The Winter King

CHAPTER 11

Ice Spears, Garm, and Other Perils

The Temple of Wyrn was built in a cave on the southern face of Mount Vetr. A long, narrow stone road led from Gildenheim’s eastern gate, across a bridge to the neighboring peak, and up to the mouth of the cave. Within, the cave’s walls and ceiling were coated with ice, and a long promenade led to the wide, rounded main chamber of the temple. There, an altar carved from a block of ice dominated the room, and in the center of the altar sat a chalice of diamond- and sapphire-encrusted platinum, in which burned a cold blue flame that emitted no heat. Crossed ice spears hung on the wall behind the altar, beneath the carved ice mask of the goddess Wyrn.

The last time Wynter had entered this temple, he’d stripped down to his skin and taken the narrow passage to the left of the altar, traveling through a deadly, magical gauntlet littered with the frozen bodies of men who had tried—and failed—the same gauntlet before him. He had survived the tests and made his way to the secret chamber buried deep in the glacier on the opposite side of the mountain, and to the dark pool of liquid ice known as the Ice Heart. That liquid was said to be the immortal essence drained from the heart of Wyrn’s once-mortal husband, Rorjak, who’d traded her love for power, using the gifts she’d bestowed upon him to father the Frost Giants and become the first Ice King. It was to slay her husband that Wyrn had fashioned the ice spears and given them to her brother Thorgyll.

Wynter knew the legends were true. Three years ago, he’d put his lips to that liquid ice and swallowed a mouthful of it. The chill had sped straight to his heart and frozen him from the inside out.

“Remembering?” Galacia Frey’s voice whispered across the ice, echoing softly.

He turned and saw her standing in the shadows of the entrance that led to the priestesses’ private chambers. “Yes.”

“You are colder now by far than you were when you left.”

Wynter held her gaze. “Yes.”

“Is there still hope, do you think?”

“I thought you summoned me to find that out.”

Her lips curved in a cold smile. “I did.” The smile vanished. She stalked towards the altar, her long snowbear-fur robe trailing behind her. “Approach the altar,” she commanded.

There was something about the tone of her voice that put him on edge. Since the day she’d become a priestess of Wyrn, she’d treated him with distant reserve, but this was different. Warrior’s instinct made him move slowly, his fingers inches from Gunterfys’s grip. He sniffed the air, wondering if the other two priestesses were lying in wait, but he detected only Galacia’s faint scent. The temple ice muted smells, and no breeze stirred the air, but if the others were near he would have known. Not an ambush, then.

She stood behind the altar, between the cup of blue flame and the wall of spears, looking regal and reserved. When he continued to hesitate, she arched one haughty, mocking brow. “Afraid, Wyn?” she gibed softly.

The familiar, taunting amusement made him grit his teeth. They’d known each other since childhood. She’d never given much respect to a man’s pride—except as a weapon to tweak him with. Obviously, that was still one of her favorite weapons. Regrettably, it still worked.

Damnable woman. He’d show her who should be afraid of whom. Wynter dropped his hand from his sword hilt and leapt up on the altar dais in one swift step. He realized his mistake in an instant.

The world went white.

Air and snow and ice whirled around him in a blinding tempest. He yanked Gunterfys from its sheath. “Galacia!” he roared. The power of the Ice Heart swept over him in a burning rush and gathered at the backs of his eyes. He spun, sweeping Gunterfys and the Ice Gaze blindly in the white wind.

Then froze when the point of a spear pressed against his back.

The tempest slowed to a flurry of snow, then disappeared. He was standing before the altar, facing the wall of spears. One of them was missing. A thick layer of frost from his Gaze lay over everything, except the steadily burning blue of the flame in the cup.

“Drop the sword and shutter your Gaze. Now, Wyn,” she snapped when he didn’t instantly obey. “Pass the test, and you’re free to go. Refuse, and you die now on the point of my spear.”

“Damn you for a coldhearted witch!” he hissed, but he knew he’d been bested. Galacia had positioned her spear in the perfect spot. A single thrust would drive it between his ribs and straight through his heart. He opened his fist and let Gunterfys clatter to the floor. The cold rage of the Ice Gaze drained away.

“Good. Now put your hand in the flame.”

“Are you mad?” He started to turn around. The spear’s needled point dug deeper, freezing his shirt and numbing the flesh beneath.

