The Winter King

by C. L. Wilson

  “That was the plan.”

  “I suppose. Just didn’t think I’d have to suffer the results.” He sighed. “I hope there’s something decent to eat around here.”

  “Stay and share my meal with me.”

  Valik gave a grunting laugh. “Don’t think so, tempting though it is. That Autumn is a fine piece of Summerland bounty. They all are. Lucky you.”

  “Lucky me,” Wynter agreed with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

  His friend started to say something—no doubt a continuance of the argument they’d been having since leaving the encampment this morning—but he caught himself, and said instead, “Water’s hot. Go bathe. She’ll warm to you a bit better if you don’t stink of horse and travel.”

  Wynter arched a cool brow. “I’ve already told you, she could be cold as a block of ice, and it won’t change my mind.”

  Valik sighed and shook his head. “An occasional chill in the bedroom keeps things fresh, Wyn, I’ll grant you that. But cozy your bare ass up to a glacier night after night, and eventually your extremities will freeze and fall off. Including the important ones.” He raised both brows suggestively.

  Wynter snorted. “No Summer witch has it in her to be that cold.” He waved a hand at the door. “Go. Get cleaned up, find some decent food, and meet me in the map room in two hours.”

  “I’ve said my piece. Won’t say it again.” Valik saluted by tugging one of the silvery white braids dangling from his temple, then ruined the image of stoic acceptance by adding, “Will say ‘told you so’ when the time comes, though.” He laughed at Wynter’s glare and headed for the door. “Map room. Two hours. I’ll be there, my king. Enjoy your meal . . . and your princess.”

  “Frost brain.” The velvet pillow Wynter threw at him bounced harmlessly off the closing door and slid across the floor.

  Thanks to Valik’s irritating prod, Wynter had half a mind to meet the princess not only stinking of horse but fully armored as well. The scented mist wafting in from the bathing chamber changed his mind. He was tired. He’d been in the saddle, waging war, bereft of female companionship and most of life’s gentler pleasures for three years. But the war was over now, and the Summerlea princesses were beautiful. He couldn’t deny that a part of him longed to bring a little warmth back into his life.

  He walked into the bedchamber, threw open the two windows there, and began to strip in the brisk, fresh air. With deft fingers, he loosened the numerous buckles holding his armor in place and shed the heavy silver plates of protective gear, setting each of them against the wall. His boiled leather inner armor joined the plate, as did the padded gambeson beneath that, and finally the innermost garment, quilted silk that covered him from neck to wrist and ankle.

  Naked, he padded into the bathing chamber and stepped into the huge copper tub. A slow smile spread over his face as he slipped into the steaming water. Winter’s Frost, that felt good. Tight muscles began to relax. He leaned his head back against the broad, curved lip of the tub and stared up at the ceiling from half-closed eyes.

  In the Craig, after a particularly cold day, he’d often enjoyed a dip in the hot volcanic springs of Mount Freika or a relaxing steam bath in the caverns beside the springs, but leading this war had kept him from home for the better part of three years. In all that time, he’d not allowed himself indulgences beyond those available to his troops. He’d shared the same hard ground, tepid baths, and plain camp fare as his soldiers. The only amenity he hadn’t partaken of with them was women. Elka had stripped him of all warmer passions when she left; the colder ones he’d poured entirely into his bitter, consuming three-year battle for vengeance.

  And now, at last, victory was at hand. Summerlea had robbed him of both his queen and his heir. He planned to return the favor.

  After his bath, Wynter emptied his saddlebags and donned a flowing, buttonless cream silk shirt and matching woolen breeches. The loosely tied closures bared a casual vee of muscled chest and the cream silk complemented the golden hue of his skin. The breeches and a pair of butter-soft golden leather boots hugged his calves, outlining the muscular legs and hindquarters gained from years of combing the rocky highlands of the Craig.

  A knock sounded on the bower door. He walked to the bedroom door, toweling his hair, and despite his own men standing guard, he picked up his sword before calling “Enter!” through the doorway.

