The Winter King (20 page)

Wasn’t he?

“
Come at me, Bjarke,” Erikk
said softly, raising his hand to summon his enemy. “Let me give you
the only warrior’s death you will have ever earned in your pitiful
and meaningless bully’s existence.”

Bjarke muttered something under his breath
about sorcerers and the goddess Hel’s infernal reaches, then
charged at Erikk with a guttural roar.

Time slowed down for the Winter King. He
moved so fast in that moment, he could almost see each individual
snowflake around him spinning leisurely in its crystalline beauty.
Sound went away. The thunder that had been rumbling overhead grew
distant and quiet as a humming filled Erikk’s head, and his body
moved of its own accord.

His sword – the sword he’d been given as the
Winter Kingdom’s sovereign – sliced like a shark’s fin through
water. It moved like winter, like snow and weather and nature.

Unstoppable.

With each slice, the spilling of blood
brought with it flashes, images, and knowledge. Erikk learned how
Ronald had died; he’d gone in his sleep, his throat slit, his soul
denied a warrior’s death. Erikk’s parents had met their ends in the
same way. This knowledge spun in Erikk’s head, and his body spun in
return. Now his attacks carried out the vengeance he’d come here to
deal.

He carved the path of his revenge into the
body of his rival, sending into Bjarke the fear, the loss, and the
loneliness that each of his victims felt. For Ronald, left with the
world on his shoulders and killed in the still of the night. For
Erikk’s parents, sickened horribly before they were finally, almost
mercifully, done with. For the men and women of the monastery
Bjarke and his men had sacked and ravaged. And for Neve, left to
wander alone and afraid and freezing because she refused to
submit.

These feelings, these emotions and physical
agonies, he sent spiking into Bjarke Stalson with all the hatred
Erikk felt for him. He returned to an evil man all the evil that
man had dealt. And when his sword of ice was done moving, Bjarke
lay at Erikk’s feet, barely breathing. His blood soaked the snow
beneath him, and his own sword lay broken in two a foot from his
motionless body. Thunder returned the sound to Erikk’s world,
followed closely by the stark silence of the villagers around
him.

Erikk gazed down at his
fallen enemy for several moments. They were telling moments. They
were moments in which he realized that vengeance was quick –
too
quick. In those
moments, he realized that the emptiness that filled a being’s heart
at the loss of someone he loved was not filled again once revenge
had been dealt. It remained empty, and it always would.

After those moments passed, the Winter King
took a step back. His boot crunched in cold-hardened snow. He
looked up, meeting the shocked expressions of his people.

“
It be Thor…” someone
whispered shakily. Others joined in, nodding or whispering in
agreement. Children of the village pushed through their parents’
legs and gazed up at him, pointing at his tall body, ice blade,
long ash-blonde hair and unnatural white furs. Never mind he wasn’t
carrying a hammer.

“
Not
Erikk…
Thor
….”

Thunder rattled overhead.
Lightning split the night, and Erikk glanced up. A light speared
the clouds overhead, spreading until it was a broad cone of
illumination. From this light, several flying figures emerged.
Erikk’s eyes widened. He may no longer have been mortal, and his
blood and body may have been changed by what he’d become, but the
majority of his existence had been spent as a human. And that human
part of him knew that the winged figures descending toward the
village just then were no other than the shield maidens of Odin.
The
Valkyrie
.

They’re
real
, he thought.

Then the king part of him took over. He
nodded in acceptance and looked back down at the man at his feet.
This meant that Bjarke Stalson had stopped breathing. He was well
and truly dead.

Erikk glanced at the people
around him. They still stared. Not one of them had noticed the
Valkyrie coming toward them.
That’s
right
, he reminded himself.
Mortals can not see them.
Oddly enough, mortals were
never
allowed to see anything that
would justify their faith while they lived.

The two women landed a few feet away, their
massive eagle-like wings affording them a graceful touch-down in
the snow on the opposite side of Bjarke’s fallen form. At once,
Erikk recognized the woman who stood in front. It was Toril…
Bjarke’s older sister.