“Do it,” she ordered.

“Woman, you will regret this.”

“The regret started long ago. Now, put your hand in the flame.” She jabbed the spear in his back again for emphasis.

He shoved his hand into the center of the blue flame burning in the chalice. The fire flared high in a sudden explosion of red-orange light. He cried out in pain and yanked his hand back. The flesh of his hand was sizzling, and blisters had formed across his palm.

The spear at his back fell away.

He whirled, but she was already gone. He snatched up Gunterfys as she darted around the corner of the altar table. She held the spear pointed towards him and crouched in a defensive stance, ready for battle.

“You’d be dead before you ever drew back that spear to strike,” he snapped.

“Perhaps,” she agreed. “But kill a priestess of Wyrn in her own temple, and you won’t live to cross the threshold.”

He snarled at her. While others might doubt the gods still actively manifested their power in the world of men, Wynter knew better. For now, at least, Galacia had won. “You always were an annoying wretch of a girl.” He gave her a last, black scowl, heaved out an irritated gust of air, and shoved Gunterfys back in its sheath. “Well, did I pass your test?”

“What do you think?”

He gave her a sullen look. “I think if I hadn’t, I’d already be dead.”

A ghost of a smile warmed her eyes. She straightened and slowly raised the spear until its sharp tip pointed towards the roof of the ice cave. “The flame only burns flesh that still retains the heat of life. If the Ice Heart had consumed you, the fire would have remained blue and cold.” She turned her back to him and set the spear back in place with its twin on the wall.

“You’ve shown your hand, priestess. If I do become the Ice King, I won’t be fool enough to return here and let you prove it.”

“I know,” she agreed, “but the refusal will be proof enough on its own.”

“I am so warned.” His pride was still smarting at the way she’d outmaneuvered him. He’d never liked losing to her. He still didn’t. “Do what you must, Galacia. You always have.” He turned and headed for the entrance to the cave.

“There was a reason I needed to test you today,” she called after him.

He ignored her. He’d had enough of her mysteries and torments.

“The garm have come.”

He stopped. Turned slowly back. The garm were deadly, giant wolflike monsters from the ice fields of the Craig, pets and servants of the Frost Giants, Rorjak’s deadly minions. His brows drew together in a scowl. “Barsul said nothing of it.”

“He doesn’t know. I haven’t told him. I haven’t told anyone until you, just now.”

“You’ve seen them?”

“No. Not seen.” Already her haughty air of superiority was returning. She circled the altar, running a long, blue-nailed finger along the edge. “Smelled them on the wind.”

“I have not.”

“Your nose is full of weatherwitch.” She arched a brow. “Did you think I would not scent her on you?”

“I know better than that.” Her mother was Snow Wolf clan, like him. Galacia and he had run together with the wolves as children, until Wyrn had called her to service on her tenth birthday. He knew she had enough blood of the wolf in her to grant her a portion of its power. “I wed her to sire an heir, and the begetting of one has proven much more enjoyable than I’d dared hope. Summerfolk are exceedingly passionate.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Jealous, Laci?” he jabbed, unable to resist a taunt of his own. Deliberately, he used the name he’d used when they’d run together as children. Until she’d been called by Wyrn, her parents and his had intended her to be his bride. But as a priestess of Wyrn, her bed was as cold as the goddess she served.

She didn’t rise to the bait. “It’s good that part of this marriage agrees with you. An enjoyable duty is a pleasure, not a chore, and thus more likely to be completed well and swiftly.”

The cool response irritated him, so he dug his next barb a little deeper. “Well, if that’s your measure, a dozen of my children should already be growing in her womb.”

She gave him a brittle smile. “Only a dozen? You disappoint me, Wyn.”

That brittleness shamed him. He’d struck her, all right, and hard, and there was no excuse for it. She’d not chosen her path; it had been chosen for her. Wyrn had called her at age ten, before she’d even known boys were good for more than beating in footraces and games of war. She’d never known a man’s love or passion, and never would. She’d never hold a child of her own. “Laci . . .”

She cut him off. Already, the brief moment of vulnerability had passed. She was once more the icy Lady Frey, Wyrn’s priestess, coldly distant and impervious to the frailties of human emotion. “In truth, even if you didn’t reek of your Summer witch, I’d be surprised if you could detect the garm. Their scent is very faint, and I myself can only catch it when the wind is just right. And if not for the dreams Wyrn sends me, I would not have noticed even that. They are still keeping to the mountains, but I doubt it will be long before they grow bolder.”

