clever and mysterious—though she saw that he was bonded to his mother by a strong love, but she was cunning and she sought the power of the red sky that she knew was inside him. And so for once in her wicked life she took her prize by the power of truth.

  “My prince, I fear I must burden you with a terrible secret,” she said. “I tell you now only out of loyalty to you and your future. Please be not angry with a humble servant.”

  Minutes later the prince went to his mother, demanding the truth.

  “What truth do you seek, son?” she asked. “I have loved you from the moment you opened your eyes. Ask anything of me.”

  “Meeygra has betrayed you. I know what’ve done. Your shoes mother,” he said, pointing at the

  gorgeous silver shoes in the corner. “The ones you never wear because they’re too precious to you! They were given you by your lover!”

  “How could she know?” the Queen asked, scared of her son for the first time in her life.

  “It is of little importance now. You lay with another man years ago and then you gave birth to me. That man was my father. I am no king’s son. I am a bastard, a low born knave. I will not forgive you for this.”

  The prince had never been so angry, so hurt, so confused about the world and his place in it. The pain was so great that he raised his hands and with one great spell the Queen, her bed, and the entire west wall of the castle were obliterated. It was the last step in his seduction by the dark magic and he raged through the castle, slaughtering every soul he saw. He found the king in the throne room. The boy had killed his mother for a release from his pain, but his killed his father for sheer pleasure. When he had laid waste to the entire court and left the castle in ruins, Meeygra enticed him again.

  “It was I who turned the sky red the night you were born,” she told him. “It is magic you cannot imagine. It a spell created by the Almighty ages ago, though he never used it. I called upon its power to create you. The first of my Helkar. You will be my chief warriors, second only to myself, for you must know by now that I am no chambermaid. Go now, two thousand miles east of this place, across desert and realm and dale, and find your father. Kill him and bring back his son, your brother. Should you succeed, your reward shall be my bed.”

  Meanwhile, the cobbler’s son was seeking ways to use his magic for good. He was well loved in his land and after apprenticing himself to a famous sorcerer he was growing powerful. But on the day when the prince arrived, chaos and death spread across the land. The prince was far stronger than the cobbler’s son when he arrived in that land; with a wave of his hand he could turn crowds to ash.

  The cobbler’s son was standing near his mentor when it happened. A minotaur came crashing through the wall and killed the old sorcerer. The minotaur was as black as a void, with eyes the color of fresh blood with yellow pupils. The cobbler’s son had no time to weep, for the minotaur charged him, flashed in and out around him like a terrible lighting strike. The cobbler’s son cast spell after spell, hurting the beast often, but unable to defeat it. The minotaur took to all fours and coughed magic at the boy.

  So long and hard they battled, through the castle, through the streets, across the town square and on farther. Night came on and the son’s magic lit the night like so many different candles, while the minotaur’s hacks of magic shook the very ground beneath them. That magic only made the creature stronger the longer it fought, but the cobbler’s son was growing weak. He had not the strength or the drive for a battle such as this. A black star caught him in the chest and he flew backwards, through the one wall and then another before coming to a rest in the next street, his legs broken. The minotaur stood over him.

  “We shall depart shortly, brother,” it said. “But first I have one last cause.”

  The beast disappeared and when it returned it slung the
cobbler down at his son’s feet.

  “Say good-bye to our father,” the beast said.

  At those words the beast melted down into the young prince and he smiled, face to face with his father, seething with all the pain and anger he had never learned to let go of.

  “The man I thought to be my father was a sad king. I never knew why until I discovered my mother’s unfaithfulness. He knew. Tell me cobbler, have you a kind word for your son?”

  The cobbler looked at the prince, his son, and felt no love for him. No joy at their reunion. He turned to the boy he’d raised. For the first time in years, he smiled.

  “Take from me what you need.”

  The boy was hesitant at first, but as he watched the prince preparing to murder their father and countless others, he reached out and grabbed his father. He began pulling on the cobbler’s

  essence and healing himself, growing stronger. By the time the prince realized what was happening it was too late. The cobbler’s son burned half the prince’s body away with a light so hot that the walls of surrounding buildings cracked. The prince fell down, at the point of death. The cobbler’s son crawled over to him.

  “Tell me,” said the prince, “What is your name, brother?”

  “I am Eduard. And you are no brother of mine.”

  With that Eduard took the prince in his arms and held him tight, chanting the Fulcrumnai, one of the oldest, saddest, and strangest of spells. It is a spell of fusion, used to combine the souls of two similar beings. It is used in place of execution, and as a means to absorb the knowledge and experience of another, but it only allows the soul of the chanter to be in command. What Eduard didn’t know was that in times of extreme weakness, the repressed soul may rise and take control. Eduard fused with the prince and immediately his eyes began to change colors, the beginning of a lifelong battle with mor’lumière in his heart. He turned back to his father. But the cobbler was dead. Eduard had drawn too much from him.