The Winter King by C. L. Wilson
Neither Valik, nor Galacia, nor any of the Wintermen budged. Khamsin didn’t take her focus off the storm. She’d warned them. If they chose not to heed her, whatever happened would be on their heads, not hers.
She raised her arms. Warmth became heat. Heat became fire. Fire became a wild, consuming blaze that rushed through every cell of her body. The air around her went violet, glowing with energy. She tilted her head back, closed her eyes, and loosed the bonds holding the lightning in check.
The sky went brilliant white. A lightning bolt, thick as the trunk of a tree, shot from the sky, racing down the tendrils of plasma she’d sent up into the clouds.
Her body shuddered, arching towards the sky as the bolt speared and seared her. For one instant, her entire being seemed to dissolve and scatter to the winds. Mind, flesh, thought, breath, blood, all flew apart in a split second, only to draw back into a cohesive whole the next. She rode the heat, the pain, the wildness as the lightning’s energy raced through her body, seeking an outlet. She would not give it that. Heat consumed her, hotter than the sun. She screamed in agony but held fast.
Another bolt ripped from sky to ground, shooting into her body. Then another, and another. Rain turned to sleet, then to hail. Great, plum-sized rocks of ice slammed down from the heavens.
Dimly, she heard someone shouting, “Enough! Khamsin! Enough! You’ll kill us all!”
Valik clung to the trunk of a nearby tree. Khamsin watched him through a shimmering, violet-silver haze as he yelled, “Khamsin! Save Wynter!”
She continued to hold up her hands for a few moments longer, summoning more lightning. It shot to the ground, finding her unerringly. Her chest expanded on a breathless, voiceless scream. And then, she pushed out, into the heavens, sending a bolus of energy back up into the clouds, punching a hole in the center of the storm and sending the riotous clouds spinning outward at such speed that the clouds ripped apart and skidded across the sky in harmless bits.
Her skin was incandescent. A near-blinding glow suffused her, illuminating her flesh from the inside out. She could see the faint traceries of her veins, not blue or red, but shining golden white, as if her very blood had turned to liquid sunlight.
She fell to her knees beside Wynter. The ice had formed an inch-thick shell around his body, and his golden skin had taken on a bluish white tint beneath it. She reached out slowly. The power inside her was so hot, she was afraid to touch him for fear she might incinerate him as she had the garm. But as her glowing hands hovered over his body, the thick layer of ice enveloping Wynter began to melt, providing the answer she sought. She didn’t need to touch him or unleash the concentrated lightning inside her. Her proximity alone was enough.
She passed her hands over his prone form. Icemelt dripped off of him in runnels. She noticed as she did so that her own body was cooling as his warmed. The blue-white tint of his skin faded a little more with each pass. When she was certain her touch would not burn him, she laid her entire body atop his, so that the remaining heat inside her could radiate into his thawing flesh. Closing her eyes, she laid her head upon his chest, threaded her fingers through his, and covered the white wolf on his wrist with her Summerlea Rose.
How long she lay there, she didn’t know. Possibly minutes. Possibly hours. Time had no meaning until the moment she heard the first faint throb of sound in her ear. Several long moments later, she heard a second throb follow the first. Now each second of silence seemed to last a century as she waited for the next faint pulse of sound. The next pulse came, a fraction sooner than the last. Then another and another, until a steady rhythm tapped in her ear.
Wynter’s heart was beating once more.
The cold, stiff fingers threaded through hers flexed. Barely more than a twitch of movement, but she felt it all the same.
She lifted her head and held her breath as she watched him. His lashes fluttered, lids lifting slowly. She laid her palm against the side of his face, stroking his skin lightly. He was still cold—so, so cold—but his flesh no longer felt like it was carved from an unyielding block of ice.
“Wynter . . . husband.” A smile trembled on her lips.