“I will organize a Hunt.”

“A Hunt? Where? Through the entire breadth and depth of the Craig?” She laughed shortly. “You won’t have any idea where to start until they strike, and you find a trail fresh enough to follow. And the moment you mention the garm, your own life will be in danger. There are those who would stab you in the back rather than risk the coming of the Ice King.”

“Including you, as I just discovered.”

“Including me.” Her gaze was every bit as steady as his. “I am Wyrn’s, after all.”

He gave a rueful laugh. She was an honest woman. Often brutally so, but that was one of the qualities he’d always liked about her. He’d rather have an honest spear aimed at his back than a faceful of lies and political machinations.

“Barsul told me about the men sent to face the mercy of the mountains. Is that because of the growing power of the Ice Heart, too?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “It’s possible.”

“Then why not kill me now and have done with it? You had your chance. Why didn’t you take it?”

“All hope is not yet lost. Besides, I know Barsul told you of Calberna and the Summer Prince. If you are slain, invasion is a certainty, and from more than just Calberna. The only thing that’s kept the foreign kings at bay these last years has been the fear that you would turn the power of the Ice Heart on their own kingdoms and lay them waste.”

“I suppose I should thank Falcon, then. If not for his efforts to raise a Calbernan army, I would have been greeted with spears instead of wreaths.”

The blue-tinted nails idly scraped the ice altar, and the tower of frozen curls tilted slightly to one side. Galacia’s pale eyes remained cool and steady.

Wyn scowled at her, recognizing that look. She’d already said all she would. “So the garm have come, but I should stay here and do nothing? That is your advice?”

“You should stay here and impregnate your little weatherwitch. That is my advice. Your idea in wedding her was a good one. Hold your child in your arms while there’s still warmth enough in you to feel the love you need to melt the Ice Heart. The surest way to drive back the garm is to rob their masters of hope for victory.”

Wynter snorted. “Between you, Barsul, and my queen’s own father, I’ve never had so many friends urging me to bed a woman.” Not that the idea of spending the next year in bed plowing Khamsin every chance he got was unappealing.

“It’s never been so important. Too much is at stake, and time is a luxury you don’t have.”

“How long do I have?”

“Not long. Probably less than a year if you continue to use the power. A weaker man would have succumbed long before now.”

Wynter absorbed the information without flinching. He’d known how high the price of the Ice Heart could be, but after holding Garrick’s body in his arms, no amount of wise counsel could have swayed him from charting his course of vengeance.

“If the garm have come,” he said, “I will not leave my people unprotected. They must be warned, no matter the cost to me.”

“Then send outriders to the remote farms and villages,” Galacia replied—quickly enough that Wyn realized she’d already decided what he should do before he’d stepped foot inside the temple. “Claim rumors of marauding darkwolves. Have the villagers form town watches to patrol the woods and report anything suspicious. Warn them to keep their livestock penned close and avoid traveling through the woods in parties smaller than three. If the garm do venture down from the mountains, I doubt they will be bold enough at first to do more than prey on the alone and unwary.”

“The moment the villagers find the first tracks, they’ll know the truth.”

“Yes, but by then, your bride could be pregnant. That may provide hope enough to hold potential assassins at bay. Regicide is not a crime Winterfolk easily embrace.”

“Only priestesses of Wyrn, eh, Laci?”

She bowed her head slightly in acknowledgment, her face a cool, expressionless mask.

He shrugged his shoulders to release the gathered tension in them. “Was there anything else, or are we done?”

“We’re done,” she said. “I’ll show you out.”

After one last, brief glance at the ice spears and the carved, frozen face of Wyrn behind the altar, Wynter fell into step beside the severe, stately woman who’d once been his friend and intended bride. At the temple entrance, the wind of the high reaches rushed over them, blowing Wynter’s hair all around his face. Galacia’s stood impervious to it. Like the goddess she served, she was a tower of ice, untouched by the elements.

He spat out a mouthful of hair and bowed to her as temple protocol demanded. “Thank you for the warnings, Lady Frey, and the advice.” And because they had once been friends, and there would always be a part of him that wished they still were, he added, “If it comes to it, Laci, there’s none I’d rather have hold the spear than you.”

