The Winter King

by C. L. Wilson

  She considered giving him a little taste of lightning, but the way he looked right now, if she attacked, he’d likely just snap her neck. Her jaw tightened as she gritted her teeth and held back her temper.

  Wynter smiled, but there was nothing friendly about it. “Don’t think for one instant you could actually defeat me. You would only hurt yourself trying. I hold the Ice Heart, and the power of that is something you can scarce imagine.” The fingers at the back of Khamsin’s neck began to stroke her skin. “Now, my men are going to deliver your evening meal, and you are going to eat it. Every last bite. Do you understand?”

  “I told you, I’m not hu—” She broke off in a fit of coughing. His grip had tightened slightly, and his fingers had gone cold. The chill spread rapidly through her skin, making her throat feel so dry she could not continue to speak.

  In a voice of toneless calm, he told her, “You are wed to me. Your survival and welfare are my responsibility now, and I will tolerate no defiance in that regard. Best you learn that now, and accept it. Your life in the coming months will be much easier for it.” His fingers relaxed their grip just slightly, and the biting cold faded as quickly as it had come. “Now, one more time, you need to eat. You are wounded, and your body needs nourishment, so it can heal.”

  Her lips compressed in a tight line. Whatever food passed her lips would most likely come right back up, but the mighty Winter King had spoken. “Fine,” she snapped. “You want me to eat? I’ll eat. Now let go of me.” She wrenched herself out of his grip and glared at him.

  He regarded her with imperturbable calm. “I’ll be back when your meal is ready.” He turned and ducked through the tent flaps.

  Left with no one on whom to vent her spleen, Kham gave a long, furious hiss of displeasure and kicked a small, glazed pot sitting on the floor near the brazier. Unfortunately, the pot turned out to be cast iron and heavy as a boulder. Instead of rolling across the tent floor with a satisfying rattle, it stayed where it was, and she yelped at the stinging jolt of pain that shot halfway up her leg from her now-throbbing big toe.

  Scowling and muttering dire threats against her new husband, she hobbled over to one of the canvas camp chairs. With her back still raw and painful, she couldn’t even enjoy throwing herself down on the chair in an angry sulk. Instead, she sat with gingerly care and indulged herself with a black scowl that soon devolved to a self-pitying pout. Outside, threatening crashes of lightning subsided to distant, rumbling thunder and a surfeit of miserable, brooding rain.

  True to his word, Wynter returned less than an hour later. Two men followed him through the tent flap, carrying covered trays. The Wintermen set the trays on a long folding table and lifted the lids to reveal hot beverages and an unfamiliar dish of some sort of stewed meat and vegetable. Aromatic wisps of steam wafted up from the plates, but what would normally have been appetizing aromas made Khamsin’s unsettled belly lurch. The men set two canvas camp chairs at the table, bowed to Wynter, and left.

  Wynter waited in silence, his powerful arms crossed over his broad chest with deceptive indolence. His eyes gave lie to his calm façade. They were the cold, merciless eyes of a predator, unflinching and entirely focused on her. She could almost swear she saw magic gathering in their depths, and she knew his languid pose hid muscles poised to spring at the first sign of defiance.

  Pride stiffened her spine. She swallowed her surge of nausea and forced herself to sit at the table. She’d told Wynter she would eat. She would not make a liar of herself.

  After the briefest hesitation—was he so surprised she would honor her word?—his arms unfolded, and he took his own seat in a single, fluid motion.

  She picked up her spoon, dipped it into the stew and raised it hesitantly to her lips. Her stomach lurched again, but she forced herself to open her mouth and eat. The first, tentative bite went down and, to her surprise, stayed down.

  “Not too spicy for you, is it?” the Winter King asked, his pale eyes fixed on her.

  “No . . . no, it’s fine.” It was true. The stew was flavorful without being overwhelming. It actually seemed to quiet the growling churn of her stomach. She waited a few minutes, then tried another bite. When that, too, stayed down, she ate another bite, then another, until half the bowl was gone. She stopped then even though she probably could have finished the bowl if she’d tried. The last few days had shrunk her belly, and she wasn’t foolish enough to gorge.

