The Winter King

by C. L. Wilson

  Reika smiled and curtsied with a murmured, “Thank you, Your Grace.”

  Wyn glanced up at Khamsin’s balcony above. One did not pour fuel on an inferno, then run away and expect others to deal with the resulting conflagration.

  “We’ll leave in half an hour,” he announced. “There’s something I must attend to.”

  Leaving Valik and Reika staring after him in surprise, he jogged back up the steps and into the palace. “Fjall.” He called the Steward of the Keep to his side. “Where is Her Grace?”

  “She’s with young Krysti, Sire. They’ve been exploring the palace since returning from their ride.”

  Which meant they could be anywhere. And he had neither the time nor the inclination to rouse the entire castle in search of his wife.

  “Thank you.” Leaving the steward to his duties, Wynter took the central stairs three at a time and followed the corridors to the private office attached to his rooms. Sitting down at the desk, he drew out a slip of parchment, uncapped the pot of ink, and dipped a quill in.

  The inked quill hovered over the parchment for several minutes as he wrestled with what words to write. In the end he decided to stick to the facts.

  My Queen,

  Business of the kingdom has called me away. I return in a fortnight. Keep well, min ros. I will attend you upon my return. Until then, I remain

  Your faithful husband,

  W

  There. Short, sweet, and to the point. Nothing weak or wistful, but he’d included an endearment and declared his intent to end their estrangement when he got back. And he’d taken the time to write the note in his own hand. That should earn some measure of favor.

  He hesitated, debating about whether to address Reika’s presence in his traveling party directly, then decided against it. He’d outright declared himself a faithful husband in his note, thus his wife should have no trouble dismissing any groundless gossip that might reach her ears.

  Wyn sanded the note, waited for it to dry, then folded, sealed, and addressed it. He carried the sealed missive into Khamsin’s chambers and propped it against the mirror of her dressing table, where she could not help but notice it.

  Satisfied that he’d done what he could to avert pending disaster, Wynter made his way back to the courtyard and mounted Hodri. The stallion pranced, tossing his long white mane and snorting with impatience.

  Wyn patted Hodri’s strong neck and took up the reins. “Let us be off.”

  With a clatter of hooves on gritted cobblestone, Wynter, Valik, Reika, and the White Guard rode out of Gildenheim.

  Sore, exhausted, her pent-up frustration now tamped down to bearable levels, Khamsin groaned as she sank into the luxurious, steaming bath Bella had prepared. Her head lolled against the lip of the tub, eyes closed, as she breathed in the patchouli-scented steam.

  Her legs and arms felt like jelly, and there wasn’t a muscle in her body that didn’t ache. She’d practiced under Krysti’s instruction until well after sundown. The boy was a surprisingly demanding taskmaster. He hadn’t let her quit until she’d reached the top of the wall several times, a feat that had proven more difficult than she’d anticipated given the awkwardness of her voluminous skirts tucked up around her waist and her lack of upper-arm strength.

  Tomorrow, first thing, she would start the exercises Krysti had recommended to strengthen her arms for climbing. And the seamstress who’d been remaking her wardrobe would simply have to make her a set of clothes more suited to the sort of active pursuits Krysti and the men engaged in.

  She’d seen the women of the Craig working hard alongside their men. She wasn’t going to let herself remain some weak, pampered southerner in their eyes. She was going to become a woman of the Craig in every way she could. She was going to learn to climb cliffs, hunt, read the signs of the forest.

  Maybe that would earn their approval.

  Because being herself certainly hadn’t.

  This strange dance of avoidance going on between Wynter and herself had to end, too. Starting tonight. If his seat at dinner was empty again, she was going to track him down and demand that he come to her bed. Considering that her life still lay in the balance if she didn’t produce a child, she wouldn’t be begging for his attentions. She’d just be demanding he keep up with his part of their marriage contract.

  “Bella,” she called. She could hear her maid moving around in the bedchamber. Tidying the linens, no doubt, since she’d been bemoaning the Wintercraig maids’ inability to fold a crisp corner. A few moments later, the girl popped into the bathing room.