As he walked away, Galacia remained standing in the temple entrance, watching him make his way down the rocky path back towards Gildenheim and his Summerlea bride.

“You are wrong, Wyn,” she murmured, knowing the wind would whisk her words far away from his ears. If he’d turned at this moment, he would have been surprised by the regret in her pale eyes. “I would not slay you easily. I’d do it, but never easily.”

Khamsin scowled as Bella and two Wintercraig maids fussed and muttered around her as they tried to ready her for her first dinner with the Wintercraig court. Summer Sun! Why had she ever thought she wanted to take part in the pomp and ceremony of court life? Just preparing for dinner was a production that sapped her patience to a bare thread.

Although there’d been no time in Summerlea to prepare a wardrobe suitable for her role as the new Winter Queen (assuming her father would even go to such expense on her behalf), her sisters had each donated several gowns from their own court wardrobes. Gildenheim’s seamstresses had spent several hours “winterizing” one of Spring’s gowns with a new, padded silk underdress and a fitted, ermine-trimmed overdress.

“There now, my lady,” Bella murmured. She tied off the last stitch to repair some damaged beadwork and snipped the thread, then stood back and ran a critical eye over everything. “All done, and presentable enough for a dinner in any court, I’d say.”

Kham’s head jerked on a sudden, wincing pain, and she scowled at the Wintercraig maid dressing her hair. “Good, then perhaps you can finish my hair. While I still have some of it left.”

“Of course, my lady.” Bella dismissed the remaining Winterfolk and set to work finishing Khamsin’s hair.

When they were gone, some of the tension drained from Kham’s shoulders. She closed her eyes and let the silence wash over her. It was quiet here. Elsewhere in the palace, stone walls and marble floors let sound echo, but here the hardwood floors and the profusion of rugs and hangings helped muffle unwanted noise. And for once, Bella wasn’t chattering like a magpie.

Khamsin frowned. Chatter. Magpie.

Birds.

Her eyes opened. She sat up straight. “Bella, where are my birds? The tanagers Spring gave me.” In the mirror, Kham saw a strange stillness come over her maid’s face. “Bella?”

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty,” the girl said. “They didn’t survive the journey.”

“What? But when did they die? How?”

“I think the cold killed them. It happened the day you were so ill, and the Winter King sent me away. I buried them by the side of the road, back in Summerlea.”

Khamsin’s shoulders slumped. Poor little things. She’d tried to keep them warm, but apparently it hadn’t been enough. The thought of the tiny songbirds with their greenish yellow winter coats lying dead in the snow, their cheerful song forever silenced, made her want to cry.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Bella murmured.

“No, it’s not your fault. Some things just weren’t meant for this place.” Kham closed her eyes and fought back the burning press of tears. It was so foolish to cry, but they’d been such sweet, darling little things. And they’d sung so cheerfully together as the coach had carried Khamsin farther and farther from the only home she’d ever known.

By the time Bella finished fixing the last curl in place, Khamsin had her emotions in check. Her eyes were dry, her face composed. Tildy would have been proud.

Kham stood and regarded her reflection with a critical eye. Her gown was silvery white satin, with a heavily beaded bodice, long, unadorned skirts gracefully behind her. Ice blue satin slippers, embroidered with silver thread and crystal beads, peeped out beneath the gown’s hem. The ice blue velvet overdress nipped in at the waist and fastened with a row of three diamond and aquamarine buttons. The collar of thick, soft ermine covered her shoulders and framed her bronze face and dark, upswept hair. Wynter’s ring, the Wintercraig Star, was her only jewelry.

A knock sounded on the doors in the outer chamber. Bella hurried to answer it. As Khamsin picked up her skirts to follow, a flash of white in the mirror made her spin around in alarm.

Wynter stood inside her bedroom, near her dressing room door. He was clad in white from head to toe. His inscrutable gaze swept over her.

She pressed a hand to her rapidly beating heart. “How did you get in here?”

He waved a careless hand behind him. “There is a connecting door from your dressing room to mine.” One would think white would make him seem softer, kinder, less threatening even, but it only made him look taller, broader, and more dangerous. A wolf in lamb’s clothing. The hair at his temples had been drawn back again and braided in three thin, silver-ringed plaits that framed his face.

“Wintercraig colors suit you,” he said. Before she could do more than blink in surprise at the compliment, he held out a small box. “Here. I meant to return these to you.”

