The Winter King (8 page)

“No, of course not! Newt is a liar, Father. I ran into her while trying to get away from him, and she knows it.”

Her father’s brows shot up. “So you admit you were there. In the tower. When I had expressly forbidden you to leave your rooms?”

“Yes, I was there, but—” She didn’t dare say she’d gone for her mother’s things. To admit that was to admit that she’d been in the tower before, in direct violation of his long-standing royal decree.

“But what? What were you after?” His hand shot out and his fingers wrapped around the same part of her upper arm left tender by Newt’s unkind grip.

She’d be bruised for a week. It was ironic. In the last hour, she’d been manhandled by the Winter King, Maude Newt, and her father. Yet of the three of them, her family’s sworn enemy was the only one whose hands had left no mark on her.

Verdan shook her with fierce, barely restrained fury. “Are you the traitor in my midst? Are you the one who’s been feeding him information?”

Khamsin blanched. “No! Of course not!”
There was a traitor in Summerlea?

“Don’t lie to me, girl!” He shook her again, using both hands this time, making her head snap back and forth until she was dizzy. The book and picture in her skirt pocket banged against his thigh and he froze, scowling with sudden suspicion.

“What are you hiding?”

“N-nothing, Father.” The lie popped out, more from instinct than conscious thought, and she immediately wished she could call the foolish words back.
Oh, Kham, you dolt! If you’re going to lie, try a lie that actually has a chance of being believed!

“Empty your pockets. Now, girl!” he barked when she hesitated.

Newt she might defy, but not her father, not her king. At least not openly in his presence. She was well and truly caught. Red-handed, just as Newt had crowed earlier. Kham reached into the depths of the pocket hidden in the folds of her skirt to extract the one remaining book and the framed miniature of Queen Rosalind.

Her father snatched the treasures out of her hands and stared at the small but perfectly executed portrait of his dead queen. With trembling hands, he skimmed the pages of the diary where she’d recorded the events of her last years of life in her own hand. The look in his face was horrible to behold. Staggering loss, utter devastation. If Khamsin had ever doubted her father could love as strongly as he hated, those doubts evaporated in an instant.

He doubled over, shoulders heaving with silent, shattering sobs. Heat gathered, concentrated, poured off him in dizzying waves as the Summer King’s own, not insubstantial power, came in answer to his anguish. The portrait and diary in his hands began to smoke, then to Khamsin’s horror, burst into flames.

“Father!” She rushed towards him, snatching off her apron so she could use it to beat out the flames that had engulfed his hands.

But when she neared him, he looked up, and the moment his eyes fixed on her, all his grief, all the devastation of lost love, coalesced into a terrible searing rage.

All focused utterly on her.

Khamsin came to an abrupt halt. “Father?” She’d never seen him look that way at her before. Never. For the first time since childhood, she actually felt frightened of him.

Without warning, his arm swept out and he backhanded her across the face with such force that she flew into the leather chair behind her. She landed, breathless and stunned, fiery pain shooting across her face from the place just below her right eye where his signet ring had smashed into her cheekbone. She cupped a hand over her cheek. The power of his gift was so hot, so raging, his ring had actually burned her.

“You dare?” he snarled, his voice incendiary. “You dare defile her things with the abomination of your touch?”

“She was my mother!” Khamsin cried. Was he really so cruel that he would deny her even a glimpse of her mother’s image or the chance to read a word written in her own hand?

“She was my
wife
!” He advanced upon her, eyes shining black and vengeful. For a moment Kham thought he would strike her again, this time a killing blow. She gathered her own power, preparing to defend herself, but at the last moment he spun away. “She was the one thing I loved most in this world, and you took her from me. You and your cursed gifts.”

The verbal blow struck harder than a fist, as it always had. “I was a child!” she cried.

“You were a mistake!”

Khamsin’s gasp sounded more like an anguished sob. The tears she’d sworn never to shed again in his presence burned at the backs of her eyes, fighting for freedom.

“You should never have been conceived,” he continued bitterly. “And if I’d known what you would do to her, I would have slain you in the womb.” His rage flared hot again, heat pouring off him in waves that made the room seem to shimmer and dance.

“Twenty years,” he snarled, his voice shaking with loathing. “For twenty years, I have suffered the affliction of your existence and the bitter fruits of your rebellious nature and destructive gifts. I will suffer no longer.”