  The sound of an unlatching lock and the rattle of trays told him his dinner had arrived. He cast a glance through the open doors, counting two—three—maids, and two of his own men watching as they laid out his meal.

  He returned to the bathing chamber and left the new arrivals to set up the brief repast, but he kept his sword within easy reach—just in case. The habits of war were hard to break. He was, after all, still a conquering king standing in the heart of the enemy territory.

  Wynter tossed the towel on the edge of the bath and ran a brush through his long, pale hair. It was still damp and curled slightly at the ends in the moist warm air of the bathing chamber. He fastened it back with a gilded silver tie and hooked a shining silver ear cuff in the shape of a snow wolf—sign of his family clan—around his left ear. Three silver chains dangled from the ear cuff, each attached to a small silver bell bearing one of three Wintercraig runes symbolizing ice, fire, and the Great Hunt. On his right index finger, he wore his ring of office: an intricately carved platinum signet bearing the royal crest of the Snow Wolf clan. On the little finger of his left hand, he wore another platinum band, this one set with an enormous, breathtaking, blue-white diamond called the Wintercraig Star. Last, he pulled on a short, sleeveless vest of sky blue velvet embroidered in silver threads.

  A glance in the beveled mirror hung on the wall reflected back an image of cool, understated elegance. That would do.

  He slipped out of the bedroom and halted at the sight of not one but three darkly beautiful Summerlea princesses sitting at the glossy mahogany table.

  Spring, Summer, and Autumn had come to share his meal.

  In retrospect, Wynter realized, it was a boon to have such surfeit of royal companionship for his repast. He’d thought to observe the Autumn, to determine if she would suit, but enjoying the three of them together gave him a greater understanding of each. He’d taunted them a bit, with their own changed status, treating them more like servants than princesses, just to see if they would be as accommodating as their sire.

  They did not disappoint. He’d seen the flash of defiance in Spring’s eyes just before she lifted her own wine cup to his lips as he’d commanded, the resentment in Summer’s when he’d ordered her to sing while he ate, and the way Autumn’s fingers had curled around the knife when he’d told her to cut an apple and feed him the pieces from her own hand after she had taken a bite from each. But he’d also seen each princess shiver when he ran a finger across her soft, pampered skin or leaned a little too close for comfort, and he’d watched each stifle her own flare of temper and bend herself to his will.

  They were proud and haughty, like their father, but they were also wise enough to fear the Winter King. And that fear made them swallow their urge for defiance.

  When the meal ended, he sent them away, pleased. He’d been right. Any of them would do. That would make things simpler.

  Still wearing his cream silk trousers and shirt, with Gunterfys strapped to his hip and Valik striding beside him, Wynter entered the palace’s large map room. King Verdan, still in his ceremonial best, greeted Wynter with cool reserve.

  “Verdan.” He nodded to the older man. Four other men stood beside the king, including the general of the last surviving Summerland army and three lords of the king’s council. “You four,” he commanded with brisk disregard, “get out.”

  Outrage flashed across all four men’s faces, and across Verdan’s as well.

  “What? How dare you, sir!” the general exclaimed.

  “These men a
re my confidants and advisors, leaders of Summerlea,” King Verdan protested, casting a warning look at the leader of his last remaining army. “They have a right to be present at any peace negotiations.”

  “Negotiations?” Wynter lifted a brow. “I have come to explain the terms of your surrender. They are nonnegotiable. You can accept them, or you and every living creature in Summerlea can die.”

  “You’re bluffing,” one of the other three said. “If you wanted us dead, we’d already be so.”

  “I do not bluff. I came here to end the war, but only on my terms. Since the day I took the throne, you Summerlanders set yourself against me, thinking my youth made me an easy mark, mistaking my restraint and efforts at diplomacy as signs of weakness. In your arrogance, you thought I could be easily dispatched, and Wintercraig would be yours for the taking. You thought wrong.” His eyes narrowed, his expression deadly cold, he leaned forward on the table. Frost whitened the polished surface. “You Summerlanders started this war, but I am here to finish it. You can either accept defeat—and the terms that go with it—or you can die. Either way makes no difference to me. I will take what I came for.”