He stared at her for a moment with blank incomprehension, dazed, as if he didn’t recognize her. But then, he blinked. His lips moved, forming a soundless word. Wife.
Tears sprang to her eyes. “Yes, husband. It’s me, Khamsin, your wife.” She leaned closer, brushing kisses across his cold skin. “You worried us all.”
His lips moved again in another soundless word. Where?
“We’re at your family’s hunting lodge, near the skating pond. You saved us from the garm, but were badly hurt in the process. Valik and the Hunters found us. We are safe now, Wynter. You made sure of that.” She’d never reassured another person in her life. Never had cause to do so, but the words tumbled out so naturally, the need to put him at ease seemed as necessary as breathing. And she couldn’t stop running her hands over his skin, touching him, feeling terrible, icy cold fade as mortal life returned to him.
His body shifted, as if he were trying to rise, but a groan slipped from his lips, and his face creased in pain. Then, to her horror, his eyes rolled back in his head, he gave a ragged sigh, and his body went completely limp.
“Wynter?” She shook him. “Husband?” He didn’t respond. Fear rose, swift and hard. She shook him again and shouted for help. “Galacia! Valik!”
The pair were at Wynter’s side in an instant.
“He has lost more blood than most could survive, and this wound across his belly is worrisome. The intestine was cut. The risk of deadly infection is very high.” Galacia flicked a grim gaze at Khamsin, then turned to Valik. “We need to get him back inside immediately.”
“You said if I called the lightning, that would save him.”
“From the Ice Heart. And you did—at least temporarily. But these are deadly wounds. Now that his flesh is mortal once more, his wounds have the power to kill him. If I can’t heal him, he may still die.”
“What?” Outrage boiled up inside Kham. “Why didn’t you tend his wounds earlier?”
Galacia gave her a sharp look. “You felt him. His body had turned to ice. How could I tend him in that condition? How could I stitch through skin hard as stone?”
“And now?”
“Now we put my healing abilities to the test.”
Kham found herself shunted aside as the men hoisted Wynter up and carried him back into the lodge. Kham stared after them, trying desperately to quell the knot of fear rising in her throat. Wynter could still die.
“Valik.” She caught the Steward’s arm. “We need Tildy—Tildavera Greenleaf—my old nurse. There’s no better healer in all of Summerlea, possibly all of Mystral. I’ve seen her bring soldiers back from the brink of death, when every other healer said they could not be saved.”
“She’s the one who came to our camp, isn’t she? The one who sold Wyn on the idea of marrying one of your father’s daughters.” He gave a derisive snort. “No.”
She reached for him again. “Listen to me. I know you don’t trust her—or me, for that matter—and I don’t care. If Galacia can save Wynter on her own, you won’t need to let Tildy anywhere near him. But if she can’t . . .” She let her voice trail off.
Valik shook his head. “Even if I said yes, it would take weeks to get word to Vera Sola then get her here. Wynter doesn’t have that kind of time.”
“No, it won’t.” Galacia looked up from Wynter’s side. “She’s already on her way to Gildenheim. Wynter sent for her ten days ago.”
“What?” Valik and Khamsin said in unison. They looked at each other, then both turned back to Galacia.
“Wynter sent for Tildy?”
“He never told me that,” Valik burst out at the same time.
Laci leveled a stern glance on Valik. “If your king has ceased to confide in you, Valik, perhaps you should
“My . . . what?” Kham’s jaw dropped. “Who said I’m pregnant?”
Galacia’s brows shot up. “Are you telling me you didn’t know?” Her lips tightened, and she glared at Wynter’s unconscious face. “I love you dearly, Wynter Atrialan, but you are a great lunkheaded lummox of a man.” To Khamsin, she said, “You have been suffering spells of dizziness, yes? Feeling a little queasy at mealtimes?”
