C. Wilson - The Winter King

Her hair came unpinned again, falling about her shoulder in untamed ringlets, the white streaks that had always been so offensive to her father once more in plain view. She didn’t care. Let him see her and be enraged. At least then he’d be forced to feel something. Even fury was better than years of neglect.

Leaving her crown and cape where they lay, Kham resumed running. A few moments later, she crossed the wide, cobweb- and dust-covered room that had once been the Queen’s Bower.

Silent hulks of furniture, shrouded in linen swaths, filled the room. Along the walls, moth-eaten window hangings and tapestries sagged in mournful tatters. After his wife’s death, King Verdan had ordered the bower closed off, Queen Rosalind’s belongings covered with sheets and left where they lay.

Across the room, a narrow lip of stairs curved up the tower wall to a small landing and an arched doorway. Kham leapt the stairs three at a time and rushed into the small, covered oriel overlooking the courtyard and city below.

She caught her heaving breath and swiped at the useless tears that still sometimes insisted on spilling from her eyes. She didn’t need her father’s love. She didn’t even need the recognition of her birth status. She had Tildy and her sisters, who loved her despite him. She’d had her brother’s love, too, until he’d run off with the Winter King’s bride. And, of course, she had her mother’s treasures to remind her that Queen Rosalind, at least, had loved her last-born child even if her husband would not.

The clatter of hooves in the courtyard below made Khamsin flinch. She glanced down into the bailey and froze. All thoughts of her father and his long neglect swept away in an instant. Stunned awe took their place.

Now, there was a sight no Summerlander had ever seen before.

Shining white, brilliant pale, like an army of snow-cloaked conquering ghosts, the soldiers of Winter rode proud into the upper bailey of Summerlea’s royal palace. And at the army’s head, just now passing through the gate, rode the White King himself, Wynter Atrialan, King of the Craig.

He sat on a snow-white stallion, as cold and merciless as a headsman’s axe just before the chop. Armor of mirror-polished silver plate gleamed from crown to toe. A long, ice blue cape trimmed in white ermine trailed out behind him, covering his mount’s rump and draping down past the Winter King’s own armored heels. At the crown of his helm, a tall ruff of white horsehair ruffled in the chill breeze, and his stallion’s iron-shod hooves rang out on the worn cobble of the courtyard.

The horse came to a halt. The Winter King swung one long leg over his mount and slid effortlessly to the ground. Summer Sun! He was huge—practically a giant. Taller than any Summerlander, with the broadest shoulders she’d ever seen. Over seven feet of powerful muscles and sheer intimidation. She hadn’t expected that. Beneath his silver helm, a mask in the shape of a snarling wolf’s head hid his face.

His gauntleted hands rose to unlatch the mask and lift the helm from his head. He tucked it beneath one arm, leaving his sword arm free, fingers resting near the hilt of the now-infamous blade, Gunterfys—Giant Killer. A blade that after the last three years would be better named Ertafys—Summer Killer.

Even from her vantage point high above, she could see the Winter King’s face. Square jaw, cheekbones high and shapely, skin a surprising golden hue, the color of browned butter. She’d always thought the folk of Wintercraig would be snowy pale, but they weren’t. At least, he wasn’t. Which only made his wealth of long, gleaming white hair and startling pale eyes seem all the more vivid.

He was handsome. Beyond handsome.

She hadn’t expected that either. Khamsin sucked in a breath, then coughed as the cold air dried and chilled her throat.

Silver-blue eyes, clear and cold as glacier ice, cast upward, finding her in one swift, sharp instant, pinning her in place. All thought fled her mind. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. She could only stare, captured and frozen, as the Winter King’s fearsome gaze held and plundered her.

How long she stood there, motionless, she couldn’t say. Each moment lasted a lifetime. First ice, then fire scorched her cheeks. Then ice again when, at last, the Winter King turned his gaze away and freed her.

She stumbled back into the shadows and lifted trembling hands to cover her face. Her heart pounded heavy in her chest, each beat a labored thud. The blood in her veins felt slow and sluggish, her mind dazed, and a distinct chill had invaded her flesh.

She was shivering violently by the time she reached the bottom of her stairs.

“Dearly!” Tildy exclaimed in worried tones. The old nursemaid limped across the room to bundle Khamsin up in the warm velvet folds of her abandoned cape. “What were you thinking, child, to stand up there in the wind with naught to cover you but one thin dress? Your skin’s gone cold as ice.”

“S-sorry, Tildy,” Khamsin apologized through numb lips and chattering teeth. With one long glance, the Winter King had all but frozen her to death. The only spot of warmth on all her skin was the small, rose-shaped birthmark on her inner right wrist—proof of her royal Summerlea heritage.

Wynter cast a cold, keen, wary gaze around the courtyard, missing nothing. The sound from up high a few minutes ago had set him on edge. He’d shot an Ice Gaze at the would-be assassin, only to capture instead a dark, unruly-haired servant girl dressed in some noblewoman’s cast-off gown and watching the proceedings in the courtyard with wide gray eyes.

He’d known in an instant she was no assassin. There was something . . . innocent . . . about her. Something intriguing about the wild tumble of black curls streaked with white, like glacial waterfalls frozen against black rock. Well, no matter. He wasn’t here to entertain himself with servants—even the intriguing, pretty ones. Not that she’d willingly come within a hundred yards of him again. Had he held his Gaze a moment longer, he would have frozen her where she stood.

Wynter directed his attention back to the royal family of Summerlea, who had assembled on the palace steps as he’d commanded. King Verdan, his dark, swarthy face as full of false pride as ever, stood at the forefront, clad in full court dress. Still fit after thirty years of kingship and decades of indulgent living, the Summer King boasted a vivid masculine beauty. He was tall and well-muscled, with dark, snapping eyes, rich coloring, and an intrinsic Summer warmth so different than the colder, paler folk of the north.

His son, the prince called Falcon, had been much the same.

Was that foreign warmth the temptation that had lured Elka from her vows?

Behind Verdan, standing as close together as they could without appearing to huddle, waited his three lovely daughters. They were—justly so, Wynter now realized—as famous for their exotic beauty as for their Summerlea gifts. What their real names were, he neither knew nor cared. They were easy enough to identify by their giftnames: Spring, the eldest, a tall, cool beauty with bright green eyes and inky hair straight as falls of snowmelt pelting down a cliff side; Summer, the middle daughter, whose thick waves of blue-black hair and summer blue eyes promised a warmth long lacking in the Craig; and the youngest, Autumn, a haughty, exquisite creature of breathtaking beauty, blessed with loose, flowing ringlets of a rare, deep auburn that set off her pansy purple eyes to perfection. These were Summerlea’s greatest treasures: the three Seasons, beloved daughters of the Summer King.

The corner of Wynter’s mouth curled in a faint smile. This victory would not be without its pleasures.

“King Verdan.” He turned his gaze upon the former ally whom he’d spent the last three years bringing to heel. “I have come, as I vowed when last we met on the field of battle, to issue the terms of peace and claim what is my due.”