Cupping her throbbing cheek, Khamsin watched her father with burgeoning dread as he yanked open his office door and shouted for his steward. He would suffer no longer? What did
that
ominous warning mean?

C
HAPTER 4

Veil of Tears

As the city tower rang the dawn bells the next day, and two burly guards half carried, half dragged Khamsin’s limp, unresisting body back to her room in the farthest, most isolated wing of the palace, she had her answer.

Her father had given her a choice: death or banishment.

Oh, he hadn’t actually
given
her that choice, nor even implied she had one. He’d just taken her to a cold, windowless stone room carved deep into the city mount, far from access to the sky so she couldn’t summon its energies to defend herself, and informed her that the White King had come to claim a Summerlea princess as his bride. She would be that bride, Verdan declared, and he caned her viciously every time she refused.

Khamsin, foolishly defiant as usual, had refused a lot.

At first, she hadn’t believed King Verdan would go as far as he did, and she was more willing to face a caning or two than face the Winter King’s wrath when he discovered the thieving maid he’d caught in his room was to be his wife. She’d seen the hard side of Wynter Atrialan’s fury, faced his Ice Gaze, and felt him literally drain all warmth from her body. She’d felt the brutal whip of power in the skies when he’d answered her first challenge. She’d also felt the burning heat of his touch and seen the cold fire of possession flaming in his eyes. If she hadn’t escaped him when she had, he would have dominated her will and taken what he wanted, and she would have been helpless to stop him.

“No,” she’d told her father. “I won’t marry him.”

After the fifth caning, the Winter King no longer mattered. It had become a contest of wills: hers against the father’s. She thought her stubborn defiance and steely resolve could outlast the Summer King’s determination.

She’d been wrong.

Sometime after the twelfth beating, when at least three of her ribs were broken and she doubted there were two consecutive inches of flesh on her back or thighs that weren’t raw and oozing blood, she’d finally realized the unspoken choice her father was offering her.

She could marry Wynter Atrialan and leave Summerlea, or she could die.

It was that simple.

For all her defiance, for all the many sorrows of her existence, Khamsin was not ready to surrender her life. When her father raised the cane to deliver the first blow of the thirteenth beating, she agreed to be the White King’s bride.

The bloody cane had dropped from her father’s hand to clatter on the stone floor, and he’d turned without another word and walked out, leaving the two shaken guards outside the room to gather her up and carry her back to her room.

So here she was. Bloody. Beaten. Defeated in a way she’d never been before. Destined to wed the Winter King. Though how she’d manage that when at the moment simply breathing was a sheer act of will, she had no idea.

The guards came to a halt. They had reached her room.

Pride—and pain—forced Khamsin to stand rather than sag against the one guard while the other opened the door, but when it came time to actually walk inside, she couldn’t force her trembling muscles to obey. She took two shaky, wavering steps, and collapsed. Only the quick, sturdy arms of one of the guards, catching her before she fell, kept her from the further humiliation of landing facedown in an ignominious heap.

He helped her to her bed. “I’m sorry, princess, I’m sorry,” he kept whispering as he helped her lie down on her belly, then peeled back the light cloth they’d wrapped around her earlier to hide the bare, oozing skin of her back.

“I never dreamed anyone would do such a thing to one who bears the Rose,” the guard said again. “Forgive me. I should have stopped him.”

She waved him off, eyes closed in utter weariness. “Not your fault,” she mumbled. She just wanted him to leave and let her rest. Sunlight—what pale bit of it could shine through the winter gray skies—was streaming in through the window, its gentle warmth soaking into her raw flesh. Already she could feel the tingle of her magic returning, the regenerative warmth and healing light working to repair the awful proof of her father’s rage and loathing, but at the sun’s current strength, it would take days, possibly weeks before she was completely healed.

She heard her bedroom door open and close as the guards let themselves out. She closed her eyes, exhaled, and gave herself over to pain and exhaustion.

How long she floated in and out of consciousness, she didn’t know. It could have been minutes; it could have been hours. At some point, something tugged her back to awareness.

She heard a gasp of horror and dismay: “Dearly!”