“Yes, but—”
“Your scent has changed, too. Wynter pointed it out to me. He said he’d noticed a similar change when you first arrived at Gildenheim, but he didn’t realize what it meant until after we discovered what that Rosh woman had done. Your body is changing, thus altering your scent, making you dizzy, and making you queasy, because you are with child.”
Khamsin felt dizzy now. She grabbed the back of a chair to steady herself and laid a hand on her still flat belly. “But how can that be?”
Galacia arched an expressive brow. “Considering that you and Wynter have been mating like a pair of mink the last six weeks, I’m assuming that’s a rhetorical question?”
Kham grimaced and rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. Are you sure? There is no mistake?”
“You’ve had no bleeding since Belladonna Rosh was sent to the mercy of the mountains, have you?”
Kham’s face went hot. Mortified to have Valik and all the other men in the room listening to the intimate details of her bodily functions, she shook her head.
“Then there’s no mistake. By the end of summer, you’ll give birth to the next heir to the Winter Throne. Congratulations, my queen, and please don’t tell Wynter I was the one who informed you. He must have been waiting for you to realize the truth and tell him yourself.”
“I think I need to sit down.” Kham circled around the chair she was clinging to and sank down upon it. She was going to have a child. A child. Hers and Wynter’s.
“Anyways,” Galacia continued briskly, “the point I was trying to make is that Tildavera Greenleaf is at least halfway here by now—probably closer. And if she’s as good a healer as Khamsin says, then we should bring her here posthaste.”
Kham lifted her head. “Find her, Valik. Bring her here.” She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “That’s not a request. That’s a command from your queen.”
It was a gamble, forcing him to acknowledge her rank or strip her of it before the White Guard. If he denied her, she wasn’t sure what she’d do. But she was done being the foreigner in their midst. It was past time all of them accepted that she was here to stay.
After several long, tense moments, Valik bowed before her. “Yes, my queen.”
Khamsin brushed a cool, damp cloth gently across Wynter’s forehead. In the three days since she’d driven back the effects of the Ice Heart, the infection Galacia feared most had set in. A putrescence of the belly, caused by a mix of the slash to Wynter’s intestine and the poison carried in the claws and fangs of the garm.
Fever raged in the body that had only days before been frozen solid.
Wynter lapsed in and out of consciousness as the infection spread through his veins. Around the wound, his golden skin had turned an angry purplish red, with streaks of inflamed color radiating outward, and his breathing had become shallow and labored. He was clinging to life by a thread, growing weaker by the hour.
If they didn’t find a way to draw out the infection soon, he would die.
“Khamsin . . .” Wynter muttered her name as his head tossed on the pillow stuffed with fragrant herbs.
“I’m here, husband.” She leaned down to press her lips to his burning forehead. Her fingers squeezed his hand. “I’m right here beside you.”
“. . . Khamsin . . .” His brows drew together. “. . . the garm . . . must save . . .”
“You did save me. I’m right here beside you. You slew the garm, husband. We are both safe. They cannot hurt us anymore.” She stroked the silvery white hair back from his temples. “Come back to me, Wynter. Please. I . . . need you.”
The door to the hunting lodge opened. A burst of cold air swirled through the opening. Valik entered, his boots caked with snow.
“She’s here.”
Kham turned. “Tildy?”
“Aye. And I pray she’s as good as you say she is.”
She leapt to her feet and ran outside just as two dozen armed and armored riders came galloping up. Tildy, bundled in so many layers she looked like a stuffed swan, was clinging to the back of one of the riders. Two of Valik’s men reached up to help her out of the saddle.
“Tildy!” Khamsin started towards her old nursemaid, then hesitated. For days, she’d been wondering how this reunion would go. She’d been so hard and unforgiving over Tildy’s role in her marriage.
But when those old eyes fell upon her, Tildy’s arms opened wide. “Dearly!” The face Kham had never thought to see again beamed out from its nest of dark woolens and furs. Then Tildy’s arms were around her, and the familiar scent of lemon verbena filled her nose.
