The Winter King (15 page)

“
Then… what
is
Yggdrasil?” she asked
cautiously.

She stopped a few feet from the bed, which
was a king sized block of ice covered in furs. She wondered if they
were real. She hoped not. There was no reason for them to be real
here in the mortal realm, not with equally warm substitutes
available just about everywhere.

“
Yggdrasil
is
a holy tree. But it
is not the World Tree for mortal realms. It is the World Tree for
the
immortal
realms, especially the realm of winter. We know it as
the
Great
Tree.
Each fruit appears as a snowflake, and represents the beginning of
the season. It is what allows me to move freely between the Winter
Kingdom and the mortal realm, because its roots bind the two
together.”

She digested this. “And something attacked
one of those roots? Who? And does that mean that we can’t go back
now?”

He slowly smiled. “Do I detect a yearning to
return, my queen?”

She blinked. And blushed furiously. “I never
said that.”

“
You as much as
did.”

Her gaze narrowed. “Don’t call me your
queen.”

Now he rested his head back against the
wall, closed his eyes, and chuckled. Despite whatever damage he’d
taken from the attack on Yggdrasil, nothing bad had happened to
that laugh. It was as deeply beautiful and contagious as ever. She
couldn’t help but smile at her own give-away.

“
I believe it was the
Entity that attacked the Tree,” he said when he’d finished
laughing. “I can think of nothing else with the resources to get
past my guards.” He paused, studied her for a moment, then added,
“You know, it’s probably very fortunate that you didn’t take a seat
on that throne.”

“
Why?”

“
Because if you had, you
would have accepted your place in the Winter Kingdom and become its
queen. What happened with Yggdrasil may very well have affected you
too. You wouldn’t have been able to transport us to
safety.”

Poppy looked down at the
floor, mainly because she couldn’t stand to make eye contact with
him any longer; his gaze was just too intense. “I had a feeling I
shouldn’t sit down.” The truth was, she’d had a feeling she
shouldn’t sit down
yet
. Meaning, she fully believed in her heart that she would
eventually take that throne. She just didn’t feel she should do it
at that exact moment in time.

Now she wondered if it was because she’d
also known in her heart that something like this would happen. “Why
do you suppose it is that I haven’t gone insane in the wake of all
this?” she voiced aloud.

Again, Kristopher laughed. She looked
up.

“
I’ve wondered about the
ease with which the queens have found their places in our kingdoms,
actually. I’ve come to believe that it’s because each queen is
predisposed to believe. And accept.”

“
You mean… you think we’re
programmed to just blindly take our places as queens? As if
whatever we might think we want doesn’t matter?” She was beginning
to feel her skin prickle with irritation.

“
No,” he shook his head,
holding up his hand in an anger-quelling gesture. “No, I mean that
I believe each woman who has become queen was
born
a queen. And she didn’t feel
she
truly
belonged until she was introduced to the kingdom where
she
did
belong.
And then she understood.” He shrugged. “Rather like Michelangelo
discovering a hammer and chisel for the first time. Or Einstein
being introduced to physics.”

Poppy’s irritation dissipated at once. It
was hard to be annoyed when someone was comparing you to Einstein
or Michelangelo. Especially someone who looked like Kristopher.

He closed his eyes again and she dared to
venture a little closer. It was hard not to. He was like a magnet
on her. Or maybe she was a moth to a flame.

“
So, what do we do now?”
she asked softly.

He smiled, but kept his eyes closed. “We
wait while I gather up what power I can. Then it’s time to visit
Yggdrasil.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

It turned out that the way to Yggdrasil was
through the same castle they had just vacated for fear of it
crashing down around them. If they even made it to the Tree, they
would then have to deal with whoever or whatever had damaged it.
Beginning and end, it promised to be a nerve-wracking trip. So
Poppy was admittedly nervous about making it.

“
I still think we should
tell the others,” she said as Kristopher moved his hands before
him, manipulating a floating and glowing mix of what looked like
Viking runes, equations, and a complicated three dimensional map.
The magic made a buzzing sound, and every time he touched one of
the symbols or runes, it made a
swooshing
noise, as if he were
brushing it aside. His magic was fascinating, and clearly he’d
managed to get some of it back. But she was still wary about the
tasks ahead. Especially since she wasn’t yet the queen.

Wow, I’ve just sort of accepted it now,
haven’t I?

“
That’s exactly what the
Entity will be expecting us to do,” he told her calmly, but his
attention remained fixed on the symbols suspended in the air in
front of him. “The others have probably only just marked me off the
list of possible traitors to the Thirteen. The last thing I want to
do is turn that vote around by endangering them all.”

“
So we’re just going to
march straight into mortal danger completely alone and
unprepared?”

“
Not
we
,” he said. “You aren’t
coming.”

Poppy turned away from him to face the
fireplace, and her rising ire caused the flames in the pit to spark
with escaped warlock magic. “Bullshit,” she spat, and her vehemence
surprised her.

It must have surprised Kristopher too,
because the swooshing sound stopped, indicating he’d ceased
manipulating the objects in his spell.

Why she felt so strongly
about this, and so suddenly, she had no idea. But her words formed
themselves on her tongue and forced themselves through her teeth
before she could stop them, and in essence,
they
revealed what it was she was
truly feeling. “He attacked the Great Tree, the source of
winter
. Do you have any
idea how precious winter is? Do you
know
desperate we would be, how
lost, how
dead
without winter? All there would be is a relentless, building
heat on the Earth’s surface until everything fried up and all there
was left was a vast, molten desert.” Ironically, she shivered at
the thought. “Even before we all died, there would be no more cool
breezes, no changing trees, no rain, to say nothing of snow! We
would all be boiled alive in our own flesh bags!”