  Pushing the bowl away, she sat back in her chair and cast a challenging look at Wynter, silently daring him to insist she continue. He eyed her dish, then tucked into his own without a word, leaving her defiance to fizzle.

  Left with nothing to do but sit, she occupied herself by examining the stranger who less than twenty-four hours ago had become her husband. He’d changed out of his plate mail into brown woolen pants, a leather vest, and a full-sleeved, cream-colored shirt made from a thick, soft-looking material that shifted and flowed over his skin every time he moved. His long white hair streamed down his back like a snowfall. The hair at his temple had been gathered back in a silver cuff an inch or two above his ears and braided in three long, thin, silver-beaded braids that brushed across his cheeks as he bent his head to eat.

  He was surprisingly graceful in his every move. Kingly. So much more than just brute force wrapped in a dangerously handsome package. Even his hands, so broad and so capable of destruction, moved with disarming grace and unexpected delicacy as they tore small chunks of bread from a still-warm loaf and handled slender silverware with deft ease.

  She couldn’t help but recall the way those hands had moved over her, claiming without hesitation, drawing sensation after sensation from her untutored, arras-enflamed flesh, until she screamed for him to grant her release. Even now, just watching him spread melting butter on bread sent an unnerving flood of heat sweeping through her.

  His nostrils flared, and he stilled for a betraying instant. His lashes lifted, ice blue eyes potent with awareness and a look that made her heart stutter in her chest.

  “Hungry for something else, wife?” His voice dropped to a low, rumbling, throaty growl that made the hairs all over her body stand on end.

  She drew a shaky breath and closed her eyes to free herself from the arcane magic of his gaze. “No, I couldn’t eat another bite,” she replied with deliberate obtuseness. “I’m very tired. All I need at the moment is sleep—uninterrupted sleep,” she added quickly. The last thing she wanted was for him to think she was issuing an invitation. “On a bed that isn’t moving.”

  He popped the morsel of bread in his mouth and drained his mug of mulled wine before rising and dusting off his hands. “Baroc!”

  The tent flaps parted. The young soldier who’d been standing guard over Khamsin earlier stepped inside. “Your Grace?”

  “Fetch the queen’s maid.”

  “Aye, Your Grace.” The young Winterman bowed and backed out of the tent. Moments later, he returned, with Bella in tow.

  Wide-eyed and openly terrified, the young maid looked ready to keel over if Wynter so much as frowned in her direction.

  “What’s your name, girl?”

  “B-Bella, Your M-Majesty.”

  “It’s Your Grace, Bella, not Your Majesty, and your mistress is tired. Help ready her for bed. I understand those lamps will help her back heal, so light them all. We still have a long road ahead of us, and the sooner she is healed, the sooner we can increase our pace.” He glanced at Khamsin. “Will you be wanting a bath, my queen?”

  The offer surprised her. It was a consideration she’d not expected from him. “No,” she murmured. “Thank you, I’m fine.”

  “Very well.” He gestured curtly to dismiss Baroc, then crossed the tent to take a seat at the lacquered camp desk set up in one corner.

  Khamsin started to object, then gave it up. There was no point in objecting to his presence. This was his tent, and she was his wife. And except
for the fact that darkness and arras had hidden the sight of her from him last night, he already knew her body more intimately than any other person in the world.

  Gathering her skirts, she walked to the small sleeping area separated from the main tent by the folding, four-foot-tall screens. With the growing lamps ringed around the sleeping pallet still unlit and the small, makeshift chamber wreathed in shadow, the screened wall offered a small sense of privacy. Her trunk had been set beside the mound of furs and pillows, near the outer tent wall.

  “There should be a length of white sheeting in my trunk,” she told Bella softly. “Fetch it, please.” The young maid lifted the trunk lid and rummaged around inside for a few moments before locating the folded white cloth and handing it to Kham. “Thank you. No, don’t light the lamps just yet. Help me out of this gown first.”

  While the maid unlaced the loose ties at the back of her gown, Kham glanced over the tops of the screens towards Wynter. He was sitting at the camp desk, reviewing a small sheaf of papers, periodically pausing to dip a quill in ink and scratch notations on the papers.

