Shadow Of The Winter King (Book 1) (41 page)

Thirty-Nine

T
he sun was rising.
Regel could see the dim, muddy red light through the massive hole Semana’s magic had ripped in the side of the palace. He turned over, coughing.

There Semana knelt, stained all over with blood, wearing a mantle of silver-white fire like a god’s shroud from myth—like an angel’s halo. She was looking at the silvery flame that wreathed her hands.

“I cannot deny it,” she said. “No matter how I run.”

Regel spoke, but it came out as a wordless groan.

Semana looked to him, then over at Demetrus. “He is dead. But I don’t feel—?”

“Satisfied?” Regel asked, his voice rasping like Mask’s had. “Vengeance is an empty cup. You’ll ever be parched, however much you drink.”

Semana seemed to consider, looking at her hands. “Yes.”

Boots pounded on the stone outside the throne room, and Regel realized their battle must have drawn every Ravalis soldier in the place. He looked vainly for a weapon. “Princess—”

Semana waved her silver gauntlet, and Regel saw a translucent wall of magic spring up around the chamber. Silence descended as the wall blocked out sound as well as movement. Regel could see but not hear the doors rattling against the magic.

Semana reached toward the throne and King Demetrus’s corpse stirred. For a heartbeat, Regel feared it would birth some other horror like Vhaerynn, but instead the Diadem of Winter wrested itself from beneath one of the king’s arms. During the battle, the crown had flown from Vhaerynn’s head and landed in the dead king’s lap. Now it floated to the princess as though borne by an unseen footman. Semana plucked it from the air, considered it a moment, then tossed it at Regel’s feet.

“I’ve seen the wages of rulership, and they are worse than those of vengeance.” She looked coldly at Ovelia, who lay unmoving at Regel’s side. “I’m quit of her—quit of you all.”

She turned, but Regel reached through the Frostfire around her and caught at her ankle. His fingers went numb and ice spread up his arm, but he held firm. “Stay.”

Semana looked down at him, considering. “My mother’s garden.” She turned her gaze to the smoky Vangr sky. “I’ll wait for one hour.”

She walked toward the glass-covered balcony. Semana paused a moment at the rail and looked down at her feet. Then she looked again into the Tar Vangr dawn, vaulted the rail, and soared away on the magic of her boots.

Regel heard coughing and looked around, heart in his throat. It was Garin, not Ovelia, who stirred. He sat up where Regel had stunned him, retching and looking about blearily.

Regel ignored the Ravalis prince and crawled to Ovelia’s side. He took her hand, which was cold to the touch, and pressed his ear to her lips. He thought he felt the tiniest wisp of breath. She lived, though he could not say for how long.

“A healer,” Garin said. “She needs—”

Regel started to move away, but Ovelia gasped awake and clutched his hand tight. Her eyes roved blindly to his face and beyond. She couldn’t see him.

“Regel,” she said, her voice fearful.

“Yes,” he said, cradling her in his arms. “I am here.”

“Regel—” she said. “I’ll not ask forgiveness.”

“There is nothing to forgive,” Regel said. “Whatever he said—whatever he did to you to make you kill him, I do not care. Only stay with me.”

Garin appeared, hovering over them. “I will fetch a healer,” he said. “I can have one here in ten breaths.” He started away, only to find the doors shut up with Semana’s magic. “Silver Fire!”

Regel shook his head. It did not matter.

They lay in each other’s arms, Regel and Ovelia—the last Knights of Winter, who had loved and hated and won. It was a cold victory, but a victory, and much remained to be done. Could Regel do what must be done without her?

He wondered, if he had trusted Ovelia from the first, whether today would have been different. If they had been honest with one another; if he had not poisoned her; if—

“I am sorry,” he said, because he could say nothing else.

“Do not be,” she said. “I cannot live, Regel. After all I have done...”

“Ovelia,” he said. “None of that—”

Ovelia smiled weakly. “Kiss me,” she said, tongue trying to wet her lips. “Once for last.”

He leaned toward her, but she averted her burned mouth at the last moment.

“Kiss
me
,” she said. “Me, not her.”

“Always,” Regel said, and kissed her on the lips. “Always.”