Their eyes met, and unspoken things aplenty
passed between them. Then Toril looked down at her defeated
brother. Emotion threatened her features. She began to kneel, as
she no doubt knelt at the forms of many fallen warriors. However,
the winged woman behind her stepped forward and placed a hand upon
Toril’s shoulder. Toril glanced back. The other woman shook her
head. Just once.

It meant everything.

Toril froze under the
command. She would not be allowed to take Bjarke to Valhalla. She
spun and met Erikk’s gaze again. Erikk could think of nothing to
say. There
was
nothing to say. The other Valkyrie was right. Bjarke was no
warrior. He had not died in battle. He’d died in an
execution
because he was
a cold-blooded murderer.

A long, swollen silence passed between the
three. At last, the other woman tugged on Toril’s arm. Toril waited
another beat. Her narrowed, angry gaze filled with sparking,
hazel-colored promise. Then her wings batted heavily, and she took
to the air.

Erikk watched them fade into the sky above
as lightning and thunder sung a saga of love and loss. When they
were gone again, he took a deep breath and faced the people of his
village. They were still frozen in place, their eyes wide, their
expressions waiting.

“
Where is the sister of
Ronald Dagfinnr? Where is Edda? Step forward!” he commanded,
allowing the magic in his voice to carry it clear and
far.

The crowd rippled, and after a few moments,
it parted to allow a tall woman with long red hair and freckles to
walk into the small clearing. The woman’s green eyes cut to him
like emerald blades, and she raised her chin. “Aye,” she said
resolutely. “I am here.”

If she thought he was Thor, she made no
mention of it. As any true warrior would, she did not cow. Not even
before a god.

Erikk had known Edda for as long as he’d
known Ronald. She was two years her dead brother’s senior, and
she’d fought as a shield maiden in three battles. A small scar ran
the length of the left side of her chin, but did nothing to mar her
beauty. She hadn’t spoken to him much in his mortal life, but
enough perhaps that she might have recognized him now.

If she did, she kept that to herself as
well. She didn’t care whether he was Erikk back from the dead or
Thor, the god of Thunder. He’d defeated Bjarke, and that was all
that mattered.

Erikk sheathed his sword, slipping it
smoothly into the white leather scabbard at his broad back. Then he
slowly approached Edda. She did not back down.

He could see into the woman’s heart. It was
a sensation that would be difficult to describe. He simply knew
what kind of person she was, and this with no more than a glance.
He saw past her eyes and into her soul and knew that she was
strong, good, and wise. “Edda Dagfinnr, you are to be chieftain of
these people. You will guide them with the wisdom of Odin and
Frigga and the strength of Thor and Magni. Keep one another close.”
He leaned in, placing his hand upon her shoulder.

She blinked, but did not flinch, and she
looked down at his hand before once again meeting his gaze.

He nodded, and just to her he said, “Right
what has been wronged.” Then he stepped back, willed himself to
return to his palace of ice, and vanished.

Chapter Thirty

Present day, the Winter Kingdom

“
So, Toril wants revenge.”
Poppy was thinking out loud more than anything. She wasn’t totally
in the present, sitting in that library of ice and books with two
kings and a massive Dire Bear. Part of her was mentally stuck in
the past, in the snow and cold and drama of Kristopher’s tale. It
was a book-worthy tale. But unfortunately it was her very
real
life, and the drama
within its telling was about to catch up with her through mere
association.

She glanced up to get a
covert closer look of the Time King, one Mr. William Balthazar
Solan. He was busy ruffling Meridian’s fur while the massive bear
slept beside his chair. Staring at the king now, she couldn’t help
but wonder if
every
man who sat at the table of the Thirteen was ridiculously
gorgeous. She knew the Shadow King personally. He was hot. She had
met Roman D’Angelo once while he was visiting with Lalura. He was
hot. She knew the Winter King… biblically. He was way
hot.

