The Winter King

by Heather Killough-Walden

  Winter.

  Yes, Poppy, said Winter. It’s me.

  I have to bring him back. How can I bring him back? she demanded, her eyes as wide as a crazed person’s.

  Resurrect him.

  I can’t! A warlock has to be more powerful than the one they’re resurrecting! She was not more powerful than the Winter King. She had nothing on Thor.

  Yes you can. Make yourself more powerful than him, Poppy.

  But how…. But even as her mind whispered the question, she had the answer. An image of the throne room appeared in her head. She saw her throne. And she saw a chessboard, broad as the face of the world. And she knew the queens on that board were the most powerful pieces of all.

  Suddenly, the idea that had sparked to life while she was in the transporting room back at the castle re-kindled and grew, catching ablaze like a bonfire. She realized what she had to do.

  She threw her body over the Winter King and hugged him tight as she called up a portal and commanded it take them both home. She felt the wind pick up, saw the swirling colors in the sides of her vision, and waited for it to finish its job. When she no longer felt or saw movement, she rose to a seated position and glanced around the room. It was blurry through unshed tears, but otherwise, it was the plain, unfurnished room she’d been expecting. No sign of snakes. No sign of Valkyrie.

  Good, she thought. I did that right. Let’s see if I can continue the streak.

  She gingerly moved back, releasing her hold on the Winter King so that he rested still against the ground. She couldn’t stand to see him. She did it all without looking down. Besides, there would be blood – lots and lots of blood of all fucking colors – and she couldn’t stand to see that either. She couldn’t afford to lose her nerve now. What she was about to do would take all of her warlock strength and more.

  She rose on legs that were completely numb but somehow still moving. She made it to the stairs and began climbing. Halfway to the top, as she’d expected, she heard the hissing. But she continued until she reached the final step and gazed out over a two-foot-deep sea of slithering Serpent children.

  She bared her teeth, narrowed her gaze, and began to whisper. As she whispered, the air around her charged with dark magic. She felt it funnel through her, in from the world in general, out through her pores. She sent it into the ice that was the castle’s only building material. And there, it got to work.

  Conjuring was powerful magic. It was the kind of magic that got noticed right away and from a great distance. The reason for this is that it took a lot of strength to conjure. Even so, conjuring magic was the second kind of magic Poppy Nix had always been good at. So if she’d wanted to, she could have called the very waters of the ocean to her. And they would have come.

  But she needed as much strength as possible for what would come later. So rather than pull in water from elsewhere, she turned to transmutation and decided she would simply change the water she already had.

  The first sign that her spell was working was the quicker, agitated movement of a few of the snakes on the top layer of the undulating pile beyond that top step. She looked up to see that the ceiling was dissolving. Streams of water were dripping off the dome overhead and falling on the snakes down below. But it was happening too slowly. She needed it to work faster. She needed to get these goddamned snakes out of her way right now.

  Time for the conjuring magic after all. If I combine the two, it will spare me a little strength. And her hope was that once she sat on that throne, whatever strength she had remaining would multiply as she became queen.

  It was not just her hope, but her only hope.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Well, that worked better than planned! was her rather crazy thought as she dove directly into the floor-to-ceiling swimming pool the ice castle had become. She’d realized the transmutation was working too slowly, she’d altered her magic to invite in the conjuring, and suddenly the study had flooded with so much salt water, she could only stand there stunned as it poured in. Within seconds, the snakes were floating around helplessly, and there was plenty of room for someone to make it from the hidden staircase to the study door.

  She didn’t want to be shoddy about this however, since she would only have the one shot at it. So she concentrated further, imagining the corridor beyond the study, and the passageways and rooms beyond that. She imagined them filling with ocean water, and their ice walls and ceilings thinning out as half of their girth melted into water to help fill the space up.

  She used her magic feelers to detect whether the spells were working or not, and when she was convinced that they were, she pulled her concentration back to where she was. She opened her eyes and looked down at herself. It was a little bit of a mistake – she was covered in blood.

  It was unsettling, and for a few seconds, doubt registered in her mind.

  Keep yourself together, Poppy. Finish what you’ve started. Kristopher is depending on you.

  She could no longer tell which voices in her head were hers and which belonged to Winter. And she no longer cared. They kept her going, that was what counted.

  She nodded to herself and focused. The words of a shielding spell floated from between her lips, and she felt her magic weave around her as if it were creating invisible chain mail. When she felt every inch of herself had been shielded, she looked up and narrowed her gaze on the floating room beyond.

  She wouldn’t be able to come up for air. So she needed to take care of that as well.

  Another spell was spoken, and though it was a very simple spell, one taught to warlocks in their youth, it was yet one more act of magic piled upon all the others, and she was beginning to feel the drain on her resources.

  But again, she ignored the discomfort. She was becoming a pro at that.

  When she’d fully gained the ability to breathe water – a spell parents never forgot to teach their children because it alleviated their fears that the kids would drown – she took one last breath of fresh, oxygenated air and dove in.