Forty

A
s the sun crept
toward its zenith behind ominous clouds, Vhaerynn
burned.
He could feel the blessed warmth on his frost-gnawed skin—and the agony it brought to his torn and battered body. Rain fell on him—the scalding rain of Ruin—and sweat dripped across his face like liquid fire.

It was not just pain—he was a necromancer, and he knew pain. It was
fire
.

He floated in a sea of shattered glass, gripped by a personal winter so cold it seared flesh from his bones and crystallized his blood. Red-black jelly oozed from thousands of cuts upon his flesh—each of which he could barely feel individually, with the skin around them frozen into death. Horribly mutilated, cut so many times, why was he not dead?

But he knew. He knew it was the magic of which he had been so proud. His Gods-cursed
magic
was keeping him alive when he should be dead.

The Denerre girl appeared over him, her face wreathed in a silvery halo. Rut her, with her pompous whore’s face—rut her good and bloody.

“Please,” he begged. “Please... kill... me...”

She paused at the railing around the balcony and looked down at him. “Kill yourself.”

Then she was gone, leaping over the rail and into the wide sky.

No. That was a dream. Or a memory. That had happened hours ago. How long had he lain here?

Vhaerynn drifted.

There was a flash of silver radiance from within the chamber, and confused voices. He tried to look and saw a multitude of people... No, all images of two, or perhaps three people?

The Lord of Tears was one, and a red-haired man he could not name. And a woman. A woman who had been dead, but now—

Another dream. He let himself go numb and senseless again.

Perhaps this was death, and if so, he welcomed it. The pain had long ceased; he had pushed past it into a new world beyond understanding.

A sound caused him to stir. He lost that blissful otherness of the empty black, and found himself once again in something that felt like his body. A woman knelt over him—a woman in the sackcloth robes of a chiurgeon. Her fingers worked with needle and thread, lacing his flesh back together.

The pain was welcome. He’d cut himself as a boy—for the pain, and for the control.

“Ahh,” he murmured, comforted.

She smiled down at him wanly. With her fine features, she might have been lovely, were she not so tired. “My Lord Sorcerer, welcome ba—”

The court sorcerer reached out, took her head in his hands, and wrenched. Her neck snapped and she slumped bonelessly into his lap. Her body jerked its way into death atop him.

The dagger. Where was the Blade of the Red King?

He found it under his hand, eager for his touch, and he jabbed it into the healer’s flesh as she quivered her way into death. She became a corpse on the instant, and turned to a layer of dust that coated him like a cloak. Her life essence flowed into him, bringing with it an ocean of pain such as he had never known. He felt every bit of his flesh drawing back together. Bones knit of their own accord and skin wrenched across his muscles—it was life and youth and he loved it. The glass felt like liquid fire in his flesh, cutting and ripping. The Denerre bitch must have nearly killed him, for it to hurt this much.

His eyes focused, and he looked around for another victim to feed upon. They were in the healing chamber, as he had expected, and the other chiurgeons backed away in terror. That was also not a surprise. Whom he saw amongst them, however, he did not expect.

“Cruel as ever,” said a shaky voice from nearby. “Good.”

There stood Lan Ravalis, covered in sweat. His eyes were wild and his teeth gritted like those of a beast. He held the Diadem of Winter in one hand and a naked sword in the other. The wavy blade was red and its hilt was shaped like a roaring dragon. Draca, the bloodsword of Dracaris.

“I see death has not changed you,” Lan said. “Near-death, anyway.”

Vhearynn coughed, which hurt. “Can you say the same, Summer Prince?” He doubted it.

Lan’s face darkened. “I am no prince but your
king
, sorcerer,” he said. “Bow to me.”

So he had failed to remove the Ravalis from the throne, and he suspected the Blood of Winter yet endured as well. For now, on both counts. “I can hardly move, Your Majesty.”

“Bow to me.” Lan nodded to the chiurgeons. “And I will give you another to consume.”

Vhaerynn smiled. That, as much as anything, indicated his proper path.

He pushed the crackling remnants of the dead healer off his lap, and the corpse collapsed into a cloud of dust when it struck the floor. The dust of her body stuck to his blood-soaked robe, garbing him in utter filth. His legs itched as he swung off the pallet, but he welcomed the pain. Bones crackling, sweat streaming like tears, Vhaerynn shifted to one knee.