The sound of Tildy’s familiar, beloved voice made Kham want to weep as she had not done once throughout the long, torturous hours of the night. The nursemaid had been more of a mother to her since Queen Rosalind’s death than Verdan had ever been a father. She had showered Khamsin with constant love and guidance, praising her when praise was due, accepting the bursts of rebellious temper that were Kham’s nature, never shirking from a firm reprimand when that was due either.

She’d even administered the cane herself once or twice, when Kham’s transgressions had truly gone beyond the pale, but always—
always
—she tempered those punishments with love and restraint. Never, no matter how deeply Kham vexed her, would Tildy have even dreamed of beating her with such unrelenting brutality.

The ultrasensitive skin of her back felt the disturbance in the air as Tildy rushed across the room and dropped to her knees beside the bed.

“Oh, dearly, what has he done to you?”

Khamsin peeled open one eye. Tears trickled down the nursemaid’s wrinkled face as she surveyed the damage Verdan had wrought upon his youngest child.

Kham forced a wry smile. “It feels worse than it looks.” She started to laugh at her own, poor joke, but her ribs and the torn skin of her back protested the effort.

“Never,” Tildy whispered, “never in all my life would I have believed him capable of this. Foolish, arrogant, unthinking man! How could he commit such a crime?” Shaking fingers covered her mouth. “He’s called a curse upon his House.”

Sadness wiped the faint smile from the edge of Khamsin’s mouth. Her eyes closed with sudden weariness. “No, Tildy,” she said. “I did that long ago, when I killed my mother.”

“Oh, child.” The nursemaid stroked her cheek and bent to press a trembling kiss on her brow. “Don’t you ever think that. You didn’t kill our Rose.”

“The magic was mine.” She’d only been three at the time, but she remembered. The lightning crashing all around the Sky Garden, called by a little weatherwitch’s temper tantrum. The bolt that struck the oak, shattering the tree’s dense heart, and shearing off a heavy branch. Queen Rosalind looking up with a gasp. Khamsin had wiped the terrible memory from her mind until the day her father told her she was responsible for her mother’s death.

“It was an accident, child, and that wasn’t what killed her. She developed a sickness of the lungs, and she was too frail to fight it. She’d never been healthy after your birth.”

“My fault again.” She’d heard those stories, too. How she had grown in Queen Rosalind’s belly like a cancer, sapping her strength, robbing her of health, draining the very life from her.

“No, child. The doctor had already told both Rose and your father that Autumn should be their last child. But your mother wouldn’t listen, and your father couldn’t keep away.” Tildy’s hands, gentle and loving, brushed the tangled, sweat-dampened curls from Khamsin’s face. “It’s not you your father despises, Khamsin. It’s himself. Because he couldn’t stay away. When he looks at you, he sees the proof of his own weakness and can’t stand it.”

A tear—such a useless, silly thing—trickled from the corner of Kham’s eye. It flowed across the bridge of her nose, clung for a moment until its own weight grew too great for it to bear, then dropped soundless to the cotton sheets where it was instantly absorbed.

“It doesn’t matter,” Khamsin murmured. “I’m leaving.” She met Tildy’s sorrowful gaze and forced the corner of her mouth to tilt up in a smile. “I’m getting married, Tildy.”

The nursemaid’s chin trembled, and fresh tears swam in her eyes. “I know, dearly,” she said when finally she’d regained enough of her composure to speak. “He sent me to speed up your healing. He wants you wed the night after next and gone the following morning.”

Wynter stalked the tower ramparts, staring out over the miles of the once-fertile valley that was the heart Summerlea. Snow covered the land from the orchards of the northern foothills bordering the Craig to the vineyards of the rolling western hills to the flat southern fields where the husks of wheat, corn, oats and cotton stood withered and lifeless in their white winter coat.

He’d come to conquer, and he had. Nothing lived here except by his will. The far south, beyond his sight, had yielded food enough to feed the people of this kingdom for a few months more, but after that, without respite from the cold, Summerlanders would begin dying by the thousands.

He would ensure it, did Verdan not agree to his terms.

The clank of metal on stone made him turn. His hand dropped instinctively to cover the hilt of Gunterfys, strapped to his armored waist. He’d been outside the palace today, and though he’d shed his helmet and gauntlets downstairs, the rest of him was still clad in full battle armor. The war might be won, but he wasn’t fool enough to trust the Summerlanders with an unobstructed shot at his back.