  “Yes, ma’am, you called?”

  “Lay out the white gown for dinner. The one with the ermine trim.” Kham ran a soapy cloth across her outstretched arm. Wynter liked that dress, she knew. The last time she’d worn it, he’d hardly taken his eyes off her.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Bella said. She started to turn away, then paused. “So you will be going down to dinner tonight, then?”

  Khamsin frowned. “Of course. Why would I not?”

  “Well, I thought that since the king was gone, you might—”

  “The king is gone?”

  “Yes, ma’am. This afternoon. He rode out with Lord Valik and Lady Villani.”

  The bar of soap squirted out of Kham’s suddenly clenched hand and landed in the tub with a splash.

  “He rode out . . . with Lady Villani?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” A gust of wind rattled the mullioned windowpanes. Bella flinched and glanced out at the darkening evening sky. “I’m sorry. I thought he told you.”

  “No. No, he didn’t.” Khamsin gripped the sides of the tub. The already-warm water was growing hotter by the second. “On second thought, just lay out my nightgown and robe. I’ll have dinner in the room tonight and make an early night of it.”

  “Of course.” Bella bobbed a curtsy and left.

  Rather than lounging in the tub until the water cooled—which at the present rate was going to be never—Khamsin made short work of her bath and stepped out. She needed no towel to dry herself. The water on her skin evaporated into steam before her feet touched the thick rugs covering the cold stone floor.

  Wynter had left Gildenheim without a word to her. And he’d taken Reika Villani with him! He’d sworn to be faithful. To take no other woman to bed. And yet he’d avoided hers for the last two months and was now cavorting about the countryside with that conniving harpy.

  She snatched up her robe, shoved her arms through the sleeves, and stalked into her bedroom. Was this some sort of test? To see how far he could push her before she broke? Or had he lied to her from the start? Just told her what she wanted to hear to keep her docile and under control while he went after the woman he truly wanted?

  She didn’t want to believe she could be so easily duped, but apparently, she could. He’d dazzled her with his great, masculine beauty, seduced her with his oh-so-believable flashes of tenderness and caring. Stupid, naïve idiot that she was . . . she’d fallen for it all.

  The bedchamber was warmer than usual, a large fire roaring in the hearth. The flames leapt higher as Bella industriously poked at the logs.

  “Those Wintercraig maids opened all the windows this afternoon when they were changing your linens,” Bella groused. “Can you believe it? I nearly froze in my shoes when I first came in—such a horrible, icy wind blowing through the place. It’s only bearable now because I closed the windows and started a fire. Silly, goose-brained girls. What were they thinking? It’s snowing—snowing!”

  Kham glanced out the windows. Sure enough, the snow Krysti said had been threatening all day was now falling thick and fast.

  “It’s all right, Bella,” she murmured. “I like the fresh air, too. It makes the room smell nice, and the cold doesn’t bother me. But you go on back to your room and sit by the fire. Take the rest of the night off.”

  Bella turned
in surprise. “But what about your dinner?”

  “I’ll be fine. I’m really not hungry.”

  “But—”

  “Please!” Kham grimaced at the sharp edge in her tone and rubbed her temples. “Please, just go. I’ll be fine.”

  Grumbling about being sent away, Bella left.

  Khamsin drew on her nightdress and robes, then paced the room restlessly, hounded by her thoughts and the feelings of anger and betrayal. The roaring fire, rather than comforting her, only made her hot, irritable, and angrier. She’d trusted him. Dear gods, she had. The enemy king who’d wed her. He had promised to be faithful, to deal with her fairly, and she’d believed him. What a fool she was!

  She flung open the balcony doors and stepped out into the storm, hoping the cold and snow would draw the temper from her and calm her down. Instead, the storm grew worse as her agitated weathergift amplified the forces of nature. The wind began to howl. The whole sky was whirling white now, and she couldn’t see down to Gildenheim’s walls—nor even to the courtyard below. The air around her was hot and steaming—snowflakes evaporating in an instant when they neared her body. Her anger was feeding the storm, all right, but the storm was feeding her anger, just as much.

