The Winter King (24 page)

“
Whose watch was it when
the tree’s root was compromised?” asked Kristopher.

“
That would have been
Cobalt, Adriel, and Drayhem.”

Kristopher nodded. “A rock dragon, a sky
dragon, and a sea dragon,” he explained aloud, most likely for
Poppy’s benefit.

Dvalin nodded, but his expression grew dour.
He waved his hand over the parchment, which began to fill with the
lines of a topography drawing. There were lights all over the map,
pulsing with life. But three lights were off to the side, as if to
represent they were not in the world at al. “All three have yet to
return from their watch. Therefore, I’m afraid it is safe to
assume….”

“
They’ve been killed,”
supplied William. It sounded a little cold when he put it bluntly
like that. Poppy felt that coldness in her gut.

“
It’s quite alright, Miss
Nix,” said Dvalin gently. He must have noticed her discomfort. “My
dragons knew what they were contracting for when they took the job.
They were well aware of the risks. While the forest dragons may
delight in such pastimes as games and gambling, the rock, sky, and
sea dragons tend to enjoy battle more than anything. And protecting
Yggdrasil is a task worth dying for.”

He turned to Kristopher, gestured at the
map, and the parchment rolled itself back up. He changed the
subject with the expertise of someone who had been in charge of
discussions like this for eons. “You are also concerned about a
cluster of serpents who apparently appeared in your throne
room.”

Kristopher glanced at Poppy, then back at
Dvalin. “I suppose coming to see you with a human in tow completely
negates the fact that you can’t read either my mind or
William’s.”

Dvalin grinned. Poppy caught the hint of
fangs. “It does.”

“
Very well,” Kristopher
nodded. “They were direct offspring of
Jormungand
. And since you’re related
to him as well….”

“
You thought I might have
an idea of why they were your throne room, as well as how they got
there.” Dvalin’s smile was quite pleased.

Kristopher sighed. “That’s about the whole
of it.”

Poppy remembered just enough of her study of
Norse mythology to know that Jormungand was the Midgard Serpent. It
helped that one of her parents was of Nordic descent.

“
Well, my answer is, I have
absolutely no idea. On either account. However… I’m betting it has
something to do with that Valkyrie your future queen is so worried
about. Odin’s shield maidens are a lofty bunch, I admit. But
revenge will clip any angel’s wings.” He looked pointedly at
Kristopher, as if to refer specifically to the Winter King’s own
personal bout with revenge. “I wouldn’t put it past the Valkyrie to
contract with Jormungand in this case.” He paused then added,
“Especially since the Serpent was already
involved
.”

Those at the small crystal
table grew very quiet and very still as Dvalin calmly lifted his
porcelain tea cup, took a ginger sip of the steaming liquid, and
returned it to its saucer. Finally, Kristopher leaned forward.
Poppy could see from his expression and the hardening of the ice in
his eyes that he was figuring out exactly what
she
was figuring out. That the
Midgard Serpent was –

Kristopher asked, “Are you
telling me it was
Jormungand
who – ”

“
I’m telling you it was the
Midgard Serpent himself who sank his fangs into Yggdrasil’s root
and severed it from the Great Tree.”

Holy
hell
, Poppy thought.
The Midgard Serpent is involved after all
.

“
Well, that’s not good,”
said William.

Chapter Thirty-Five

He’d really thought the
Entity had been at the core of all this trouble. What else could he
have believed? The Entity was at the core of
all
trouble these days, and this was
the
root
of
Yggdrasil
. But it wasn’t him after all.

In truth, going up against
the Midgard Serpent was not something Kristopher had ever thought
he would have to do. The only time anyone of Norse descent would
ever expect to have to come face to face with Jormungand was during
Ragnarok. But Ragnarok was a myth, and as relevant to everyday
Norse life as the apocalypse was for Christians – in other words,
it
wasn’t
. It was
this vague, ironically inconsequential threat that didn’t really
mean anything because it wasn’t ever actually going to
happen.