And now here was the Time King, with his
full head of shiny dark brown hair and his eyes that looked like
brilliant cut emeralds and his smile that was a little sardonic and
a little sad. He was dressed in a charcoal gray three-piece suit
that had to it an air of yesteryear, though it was clear the suit
was brand new, very expensive, and tailored to perfectly mold to
his tall, cut form. There seemed to be not an ounce of fat on his
body, and the way he moved, walked, and even sat down in his chair
across from her was the epitome of grace. There was something
tucked into his front pocket, where a pocket watch would go, but
she had yet to get a look at it. She only knew it was there because
of the gold chain that was attached to it and one of the buttons on
the vest of his suit.

She studied him quietly as he lazily stroked
the bear. In his right hand, he held a book in his lap, but there
was no way to tell from his reserved expression whether it was a
good book or he were even enjoying it. He reminded her of
something, a mixture of jaded cruelty tempered by a helpless,
grudging empathy. It wasn’t that he wasn’t a gentleman – just the
opposite. It was just that there was something about him that
looked as though it would not suffer a fool.

He was like a painting of
Dorian Gray without the outright murderous evil, or a chance
reflection of Narcissus, but quieter, gentler, and more
intelligent. He reminded her of beauty that had tacked to it a
terrible price. In William’s case, that price was
eternity
. It was
something she was having a hard time wrapping her head
around.

“
Any… idea what she might
have actually done to the throne?” Poppy asked, looking from
William, who wasn’t paying attention to her at all, to Kristopher,
who had braced himself with one arm against the mantle of the
hearth and was staring fixedly into its multi-colored
flames.

The Winter King said, “That’s what I’ve been
trying to figure out.”

“
I guess this means I can’t
be queen then, huh?” she joked, adding a little laugh.

Now both men did look at her, and she felt
the sudden, substantial weight of their combined gazes. The air in
the room gained a vibration, as if someone had plucked the strings
of an invisible, inaudible guitar. Her statement had certainly
earned their attention.

Poppy shrugged nervously and shrank into her
chair a little. “I only meant that –”

“
You will be queen,” said
Kristopher. His tone was final.

“
Um….” She
blinked.

In front of her, William sighed. “Miss Nix,
you must understand that to one of the Thirteen, a queen means
everything right about now.” He glanced up at Kristopher, who shot
him a look somewhere between warning and exasperation. William
continued. “The threat the Entity poses is ever present.” He
snapped his book shut and turned back to Poppy. “You’ve learned of
the Winter Kingdom, and it truly does seem as though you’ve come to
accept that you belong here. The longer you delay in taking your
place as queen, the more danger you place yourself in. And the
whole of the supernatural world.”

The Time King’s eyes seemed to cut clear
through her, and as she gazed into them, Poppy realized that when
she’d said what she’d just said, she hadn’t purely been joking.
There had been a part of her that was secretly relieved. And it
looked as though both men had caught onto that.

And that kind of pissed her off.

She leaned forward.
“
Fine
,” she said
through a tight jaw. “Then tell me your plans. How do you propose
we fix this so I can sit down on the goddamn throne?”

“
We go to Valhalla,” said
Kristopher. “We would have had to visit anyway in order to open the
door to Yggdrasil. I have no idea what Toril did to the throne, but
it doesn’t matter. I can undo it given enough time; all it would
take is a few carefully placed spells. The problem is that as I
said, it will take time.”

“
There’s that, and… Toril
may simply try for revenge again later,” added William.

Kristopher made a frustrated sound. “We will
forever be on guard.” He shook his head and pushed away from the
fire place, turning to face them. “She must be dealt with once and
for all.”

“
When you say, ‘dealt
with,’ you don’t mean, ‘Let’s get some coffee, sit down and talk
things out,’” Poppy said. “Do you?”

Kristopher smiled a tight smile. “The
Valkyrie aren’t big coffee drinkers.”