Curious, Kham opened the box and looked inside. “My mother’s things!” Kham set the box on her bed and pulled them out—her mother’s gardening journal, her jeweled brush, comb, and mirror. Kham ran her fingers over the familiar, beloved objects. Emotion welled up so suddenly, she nearly humiliated herself by bursting into tears.

“Thank you.” Kham busied herself setting her mother’s thing out on her dresser. “These are very dear to me. They’re all I have left of my mother.” She turned back to find Wynter regarding her with an inscrutable gaze.

“You must have loved her very much.”

She’d revealed too much. Not wanting him to use her vulnerability against her, she said, “I’m told I did. She died when I was three.” She lifted her chin and added bluntly, “I summoned the storm that killed her.”

She’d meant to shock him. And to warn him not to underestimate her or her magic. But instead of responding with wariness or concern or even surprise, his gaze softened, and his voice, when he spoke, brushed across the broken parts of her soul like warm velvet. “I’m so sorry, min ros. I can only image the pain you’ve carried all these years.” He stepped closer and slid a hand through her hair, cupping her head in his palm, stroking her temple with his thumb. “But you were a child, Khamsin. A baby. Even if you summoned the storm, no one in their right mind could ever blame you for what happened.”

She ached to lean into him, to let the guilt fall away, but she moved away instead, rejecting his comfort and offer of absolution. “You weren’t there. You don’t know anything about it.”

“No, but I was there when you awakened in my tent and realized you’d called a fierce storm in your delirium. I saw how alarmed you were by the mere thought that you might have injured someone with your magic. And those were my men you worried about. Soldiers who’d been your enemies only days before.” He shook his head. “You aren’t a killer, Khamsin. You aren’t a monster or a curse on anyone’s House. And you didn’t kill your mother.”

Her throat grew so tight, she couldn’t speak. She could only stand there, blinking and trying desperately not to cry.

He didn’t try to hold or comfort her again. He merely waited for her to recover her composure, then held out an arm. “Come, Summerlass. The court is waiting, and they will not thank us if we let their food grow cold.”

She took his arm in silence and walked beside him as he led her out of their private wing and down to the banquet hall on the palace’s second level. She snuck surreptitious glances at him as they walked.

She did not understand this man she’d married. Every time she thought she’d figured him out, he surprised her. How could he be so cold one minute, yet so passionate the next? How could he offer her such disarming kindness and compassion, while planning to execute her at year’s end if she didn’t bear him a child? Was one aspect merely a show he put on? And if so, which side of him was the mask and which was the true Wynter Atrialan?

Within minutes of entering the banquet hall, Khamsin felt lost and alone, surrounded by cool-eyed men and women who laughed with tinkling little shivers of sound behind fans of snowy-egret plumes. No one was openly rude. In fact, they were all coolly polite. But she was conscious of their eyes upon her, and conscious of her relative smallness, her foreign darkness. She found herself wishing that she’d worn rich, bold, Summerlea colors tonight—wine, scarlet, emerald green, imperial purple, anything but the pale white and ice blue that made her look like a stranger trying desperately to fit in.

The feeling of alienation was intensified by the presence of Valik’s dinner companion, his cousin Reika Villani. Khamsin remembered the sleek, tall beauty from earlier in the day. She was the woman who had gripped Wynter’s hands with such fervor at the reception. As it turned out, Reika was actually Valik’s cousin by marriage, the daughter of his uncle’s second wife. Apparently, she had become a close friend of Wynter’s years ago, when he and Valik would hunt on the old man’s abundant acreage.

Seated between Valik and Wynter at the dinner table, the golden-haired beauty spent the entire meal entertaining everyone with humorous anecdotes and prompting them to share their own adventures. She did it in a way that seemed so innocuous on the surface yet had the effect of drawing a distinct circle of friendship in which Khamsin clearly did not belong. “Oh, Valik, tell the queen about the time you wrestled that boar to its knees,” or “My king, tell her about the time you found the ice dragon’s nest.”

To Khamsin’s right, Lord Chancellor Firkin and his wife, Lady Melle, listened to Reika’s conversation with indulgent smiles and murmured occasional asides to Khamsin to explain some of the customs and terms that might be unfamiliar to her. Whether they were blind to their countrywoman’s actions, approving of them, or merely trying to smooth over a potentially awkward situation, Khamsin didn’t know. But she had been raised in the shadows of the Summer court, where Summerlea courtiers regularly spoke of passion and desires through subtle and not-so-subtle body language, and she understood the woman’s meaning all too easily. Reika Villani was staking her claim.