  The cooler air of the tent swirled across Kham’s shoulders and back as Bella freed the last of the laces, and the gown fell open.

  As if he were there on that small breath of air, tasting the warmth of her bare skin, instantly and intimately aware of her, Wynter looked up, directly into her eyes. Kham’s breath caught in her throat. She clutched the loose gown to her chest, fighting the shocking desire to let it fall from her body beneath Wynter’s burning gaze.

  Bella moved between them and spread out the sheet in her hand, blocking Wynter’s view. “This is as much privacy as I can give you, my lady,” she murmured. “Powerful as he is, I don’t think he can see through people.”

  Kham dragged in a shaky breath and fought the hysterical urge to laugh, wishing she were half as modest as Bella thought she was. She forced her fingers to loosen their grip on her gown. It tumbled down around her ankles in a puddle of fabric. Bella moved with swift industry, wrapping Kham’s nakedness in swaths of cool, silky linen. Khamsin clutched the edges of the fabric between her breasts, letting the bulk of the sheeting drape low, just skimming the top of her buttocks and leaving her back bare for healing.

  Not daring to glance in Wynter’s direction, she knelt on the thick, padded pallet while Bella lit the growing lamps one by one. A muffled sound came from the main tent area, followed by a brief swirl of cold wind. Even without turning to look, Kham knew that Wynter had left.

  “I thought he’d never leave,” Bella muttered, confirming it. “I don’t know what to make of him. He acts so concerned for your health, you’d almost think he actually cared. It’s hard to believe he intends to abandon you on some frozen glacier and leave you there to die if you don’t give him a child before year’s end. Seems cold and unnatural, if you ask me. Now, let me turn these growing lamps up a bit, then you just lie still while I clean your wounds.” Bella gently stroked a damp cloth over Khamsin’s back. With Wynter gone and the growing lamps turned on full, the temperature in the small sleeping area rose quickly to a warm, toasty bake. “There now, that feels better doesn’t it? Summer warm, like home the way it used to be.”

  It did feel better. The warm light soaked into Kham’s skin like rain into thirsty soil. She closed her eyes and murmured a wordless agreement. She heard Bella kneel on the floor beside her, heard the quiet snick of a jar opening, then felt Bella’s hands gently began rubbing Tildy’s cream into her skin. Her touch was kinder than it had been in the jolting coach, and if Khamsin closed her eyes, she could almost believe it was Tildy, not Bella, tending her with a mother’s love.

  Tears burned at the backs of her eyes, but she would not let them fall. Her path had been laid out, and Tildy would not ever again walk it with her. Khamsin, who had never truly been alone in the world, would have to learn to be so. The child who had always found refuge in her nursemaid’s maternal love would have to become a woman, strong and self-sufficient.

  Because no matter what it took, Khamsin had no intention of letting any man—husband, king, or the Sun God himself—stake her out on a glacier and leave her to die.

  CHAPTER 8

  A Flame in Snow

  Four days later, Wynter paced outside Khamsin’s carriage, his body humming with pent-up energy. Valik stood rock still a few feet behind him, no less agitated than Wynter but better able to hide it. Inside the carriage, the Wintercraig army’s most experienced surgeon, Jorgun Magnusson, was examining Khamsin, whose health had taken an alarming turn for the worse.

  She hadn’t complained. Not even once. The stubborn little weatherwitch just suffered her misery in silence and soldiered on. That near-heroic stoicism was not what Wynter had come to expect from Summerlanders, and it would have won his grudging admiration if not for the way she and her maid had conspired to hide her worsening condition from him.

  Wynter had slowed his army’s pace to a crawl, hoping that would lessen Khamsin’s travel sickness. He’d stopped frequently so she could rest, hoping that would bolster her strength, but she’d grown so thin and wan she was near transparent. He’d even drawn back the snow clouds that had blanketed Summerlea skies for so long, hoping direct sunlight would provide her a measure of healing that the growing lamps had not.

  This morning, though, she’d been so quiet and withdrawn that he’d paid a surprise visit to check on her himself during their midmorning stop. And he’d caught the maid trying to dispose of the breakfast Khamsin had supposedly eaten three hours earlier! After threatening to freeze the maid with a cold so deep she would never thaw, the truth came tumbling out.