“I live to serve my king,” he said.

* * *

“Is it true?” she asked from behind him.

Regel looked up and around from where he sat on the little curving wall around the long-dried fountain. Rain had fallen in the last hour, but rather than collect in the stone basin, it had drained through an old crack in the wall. He remembered that crack—he’d been here when the stone had split.

This had been Lenalin’s favorite place, many years ago. The Narfire was close here, and it kept the garden warm enough to bloom through the winter when properly tended. Flowers and fruit trees used to grow out of season in this private grove Orbrin had reserved for his daughter, and Regel had known many gentle moments in this place: he, Lenalin, and Ovelia.

The garden had not weathered the passage of years well. Robbed of its caretaker when Lenalin died, it had begun a slow, inevitable slide into Ruin. Many had tried to maintain it over the years to no avail—Ovelia in particular, in memory of the woman she had loved.

“Is it true?” Semana stood amongst the leafless trees that marked the edges of the withered garden. “Are you—” She swallowed. “Are you my father?”

He looked at her evenly—scrutinized her face amid silver-blonde curls, peeking from beneath a rain-streaked hood. She still wore Mask’s armor, though she only had the silver gauntlet. Regel remembered Vhaerynn seizing the fire gauntlet during the battle. Her bare right hand trembled on the fringe of her weathercloak.

“Yes.”

Semana stood silent for a moment, then slowly—seemingly without thinking—she drew her hood down to her shoulders, revealing her gnarled locks of silvery hair. They were still stained with blood, but they would wash clean.

“Why?” she asked, so softly he almost didn’t hear.

“Because I loved your mother,” Regel said, “and she loved me.”

Semana smiled and even laughed—the laugh of a beautiful young woman, not the dry hacking chuckle of the creature she’d pretended to be. “I mean, why did you never tell me? Before five years ago, after Lena—after my mother died. That was ten years.”

Regel smiled ruefully. “You were too young and it was too dangerous.” He put out his hand and opened it, as though releasing dust to filter into the air. “Paeter suspected, and nothing could convince him otherwise. He... He killed your mother out of his jealousy. I could do nothing.”

“Why not me?” Semana’s voice broke. “Why not kill
me,
and spare her?”

Regel shook his head. “You were his power,” he said. “Even Paeter was not so stupid as to put all his hopes on your brother. After Darak was exiled, you were his only heir.” He shook his head.

“And so you let me believe that
beast
was my father,” Semana said.

Regel wiped his brow with his fingers. “It kept us from war.”

“For ten years!” Semana said. “Ten years of peace, to let the Ravalis consolidate their power—to exile my brother to his death, and then...” She balled up her fists, which crackled with magic—Plaguefire again, rather than the Frostfire of Denerre.

“I am sorry.” Regel shook his head. “We were fools, as all those in love are.”

Thunder rolled, and Regel felt the air grow heavy. He stepped toward Semana and pulled the hood over her head. “It will rain,” he said.

“And we should hide my face,” she said. “The Ravalis could have eyes anywhere.”

Regel nodded sadly.

“What of the Bloodbreak—” Semana paused. “What of Ovelia?”

Regel looked away.

“Regel.” She put her arms around him. “I did not mean to hurt her. I—”

Regel’s eyes went to the smoldering palace, and through the mist to the bitter red sun. The light did little to alleviate the dark clouds over the city. The rain was increasing—going from a patter to a downpour—and the skies rumbled.

“All’s well.” He laid his hand on her silver-crowned head. “Peace.”

He extended his cloak around her, saving them both from rain tainted by centuries of misspent magic. They stood, father and daughter, amongst the withering world.

“Ovelia.” Semana peered down at her hands. “Tell me: does she live?”

Lightning split the stormy morn sky.

Silently, Regel drew her tighter into his arms and laid his cheek against her gleaming hair.

The rain fell burning around them like shards of molten glass.

Epilogue

Five Years Previous—Throne Room of Tar Vangr—The First Day of 977 Sorcerus Annis

T
he sun glimmered on
the horizon outside the mighty glass windows of the throne room when Ovelia came to attend the Winter King. Ruin’s Night was almost over.