  The general flushed a ruddy color and cast an outraged glance at his king. “Sire! There’s no need to accept this disgrace and humiliation. Say the word, and we will stand and fight. We’ll die to a man, like Roland and his army when they triumphed over Ranulf the Black.”

  “You wish to die?” Wynter narrowed his gaze on the general. Cold fire came to his call, gathering, burning, at the backs of his eyes. “Very well, then. Die.”

  The general went stiff, his mouth freezing open in a stifled cry.

  “Stop.” Verdan wasn’t stupid enough to step in the path of the Ice Gaze, but he couldn’t stop himself from the quick, instinctive lurch towards the general.

  “The wound you dealt me to start this war was personal,” Wynter said, holding his Gaze. “The price of peace is personal as well. It does not concern your armies or these men, and their presence is neither necessary nor desired.” The general’s lips had turned blue, and his skin had gone pasty white.

  The Summer King capitulated. “Release him, and I’ll send them away.”

  Wynter blinked and shuttered the power of his Gaze. “Better.”

  He waited for the three openly terrified lords to depart. The general, shaking uncontrollably, had to be helped out the room by a trio of servants. “Give him a hot bath and wrap him in thick blankets,” he told the servants. “He won’t feel warm again for several days.”

  When they were gone, he nodded to Valik, who slipped out the other door, leaving Wynter and Verdan alone.

  Wynter crossed his arms and regarded his enemy in silence. The Summer King and his lords were pampered fools. Arrogant and treacherous, yes, but ultimately weak. They had never known true hardship until the hand of Wynter had fallen hard upon them. They roamed the hills and vales of Summerlea, preening and prideful, believing themselves lords of the earth, when in reality they—like the people they governed—were only sheep, fatted and dull-witted by decades of self-indulgence, easily herded to the slaughter.

  It had not always been so. Once, long ago, the kings of Summerlea had been lions of men, true heroes, like Roland Soldeus, who had sacrificed everything so Summerlea could live free. But somewhere along the way, that shining spirit, that noble, defiant bravery, had died out. Generations of kings who’d held the fire of the Sun in their hearts had given way to weaker, less noble men, willful, nihilistic parasites who gorged themselves on Summerland bounty and cloaked themselves in the shreds of their ancestors’ glory.

  And their people, those sheep they kept glutted on a never-ending flow of wealth from the country’s fertile fields, vineyards, orchards, and herberies, never noticed the difference.

  Oh, they’d rallied a few worthy defenses when Wynter had first marched upon their lands, but he’d known their will would not last. He’d continued to press them, relentless and without mercy, stripping their armies of the few brave souls still among them until only the sheep remained. And then, he’d simply spread winter across their lands and waited. Hardship sapped what tiny flickers of defiance still remained, and the last two battles had been easily won.

  “Well?” Verdan prompted when the silence dragged on. “What are your terms? What is the price of peace between us?”

  Wyn had intended peace to come only when every Summerlander lay frozen and lifeless beneath a blanket of ice and snow. But the helpful informant who’d snuck into his camps several months ago had convinced him there was another, more satisfying victory to be had.

  “Your son, Prince Falcon, stole the woman who was to have been my queen and one of the irreplaceable treasures of my house.” Wynter pushed off the map table and began to pace. “He ran off with them both while I was fighting the brigands he sent to destroy one of my people’s villages. But that was not enough for him. During his escape, your son put an arrow through my brother Garrick’s throat. My brother was just a boy, not yet sixteen, but your son left him to die in the snow and fled like the thieving coward he is.”

  Wynter turned, his face a frozen mask, his eyes burning ice. “Your son robbed me of my queen, one of my kingdom’s greatest treasures, and my heir. You will return to me that which I have lost.”