Khamsin was no fool and no starry-eyed romantic either. Sex in Summerlea was pleasurable entertainment shared by most courtiers without regard for marital status. Fidelity was rare, and in arranged marriages, virtually nonexistent. Logically, she knew she should not expect Wynter to be faithful to her, but after sharing such deep intimacy and shattering pleasure with him, the idea of another woman in his bed made Khamsin grip her eating utensils with unnecessary force.

Reika was also the sister of Wynter’s former betrothed. That came out during the course of the meal, too, in another anecdotal tale that ended with, “Who knew you were going to fall so deeply in love with my sister Elka?” At the mention of Elka’s name, dead silence fell across Wynter’s end of the banquet table. And in a truly gifted performance of tearful remorse, Reika cast Wynter a fluttering, fragile, sorrow-filled glance—complete with two perfect, crystalline tears shimmering in her limpid blue eyes—and said, “Oh, Wyn, I’m so sorry.”

He covered her hand with his, and gave her long, thin fingers a squeeze. “It’s all right, Reika. The past is gone.”

Khamsin stared at Wynter’s hand touching the Villani woman’s, and something very dark and very unpleasant swelled inside her. She reached for her silver water goblet and drank, hoping the icy snowmelt would cool her temper.

Wynter removed his hand, and that helped more than the ice water. But then Reika launched into another series of humorous tales about their adventures, and she seemed to take Wynter’s brief, conciliatory handclasp as an invitation to touch him freely. She started brushing the back of his hand with her fingertips, squeezing his arm as she laughed, leaning towards him and bumping shoulders in a way only intimates had a right to.

So much for Khamsin’s earlier plans of learning the lay of the land and befriending the locals. This woman was the enemy. And the rest of the court, eyeing her with such indulgence and laughing their approval of her behavior, were enemies, too. Khamsin clutched her goblet tightly. Outside, the clouds gathered, and the banquet-hall windows began to rattle.

“Oh dear,” Lady Melle murmured. “It sounds like we’ve got a bit of a storm brewing.”

Wynter and Valik glanced out the darkened windows then, in unison, turned to Khamsin. Wynter’s brows drew sharply together. She knew her eyes were pure silver now and swirling with magic.

“Khamsin?” Wynter half rose from his chair and leaned towards her.

Crystalline laughter pealed out. “Oh, Wyn,” Lady Reika grabbed his arm as if to pull him back, “remember the time when we—”

BOOM!

Lightning split the sky, so close, the banquet hall went blinding white. A deafening crack of thunder made ladies scream in fright, then burst out in peals of nervous laughter.

Khamsin set down her silver water goblet, which now bore the distinct impression of her fingers melted into the metal. All the ice in the goblet was gone, and the water was steaming. She pushed back her chair to stand. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long day. Please excuse me.”

“Khamsin!” Wynter growled, reaching for her. She skirted his outstretched hand and walked swiftly for the door.

Behind her, the silence exploded in a sudden buzz of conversation, and she heard Lady Reika’s voice asking, “Wyn? What just happened? Did she do that?”

Bella was sitting at the secretary, scratching an ink-dipped quill rapidly over a scrap of paper, when Khamsin burst in. The little maid leapt to her feet and whirled towards the door, one hand clutching at her throat. The other swept out, knocking over the inkpot and spilling black ink across the paper. “Oh, Your Majesty!” she exclaimed. “You gave me such a start.” She started mopping up the inky mess with the ruined remains of her letter and several other sheets of paper. “Is dinner over so quickly?”

“It is for me.” Khamsin headed for the bedroom, tearing off her velvet overdress as she went. She reached for the laces at the back of the satin gown, but the ties were hopelessly tight. “Come help me out of this dress.”

“Of course, Your Majesty, but I need to clean up this mess and wash the ink from my hands before I dare touch that gown.”

“A stain or two wouldn’t hurt it,” Kham muttered under her breath. But she raised her voice, and called, “That’s fine. There’s a storm outside. I’m going out on the balcony to enjoy it.” She pulled open the leaded-glass doors that led to a private balcony circling the castle turret where her bedroom was located. The wind rushed to greet her, cold and hard and stinging with icy rain, but she only spread her arms and lifted her face up to meet it. This storm was strong but not deadly. She’d left the banquet hall before it had become so.

