by C. L. Wilson
She watched Bella add logs to the already-burning fire in the hearth, then hold her hands to the heat emanating from the flames and huddle close.
“Does it feel very cold to you?” Khamsin asked. “Outside, I mean.”
“As a frost witch’s teat,” Bella muttered.
Now that was surpassingly strange. Khamsin suddenly realized she hadn’t felt the cold in days. Not really. Not since waking in Wynter’s tent after her illness. She’d put it down to her Summerlea blood, but Bella was a Summerlander, too, and she was obviously suffering. Was it her magic, then? The heat of her weathergifts?
Curious, she cracked open the leaded-glass door and stepped out onto the balcony. A cold wind caught her full in the face and tore the pins from her hair, sending curls spiraling madly about. She knew it was cold. She could feel the chill on her skin, see it in the frosty mist of her exhale before the wind whipped it away, but it wasn’t unbearable. Bracing, yes, but no more than that. Nothing like the cold that had penetrated her bones that day when Wynter had caught her with his Ice Gaze. What did that mean? Assuming it meant anything at all.
Before the war, when the relations between Summerlea and Wintercraig were still congenial, her brother, Falcon, and his friends had often roamed the hills and valleys of Wintercraig—hunting snowbear in the mountains. Khamsin couldn’t recall if he’d ever complained about the cold. He’d talked about the snow, the piles of white drifts, high as a man. He’d talked about icicles hanging like crystals from the trees and waterfalls frozen in midplummet. He’d talked about the stark, serene, snow-spangled beauty and the way snow splashed like seafoam around his horse’s legs as he rode. She’d drunk the glorious stories of his adventures as eagerly as she’d absorbed the words on the pages of the books she so loved, and if he’d mentioned any unpleasantness, she’d long since forgotten it.
Falcon. Just thinking of him brought a storm of fond memories and bittersweet emotions. Beloved brother. Handsome warrior-prince. Daring adventurer. Charming rogue. How she’d loved him. How she’d missed him.
She’d never understood what madness had led him to throw away his life and toss two kingdoms into turmoil. Tildy’s revelation about the Book of Riddles and Falcon’s quest to find the sword of Roland had cleared up a good deal of the confusion, but that didn’t explain why he’d compounded his crime by running off with another man’s bride—a king’s bride, no less.
Now, after experiencing the consuming pleasure of Wynter’s passion, she had a better understanding of what might have driven her brother on that front.
Where was Falcon? she wondered, staring out over the land where he’d decided to doom them all. Had he found Roland’s sword, after all, or had the Book of Riddles merely led him on a fruitless chase after an imaginary treasure? Did he and his Winterlady even know what a terrible price others had paid for their reckless passion and thievery? Did either of them even care?
“He’s in Calberna.” Lord Chancellor Firkin’s gnarled finger tapped a spot on the map laid out before Wynter and drew back quickly at the first telling flash of white in his king’s eyes.
Wynter stared hard at the blue-shaded outline of a sprawling chain of islands in the western sea. The familiar, cold bite of vengeance sent streamers of ice racing through his veins, radiating out from his chest. Had the map been a man, it would have frozen dead on the spot. As it was, a fine layer of frost crystallized on the inked parchment, blurring the cartographer’s meticulously drawn boundaries and notations. “With her?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think they found what they were looking for?”
“It’s possible. The prince has been haunting the courts of the West, trying to raise an army he could lead back to Summerlea.”
“Has he found one in Calberna?”
“We suspect so. Our Calbernan eyes have gone blind. Four of our informants went missing, the rest have grown too fearful to talk, and three of our couriers were slain, their dispatches stolen.”
“Post lookouts along the coast.” Wynter ran a finger down the line of Summerlea’s western coast. A trail of frost sprouted up in its wake. “Send word to Leirik in Vera Sola. I want Verdan’s guard doubled. And send more men to Calberna, to replace those we lost. If Coruscate has found an ally, I want to know it before an army sets sail.”
“I’ll take word to Vera Sola myself,” Valik declared. “If the Calbernans are sending an army, I should be the one to command the battalions in Summerlea.”