  A frisson of alarm skated up her spine. This was getting bad. Very bad.

  “For Wyrn’s sake, Khamsin,” she muttered, “get away from the sky before you kill someone.”

  She fled back indoors. In order to break the connection between the storm and her gift, she needed to go someplace deep, surrounded by rock and earth. She waved off the guards standing beside the door to her chambers and made her way downstairs to the kitchens. There, scores of servants bustled about in organized chaos, stirring soups, roasting meats, plating dishes. One look at her swirling silver eyes, however, and they cleared a path without a word.

  She ran through their midst and down the stairs to the large, musty wine cellar that had been carved deep, deep into the mountain. Torches burned in sconces along the wall, the only source of light. During her tour with Mistress Vinca, she’d been frightened when her visit to the wine cellar had cut her off from her gift, but if she didn’t separate herself from the storm soon, people would die.

  When she reached the heavy wooden door leading to the cellar, however, she found it closed and locked. With a scream of frustration, she yanked on the door and pounded the unyielding wooden planks.

  “Your Grace? May I be of assistance?”

  She whirled around so fast the Steward of Wines, who must have followed her into the cellars, jumped back in fright.

  “Forgive me, ma’am. I didn’t mean to startle you.” His voice shook. He was afraid of her.

  He should be.

  “Open this door.”

  “I beg your par—”

  “Open it!”

  He jumped again. “Of course.” He drew the ring of keys from his side. They rattled noisily in his shaking hands. The man skirted gingerly around her and bent to put the key in the lock. Finally, after dropping the keys twice, the steward successfully inserted the right key in the lock and turned. The tumblers clicked. The door opened.

  “Give me the keys.” She held out an imperious hand.

  The steward hesitated. “Madam, if you’ll just tell me what you’re looking for—”

  “Give . . . me . . . the keys. Now.”

  He handed them over.

  “Leave me.” Kham didn’t wait to see if he obeyed. She snatched the torch off the wall and ran down the long corridor, deep into the cold, shadowy recesses of the wine cellar.

  The air was damp, chill, and musty. The flame of her torch was the only light. As she ran, her connection to the storm finally began to wane. She kept running, deeper and deeper into the gloom of the cellar hewn from solid rock, down another set of stairs and back into the deepest, coolest part of the cellar until there was no place left to run. There, before the dark stone wall covered with enormous shelves of dusty wine bottles, she let the torch fall to the stone floor and sank down beside it, pulling her legs up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them.

  She could no longer feel the storm outside, only the storm within. The great, wild hurricane of anger and pain that threatened to tear her apart. Her chest was so tight she could hardly draw breath. She gasped for air, and the gasps turned to sobs. The dry, burning pain in her eyes became a flood of tears that could no longer be contained.

  Kham buried her face in her arms and cried until her throat was sore and she had no tears left. And when the storm had passed and her tears were spent, she lay on the dusty floor of the wine cellar and stared up at the rocky ceiling overhead.

  What was wrong with her that no one wanted her?

  She was aware of her shortcomings: her short temper, the violent nature of her weathergift, her need to rebel against authority. But despite those drawbacks, she had always tried to live a good life, be a good person. A person Roland Soldeus would have been proud to call friend. Honorable, loyal, trustworthy, brave.

  Maybe she was the abomination her father had called her. Maybe everyone else could see the evil in her and that’s why they reviled her.

  Kham gave a harsh laugh and flung an arm over her eyes. Or maybe she was simply stupid and naïve and had spent her whole life trusting the wrong people. Maybe the only person she could trust was herself.

  Tired of feeling sorry for herself, scrubbed the dampness from her cheeks and sat up. Time to regroup. She would not let Wynter Atrialan or any other person decide her fate. She was a survivor. She always had been. And she wasn’t going to be a pawn in other people’s games anymore.

  And Wynter Atrialan wouldn’t honor his oaths to her, there was no reason she should honor hers to him.

