The Winter King (19 page)

He’d lived in the ice
castle for so long, Kristopher had ceased taking note of how it
looked. But now that he was watching someone else take it all in,
he recalled the way it had made
him
feel the first time he’d beheld it. It truly was
a stunning sight.

Constructed entirely of
ice, from the walls to the floors to the windows to the fixtures
and even the clear ice domes in most of the larger rooms, it was a
marvel of magic. The smooth, crystalline ice was rock-hard,
shatter-proof, and had been carved by the passage of thousands upon
thousands of winters. Each one that passed made its beautiful mark
on the walls. There were images of man and monster, of nature and
of wonders
beyond
nature. Chandeliers overhead chimed like pixie flight, and
shed light that was again magical. Rooms beckoned with firelight
that melted nothing but the cold in one’s heart. Rugs that looked
like fur, but were actually created with spells, warmed the floors.
The windows came to high, pointed arches, the doorways were
doubled, and the main doors to the castle were banded in
gold.

It was a magnificence. All of it.

And Poppy was taking it all in.

Kristopher found himself smiling as he
walked behind her. He felt proud, suddenly, that he could offer
something so wondrous to someone like her. At once, he wanted to
give her the grand tour. There was so much she didn’t know about
the Winter Kingdom. He couldn’t wait to show it all to her!

Kristopher’s brow furrowed a little, and he
smiled a small smile as he mulled that over. What was this? Was
this what it felt like to actually care about someone?

He may have only met her a few hours ago,
but in the time that they’d spent together he’d managed to get past
her defensive walls and learn a thing or two about Persephone
Glacia Nix. All that she’d told him about herself was true, from
the fact that she loved the smell of rain to the fact that she
hated politics. He knew this in the same way he knew a person’s
name when he looked at them. It just came as knowledge.

But he’d learned more, too. She was also
sensitive. She was afraid of germs because she’d been sick before.
By the same token, she was afraid to hurt others because she,
herself, had been hurt. She was empathetic and kind unless you
pushed the wrong buttons. She had a temper like hellfire when
pressed. He liked that.

As he’d rested beside her in their bed, all
that she was and wanted to be had just opened up for him. He’d
suddenly been awash in her. She’d become an open book, and
Kristopher had never read a more beautiful story.

Her best friend was even a
queen. How perfect was that? Poppy was a human born with a queen’s
name and inordinate amounts of warlock power. She’d been fashioned,
in her soul, to do great things – and to
be
great things. He loved the way
she saw the world, the way she inherently wanted to fix it, and the
strength of will she possessed.

He loved….

“
It looks like there’s no
one here but us,” she said suddenly, breaking his train of thought,
and startling him a bit. “And the room’s in one piece.”

Kristopher glanced up, taking in the throne
room. Suddenly he realized that Poppy had found her way through the
labyrinthine castle from the master chamber to the throne room all
on her own. As if she’d known the way.

He grinned. “Yes, it is.” He moved past her,
leading the way to the gorgeous, poppy-covered throne that had lain
empty for more than a thousand years. When he reached it, he placed
his hand atop the seatback and faced her. “It’s all yours.”

Poppy stood very still for a moment, right
there in the center of the throne room. He saw her throat work as
she swallowed hard, and he knew she was re-thinking, wondering, and
even worrying. So, to ease her fears, he turned away from the
throne and took a seat in his own. He lowered himself into it
casually, feeling relaxed as a cat. He draped one leg over an
armrest and sat back.

The strange thing about the thrones was that
despite their being constructed of ice, they were neither cold nor
uncomfortable. More magic. But Poppy wouldn’t know that until she
sat down.

“
Take a seat,
blossom.”

She stepped forward.
Without warning, something crashed through one of the double doors
that led to the throne room. “No! Actually,
don’t
sit!” a man cried.

Kristopher leapt to his feet as Poppy spun
around to face the tall figure that came stumbling out of one of
the halls leading to the throne room. Kris recognized the newcomer
at once. It was William – the Time King. Kristopher had long, long
ago given him a charm that allowed him to come and go through the
Winter Kingdom at will.

Bounding directly after the other sovereign
was the dire bear, Meridian. The two made quite a spectacle
entering the room, one a handsome king who’d obviously rushed as
fast as inhumanly possible to get to the ice castle, and the other
a massive white bear with magic powers and glowing gold eyes.

They’re
glowing
, Kris realized just after he
noticed it. The dire bear’s normally brown eyes only glowed gold
when he was communicating telepathically with his best friend,
William.

“
Will, what is the meaning
of this?” Kristopher asked at once.

William Balthazar Solan’s real name was
probably something much different and much, much older, and most
people who knew him assumed he didn’t even have a given name. These
days however, he went by any combination of these three names at
once. Between the Thirteen Kings, it was normally Solan. Kristopher
referred to him as Will. And in the dark and the quiet, the Time
King was referred to as the Lone King.

At the moment, William skidded to a halt,
disheveled and striking, and pinned his currently emerald green
eyes on Kristopher’s soon-to-be queen. “Don’t sit down on that
throne, Miss Nix. It’s been warded.”

“
Warded
?” Kristopher asked, striding down the steps leading from the
dais to meet Will and Poppy in the center of the room. What
the
hell
was he
talking about? What kind of ward? “By
who
?” he demanded.

William turned to the giant bear that had
stopped a yard away from the group. The bear made a few growling
sounds, and its glowing eyes flashed. Will turned back to Kris.
“Apparently….” He cleared his throat, and suddenly looked very
worried. “You won’t believe me if I tell you.”

“
I won’t let you live if
you don’t,” Kristopher told him firmly. The threat was an empty
one; William was impossible to kill. How was
that
for a super power? It might
very well have been his only one, but it was a doozie.