“No!” Wynter shot a fierce glare at his friend. “You’re not going to Vera Sola. I’ve already told you that.”
“But Leirik—”
“You’ve trained Leirik well. It’s his command. Yours is the defense of Wintercraig.” He shot a hard, commanding look at Chancellor Firkin. “You’ve heard my orders. Carry them out.”
“It shall be done, Your Grace.” Firkin bowed and whispered instructions to two of the noblemen who served him. They each snapped a bow and hurried away. Firkin waved impatient hands at the rest of the council in a silent command to clear the room. When they were gone, he closed the door and approached the hearth.
“Wynter, lad,” he said with the affectionate familiarity of an old family friend, “it’s good to have you back. You’ve been away too long.” He clapped a hand on Wynter’s armored shoulder. “You should get out of this armor. Relax and shed the weight of war. Visit the hot springs of Mount Freika. Run with the wolves. Take your new bride for a ride.” He wagged his brows. “Or, better yet, just ride her instead. Start working on that heir you’ve promised us.”
Valik’s expression turned sour. “No worries there, Barsul. Believe me, if she doesn’t pup in nine months, it won’t be for any lack of effort on Wyn’s part. He’s so besotted, I’m starting to think she’s cast some sort of love spell on him.” His voice was flat, devoid of any teasing note. Ever since Khamsin had summoned that deadly storm—nearly driving Wynter into the Ice King’s grip and miraculously healing herself in the process—Valik had been growing increasingly concerned over what he called Wynter’s “obsession” with his new bride. He was convinced there was some sort of subversive Summerlander magic at work.
“Enough, Valik,” Wynter growled. To Lord Firkin, he said, “If Calberna has offered Coruscate an army, there’s much work to be done to ready Wintercraig defenses. But I see your point,” he added when Firkin started to object. “I’ll make time for gentler things.”
He stayed there with Valik and Firkin for more than an hour, talking not about war but about the Craig, the changes that had happened since he’d left three years ago, the small, personal things Barsul hadn’t put to ink during their years of correspondence, and more. Three men had been sent last month to face the mercy of the mountains: two rapists and a child-killer. All had perished in the ice and snow. It was unusual to have so many such crimes in a single month.
Wynter had known one of the men. He’d been a rough sort of Winterman, but Wyn had never considered him brutal enough to ram a fist into his own son’s head with enough force to slay him.
“Things are starting to change, Wynter,” Lord Firkin said, “and not for the better.”
“Is it the Ice Heart, do you think?” he asked. “Has the power grown so strong in me that it can now feed on others?”
“That’s a question for Lady Frey.”
“Then I suppose I should go get cleaned up and pay her a visit.” Wynter took leave of Valik and Firkin and headed up to his rooms. His valet helped him shed his armor and ran a hot bath so he could wash off the stink of travel. Lady Frey objected to the presence of unwashed men in the goddess’s temple.
As he pulled on clean clothes, his hand absently rubbed his chest, and he thought about the men who’d met their fate on the mountain. Was he to blame for the madness that had gripped them? He couldn’t shake the possibility. His chest still felt cold and tight after freezing that map in the council room.<
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Valik was right to suspect Kham’s Summerlander magic was affecting Wyn, but not in the way he thought. Ever since the night of Khamsin’s terrible storm, Wyn had spent most of his time in her company, and he’d realized he felt more human and more at peace than he had in years. He’d hoped that meant the Ice Heart was melting, but today, within minutes of leaving her on the steps of the palace, he’d felt himself growing colder, more impatient, angrier. That brief flash of icy fury that froze the map wasn’t dissipating as quickly as it had in the past. And that did not bode well. Not for him, and not for any Winterman.
In fact, the only time he wasn’t aware of the cold in his chest was when he wrapped himself in Khamsin’s heat.