Her skirts whipped wildly around her legs, the pins pulled loose in her hair, and long, curling strands of white-streaked black blew around her. She breathed deep, drawing the chill, fresh air into her lungs, and turned her face up into the sluicing streams of rain. Storms, for all their rage and potential danger, were cleansing and ultimately calming. She gave her temper up to the winds and wished her body could float up and join it. What joy it would be to skate the skies on swirling black clouds or ride the lightning as it raced miles in mere instants.

She stood there for a long while, letting the wind whip at her, the rain soak her through to her skin, until the last remnants of her hot anger had faded away. When she was finally calm again, she went back inside. Bella was gone. Kham poked her head in the main parlor and called to her, but got no response. The girl must have gone to wash up in the servants’ washroom down the hall instead of doing the reasonable thing and using Kham’s bathing chamber.

With a muttered curse, Kham returned to her bedchamber and tried once more to untangle the knotted ties at the back of her bodice. Really, how ridiculous was it that ladies wore fashions they could not put on and take off without assistance? Men weren’t such fools.

She twisted her arms, fumbling blindly with the ties. The rain had soaked the fabric and swollen the cords, making them even harder to unknot. Her chin dropped down to her chest. The wet, tangled curls of her hair fell forward and dripped a steady stream of water on the floor that joined the greater puddle seeping from her gown.

“Summer Sun!” she exclaimed bitterly, giving the ties a furious yank.

“Let go. You’re only making it worse.”

Khamsin froze at the low rumble of Wynter’s voice and the jolt of electricity that jangled across her nerves when his fingers brushed against hers. She stood still, her heart in her throat, while he tugged at the ties of her gown. After a few moments, the ties loosened, and the fabric at the back of her gown parted. She started to clutch the gown to her when Wynter slid it from her shoulders, but she remembered her oath of matrimony and let the gown fall.

His hands went to the ties of the silk underdress, loosing them with similar ease. “Why did you summon the storm?” he asked, as the ties slipped free. “And why did you leave?”

Holding the last flimsy shred of protection to her chest, she stepped away and turned to face him. “You aren’t so blind as that.”

He wasn’t, and he surrendered the pretense without a fight. “She is just a childhood friend, nothing more.”

“She wants to sit on the Winter Throne,” Khamsin countered, “or at the very least, lie in the bed of the man who does.”

“Reika?” He laughed and shook his head. “She’d sooner bed down with a wild wolf. I’m too big and rough for her. She wants a man with poetry in his heart. She’s said so many times.”

“Has she said so since the day you chose her sister over her?”

His look of consternation was all the answer she needed.

There were benefits to living in the shadows as Kham had done all her life, being unseen, unnoticed. One of those benefits had been to watch the court ladies work their wiles on the men, to observe not only what they said to men’s faces but also what they said behind their backs. Khamsin had no doubt Reika’s youthful protestations had been flirtation, intended to call attention to her delicate femininity and instruct Wynter how to woo her.

Unfortunately for her, Reika hadn’t realized Wynter would interpret her protests so literally. And Kham had no intention of letting her amend her past mistakes.

“I swore an oath to offer you the fruits of my life,” she told him. “You swore the same to me, and you promised to keep only to me. As I honor my oaths, I expect you to honor yours.”

Surprise flashed across his face for the briefest instant before he marshaled his features into an inscrutable mask. “You ask me for fidelity?”

She hadn’t meant to. It had just sort of popped out. But now that she had, she wasn’t going to back down. She lifted her chin. “I demand it. Considering my life lies in the balance, it’s only just that you restrict your . . . breeding efforts . . . solely to me.”

He took a single, purposeful step towards her, a predator stalking prey. His eyes burned like blue flame. “Is that the real reason? Because you fear death?”

Every instinct for self-preservation screamed at her to back away. Pride would not let her. She had issued her challenge, and she would stand her ground. “What other reason could there possibly be?”

He took another step towards her. A growl vibrated deep in his throat.

Her body went weak, legs nearly collapsing beneath her. Heat burst across her skin in dizzying waves. That was so supremely unfair. One intent look, one low, thrilling growl, and she went up in flames.