  And now here she was, frogging it beneath fifteen feet of water, and she realized that she’d forgotten about the pressure involved in swimming this deep. Her ears began to ring, her head felt strange and a little tight, but it wasn’t so deep yet that it was dangerous. Just uncomfortable, like diving to the bottom of the deep end of the swimming pool without exhaling through your nose first.

  As she moved, writhing snakes bumped into her shield. She hated the feeling. She knew that they were dying and that they were not responsible for their being there in the first place. She knew the Entity had transported them there while in possession of the Midgard Serpent’s body.

  She felt very real regret for the situation. They were innocent and she was killing them. But she had no choice. And sometimes in life… you had to be prepared to kill. That was just how it was. If she could have transported them all back out of the castle, she would have. But her magic didn’t work on them. Simple, drowning water would, however. And when they were dead, they wouldn’t be able to bite – not even those few older snakes who would have been able to sink their teeth straight through her shield.

  Poppy focused through the blurry water up ahead, made it through the study with its floating books and writhing, dying snakes, and headed out into the hall beyond. More snakes, more water, and soon she was turning a corner. A fur rug floated by, giving her a fright. But when she realized what it was, she shook it off and kept on going.

  Swimming like this was hard work. Or she was out of shape. Note to self, she thought. Have Kristopher install an ice gym.

  Finally, she was in the throne room, and the two ice chairs were up ahead. She’d been very careful while casting the melting spell to not include the thrones in its area of effect. From the looks of it, she’d been successful. However, now that they were wet, they would probably start dissolving a bit. Time was of the essence.

  By this point, all but a few straggling snakes were dead or at least unconscious. Again, regret spiked through her,
and again she pushed it aside. She reached the poppy-carved throne, spun in the water, and took a deep breath of salted wetness.

  And then she sat down.

  Suddenly she was not sitting, but standing. The throne room was gone. The water was gone. The very castle was gone. In its place and all around her stretched a vast plain of perfect, undisturbed snow. It stretched into the far reaches of her vision and disappeared on the horizon. Poppy looked up as something purple and green caught her eye. The sky was divided by ribbons of color, streaks of beauty that shifted and melted, reformed and changed again. The aurora borealis.

  “Welcome, Poppy.”

  Poppy looked back down. A polar bear stood before her. To the polar bear’s right was a massive white wolf. To its left was an equally large pure white stag. Sitting in the stag’s tall antlers as if they were branches was a perfectly white raven.

  Poppy couldn’t tell which of them had spoken to her, and there was no one else around. One of them had. Right?

  “Umm,” Poppy said, “Thank you?”

  The wolf panted happily and sat down. The raven hopped from one antler outcropping to another. The polar bear lifted a paw and placed it back down again.

  “It was all of us who spoke,” said the voice that had welcomed her. It was definitely coming from the general vicinity of the animals, but hovered in the air between them as if they truly had all spoken to her as one. “We are Winter.”

  Poppy blinked. “So you’re the one who’s been in my head all day.”

  There was a pause before the voice said, “Not only today, Poppy. I have always been with you.”

  Again, Poppy blinked. And then she thought of her childhood, of the voice in her head she had always associated with her conscience. She thought of the way it had helped give her strength – strength to face the truth in difficult situations, and the strength to fight for what was right when it was being threatened by wrong. It had been there when she’d defended her friends against the bullies that would have loved nothing more than to crush their open, intelligent minds beneath the anvil of judgment and conformity. It was there when she decided to get out of the car a drunk friend was driving. It was always there – when she needed it most.

  “To be fair,” said Winter, “A lot of that was your conscience.” The polar bear nodded its massive head. “You are not a fool, Poppy Nix. In truth, you rarely needed my guidance. But when you did, I gave it. Because I knew you were the one.”

  Poppy looked from each of them. She looked down at herself.

  The blood was gone. The mess was gone. In its place was her favorite outfit – a simple white tee-shirt and a fresh pair of blue jeans with lace-up combat boots. The difference was that she felt like they were royal robes, because the body they now covered was surging with power. It rolled through her in veritable waves. It was like a drug, thick and shimmering and perfect. Nothing hurt. There was no weakness. There was no fear.

  “I have to help Kris,” she said, looking back up at the polar bear. “Please send me back.”

  “I don’t need to my queen,” said Winter. She could feel it smile; she didn’t know how, but she could. “You are already there.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Poppy opened her eyes. She was sitting on the queen’s throne in the Winter Kingdom’s ice castle throne room, and the room around her was still and clean. There was no water. There were no snakes. The walls, floor, and ceiling were as they had been the first time she’d laid eyes on them. A chandelier overhead chimed softly as its ice crystals clinked against one another. But other than that, all was calm and all was still.

  Poppy sat for another second and a half. And then she leapt out of her throne and ran. She ran through the throne room, slid around the corner, and sprinted down the long hallway, which was also devoid of either snakes or water. She turned another corner and found herself in the study. The ceiling was in one, whole piece. The books were in their places on the shelves. And the secret passageway lay open and waiting.

