The Winter King

by Heather Killough-Walden

  He slowly smiled. “Do I detect a yearning to return, my queen?”

  She blinked. And blushed furiously. “I never said that.”

  “You as much as did.”

  Her gaze narrowed. “Don’t call me your queen.”

  Now he rested his head back against the wall, closed his eyes, and chuckled. Despite whatever damage he’d taken from the attack on Yggdrasil, nothing bad had happened to that laugh. It was as deeply beautiful and contagious as ever. She couldn’t help but smile at her own give-away.

  “I believe it was the Entity that attacked the Tree,” he said when he’d finished laughing. “I can think of nothing else with the resources to get past my guards.” He paused, studied her for a moment, then added, “You know, it’s probably very fortunate that you didn’t take a seat on that throne.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if you had, you would have accepted your place in the Winter Kingdom and become its queen. What happened with Yggdrasil may very well have affected you too. You wouldn’t have been able to transport us to safety.”

  Poppy looked down at the floor, mainly because she couldn’t stand to make eye contact with him any longer; his gaze was just too intense. “I had a feeling I shouldn’t sit down.” The truth was, she’d had a feeling she shouldn’t sit down yet. Meaning, she fully believed in her heart that she would eventually take that throne. She just didn’t feel she should do it at that exact moment in time.

  Now she wondered if it was because she’d also known in her heart that something like this would happen. “Why do you suppose it is that I haven’t gone insane in the wake of all this?” she voiced aloud.

  Again, Kristopher laughed. She looked up.

  “I’ve wondered about the ease with which the queens have found their places in our kingdoms, actually. I’ve come to believe that it’s because each queen is predisposed to believe. And accept.”

  “You mean… you think we’re programmed to just blindly take our places as queens? As if whatever we might think we want doesn’t matter?” She was beginning to feel her skin prickle with irritation.

  “No,” he shook his head, holding up his hand in an anger-quelling gesture. “No, I mean that I believe each woman who has become queen was born a queen. And she didn’t feel she truly belonged until she was introduced to the kingdom where she did belong. And then she understood.” He shrugged. “Rather like Michelangelo discovering a hammer and chisel for the first time. Or Einstein being introduced to physics.”

  Poppy’s irritation dissipated at once. It was hard to be annoyed when someone was comparing you to Einstein or Michelangelo. Especially someone who looked like Kristopher.

  He closed his eyes again and she dared to venture a little closer. It was hard not to. He was like a magnet on her. Or maybe she was a moth to a flame.

  “So, what do we do now?” she asked softly.

  He smiled, but kept his eyes closed. “We wait while I gather up what power I can. Then it’s time to visit Yggdrasil.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  It turned out that the way to Yggdrasil was through the same castle they had just vacated for fear of it crashing down around them. If they even made it to the Tree, they would then have to deal with whoever or whatever had damaged it. Beginning and end, it promised to be a nerve-wracking trip. So Poppy was admittedly nervous about making it.

  “I still think we should tell the others,” she said as Kristopher moved his hands before him, manipulating a floating and glowing mix of what looked like Viking runes, equations, and a complicated three dimensional map. The magic made a buzzing sound, and every time he touched one of the symbols or runes, it made a swooshing noise, as if he were brushing it aside. His magic was fascinating, and clearly he’d managed to get some of it back. But she was still wary about the tasks ahead. Especially since she wasn’t yet the queen.

  Wow, I’ve just sort of accepted it now, haven’t I?

  “That’s exactly what the Entity will be expecting us to do,” he told her calmly, but his attention remained fixed on the symbols suspended in the air in front of him. “The others have probably only just marked me off the list of possible traitors to the Thirteen. The last thing I want to do is turn that vote around by endangering them all.”

  “So we’re just going to march straight into mortal danger completely alone and unprepared?”

  “Not we,” he said. “You aren’t coming.”