The flames in the fireplace
rose now, jumping high and full, going from calm flicker to
building bonfire. “Goddamn that son of a bitch,” she hissed. “I’m
so
sick
and
bloody
tired
of
the Entity. He’s insidious. He destroyed an entire race of
gargoyles! He’s hurt
so
much that I care about, and no one even knows why
he’s doing what he’s doing! He nearly killed my best friend. I will
not let him destroy my….” She was suddenly at a loss.
“My….”

She turned around. Kristopher watched her
with keen and quiet interest. “Your home?”

The silence stretched, accompanied by the
low, magical hum of the glowing symbols floating in the air between
them.

“
Spoken like a warrior,” he
said softly. The map turned idly in front of him, slowly displaying
the multitudinous levels and dimensions of some massive building.
“You remind me of my people.”

He seemed lost for a moment, lost in her
gaze and probably in the past.

Then he straightened, broke eye contact, and
smiled as he turned back to the map. “Very well. I won’t try to
stop you. But if you’re going to face off with whatever awaits us,
you’d best be prepared. Come here.”

Now it was Poppy’s turn to
feel a little lost. She’d just volunteered to face the Entity. What
the hell had she been thinking? But it was too late to back down
now. And deep down, she didn’t want to.
Someone
had to deal with that
fucker.

She swallowed hard and joined Kristopher in
front of the floating spell.

“
This is the Ice Castle,”
he said, gesturing to the massive building. She almost choked at
that. The thing was beyond enormous, far larger and more complex
than she would have guessed. Then again, she’d only seen two
rooms.

“
These are the various
portals that branch from it.” He gestured next to what looked like
doorways within halls within the castle, and upon those doorways
were sigils, symbols made of light that possessed magical
significance.

“
All of those?” she asked,
dumbfounded. There were hundreds.

“
Yes. Like I said, the
Winter Kingdom is attached to the mortal realm, as if by the roots
of a tree.”

“
And these are like a
tree’s branches,” she said, pointing to the doorways in the
map.

“
Exactly.”

She could hear the smile in his voice. She
looked up to find him grinning at her.

“
You’re a quick
study.”

Poppy turned back to the glowing map and
runes, pretending to make light of the comment. But secretly, she
coveted it. She’d never considered herself a quick study at
anything. In fact, pretty much all of the lessons she’d ever
learned in her life, she’d learned the hard way.

“
So, what are we doing with
the doors?” she asked, changing the subject.

“
Every door that leads from
the castle is accessible by the Winter King alone. i.e., me.” He
grinned. “However, there are a few through which mortals are
allowed to travel as well, so I can take you through with me. In
order to get directly to the actual roots of Yggdrasil, you must
pass through three linked doorways, one after another. I’m
searching for those doorways right now.”

“
You don’t know where the
doors are automatically?” It was his home. How could he not
know?

He shook his head. “What
you’re seeing is the
latest
rendition of the castle. It changes daily as a
protective mechanism. Anything with that many doorways to that many
worlds has to take every safety measure imaginable, especially when
a certain combination of them leads to Yggdrasil.”

“
I see,” she said slowly.
“So you have no idea where the ones you want are right now, but
this spell shows you.”

“
More or less. This spell
shows me the castle as it would look right now if it weren’t
damaged. For all I know, there could be fallen ceilings blocking
some of these passages. We just have to hope for the
best.”

“
Which doors are we
specifically looking for?”

“
These three.” He made a
motion with his right hand, and the diagram froze in place. With
his left, he brushed his fingers over three doors. The glowing
sigils on each door expanded, their brilliance momentarily
increasing. “Jotenheim, Dvalin and Valhalla.”

Poppy’s eyes got big. “You’re serious,
aren’t you?” She wasn’t a scholar in the subject, but everyone had
heard of Valhalla. Plus, she’d read enough mythology out of
curiosity to recognize one of the other names as the land of the
giants. These were not places she would casually choose to go.

“
There’s a reason I employ
guardians from each of these three realms. They watch over the
Great Tree in my absence. It isn’t an easy task. However, in
exchange, they are given a portal from their realms back through to
the Winter Realm. It is an unimaginable boon in times of
need.”

She could just imagine. Any
world with creatures within it who had brains were sure to
eventually use those brains to disagree on something. Hence, any
world with thinking minds would eventually have war. And there
would always be people who wanted to escape from that war. To say
nothing of people who simply wanted to
escape
– for a myriad of reasons,
from slavery to religious oppression to being forced to marry
someone you couldn’t stand the sight of.

“
You don’t mind having
these creatures traipsing through your home
willy-nilly?”

He chuckled. Such a magnificent sound! “Our
contract dictates that they always gain permission, of course. They
can go through the swinging door, but it remains locked until I
turn the key. They visit very seldom, to be honest. The portals are
used only by dignitaries and royalty, or by those who understand
the true power of magic.”

She thought for a moment. “You said it’s a
swinging door. So… if we go through these three doorways and end up
at Yggdrasil’s foot, we will be able to come back home, right?”

He looked down at her, and his smile held
secrets his eyes could not hide.

Poppy swallowed hard as she realized what
she’d said. She’d outright called the Winter Kingdom her home.
“Fine,” she said softly. “So I admit it.” She shrugged. “What girl
wouldn’t love having a home that came with a teddy bear the size of
a German tank?”