The Winter King (22 page)

A blur of dark, rich color in the sea of glittering winter shades caught her stunned gaze, and she turned towards it and saw Bella.

“Bella!” she exclaimed eagerly. Though the girl was little more than a stranger assigned to serve her, she was from Summerlea, a face from home. They were foreigners together in this cold, icy land, and that forged a unique bond between them. Khamsin almost flung her arms around the little maid before she caught herself. She stifled the urge to give Bella an exuberant hug and settled for a more appropriate, but fervent, clasp of hands. “I’m glad to see you.”

“Not half so glad as I am to see you, Your Highness,” Bella said. “They made me leave and wouldn’t let me go back. I didn’t even know if you’d lived or died until yesterday, when the scouts rode in to say the Winter King was coming.”

“It’s all right, Bella.” She patted the maid’s hand. “As you can see, I’m perfectly fit.”

“Ahem.” The slight clearing of Vinca’s throat made Khamsin turn. “Your bedroom, Your Grace, is through those doors on the left, as is a private parlor, bath, and dressing room.” The Mistress of Servants strode towards the wall of windows and threw open the leaded-glass doors to let in a swirl of crisp air. “From here, you have an excellent view of the mountains, Gildenheim’s western gardens, and the river valley. The king has ordered Mistress Narsk to provide your new wardrobe more suited to our climate.”

“I don’t need new clothes. The ones I have are perfectly fine.” The perfumes of her sisters still clung to their gowns. Kham didn’t want to lose that attachment to home.

“You’ll need something more suited to our weather, ma’am. Winter will soon be upon us, and you’ll need much warmer clothes. King’s orders.”

“I see. Well, then it seems I will be expanding my wardrobe.” Kham gave a tight smile. She had no intention of giving up her sisters’ things any more than she’d been willing to abandon her mother’s things without a fight. This Mistress Narsk could make all the clothes she liked, but that didn’t mean Kham had to wear them. Except for outer garments and perhaps a few underclothes more suited to this icy clime, Kham was not going to change who she was or how she dressed.

“Very good, ma’am. Mistress Narsk and her seamstresses will be here at twelve to take your measurements. I’ll have a small lunch brought up. Meanwhile, if you need anything, just give this cord a tug. It will ring down to the servants’ quarters, and someone will answer your summons.”

“Thank you, Vinca.”

The woman curtsied. “I’ll leave you to get settled.”

“Vinca?”

The Mistress of Servants paused. “Ma’am?”

“Who will be giving me a tour of the palace, and when can I expect them?”

Surprise flashed briefly across Vinca’s face before being suppressed behind a calm mask. “The arrangements have not yet been made.”

“Make them, please,” Khamsin said. “For tomorrow, if at all possible. I don’t want to feel like a stranger in my new home.” Her voice was firm, her gaze steady.

Vinca bobbed another curtsy. “Of course, Your Grace. I’ll see to it immediately.”

When she left, Bella made a beeline for the open balcony doors and started to pull them closed. “Winterfolk!” she grumbled. “Opening windows every chance they get, even when the air’s cold enough to freeze the blood in a body’s veins.”

“No, Bella, leave it for now. I’ve gotten used to the fresh air.”

Bella stopped, looked a little outraged, then tugged her cloak more snugly about her throat and moved away from the open doors.

Only then did Khamsin realize the girl was wrapped in so many layers she resembled a stuffed Harvest goose. Kham had been so glad to see a familiar face, she hadn’t noticed anything else. “I’m sorry. Are you cold? Close the doors then, and fuel the fire.”

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.

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.