Through the great window of the throne room, she thought Tar Vangr looked tiny indeed: like a tableau in a conjuror’s looking glass. The City of Winter’s towers barely scraped the infinite black tinged with stars. Gazing upon the scene, Ovelia felt at once insignificant and powerful.

“Do you know,” asked King Orbrin, “why you are named Ovelia?”

She had not expected this question. Neither Paeter nor Regel had called her by her name tonight. The prince had named her “whore” and the other had needed no words to name her worse. After that, “Ovelia” hardly seemed like her name at all. She shook her head.

Orbrin wore a faint smile. “Norlest—your father—had no facility for names. And of course, your birth took him by such surprise as to muddle his wits.”

The king brushed back his silver hair. That it was poorly groomed indicated he had risen from bed without servants to attend him. He wore a simple white robe, over which he’d draped the silver cloak of Denerre. He looked warm, though also old—tired.

“If not my father,” Ovelia asked. “Then who named me, Majesty?”

A smile transformed his aging face into something beautiful. He was still handsome, though the ten years since his daughter’s death had aged him terribly. His silvery eyes sparkled.

“You, Majesty?” she said. “
You
named me?”

He nodded. “And please, name me Orbrin. We know each other well enough, I think.”

“Yes.” Ovelia smiled against a sudden wave of anxiety—this night had shattered her, stripping two of the three constants in her life. Her sacrifice to be near Semana. Her last remaining friend in Regel. The Winter King was her third and most important anchor, bound with potent secrets. “We do at that.”

“I gave you a name from the old Calatan tongue,” Orbrin said. “I might have chosen a weapon, an exploit, or a hero of myth and legend. But yours was a different destiny I foresaw, in every speck of dust on your path. And thus did I name you.”

“What destiny is that, Maj—Orbrin?” Ovelia asked.

He smiled. “
Shield
.” He laid one gnarled hand upon her shoulder, and her body went taut under his touch. “Not just a simple disk of wood or steel—but
oveli
means
to
shield. It was the battle cry of my blood, long, long ago, when we carved Tar Vangr out of the frozen wasteland of this new, broken world.” He put his other hand on her other shoulder and looked her in the face. “You are a protector, like your father before you. But while he chose this destiny, yours was written long before you first drew breath.”

“I... I do not understand,” Ovelia said. “Surely I chose my own path, Orbrin.”

He shook his head. “I knew the moment when first you met my daughter, your eyes alight with wonder,” he said. “I saw that your destiny had been written in the stars long before.”

“The princess...” Pain woke in Ovelia’s heart. “Lenalin is dead, Majesty. I failed her.”

“We all failed her—I, most of all—but that is not how I would remember her.” Orbrin continued unabashed. “When first you met, I saw how you loved Lenalin with a passion that would never fade—would outlast the stars above or the Narfire below. You loved her instantly and without restraint, far more than I ever could. And so I knew that you were destined to shield her—and her blood—with every breath and fiber of your body. You were her shield.”

“I am
your
shield, sire,” Ovelia said.

“Just so,” he said. “But are you willing to do your duty, no matter the price?”

“Yes,” Ovelia said. “Orbrin, I—I failed Lena, and now I have only you. And Semana, though she hardly knows me.” Fearful understanding gripped the base of her spine like a cold talon. She fell to one knee, hand at her heart. “Semana is in danger.”

“Yes, she is.” The king nodded. “And it is not a simple danger, but one for which, I fear, you may not be able to do what must be done to protect her.”

“Tell me, Majesty,” Ovelia said, reaching forward to grasp his calves—the ancient gesture of supplication. “I’ll do it on the instant. I swear by the Nar and the Old Gods, that I’ll—”

“Be not so quick.” He put a finger across her lips. “You can spare me half a word, no?”

Dutifully, she fell silent and nodded.

“Ovelia, this will be hard,” said King Orbrin. “Perhaps the hardest task I’ve ever asked of you, harder even than...” He shook his head. “I must invest a great deal of trust in you—and faith.”

“Anything, Majesty.” Her voice trembled. “Orbrin.”

“When you do this.” He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw. “Once you have done it, you will have to protect Semana. You will have to give everything for her.”