His nostrils flared, and the muscles in his jaw clenched hard as stone. With a swiftness that left her blinking, he reached out one hand and snatched the underdress from her hands, leaving her standing naked before him. He didn’t even bother to remove his own clothes. He simply freed his jutting sex from his trousers, lifted her up with both hands, and lowered her onto his shaft, growling, “Put your legs around my waist” as his hips surged forward, and his body drove deep into hers with devastating effect.

Then again, she thought dazedly as the first orgasm exploded across her body, perhaps instant, undeniable lust wasn’t so unfair after all.

He bent her backward, one hand holding her spine, the other clutching her buttocks, lifting and lowering her with effortless strength as he bent over her body. His mouth moved across her neck and breasts, nipping, licking, leaving trails of heat and ice burning together in lines of indescribable pleasure. His voice whispered over her skin. “Tell me, Khamsin, why you demand my fidelity. Tell me why.” Whether he was using magic or not, she could not tell, but the words acted upon her like a persuasion spell, dragging the truth closer and closer to the surface with each whisper and each thrust of his hips. “Why Khamsin?” His body drove into hers, then withdrew with aching slowness. “Why?” Another thrust, deeper, making her gasp and shudder. “Tell me.”

She grabbed the soft folds of his shirt, wanting skin beneath her hands, not cloth. “Because,” she bit out, “I will not share with her or any other woman.” Power crackled at her fingertips. The shirt singed in her hands and shredded from his body like paper, baring the silken skin and hard muscle of his arms and chest and back.

“I will not share this.” She dug her fingers into heavy muscles of his chest, then dragged her arms around, running her hands up his back to clutch his shoulders. Her body pressed against his. Her thighs clamped tight around his hips. Her inner muscles clenched his shaft, clinging tight as she lifted her body up and held his gaze with the burning fire of her own.

“I will not share you.” Still holding his gaze, she drove her body down onto his. Tiny threads of lightning danced over his skin in a shocking web of blue-white light. He gave a choked cry. His spine arched. His buttocks clenched tight. The tendons in his neck stood out like cords of steel. His hips surged again, powerfully, rising up to meet her downward slide. She felt the shock of it to her bones.

“I will not share,” she cried out fiercely, one final time as both of them shattered.

When the firestorm passed, Wynter lay on the bearskin rug beside his wife. He stared up at the frescoed ceiling overhead and tried to regulate his breathing and gain some measure of strength back in his muscles.

Winter’s Frost! What she did to him.

Although the cold, logical part of Wynter’s mind whispered, Leave her now. Keep a wise distance, he did not. He stayed with her throughout the night, waking her countless times to claim and reclaim her in the darkness. She was like a drug in his system. Every time he touched her, every time he sank his body into hers, she drove him to heights he’d never known, and he would think, This is it. This will sate me. But scant hours later, he would wake again, even more hungry for her than he had been before.

If it was an enchantment, as Valik feared, it was a very powerful one. The only saving grace was that she seemed as incapable of denying him as he was of denying her.

He woke her one last time just as dawn was breaking in the eastern sky. He let his hands skim across her soft skin, relearning the already-familiar curves of her flesh, and watched the passion bloom in her eyes, turning the gray to shifting silver. He smiled in triumph when her hands reached for him, and smiled again when he lowered his head, growled softly in her ear, and felt her body quake. His Wolf called to her as strongly as her scent called to him, and she opened to him like a summer bloom to the sun.

She was so fierce, so passionate, so willing in this, at least, to give him everything without caution or restraint. And so boldly, so fiercely insistent that he be faithful. Elka had never been so possessive. No woman ever had. Not of him. No woman until Khamsin.

One thing was certain: Keeping her at a wise distance was going to be exceedingly difficult.

Her hands clutched at him. Her power sparked across his skin, driving all rational thought from his mind. There was only wave upon wave of hot pleasure, driving need, sensation and instinct and the feel of his body pumping rhythmically into hers, pushing them both higher and higher. Her volatile heat gripped him tight, burning, scorching. Her hands urged him on. She sobbed his name on a keening cry that broke into a scream as the climax swept over them both.

Later, when he could breathe without gasping and see more than flickering stars in a field of blackness, he bent over her limp body as she drifted back to sleep, and whispered in her ear, “I am no oathbreaker either, wife. I will honor my vows.”