  Poppy turned away from him to face the fireplace, and her rising ire caused the flames in the pit to spark with escaped warlock magic. “Bullshit,” she spat, and her vehemence surprised her.

  It must have surprised Kristopher too, because the swooshing sound stopped, indicating he’d ceased manipulating the objects in his spell.

  Why she felt so strongly about this, and so suddenly, she had no idea. But her words formed themselves on her tongue and forced themselves through her teeth before she could stop them, and in essence, they revealed what it was she was truly feeling. “He attacked the Great Tree, the source of winter. Do you have any idea how precious winter is? Do you know desperate we would be, how lost, how dead without winter? All there would be is a relentless, building heat on the Earth’s surface until everything fried up and all there was left was a vast, molten desert.” Ironically, she shivered at the thought. “Even before we all died, there would be no more cool breezes, no changing trees, no rain, to say nothing of snow! We would all be boiled alive in our own flesh bags!”

  The flames in the fireplace rose now, jumping high and full, going from calm flicker to building bonfire. “Goddamn that son of a bitch,” she hissed. “I’m so sick and bloody tired of the Entity. He’s insidious. He destroyed an entire race of gargoyles! He’s hurt so much that I care about, and no one even knows why he’s doing what he’s doing! He nearly killed my best friend. I will not let him destroy my….” She was suddenly at a loss. “My….”

  She turned around. Kristopher watched her with keen and quiet interest. “Your home?”

  The silence stretched, accompanied by the low, magical hum of the glowing symbols floating in the air between them.

  “Spoken like a warrior,” he said softly. The map turned idly in front of him, slowly displaying the multitudinous levels and dimensions of some massive building. “You remind me of my people.”

  He seemed lost for a moment, lost in her gaze and probably in the past.

  Then he straightened, broke eye contact, and smiled as he turned back to the map. “Very well. I won’t try to stop you. But if you’re going to face off with whatever awaits us, you’d best be prepared. Come here.”

  Now it was Poppy’s turn to feel a little lost. She’d just volunteered to face the Entity. What the hell had she been thinking? But it was too late to back down now. And deep down, she didn’t want to. Someone had to deal with that fucker.

  She swallowed hard and joined Kristopher in front of the floating spell.

  “This is the Ice Castle,” he said, gesturing to the massive building. She almost choked at that. The thing was beyond enormous, far larger and more complex than she would have guessed. Then again, she’d only seen two rooms.

  “These are the various portals that branch from it.” He gestured next to what looked like doorways within halls within the castle, and upon those doorways were sigils, symbols made of light that possessed magical significance.

  “All of those?” she asked, dumbfounded. There were hundreds.

  “Yes. Like I said, the Winter Kingdom is attached to the mortal realm, as if by the roots of a tree.”

  “And these are like a tree’s branches,” she said, pointing to the doorways in the map.

  “Exactly.”

  She could hear the smile in his voice. She looked up to find him grinning at her.

  “You’re a quick study.”

  Poppy turned back to the glowing map and runes, pretending to make light of the comment. But secretly, she coveted it. She’d never considered herself a quick study at anything. In fact,
pretty much all of the lessons she’d ever learned in her life, she’d learned the hard way.

  “So, what are we doing with the doors?” she asked, changing the subject.

  “Every door that leads from the castle is accessible by the Winter King alone. i.e., me.” He grinned. “However, there are a few through which mortals are allowed to travel as well, so I can take you through with me. In order to get directly to the actual roots of Yggdrasil, you must pass through three linked doorways, one after another. I’m searching for those doorways right now.”

  “You don’t know where the doors are automatically?” It was his home. How could he not know?

  He shook his head. “What you’re seeing is the latest rendition of the castle. It changes daily as a protective mechanism. Anything with that many doorways to that many worlds has to take every safety measure imaginable, especially when a certain combination of them leads to Yggdrasil.”

  “I see,” she said slowly. “So you have no idea where the ones you want are right now, but this spell shows you.”