“Of course,” she said. “Majesty, you know that I—”

The king put his fingers again to her lips. “You’ll do it alone. No one else.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You cannot trust the Ravalis,” the king said. “Not Demetrus, not Paeter. No one.”

“Not Paeter?” Ovelia remembered the prince’s cruel smile and his hair like blood and fire. She felt his contemptuous words scratching at her ears. “Cruel oaf he might be, but he is Semana’s father and your son by oath. She is his link to the succession. Why would he not protect her?”

“After tonight”—Orbrin returned her a tiny, bemused smile—“Only Semana matters.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, suddenly very afraid.

He went on as though she had not spoken. “The Council cannot protect her. I do not expect they will have power for long—five years at the most, if Yaela’s cowardice holds true and he does not move openly against the throne. What you do will prevent civil war, but no doubt the Council will have enough blood on their hands and daggers at their backs.” He paused, as though considering whether to say more. Then: “And you’ll not tell Regel.”

“But—” Ovelia’s eyes widened, but she had already lost Regel this night. “Yes, Majesty.”

“You will be alone in this task,” he said. “Understood?”

Ovelia nodded, then shook her head. “Majesty, he is loyal to you. He is as loyal as I—”

“If he survives what is to come, to draw him into this will only compromise your efforts,” said the king. “He will hate you after this, and you will have to count him an enemy.”

What was he asking of her? Ovelia was lost, her head aching with the bewildering flurry of his words. A single question formed, however, and she gave it voice: “What is to come?”

Orbrin shook his head, still smiling, and he looked suddenly very tired. “Ah, Ovelia, I’ve made such a mess of things. I am aware of a plot against my life—nay, nay, stay a moment.” He waved her to peace. “It is a death of my own making. Too long have I struggled against these Ravalis vultures, and in the end, they prove the stronger. I cannot survive this.”

“If they send slayers, I will kill them.” Ovelia put her hand to the hilt of her family sword. “I will defend you to the last drop of blood in my body.”

Orbrin touched her cheek, sending a cold thrill through her skin. “You are honorable, but you have no grasp of politics. That, you will have to learn: learn to lie and manipulate others to do what must be done.”

“And what must be done?” Ovelia asked. “Just tell me, Majesty!”

The king nodded in the face of her wrath. “Draw your sword.”

“Majesty?” Ovelia didn’t understand. “Majesty, I don’t—?”

“Do it now, if you love me.” He opened his royal robe, revealing his thin, gray-furred chest. “If you refuse me, then I burn your eyes and name you Oathbreaker.”

Now she understood. “Kill you?” Ovelia hesitated, her fingers trembling on the hilt of the Bloodsword. “Your Maj—Orbrin, there must be another way.”

“There is not,” Orbrin said. “Ovelia, Paeter is dead this night.”

“But—” Ovelia stopped, her words evaporating. She’d just talked to Paeter—warmed his bed, even. It didn’t seem real. “You are certain of this? He is
dead
?”

“Or will be,” Orbrin said. “And that is my mistake. Even if I could deny involvement in Paeter’s death, the Ravalis will accuse me of it. You think any of my blood will be safe? There will be civil war, and you, me, Semana—all of us will die, and the Ravalis will take the throne. That cannot come to pass. For Tar Vangr to survive, the Ravalis cannot rule. The world will fall to Ruin.” He shook his head. “I have to die, Ovelia, and yours must be the sword that kills me.”

“Mine,” Ovelia said. “I don’t understand.”

Orbrin grasped her hand on the sword. “By doing this, you will be the Bloodbreaker, reviled and hated by all in Tar Vangr, but so too will you prove yourself an ally of the Ravalis,” he said. “Whatever you have to say or do to walk amongst them—to win their trust—that you must do. Violate your honor, lie through your teeth, kill any man they ask you to, only live and protect Semana. She has to ascend the throne, or our world comes to an end.”

“Orbrin—”

“You know that I am right,” Orbrin said. “Tar Vangr is the last mage-city of Old Calatan, the last bastion against the World of Ruin. One by one the others have fallen while the City of Winter has endured. Soon that will come to an end: the Ravalis will bring the city into calamity, and all the works of men will be swept away.” He put her sword to his chest. “The Blood of Winter must spill for the Blood of Calatan to flow on. Let my death have meaning. Do it.”