“
Fine,” William replied.
Then he took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “Meridian
claims to have seen a shield maiden hovering over the queen’s
throne after you both departed earlier. He doesn’t know what she
was doing to it, however. Before she could spot him observing her,
Meridian transported to me.”

Kristopher stared dumbfounded at the Time
King. “A shield maiden?” he asked stupidly. There was no way.

William said nothing. The question was
rhetorical.

“
By ‘shield maiden,’” said
Poppy softly, “do you mean a mortal woman who choses to fight
beside her male Viking peers, or….” She paused, no doubt feeling a
little silly asking the question. “Do you mean a
Valkyrie?”

Kristopher felt his jaw tighten. His gut
churned with unanswered questions and dark possibilities.
“Both.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

793 AD,
Troms
Ø
, the
northwest coast of Norway

The year was nearly at an end, and the sun
made its appearance for short moments every day, low on the
horizon, red-orange in color, faint as the distant moon. It was the
time of the Solstice, time of renewal… and for Erikk Rangvaldson
the newly throned Winter King, it was a time of revenge.

He stood as a lone figure
on the hilltop, wind and snow blowing about him like a cloak. His
eyes, which had always been the bluest of blue, were now lighter
than before, and glowed eerily with malign intent. Should any of
his people have been capable of seeing him up there on that hilltop
that overlooked the village, they would not have recognized him. He
was older. His hair was lighter and longer. His furs were solid
white, and he held a massive longsword literally constructed out
of
ice
. He had
grown in stature, as was fitting for a king. And he knew that
stature was frightening to behold.

But his people were huddled in their tents
and homes. Smoke billowed from every lavvu, smoke hole, and chimney
below. The temperatures had dropped. Winter was on its way.

“
You have no idea,” he
spoke softly.

He’d come while Neve was sleeping. He didn’t
want her involved in this. And it was his responsibility, anyway.
Erikk’s father had been chief – and no matter what Bjarke Stalson
might believe to the contrary, the death of the chief meant Erikk
was now in charge. This was something he was going to make certain
Bjarke understood very, very well. Right before he died.

Erikk moved down the mountain, walking atop
the snow rather than sinking into it as he had when he’d been
mortal. The snow moved for him now, supported him, and blanketed
his arrival. There was no discomfort in it, no cold, no wet. It was
a white, multi-faceted friend that rode the winds Erikk now
controlled. All of it, he controlled.

His power surged through his body, through
his mind. He could have laid the village low with no more than a
blizzardy thought. He could have buried it beneath an avalanche.
They were settled near the ocean; he could have drowned the village
beneath a rogue wave.

But a confused and quick death would serve
no justice. He had other things in mind.

Erikk made it to the main trail leading into
the village and walked into the town on quiet malice. He knew where
he would find Bjarke, and his eyes settled on that long wood house
as the wind picked up around him, a reflection of his mounting
fury.

He whispered, so soft he
could barely hear it himself. “Come out and face me, Bjarke. Come
out and face me right
now
.”

In the mounting storm, something stirred. It
might have been a sound, or perhaps a shadow that passed before the
slats between the logs of the house. But he knew Bjarke had heard
him, and he waited, his sword in his hand, as the man no doubt
grabbed his own weapon and donned his furs and boots.

The wind howled. The flakes of snow around
Erikk grew smaller and harder, rolled into hard snowflakes by the
building gale. Up on the mountaintop, thunder rolled. Light split
the tall, dark snow clouds. They were the mighty bolts of Thor
being thrown in a rare, but not impossible thunder snow.

Down below and all around
Erikk, more people stirred. He could feel them. It was an odd
sensation, being able to almost hear other minds. He knew where
each member of his tribe was at that given point in time. But what
was more was that he felt who was
not
there. Not any longer. Because
they had been murdered by the man who now called himself their
ruler.

Erikk waited.

Finally, the front door of the long house
flew open, and the tall, broad form of Bjarke filled the doorway.
The man stood there in that passageway for many moments, as he no
doubt attempted to process what he was seeing several yards
away.

“
What are you?” he finally
asked, his voice filled with the strain of confusion.

“
It is not what I am,
but
who
I am that
must concern you, Bjarke Stalson. I am Erikk Rangvaldson. Chief of
these people.”

By this time, others had begun emerging from
their tents, perhaps arrested from their sleep by the turning of
the weather or by a vibration in the air. They knew something was
wrong, something was changing, and their curiosity roused them from
their beds and brought them out into the troubled night.

“
Erikk?” Bjarke’s voice
traveled to him, but barely. “No. It’s not possible.” He shook his
head.

Erikk knew he was referring to several
things in this instance. First, the fact that Erikk’s boat had no
doubt shown up on the shore in splinters after that wave had struck
him, and Erikk had probably been assumed dead. Second, the man
standing before Bjarke just then was a good bit older than the
Erikk Rangvaldson that Bjarke had last seen. Erikk had glimpsed his
reflection in the smooth ice after he’d taken his place upon
Winter’s throne. He had aged. He was no longer a boy, but a man.
Winter had made him a king in every way.

“
Oh, but it
is
possible, Bjarke. And
it is so. I’ve come to avenge the murders of my brethren and
reclaim my people and my home.”

Now Bjarke lifted his sword arm, and his
blade glinted in the wetness of the storm. But lightning flashed
overhead, and thunder rolled low and long, a warning if ever there
had been one. The people who had gathered around them spoke amongst
themselves. The night had brought witchery. The storm was brewing,
the air was filled with madness, and the son of the chief, long
thought dead, was standing before them now, twenty years older than
he had been the last time they’d seen him.

But it
was
him. There was no denying it. He
was taller, stronger,
different
. But still
Erikk.