  She was done being the docile, agreeable wife. She was going to do what she should have been doing from the very beginning: whatever it took to look out for her own interests. No matter what happened between now and the end of her year as Wintercraig’s queen, she was going to find a way to survive and to thrive. And she was going to secure that survival independent of whether she bore Wynter’s child or won over the hearts and minds of his people.

  With that goal in mind, Khamsin was going to dedicate herself to discovering all the things Wynter didn’t want her to know. Starting with whatever he was hiding in the one place in the palace she’d been forbidden to enter. The room he visited in secret when he thought all the rest of the palace was asleep.

  Gildenheim’s Atrium.

  CHAPTER 17

  The Frozen Heart of Winter

  On silent feet, Khamsin crept across Gildenheim’s marble floors. The hour was late. All of Gildenheim was sleeping save the guards who patrolled the outer defenses and the handful who prowled the hallways of the castle in search of mischief-makers and spies. Kham had dodged three of those while making her way from her rooms to the mysterious, forbidden Atrium that only Wynter ever entered.

  His predilection for secrecy had actually been a boon to her. If not for those times when she’d followed him from his room to the Atrium, she would not have known the schedule of the guards or the back-stairs path least likely to result in an encounter with some wandering servant or dallying courtier.

  The Atrium’s twelve-foot-tall doors were fashioned from carved and gilded white wood inset with large panes of frosted glass. Etched snowflakes and curling lines swirled across the glass’s translucent surface. The doorknobs were shaped like two great silver wolves rearing up on hind legs, their bushy tails the cunningly disguised lever door handles. Each wolf held a gold ball between its diamond teeth. The ball on the right sported a keyhole.

  Kham knelt by the right door, pulled the lockpicks from her skirt pocket, and went to work. Krysti had taught her well. In less than a minute, the lock clicked open. Kham pulled down on the wolves’ tails, and the doors opened. She slipped inside, careful to close the doors behind her, and pulle
d the shade from her lamp. Light spilled out in a bright circle around her.

  “Now, Wynter of the Craig, let’s see what you’ve been hiding.” Lifting her lamp high, Khamsin turned to investigate her husband’s private sanctum.

  She wasn’t sure what she expected to find. Private military secrets, perhaps. Treasures vast enough to buy entire kingdoms. Sacred antiquities. Possibly even some dread, terrible evil Wynter hid behind his handsome face and winning smile. (Although despite her best, angriest efforts to paint him a foul, blackhearted villain, she honestly didn’t believe that last one.)

  But when the light from her lamp spilled out across the Atrium’s shadowy secrets, she didn’t find dazzling treasure. She didn’t find a secret vault of sensitive military or political documents. She didn’t find war plans, or holy relics, or a bloody altar to the dark gods.

  What she found, instead, was beauty. Breathtaking beauty.

  Her mouth open in a soundless gasp of wonder, Khamsin stepped forward into a glorious, ghostly white forest carved entirely from ice. Moonlight, spilling through the leaded-glass dome overhead, sparkled on the delicate, ice-carved leaves and needled boughs, making the entire room shimmer like diamonds in soft silver light.

  “Summer Sun.” The shocked, reverent whisper echoed in the total silence of the room. She tilted her head back. The life-sized ice trees soared seventy feet high. The Atrium roof soared higher still, and in the space between the tops of the trees and the sheltering glass panes of the glass roof, flocks of carved ice birds were frozen in flight, wings outstretched as they wheeled and dipped through an imaginary sky.

  Glittering snow covered the Atrium floor, and as she approached the first few trees of the ice forest, she discovered an astonishingly lifelike baby deer carved from frosted ice standing on spindly legs beneath the watchful eyes of his mother. Just beyond, in a small clearing beside a tiny brook carved of clear ice, a family of Winterfolk were having a picnic.

  Snow crunched beneath her slippers as she moved closer and brought her lantern up to illuminate the family. There were four figures: a man, a woman, a young boy, and an infant lying on a blanket between his parents. The sculptures were astonishingly lifelike, right down to the expressions of doting, parental love on the adult faces and the beaming, mischievous exuberance on the face of the boy as he cupped a tiny bird in his hands.