Tears rolled down Ovelia’s cheeks. “I can’t.”

“Come, come, my nerve will not last forever.” He grasped her hand on her sword and closed his fingers tightly about her knuckles. “I’d most want it to be you, rather than another.”

“No,” she said, her heart racing. “Please—don’t—”

Ovelia didn’t see what happened, but of a sudden she was falling backward, her cheek ringing with fiery pain. Orbrin had struck her. “Strike,” he said. “Or must I do that again?”

Ovelia tasted blood where her lip had split. “Do it again and again,” she said, “I’ll not kill you. Name me Oathbreaker, but I’ll not do it.”

Veins stood out on Orbrin’s forehead, and his eyes welled with tears.

“Can you not see I am dying anyway?” he asked, slamming his fists down on his knees. “The Ravalis lurk all around my throne, and I have driven all my blood away. I could not protect my queen, nor could I save Lenalin from Paeter. Darak is gone these five years. There is no hope left for Winter but Semana. If I go on, what will become of her?”

“So death is your answer?” Ovelia asked. “Are you such a coward?”

His hand rose and she dared him to strike her again, but Orbrin touched her face tenderly. He teased a lock of her red hair between his fingers.

“A single mistake, and Lenalin grew to hate me,” he said. “A single mistake, and the Blood of Winter drips to an end. All but a single last light, across a great rift.”

It was that, then. The sin that lay between them—the one Ovelia had never told anyone.

He rose and drew her to her feet. Ovelia’s body trembled throughout, her fingers shaking.

“This rift—we can mend it,” Ovelia said. “I will tell Semana.
We
will tell her the truth.”

Again Orbrin shook his head. “She must never know,” he said. “Never know what has been done for her sake.” He closed his eyes, regret drawing them tight. He seemed ancient. “I have been so selfish, Ovelia. I forced this pain upon you, and now I must let you pay a greater price than mine. I am so sorry.”

“No.” Ovelia laid her hand upon Orbrin’s cheek—his tears ran over her fingers. “Do not apologize. What I have done, I have done for love, not duty. Always.”

His frown turned to a gentle smile. “Strike quickly, as you love me.”

Ovelia’s sword rose between them like a barrier. Flames leaked around the steel, warning her of the death to come. She saw herself running Orbrin through, and saw herself surrounded in a ring of Ravalis steel. And Draca did not lie.

Above her, Frostfire wreathed Orbrin’s face. How like a king he looked—how like a god.

“Strike then.” He smiled. “Strike, and be my shield.”

Again she was young, and he strong and beautiful. Years evaporated in the silver-white flames that surrounded them and Ovelia knew again what it was to love and be loved, as no one since her princess had been able. Then Orbrin pushed toward her, or else she pushed toward him. Whichever moved first, they came together, and the blade sank into his chest—through his heart—and out his back.

They breathed as one: a single, resonant breath that shook them both.

The Frostfire of his blood faded around Orbrin, last King of Winter, and he fell to his knees. His face, raised toward hers, was serene.

Ovelia’s lip trembled and she touched his cooling face. Then she screamed in sorrow and in hate and in despair. She fell to her knees, catching his face between her hands, and begged him without words to wake. She begged him not to leave her. The world vanished and she was rocking back and forth, the body of a dead king in her arms.

She must not have heard the doors to the chamber shake, or the booted feet trample inside, because when she looked up, Ravalis guardsmen in red and blue surrounded her and she could not explain how they had come. Their weapons were drawn and they stared, bewildered, at the dead king and his champion, clad in Denerre silver and white silk but dyed Ravalis red with blood.

Ovelia rose, drawing Draca free of the king as she went. The finely-honed steel parted from the dead flesh with a wet slitting sound. She gazed around the circle, challenging each and every one, but the guards could not face the blood-smeared angel who stood in their midst.

Her eyes strayed past the ring of Ravalis red to the balcony, where stood a forbidding figure all in black leather. And beside it, blue-steel drawn, was Regel, the Winter King’s Shadow. They two stood and stared at Ovelia.

Slowly, she raised the Bloodsword to her eye and saluted.

Then the guards rushed her and the old world was gone.

Present Day—The Throne Room of Tar Vangr—The First Day of 982 Sorcerus Annis