Because life went on. It
just did. Every day. And it would
keep
doing so for another 5 billion
years, until the sun went Red Giant and swallowed up the planet.
And by then, humans would probably have moved on to the outer
planets anyway, if not other solar systems – and so life
would
still
continue, regardless. There
was
no apocalypse. There
was
no
Ragnarok.

Not only that, but as he’d told Poppy,
legends and myths tended to botch their facts now and then, and the
Great Tree actually had nothing to do with Ragnarok after all. It
was the source of Winter and it bound Winter’s immortal realms to
the mortal realm.

Hell, there were times when
Kris would have believed the Serpent wasn’t even
real
, if it weren’t for
the fact that the Norse Dragons were its living descendants, and
some were old enough to have met their father
personally.

So Kris truly hadn’t expected to have to
deal with the Serpent. Ever.

But apparently Jormungand was tired of
waiting. Maybe he was lonely. Maybe he was a little pissed that the
Fates had determined he would be utterly ignored until the end of
the fucking world. Maybe he was throwing a temper tantrum.

He’d certainly gotten Kristopher’s
attention.

The Winter King had no
choice now but to face him. And the other ironic thing was that in
order to confront the Midgard Serpent, Kris would need
all
of his strength
back. The very strength Jormungand had severed when he’d cut off
the Great Tree’s root. Who knew what the Serpent would do next?
Sever another root? Cut the Tree down entirely?

“
One doorway down, two to
go,” sighed William once they’d transported back to the ice castle
and were again standing in the study. They were clustered in the
middle of the room, facing one another.

“
We’re heading to the seed
vault first,” said Kristopher. He found the nearest table and used
a bit of his magic to summon food and drinks for them. Bread,
cheese, fruit, sweets, and teas of varying flavors appeared across
the coffee table. “And you have no reason to accompany us, William.
This isn’t your fight.”

“
Right,” Will said.
“Because saving the world has nothing to do with me.”

Kristopher met his gaze. Steady emerald
stared right back.

“
In fact,” continued Will
undaunted, “I am not opposed to the idea of letting some of the
other kings in on this. We could use all the help we can
get.”

Kristopher shook his head.
“If it
is
a trap,
I won’t be responsible for compromising any of them.”
Especially not now,
he
added mentally,
when so many of them are
finally finding the happiness they deserve, and the rest are on the
verge of doing so.

“
Forgive me for changing
the subject,” said Poppy as she made her way over to the coffee
table perhaps a little too quickly to hide her immediate interest
in it. It was just as he’d suspected; she was hungry. She was
mortal still. That was why he’d made sure to include Honeycrisp
apples amidst the dishes. She’d told him she adored them. “But how
did Dvalin know that the Midgard Serpent had been the one to damage
Yggdrasil if his three guardians had yet to return from their
watch?”

“
The Serpent and his
children are connected at a fundamental level,” he told her. “The
eldest of the dragons in Dvalin, such as Dvalin himself, are
capable of gleaning information about him, such as this. But only
the most basic knowledge is passed on. The rest is a
blur.”

Poppy took one of the apples from the bowl
of fruit he’d magically placed there and rubbed it on her shirt.
“Okay,” she said before taking a giant bite. Then, around that
giant bite, she asked, “Why dow he dwess ike he dow?”

Kristopher tried not to
smile, and failed. Both the subject matter and the way she was
asking about it were funny. She wanted to know why Dvalin dressed
the way he did. “Dvalin is ancient and sometimes he gets bored. But
believe me, today was all an act.” He chuckled. The things he’d
seen the dragon do over the years would bewilder anyone. At this
point, Kris very much doubted there was
anything
Dvalin could do that would
surprise him. But in all the multiverse, there were few creatures
more powerful than the Norse Dragon king. Almost all of them were
gods. One of them was Lalura Chantelle. “He is connected to his
realm by blood,” he explained. “It was literally his blood that
seeded the realm’s creation. When someone enters it, he feels it.
No doubt, he sensed the arrival of an unknown mortal and decided to
play it safe.”