  “More or less. This spell shows me the castle as it would look right now if it weren’t damaged. For all I know, there could be fallen ceilings blocking some of these passages. We just have to hope for the best.”

  “Which doors are we specifically looking for?”

  “These three.” He made a motion with his right hand, and the diagram froze in place. With his left, he brushed his fingers over three doors. The glowing sigils on each door expanded, their brilliance momentarily increasing. “Jotenheim, Dvalin and Valhalla.”

  Poppy’s eyes got big. “You’re serious, aren’t you?” She wasn’t a scholar in the subject, but everyone had heard of Valhalla. Plus, she’d read enough mythology out of curiosity to recognize one of the other names as the land of the giants. These were not places she would casually choose to go.

  “There’s a reason I employ guardians from each of these three realms. They watch over the Great Tree in my absence. It isn’t an easy task. However, in exchange, they are given a portal from their realms back through to the Winter Realm. It is an unimaginable boon in times of need.”

  She could just imagine. Any world with creatures within it who had brains were sure to eventually use those brains to disagree on something. Hence, any world with thinking minds would eventually have war. And there would always be people who wanted to escape from that war. To say nothing of people who simply wanted to escape – for a myriad of reasons, from slavery to religious oppression to being forced to marry someone you couldn’t stand the sight of.

  “You don’t mind having these creatures traipsing through your home willy-nilly?”

  He chuckled. Such a magnificent sound! “Our contract dictates that they always gain permission, of course. They can go through the swinging door, but it remains locked until I turn the key. They visit very seldom, to be honest. The portals are used only by dignitaries and royalty, or by those who understand the true power of magic.”

  She thought for a moment. “You said it’s a swinging door. So… if we go through these three doorways and end up at Yggdrasil’s foot, we will be able to come back home, right?”

  He looked down at her, and his smile held secrets his eyes could not hide.

  Poppy swallowed hard as she realized what she’d said. She’d outright called the Winter Kingdom her home. “Fine,” she said softly. “So I admit it.” She shrugged. “What girl wouldn’t love having a home that came with a teddy bear the size of a German tank?”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “They know what it is you’re after now,” said the traitor. That’s how he’d come to think of himself lately. It was how the Thirteen referred to him as he sat smugly amongst them, watching and listening. They were clueless. It was enough to make him laugh, but he kept that laughter to himself and gave nothing away. To give any indication that he was who he was would be a death wish of course, and he wasn’t feeling particularly suicidal.

  He was speaking to the Entity, who’d employed him months ago.

  They stood in a clearing in a forest. It seemed to be the place where the Entity enjoyed materializing the most. His body was an indeterminate thing when it was not safely and cruelly encased in stolen human flesh. It seemed very long, overtly thin, and there was no real beginning or end to its limbs. But it seemed thus, only when the being materialized altogether, which was rare. Amongst the tall, thin trees of the forest they stood in right now, he seemed almost a part of the dark vegetation. He was that sudden hint of humanoid something that was there at a passing glance, but gone when you looked twice. It was that white face that was a nightmare on black limbs that at a second glance were really tree branches.

  The Entity was fear itself. He was that inexplicable form that molded itself out of shadows, out of wild imaginings, out of misgivings and indecision and terror. And what better place for such things than the deep, dark woods?

  Beside the traitor, in that small clearing in the forest, stood Kamon Re. Kamon was the so-called god who was the black sheep half of a set of twins that as far as the traitor was concerned, were really just spiteful squabblers with family issues and more magical aptitude than they knew what to do with. Advanced mages, that was what they were. Petty advanced mages.

  But Kamon Re was indeed powerful, and he wanted his brother’s wife, and the traitor knew all too well the covetous power of lust. How Kamon could want a body that had been used up by the Entity, the traitor had no clue. Did the man have no inkling of what the Entity was planning to do to her? He would use her. He would take her immense power, use it to make his own body real, and then dump her used carcass like the empty potato sack it will have become.

