The Winter King (10 page)

An
ice
castle. More beautiful than
anything any of the storytellers in his clan could have imagined.
More beautiful than a dream. Even more beautiful than Valhalla was
said to be.

“
Seidhr…” Erikk whispered
shakily. He could feel his eyes in his face, wide as the night was
long.
Seidhr
was
the Norse word for magic, it was a kind of sorcery that was all
that remained when logic and sense fled. It was the work of the
gods, perhaps, or of a force the Norsemen had as of yet to discover
or understand. It was beyond him.

He continued to stare as the castle formed
one last set of stairs that led directly from the spot on which he
stood to the palace’s front doors. A moment later, those same
enormous double doors of the gigantic ice castle started swinging
slowly outward.

All sense of cold was momentarily forgotten
in the wake of such a vision. Small bits of ice and snow sloughed
off the perfectly carved doors as they lay open, waiting.
Waiting?

Waiting for you.

A voice whispered, sounding like a winter
breeze through tree tops. He turned on the step, but there was no
one behind him. He looked back at the castle and its open doors.
Little by little, the cold of his environment made itself known to
him again, cutting through his astonishment to burn through his
skin, muscles, and joints. He could no longer feel most of his feet
at all, and his hands ached steadily.

I must get inside.

Whatever happened now, whether he was insane
or not, imagining this or not, standing there in one place would
only hurt worse and worse, until he stopped feeling everything for
good either way.

Yes, come inside.

The voice again, a gentle hiss that felt
oddly warm beside his ear, just as the air around the forming
castle had felt.

Erikk hesitated no longer. He moved off the
top step and strode forward on his numb legs and nonexistent feet,
traipsing like a frozen fur ball up the walk that led to the front
doors – and then striding right on through them.

The castle seemed to sigh around him. It
settled, the sound of ice cracking deep and low and familiar. As he
walked, the smooth, crystalline planes of ice reflected his figure
back at him. He was in a sorry state, so he steadfastly ignored
that reflection and continued through the massive structure.

“
Hello!” he called out.
“Who’s there!” His voice boomed through the palatial space, echoing
as it then tributaried down various hallways and no doubt through
even more various doors. But there was no response. So he kept
going, moving further into the castle until he found himself in a
massive antechamber. There was no one here, and there were no
fires.

He didn’t even pause, therefore, knowing
that if he stopped to admire the diamond-like magnificence all
around him, he would surely die. It would not be long now before he
would freeze to death. Already, he was certain that his toes were
unsalvageable. Maybe his fingers as well. Would he ever hold a
sword again?

Think not on
that
, he told himself.
Keep moving
. No one could live in a
place like this without a source of warmth. There had to be
something. There had to be some
one
.

There were four sets of doors that led off
the antechamber, but one set was distinctly larger and more
ornately carved than the other three. He chose those, hoping his
instincts would serve him right.

His steps were long and purposeful as he
made his way across the humongous space, but as he approached the
double doors, they cracked open. He stopped in his tracks and
watched as, once more, a huge set of doors opened for him, swinging
slowly outward to invite his entrance. His gaze narrowed
suspiciously at the doors as they passed the half-way mark, but
then his eyes slid to the view beyond.

It was a room approximately two-thirds the
size of the antechamber. However, even the floor here was carved
intricately, and at the opposite end of the room stood two massive
thrones. One was carved in swirling, flowering vines and blooms,
which he recognized as poppies – nearly the only flower that
bloomed this far north. The other was carved in more direct lines,
spikes and hard angles that reminded him of thorns. It rose very
slightly higher than the throne beside it, as if the person who sat
upon it was taller than the other.

It was a throne
room.
The
throne
room of the ice castle.

“
Where the fuck am I?” he
muttered now, speaking in the Anglo-Saxon language his people had
always used and that the Romans and other conquering nations would
hastily do away with as the language of the “conquered people.” It
wouldn’t be long before “fuck” was replaced with “copulate,” and
“piss” with “urinate” and “shit” with “defecate.” But he had a
feeling that his language would endure… somehow. In some
way.

Not that it mattered just then at that very
moment. His mind was babbling. Because he simply could not wrap it
around what his eyes were seeing.

Take a seat.

Erikk jumped and spun. There had been that
voice again, that cold sounding whisper that was warmer than it
should have been and that moved through his head and by his ear and
seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. Once more, there was no
one behind him. He was alone.

You are not alone. I am with you.

“
Who are you?” he asked
aloud, perhaps a bit too boldly.

You will see. As soon as you sit down.

Erikk looked at the thrones, his eyes
skirting from one to the other. Then he moved toward the larger of
the ice-carved chairs. There was no way in Hel’s Niffleheim he
would sit in the flowery one, after all. He approached it, realized
with some odd sense of ambivalence that it was the perfect size for
him, and then turned around to face the throne room.

He was freezing on the inside now. He could
feel the cold reaching his heart at last. He knew it was happening
because his fingers and toes were starting to feel warm. It was the
last thing that happened to a man before he froze to death.

You’d best
hurry
, said the wintery voice.

With an exhale of final surrender, he sat
down.

Chapter Fourteen

Present day, the Winter Kingdom

“
Your
home?” Her expression was a befuddled mixture of anger and
confusion.

He could tell she was trying to process
things. He could tell she was wondering whether she was dreaming or
even dead. She was wondering why her magic had brought her here, of
all places, rather than her apartment. She was wondering why she
was having such a ridiculous day.

He
knew. He knew why her coffee had been cold and why when she’d
told her magic to take her “home,” it had directed her to the
castle. The castle was hers. It knew she was the queen long before
she would most likely accept it herself.