  Verdan went pale, and his jaw dropped open in a stunned gape. “I? I’m no miracle worker. I can’t return your brother from the dead, and I’m sure your spies have already told you no one knows where Falcon is. Not even I. If Falcon did take your queen and your treasure, as you have claimed, only he would know where to find them.”

  “A queen, a treasure, and an heir. That’s what you will provide me. You have proclaimed many times that the greatest treasures of your kingdom are your lovely daughters. So I will take one of your daughters to wife. She will have a year to fill her womb with an heir to claim both the Winter and the Summer Thrones. If she fails, she will be turned out to face the mercy of the mountains, and I’ll be back the following spring to claim another daughter. And so it will continue until I have my heir or you are out of daughters. That, Verdan, is the price of peace.”

  CHAPTER 3

  The Treasure of the Tower

  Khamsin approached the closed, freshly gleaming double doors leading to the Queen’s Bower. Once more garbed in a gray servant’s dress with a cap to cover her distinctive hair and a white bandage wrapped around her wrist to hide her Summerlea Rose, she carried a stack of freshly laundered towels as her excuse to get inside the bower and access the solar to retrieve her mother’s things.

  The Winter King was in the map room with her father, working out the terms of surrender. Khamsin knew enough about diplomatic negotiations to know he would be gone for hours. Plenty of time for her to retrieve her mother’s most treasured belongings.

  The Wintercraig guards standing outside the bower doors searched her from head to toe and inspected the pile of towels for hidden weapons. She explained the bandage on her wrist as a burn from the pressing iron and bit her lip to hold back her outrage as searching hands took a bit too much liberty near her breasts. If they were looking for an excuse to do more, she didn’t give it to them, and they finished their inspection and let her pass.

  As soon as the doors closed behind her, she hurried to the solar door on the southern wall. The key she’d nabbed from Tildy’s dresser slid easily into the lock and turned with a satisfying click. The solar door swung open.

  Inside, the room that should have been bursting with Queen Rosalind’s treasures was all but empty, only a few shrouded lumps of furniture and a haphazard pile of lamps, artwork, and personal effects remained.

  She wanted to weep. They had saved so little. She’d loved every worn stick, every moth-eaten inch of tattered velvet that her mother had ever touched, but her father’s servants had discarded most of it as worthless trash.

  She forced down the anger and useless sense of loss.
“Look on the bright side, Khamsin,” she muttered to herself, “at least there’s less for you to search through.”

  She stepped into the solar, leaving the door unlatched and propped open just the tiniest crack so she could hear if anyone entered the bower. With a brisk sense of purpose, aware that each second that ticked by was a moment closer to the White King’s return, she began to search. She started with the sheet-covered furniture, pulling cloths away until she found her mother’s dresser, where she’d kept the most treasured belongings. Unfortunately, the top of the dresser had been cleared off, and its drawers emptied. Khamsin turned to the jumbled pile in the corner of the room and began rummaging through it.

  Halfway through the pile, she found her mother’s golden brush, comb, and mirror, and that gave her hope. A layer or two deeper, she came up with the miniature oil painting. Finally, near the bottom of the pile, beneath a tangle of long-outdated gowns, she saw the familiar, cracked leather bindings of Queen Rosalind’s handwritten gardener’s journal and her diary. At last! Khamsin snatched the books to her chest and bent over them, rocking a little as her breath came in relieved sobs.

  Sounds—the click of a door latch, then voices—wafted through the cracked solar door.

  Her heart leapt into her throat. She jumped to her feet, her mother’s treasures clutched to her heart, and tiptoed to the door to peer out the narrow opening.

  A pale-haired man in blue walked past her line of vision. The White King’s second-in-command. What had she heard the servants call him? Valik? Then another man, one she knew instantly without even a glimpse of his unforgettable face. White-haired, golden-skinned, clad in creamy silk and a pale blue velvet vest: the Winter King.

  What was he doing back so soon? She drew back in instinctive fear, terrified that he might turn his ice-cold eyes upon the solar door and find her standing there.