  Of course, the Entity didn’t tell him this. He promised him he would have his love. Kamon Re chose to interpret that as, “I’m getting the girl.”

  Whatever.

  Getting the girl was only meant for some. The traitor had known full well that he wouldn’t have a queen. And that had all but proven itself to be true in the last year or so. As the other kings happily traipsed into their blissfully married fates, he’d continued to sit alone at the table of the Thirteen, no one by his side but his enemies.

  Unfortunately, the kings were intelligent enough to have figured out that the snitch amongst them was one of those few unlucky men who hadn’t yet found their mates. And that number was dwindling. The game would be up very, very soon.

  The time to act was now. And the Entity knew it too.

  “Yes,” the Entity said, in that whisper-hiss that slithered under the skin and venomously poured into the blood stream. “The old witch and her meddling daughter have been busy bodies.”

  The Entity was referring to Dannai Caige, who was not actually Lalura Chantelle’s daughter, but adopted daughter. However, everyone knew what he was talking about. Somehow, Mrs. Caige had learned the truth about her real mother, Amunet. And she’d shared that information with the witch, who had in turn shared it with the Thirteen.

  “She needs to be stopped,” said the traitor, stating what was obvious for the sake of getting it out in the open.

  “Frankly, I’m surprised you haven’t dealt with her already,” said Kamon. “Or perhaps you’ve tried?” The smirk on his face would hint that he was joking. However, the Entity surely wouldn’t take it so lightly. Lalura Chantelle was ridiculously powerful; reminders weren’t necessary.

  “I’ll take her out of the picture,” volunteered the traitor, before the Entity could become agitated. The traitor had been wanting to snuff the old woman out for years anyway. Fortunately for him, magic protected his intentions, his emotions, and his thoughts from Chantelle’s prying powers. She had no idea he hated her. And that of course would play to his advantage.

  She needed to die before she figured out what the rest of the Entity’s plans were and blabbed to the Thirteen about those as well. Because if she did, the traitor wouldn’t get what he was promised either.

  “No,” said the Entity simply. “I have a much be
tter idea.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “We shouldn’t go anywhere tonight. We should leave in the morning,” she suggested.

  Kristopher turned to regard his future queen. That was how he thought of her, regardless of how tentative she might be. He’d seen what he wanted, and now he was going to get it. He would make sure of it. He just needed to bide his time.

  “You said your power will come back to you over time.” She was busy making up the bed in the ice hotel room. It had already been laid with furs and blankets, but she fussed with their edges, moving around the bed to un-tuck the blankets from the mattress, which was stacked upon another mattress, which was stacked upon some thermal concoction to prevent the cold from the ice and the heat from the bodies from mixing.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I hate the way hotels always tuck the sheets under the mattress. Drives me nuts how tight it is. I always feel like I’ve been mummified.”

  “I see.”

  There was a couch in the room too, and it was also made of ice, but furs galore, in combination with blankets, pillows, and complimentary parkas had been provided for the comfort of the hotel’s guests. In their case, these remained thus far unused. Though Poppy hadn’t come right out and admitted it, neither one of them had need of extra warmth. Winter was in their blood.

  Kris had already agreed to take the couch so she could have the bed alone. It went against every fiber of his being to make the offer, but he did it anyway. And he wondered, as his muscles tensed at the thought of her sleeping a few feet from him all night, whether he was changing as a man.

  “So, as I was saying, you mentioned that the longer we wait, the more power you’ll regain,” she continued as she finished up with her mattress adjustments.

  “I did.” The truth was however, he’d already regained the majority of his abilities. He could feel the magic swirling into a condensed presence within himself. It was like a tree reacting to an injured root. It simply began pulling extra sustenance through the roots that were not damaged. It was a quick fix, and not ideal, but that was what he’d done, and that was what he would do until Yggdrasil was repaired and all of his strength was returned.