He could see every single one of her
emotions spelled out across her lovely face as she jumped from one
to the other. Hell, he himself was trying to process things. This
was happening fast. Very, very fast.

And at the back of his mind, he had a
growing uneasy feeling that something was wrong, something he
needed to tend to and take care of.

Poppy shifted in place, her weight moving
from one leg to the other as she looked from him to the icy walls
around them, and finally to the glass-like ceiling up above. It was
ice, too, actually. Crystal clear ice.

“
As in,
you’re
the Winter King?” She touched
her head as if it hurt and she were dizzy. “Of the Thirteen
Kings?”

He was betting she hadn’t even noticed that
she wasn’t cold. He could tell she wasn’t, because any other human
sucked into the Winter Kingdom and deposited right smack dab in the
middle of the Winter Castle would have had frostbite by now. She
seemed completely unbothered by the temperature. It was yet another
sure sign, if ever there was one.

Not that he needed anymore proof. He’d known
the moment he’d locked eyes on her in that coffee shop.

He nodded a confirmation, and her eyes grew
wide.

She licked her lips, then touched her
forehead again. He wondered if, rather than feeling cold, in fact,
she was beginning to feel uncomfortably hot. Feverish with
confusion. She was a hard mortal to read, much more difficult than
any he’d encountered so far, which he would attribute that to her
being a queen, strong and shielded. But if he was reading her right
at all, she was a sensitive soul. All of the queens seemed to be.
Which would mean she was feeling very anxious right about now, and
that had a very physiological effect on the body.

He reached out with his magic, letting it
touch ever so slightly up against her face, kissing it with the
most tender brush of cold he could manage. A moment later, she
blinked a few times, placed her fingers to her head again, and
straightened a little.

“
I’m… How did you get me
here? How did you….” She shook her head and closed her eyes,
holding up her hands. “No.
Wait
.” She opened her eyes and
centered them on him. “What do you want with me?”

Kris sort of froze. It was a fair enough
question. He’d unconsciously assumed she would ask it eventually.
But when it came down to it, any answer he could give her that
would be even partly true would sound creepy beyond belief. He’d
only met her minutes ago. He knew so little about her, and vice
versa. And he was supposed to tell her she was his queen? How
exactly did that go?

Um, well, you see, all of the kings are just
sort of finding their queens these days, and I just took one look
at you and knew that you were destined to be mine, so here we are!
Now, let’s go have sex!

Kris almost laughed. But if
he’d laughed out loud just then, it would have made him appear even
more insane than he knew he already looked, so he kept it inside
and squared his shoulders. “Okay. The truth is, I want only one
thing from you, and I swear I mean you no harm. And I also swear I
didn’t bring you here.
Your
magic did that.”

She stared at him for a
moment, and it was hard to tell whether she was believing him or
not. But then she straightened a little and blinked.
“
My
magic?”

He wanted to crow. She was
listening to him, and that meant she could be reasoned with.
“Yes,
your
magic.
I’m guessing you’ve been experiencing strange phenomena during your
casting lately. Tell me,” he posited, shifting the attention to her
so expertly, he could almost feel her defenses falter, “have any of
your spells gone inexplicably awry? Frozen over? Gone
cold
, so to
speak?”

Now those aquamarine eyes of hers widened
nearly imperceptibly and she took a step back. “How did you know
that?”

“
I’ll take that as a
‘yes.’”

Poppy ran a hand through her thick,
luxurious multi-hued light brown hair and glanced around herself at
the massive antechamber Kris almost never spent any time in. It was
strange that it was the center of his home, the “heart,” so to
speak, and yet it was so large, he normally left it vacant. The
only time he really came here was when the bears were here and
wanted to play, or when Neve felt like kicking his ass at a game of
one-on-one hockey. Otherwise, he remained in the cozier wings of
the palace.

Perhaps because it felt less lonely
there.

“
The issue you were having
with your coffee today was not the problem, Poppy. It was a
symptom. Your magic, for lack of a better explanation… is turning
cold.”

Several moments went by while she digested
this. Fortunately, he didn’t need Roman’s ability to read minds
just then to know what was going through hers. Her thoughts were
written across her beautiful face and reflected in the glaciers of
her eyes. She knew he was telling the truth, but she’d be damned if
she knew what it meant.

“
Okay,” she said slowly,
running her palms along the sides of her jeans. They must have been
sweating. She was nervous.

And she definitely wasn’t cold.

Oh, she’s the
one
, he thought with wonder.
She’s practically on fire
.

“
I admit, things have been
a little wonky. And yes… they’ve been a little cold.” She touched
her forehead again, closing her eyes and turning away from him to
take several steps in a kind of nervous pace. “I froze and
shattered the confinement spell my best friend cast on me a few
weeks ago, and then I accidentally froze the water in the scrying
pool in Lalura’s training room, and – and – gods, loads of spells
have gone wrong like that since then. Even my shower was cold this
morning!” She shook her head and turned back to him. “But
why
?” she demanded.
“What does this mean?
Why
is this happening?” She threw up her hands and
gestured to the magnificent space around them. “Why the hell did my
magic bring me here?”

He knew her
unspoken
questions were,
“How are
you
involved? Are
you
dangerous? Do I need to fight
you
?
Freeze
you? Where do you fit into
all of this?” And deeper down, he knew that her unconscious
questions ran more along the lines of, “Is any of this really
happening? Am I dreaming? Am I dead? And why the fuck am I not
freezing?”