The grip on his sword loosened when he saw the white horsehair plume of Valik’s helmet. “Well?”

His longtime friend approached and held out a sealed roll of paper. “This was just delivered downstairs. The runner is waiting for your reply.”

Wynter broke the red wax seal bearing the imprint of Verdan’s signet and unrolled the stiff paper. He scanned the inked message once, twice. His lips tightened fractionally.

“Well?” Valik prompted when Wynter lifted his gaze.

“He has agreed. With certain conditions.” He held out the note so Valik could read it for himself and watched his eyebrows climb when he reached the last lines of the message.

“The arrogant old bastard. He’s ordering you to plow her before you leave.”

“Wed her, bed her, and get out,” Wynter agreed. “Don’t forget that last bit.”

“Saw it,” Valik said grimly. “He as good as came right out and said blood will flow in the streets if you don’t leave the day after the wedding.” He passed the message back.

Wynter folded the note and tucked it into the cuff of his armor. He didn’t need to read the words again. Every looping scrawl of Verdan’s hand was already committed to memory. The message was brief, bitter, and as arrogant as the Summer King ever would be:

We are agreed. Though I would rather see all Summerlea laid waste than surrender one of my beloved daughters to be your wife, one of the princesses has nonetheless agreed to be your bride. The wedding will take place Freikasday evening, three nights from now, and as any concerned father would when his daughter’s life hangs in the balance, I require proof of consummation before you leave Summerlea. My physician will examine the princess the next morning.

She will be prepared to depart immediately thereafter. I’m sure the folk of Wintercraig are anxious for your return, and a prolonged departure would be unwise. As you know, the citizens of Summerlea are extraordinarily devoted to their beloved Seasons.

V

“What answer will you give him?”

Wynter shrugged. “I will accept, of course. It’s what I came for.”

Valik’s mouth gaped open. “You’re serious? You’re going to wed her, plow her, and leave town, just like he wants?”

He almost smiled at his friend’s astonishment. “A demand for immediate consummation isn’t unusual when great Houses forge matrimonial ties. Whether I do the deed now or later makes no difference to me, but he obviously fears I will hold myself from her and use her lack of quickening as an excuse to kill her and claim another princess.” What the Summer King hadn’t properly calculated was how badly Wynter wanted an heir. Though he would quite willingly strip Verdan of every daughter in his effort to get one, he’d intended from the start to sow his Summerlea field with vigor.

“And the speedy withdrawal? You plan to grant him that, too?”

“I am ready for home. I’m sure you and your men are, too. We’ve been gone long enough.”

“Me and my men?” A fresh spurt of outrage drove Valik’s voice louder. “I can understand why you would want to take your bride back to the Craig as soon as possible—I don’t necessarily agree with it, but I can understand it—but leaving Verdan Coruscate to his own devices is foolhardy. We’ll have a rebellion on our hands before you set the first foot on Wintercraig land.”

“That’s why your Chief Lieutenant Leirik and half the army are going to stay. You and the rest of the men will accompany me and my bride back home.”

Valik’s rigid spine went even stiffer. “You’re going to put
Leirik
in charge?”

Wynter hadn’t thought it possible for Valik to look so upset. He was usually a stern guard of his emotions. “He’s capable, don’t you think?”

“Yes, perfectly capable. That’s not the point. If anyone should stay behind to lead the troops here in Summerlea, it should be me.”

“No.” He said it bluntly, in a tone that brooked no refusal. “You’re coming home with me.”

“I’m the Steward of Troops,” Valik protested. “I’m your second-in-command. In the White King’s absence, the White Sword speaks in his name. That’s always how it’s been. Keeping the peace in Summerlea after you’ve gone is
my
duty.”

“No.”

“Wyn—”

“No!
Don’t ask me again.” He glared at Valik. “I’ve already lost one brother to Summerlander treachery. I won’t lose another.” The two of them weren’t brothers in blood, but in every other way that mattered, they were. They’d been friends since birth, confidants in the awkward years of adolescence, and for the last three years, comrades in arms who’d saved one another’s lives more times than either of them could count. Losing Valik was not an option.

Surprise blanked Valik’s expression, then understanding crept into his eyes. “Wyn . . .”