Poppy finished chewing her enormous bite and
swallowed. “You mean by mystifying me?”

He laughed again. “Perhaps. By confusing
you, to say the least. It’s difficult for most mortals to think of
someone who behaves and dresses in that manner as being strong or
powerful. Judgments annul wisdom. What better defensive tactic than
to force your enemy to underestimate you from the get-go?”

“
So why didn’t he drop the
act when he realized I meant him no harm and couldn’t have even if
I’d wanted to?”

Kris grinned. “By that time, he was just
plain having fun.”

Poppy shook her head, ran her free hand
through her hair, and looked down at the food. He could tell she
wasn’t really seeing what was there on the coffee table, though.
She really was mystified. This had been a lot for her to take in.
She was just lucky she’d already been familiar with the idea of
magic and other realms before fate had dumped her lot in her
lap.

There was a flash behind
Kristopher, and he turned to find that the Time King was no longer
standing in his study.
Odd
.

“
Well, that happened,”
Poppy said.

William didn’t possess the ability to
transport on his own, but he’d lived long enough to acquire plenty
of other means for using magic. It was certainly a little strange
that he hadn’t given them a warning, though.

“
I thought he didn’t have
any magical powers?” Poppy asked, looking up from where she’d moved
to the opposite side of the coffee table. Her non-apple hand now
had two cookies in it. Chocolate chip, of course.

“
He doesn’t. Well, not
internally anyway. Actually….” He frowned, his mind churning
through the scenarios of time and space.

“
I see you’re thinking the
same thing I am,” said Poppy. She smiled and took a big bite out of
one of her cookies. He wondered if she knew how to take anything
but big bites, and for some bizarre reason, that turned him
on.

“
What are you thinking?” he
asked, curious.

She shrugged, moving her
cookies to her apple hand so she could pick up a fresh croissant.
“Well, I mean, think about it. If you lived forever,
literally
forever
… wouldn’t it be probable that given that amount of time, you
would learn a trick or two? Wouldn’t it be impossible
not
to? How long would a
normal mortal have to survive before discovering magic, and not
only discovering it, but learning to control it – inherent magical
ability or not? A thousand years? Ten thousand years? A
hundred
thousand?”

Crunch
. Poppy carved into her apple again with her perfect white
teeth. He could watch her eat all day. She didn’t delicately nibble
or take tiny pieces and leave three-quarters of her meal on her
anorexic plate. She ate like a warrior. It was actually turning him
on.

But what she was saying
garnered attention too. Normally, being a mage didn’t work that
way. It truly was a gift a person was born with and learned to hone
over time. But she was right. And he
had
been thinking it, if only now
and quite suddenly. He’d always assumed that when William flashed
from one transport location to another, he was using a ring or a
pendant or some kind of charm. And he’d assumed William was able to
access the Winter Kingdom because of the charm Kris had given him
long ago.

But now Kris could see that he hadn’t given
the Time King the credit he perhaps deserved. After all, William
had learned to communicate with the Dire Bears. That was no small
feat. What else could he do?

Kristopher pondered it for exactly 4.6
seconds further. Until Poppy winked at him from behind her juicy,
half-eaten apple, and he decided he had an appetite of his own to
satisfy.

Chapter Thirty-Six

“
Is there any way of
tracing where she’s been in other realms?” Violet asked anxiously.
She’d been pacing back and forth on the other side of the spell
casting table for what felt like forever now, and Lalura’s
fascination with whatever concoction she was working on in that pot
of hers was beginning to aggravate Violet to no end. Why wasn’t she
as concerned about Poppy as Violet was? Why wouldn’t she say
something that would make Violet feel better? Something like,
“Abracadabra, and here she is in my scrying spell!”