  Poppy barely slowed down enough to make the turn in the stairwell. She took the stairs down three at a time, basically leaping down the entire staircase until she hit the bottom and straightened.

  Kristopher Scaul lay unmoving in the center of the room. Nothing had changed about him, unfortunately, and Poppy knew that if she didn’t hurry, the Valkyrie would find her. They would find where she’d taken the fallen warrior, and they would try to claim him once more.

  “Over my dead body,” she whispered as she walked to the center of the room and knelt beside the king.

  And here was where she faltered.

  For a resurrection, a bonfire would normally have been built. A crystal phylactery would have been created. A complex and incongruous series of events would have had to take place before the spirit could be returned to the fallen body and the breath returned to its lungs.

  But Kristopher’s spirit had never left. The Valkyrie had been denied their catch. His soul was still there, trapped in that un-breathing form. And bonfires were not for the Winter King. Not for him. Not for here, and not for now.

  Poppy reached down, and with a touch filled with the tenderness her heart felt for his, she took his chin between her fingers and turned his head to face her. “My beautiful Viking,” she said softly. She didn’t have a plan any longer. She wasn’t behaving on something she had figured out. She wasn’t acting on logic.

  Instead, she surrendered once more to the instinct that had not betrayed her yet. She closed her eyes and leaned in. As she did, she felt her magic swirl to frenzied life around her. A gentle breeze picked up in the nondescript room.

  She couldn’t see it; her eyes were closed. But as she drew closer, the walls of the transportation room began to change. The smooth, undecorated ice molded itself, dipping down into reliefs and raising in design.

  “My brave king,” she whispered, now just a breath away.

  Then she touched her lips to his.

  The breeze in the room became a full force gale. It surged through her hair, rushing past her in a sudden and magnificent swell of unimaginable power. Somewhere, the laws of physics were changing. She could have sworn she heard music. It filled her heart, filled her soul. She felt as if she were flying, rising high on the back of a Norse Dragon, reaching the outer limits of the atmosphere.

  Beneath her, the king’s lips parted.

  Poppy’s eyes flew open.

  But she could not break the kiss to move away. Kristopher’s hand shoved through her hair to fist gently at the back of her head, holding her fast. He kissed her hard and deep and filled her universe with countless exploding stars.

  She fell against him in exhausted relief and let him have that kiss. He was alive.

  He was alive.

  Time held still for them as they embraced. When the kiss ended, ten thousand uncounted years later, Kristopher brushed his fingers tenderly through her hair, and she lifted slowly away.

  “My brave queen,” he said, smiling. “My beautiful, brave blossom.”

  Epilogue

  The broken root of Yggdrasil had eventually been located. It took a while; Yggdrasil is big, to say the least. But once it was found, with the help of search parties from both Valhalla and Jotenheim, the lone seed was carefully planted. The root was now restored. The fighting was done for the time being, and all was well within the Winter Kingdom.

  Now it was time for a different kind of battle.

  The whistle was blown, and the puck hit the ice. Poppy jerked forward, maneuvering her stick so that it almost seemed to bend around Kristopher’s. She gained the puck, spun with it, and turned a full circle, skating around him with quickly gained speed.

  A roar of approval went up around the two players.

  On the sidelines of the massive antechamber, Neve, William Balthazar Solan, and Meridian the Dire Bear each cheered on their chosen favorites. For the Time King, it was apparently Poppy. For Meridian, there was no telling who it was. Neve cheered them both on, not wanting to pick favo
rites.

  The sound of skate blades was crisp and sharp in the ice. Laughter emanated from the players, laughter like magic and warmth and memories. A Dire Bear roared in friendly support.

  Outside, beyond the clear ice dome, a white stag shook its head, and the white raven perched in its antlers fidgeted, jumping from one antler to the other. A large white wolf sat down on its back haunches, gave a low howl, and panted happily.

  Fresh white powder stretched to an aquamarine ocean, and fat, crystalline snowflakes fell from an impossibly cloudless blue sky.

  Content at last, Winter sighed.

  *****

  “Dear Evangeline,” the note read. “I’m pleased to see that you have advanced as you have. Though I had hoped you would have a more reputable tutor at this juncture…. Still, one mustn’t be choosy. I’m proud of you. You would never believe it, I understand. But I am and always will be. What’s more important, I love you. This, you must believe. It is essential. And one more thing.

  Your world is about to change, young one. Everything you think you know, everything you believe you believe is going to alter before your very eyes. Be ready.”

  Evangeline’s lavender colored eyes read the words once, then twice, and finally a third time, before she finally glanced down at the post script. A gentle breeze blew through her lustrous and long white-violet hair as she read Lalura Chantelle’s parting words to her.

  “P.S. I love the boots. But the skirt could be longer.”

  Heather Killough-Walden Reading List

  The Lost Angels series:

  Always Angel (eBook-only introductory novella)

  Avenger's Angel

  Messenger's Angel

  Death's Angel

  Warrior's Angel

  Samael