The front of Wynter’s breeches went tight, and he swore softly under his breath. This part of Wynter’s obsession, Valik had gotten right. All Wyn had to do was think about the little weatherwitch, and he grew hard as stone. That didn’t bode well for him either. She was a Summerlander, sister to Wynter’s bitterest enemy, that bride-stealing, child-killer, Falcon. They’d wed not out of affection but political expediency. He knew where her loyalties lay, and it wasn’t with him. If he was foolish enough to let himself care for her, she would use his affection, as Elka had, to betray him.
No, so long as that Rose burned on her wrist, she was someone he could never trust enough to love. She was a womb to bear his child. Attachment to her, need—even if only sexual—was dangerous.
And yet, even knowing how vital it was to keep an emotional distance between them, he found himself opening the door that joined his rooms to hers and walking through it.
She wasn’t there. He knew it as soon as he entered. Her scent was slightly faded rather than fresh, and there was a certain dull emptiness to the air that would have been charged with energy had she been present.
Her clothes now hung in the dressing room. All her plants and potted trees had been arranged around the upholstered sofa in the reading alcove. Delicate crystal flacons of perfume were displayed neatly on the stone top of her vanity. Wynter made a mental note to return the book and jeweled toiletry set he’d taken from her back in Vera Sola, and to have several of the growing lamps delivered to her rooms to keep her blasted remembrance garden alive.
He wandered from her bedroom into her large receiving parlor. Here, her scent was strongest. She’d stood there, by that couch. He crossed to it and breathed deep. Yes, here. Other women had been with her, half a dozen of them, but hers was a scent easily separated from the rest. So different from her sister Autumn’s. How had he ever been fooled before? Hers was a scent so distinct, he would recognize it anywhere now, no matter how diluted.
The cape she’d worn this morning lay draped across the chaise. He bent to pick it up and pressed it against his face. It smelled of her. The jasmine she’d used to wash her hair, and the bold, electric freshness that reminded him of the mountains after a powerful spring storm.
He wanted to close his eyes and rub his face in the gathered cloth, marking himself with her scent, marking her cloak with his. Instead, he forced his fingers open and let the fabric spill to the floor.
“Your Majesty? May I help you?”
Wynter turned swiftly. Foolish, Wyn! Very foolish! No one had been able to sneak up on him in years, but he’d been so preoccupied, he hadn’t sensed the little Summerlander maid’s approach.
“Where is your mistress?”
“In the west gardens, my lord. She said she needed fresh air after Mistress Narsk and the seamstresses left.”
Wynter walked to the balcony windows and looked out. Sure enough, several stories down to the west, he found his wife traversing the walks of the terraced western gardens. She’d donned one of her fur-lined Summerlander cloaks, but her head was bare, her distinctive dark hair easy to spot even at a distance.
The moment he clapped eyes on her, he felt the tug in his chest. The yearning to go to her, walk with her, bask in her fiery warmth.
Before he could act on that yearning, logic prevailed. Distance. He must at all costs keep a wise distance. Besides, she needed time to settle in, and he had more pressing matters to attend to.
Resolute, he turned and headed back to his own rooms.
CHAPTER 11
Ice Spears, Garm, and Other Perils
The Temple of Wyrn was built in a cave on the southern face of Mount Vetr. A long, narrow stone road led from Gildenheim’s eastern gate, across a bridge to the neighboring peak, and up to the mouth of the cave. Within, the cave’s walls and ceiling were coated with ice, and a long promenade led to the wide, rounded main chamber of the temple. There, an altar carved from a block of ice dominated the room, and in the center of the altar sat a chalice of diamond- and sapphire-encrusted platinum, in which burned a cold blue flame that emitted no heat. Crossed ice spears hung on the wall behind the altar, beneath the carved ice mask of the goddess Wyrn.
The last time Wynter had entered this temple, he’d stripped down to his skin and taken the narrow passage to the left of the altar, traveling through a deadly, magical gauntlet littered with the frozen bodies of men who had tried—and failed—the same gauntlet before him. He had survived the tests and made his way to the secret chamber buried deep in the glacier on the opposite side of the mountain, and to the dark pool of liquid ice known as the Ice Heart. That liquid was said to be the immortal essence drained from the heart of Wyrn’s once-mortal husband, Rorjak, who’d traded her love for power, using the gifts she’d bestowed upon him to father the Frost Giants and become the first Ice King. It was to slay her husband that Wyrn had fashioned the ice spears and given them to her brother Thorgyll.