  Two days! For two days now, Khamsin had not been able to keep more than a cup of broth in her stomach. And she’d hidden that from him!

  His fury at her deception was stronger than any emotion he’d felt since the day he’d learned of his brother’s death. He wanted to roar and gnash his teeth. He wanted to stomp so hard the earth would shake and rip trees up out of the ground in a violent rage that would do a wounded giant proud.

  Behind him, the carriage door opened, and Wynter spun around to watch Jorgun alight from the conveyance.

  “Well?” His jaw clenched as he waited for the surgeon’s answer, but he knew, even before Jorgun slowly shook his head, what that answer would be.

  “She’s much worse, Your Grace. Fever’s set in, and her wounds are going septic. If we don’t stop long enough to cure the infection and let her fully heal, I doubt she’ll reach the borders of Wintercraig alive.

  The prognosis left Wynter stunned. Like Valik, Jorgun was no exaggerator. His grave concern meant she was all but knocking on death’s door.

  “We’ll stop here then,” Wynter decided abruptly. “And you will do everything in your power to heal her.” He turned to his second-in-command. “Valik, ask for volunteers—fifty men, no more—to stay with me and the queen until Jorgun says she’s well enough to travel. You and the rest of the men continue on to the Craig. You’ve been gone from home long enough. There’s no need for you to delay your return.”

  Valik’s spine went stiff and a stubborn, all-too-familiar light entered his eyes. “I won’t leave my king in the middle of enemy territory with a sick woman. Especially not when that woman is the daughter of your enemy. Not with five hundred men to guard you.”

  Wynter arched a brow. “You think I can’t protect myself without you?”

  “I think you’ll be distracted. Whether you like it or not, she’s gotten under your skin. She’s been there since that first day in the tower, and you know it. And I don’t trust it. I’ll handpick those men—a hundred, not fifty—and we will stay with you. The others can go on ahead.”

  Wynter’s eyes narrowed. “You’re an impudent get, Valik Stone-skull.”

  “Take after my friend, the king of rock-headedness.” Valik saluted briskly, then turned his mount around to charge down the line.

 
They set up camp by the road’s edge, in the remains of what had been a wheat field. The rest of the army marched north at a brisk pace, carrying Khamsin’s young maid with them. She’d protested the dismissal at first until Wynter near froze her with a look. She’d known her mistress’s condition was worsening and not only had she not alerted Valik or Wynter to the truth, but she’d helped Khamsin mask the true depth of her illness until it was almost too late.

  Valik set up a perimeter around the encampment and appointed shifts of men to stand sentry. A dozen soldiers rode out to hunt for game, while a dozen more headed east along a narrow road to see what they might scavenge from local farmhouses and villages.

  Wynter carried Khamsin from the fetid stuffiness of the coach to his tent. Shame and fear battled inside him. She’d lost so much weight, she seemed little more than bones wrapped in a thin casing of flesh.

  “Light a fire in the stove, and set out those lamps around the pallet.” His men had prepared the surgeon’s cot in the center of the tent, closest to the iron stove and farthest from the snowy chill that seeped through the edges of the canvas. Gently, he laid his bride facedown upon the prepared bedding. He turned her head to one side so she could breathe without restriction and smoothed the soft ringlets of white-streaked hair back from her face. Her skin was burning to the touch.

  “Stubborn, damned-fool woman,” he muttered. “Were you trying to kill yourself?”

  He hadn’t thought her that sort. She’d struck him as the kind more likely to fry him with lightning than suffer in silence.

  Not that she’d been in any shape to summon lightning lately. He’d almost begun wishing for a thundercloud on the horizon and the misery of torrential rain.

  He unlaced the back of her gown and parted the loose-fitting fabric. His jaw clenched at the sight of her back. The skin was red and inflamed around the wounds, and infection—quite a bit of it—had most definitely set in. Red streaks radiated out from several of the deeper lacerations, and underlying the scent of blood and pus was the first hint of a smell that made Wynter’s blood run cold.