Wynter knew the legends were true. Three years ago, he’d put his lips to that liquid ice and swallowed a mouthful of it. The chill had sped straight to his heart and frozen him from the inside out.
“Remembering?” Galacia Frey’s voice whispered across the ice, echoing softly.
He turned and saw her standing in the shadows of the entrance that led to the priestesses’ private chambers. “Yes.”
“You are colder now by far than you were when you left.”
Wynter held her gaze. “Yes.”
“Is there still hope, do you think?”
“I thought you summoned me to find that out.”
Her lips curved in a cold smile. “I did.” The smile vanished. She stalked towards the altar, her long snowbear-fur robe trailing behind her. “Approach the altar,” she commanded.
There was something about the tone of her voice that put him on edge. Since the day she’d become a priestess of Wyrn, she’d treated him with distant reserve, but this was different. Warrior’s instinct made him move slowly, his fingers inches from Gunterfys’s grip. He sniffed the air, wondering if the other two priestesses were lying in wait, but he detected only Galacia’s faint scent. The temple ice muted smells, and no breeze stirred the air, but if the others were near he would have known. Not an ambush, then.
She stood behind the altar, between the cup of blue flame and the wall of spears, looking regal and reserved. When he continued to hesitate, she arched one haughty, mocking brow. “Afraid, Wyn?” she gibed softly.
The familiar, taunting amusement made him grit his teeth. They’d known each other since childhood. She’d never given much respect to a man’s pride—except as a weapon to tweak him with. Obviously, that was still one of her favorite weapons. Regrettably, it still worked.
Damnable woman. He’d show her who should be afraid of whom. Wynter dropped his hand from his sword hilt and leapt up on the altar dais in one swift step. He realized his mistake in an instant.
The world went white.
Air and snow and ice whirled around him in a blinding tempest. He yanked Gunterfys from its sheath. “Galacia!” he roared. The power of the Ice Heart swept over him in a burning rush and gathered at the backs of his eyes. He spun, sweeping Gunterfys and the Ice Gaze blindly in
the white wind.
Then froze when the point of a spear pressed against his back.
The tempest slowed to a flurry of snow, then disappeared. He was standing before the altar, facing the wall of spears. One of them was missing. A thick layer of frost from his Gaze lay over everything, except the steadily burning blue of the flame in the cup.
“Drop the sword and shutter your Gaze. Now, Wyn,” she snapped when he didn’t instantly obey. “Pass the test, and you’re free to go. Refuse, and you die now on the point of my spear.”
“Damn you for a coldhearted witch!” he hissed, but he knew he’d been bested. Galacia had positioned her spear in the perfect spot. A single thrust would drive it between his ribs and straight through his heart. He opened his fist and let Gunterfys clatter to the floor. The cold rage of the Ice Gaze drained away.
“Good. Now put your hand in the flame.”
“Are you mad?” He started to turn around. The spear’s needled point dug deeper, freezing his shirt and numbing the flesh beneath.
“Do it,” she ordered.
“Woman, you will regret this.”
“The regret started long ago. Now, put your hand in the flame.” She jabbed the spear in his back again for emphasis.
He shoved his hand into the center of the blue flame burning in the chalice. The fire flared high in a sudden explosion of red-orange light. He cried out in pain and yanked his hand back. The flesh of his hand was sizzling, and blisters had formed across his palm.
The spear at his back fell away.
He whirled, but she was already gone. He snatched up Gunterfys as she darted around the corner of the altar table. She held the spear pointed towards him and crouched in a defensive stance, ready for battle.
“You’d be dead before you ever drew back that spear to strike,” he snapped.
“Perhaps,” she agreed. “But kill a priestess of Wyrn in her own temple, and you won’t live to cross the threshold.”