“Oh, Tildy, I’ve missed you.” Her own arms came up to pull Tildy close and hold her tight. Kham squeezed her eyes shut against threatening tears as a tumult of emotions welled up. “I’m so glad you’re here. Wynter is very ill. Nothing we’ve tried has worked. The infection grows stronger by the day.”
“Of course. Just let me get my things.”
“The men will bring your belongings.”
Tildy and Khamsin both turned to find Valik close beside them. He was regarding Tildy with the same cold suspicion he’d heretofore reserved for Khamsin.
“Valik, this is Tildavera Greenleaf, my former nurse. Tildy, this is Valik Arngildr, Wynter’s Steward of Troops.”
“We’ve met,” he said. “Several times, as a matter of fact.”
To Tildy’s credit, she held his gaze without faltering. “Indeed, sir. I remember the occasions well.”
“The question is, who do you spy for now, Nurse Greenleaf?”
“No one, my lord. My days of intrigue are over. I have come only to serve my princess.”
“Your queen.”
“Pardon?”
“To serve your queen. Khamsin is no longer your princess. She is Queen of the Craig and of Summerlea.”
Tildy blinked. “Of course. I but spoke from the habit of years.”
Valik inclined his head, his expression inscrutable. “The king lies this way.”
Kham gave Valik a questioning look, surprised by his unexpected defense of her position. His response was a curt nod and a stiff bow. One arm extended towards the door in an invitation for her to precede him.
Well, that was interesting. Among themselves, Valik still suspected Khamsin of being her brother’s spy, but with outsiders, he circled the spears. Shaking her head in bemusement, Kham led the way into the lodge.
As the men carried in Tildy’s bags and boxes of supplies, Khamsin introduced Tildy to Galacia, and Laci brought Tildy up to speed on Wynter’s condition and all the remedies they had already attempted.
Tildy listened intently, interrupting only to ask an occasional question. When Galacia finished, Tildy approached Wynter and began her own examination. She inspected the stitched slashes and bite marks that scored his chest, legs, and arms, rolled him to his side to examine the wounds on his back, and gently probed the gaping, infected wound in his belly. Pus and violet-tinged blood seeped out in response to the slightest pressure.
“You say the creature that made these wounds carried poison in its fangs and claws?”
“The garm,” Galacia confirmed. “Yes. The poison is so lethal, most men would have died within a day of receiving even the least of the king’s injuries.”
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Galacia hesitated, then said, “No. That is a separate issue.”
Tildy looked up sharply. “A separate issue? What sort of issue? What else ails him beside the wounds and poisoning?” She frowned as Khamsin and Galacia exchanged glances. “If you expect me to heal him, you must tell me everything you know about his condition. The smallest detail might be the key to saving his life.”
Once, not so long ago, Khamsin would have answered Tildy without a second thought, but these months in Wintercraig had changed her. Her heart—her loyalty—lay here now, tied to the man she had wed. No matter what his feelings for her, no matter what the outcome of their marriage, she would not betray his secrets.
“Galacia is right, Tildy. The color of Wynter’s blood has nothing to do with the infection. If anything, the cause of it has probably done more to keep him alive this long than all our potions and poultices. For now, just focus on curing the infection. If he does not soon show signs of improvement, we can talk again.”
Kham knew Tildy wasn’t happy to be left in the dark, but except for a slight tightening of her lips, the Summerlea nurse was careful not to show it.
“Very well, I’ll work with what I can see and what information you feel comfortable in sharing. You were wise to leave this wound open.” Tildy gestured to the hole in Wynter’s abdomen. “Whoever stitched the torn intestine has a fine hand, but once the intestine is ruptured, controlling the putrefaction is nearly impossible. How often are you irrigating the wound?”
“Every four hours.”
“Make it once an hour. I will mix up a special wash to use, as well as poultices to draw out the poison. If he doesn’t improve within four hours, I will need to cleanse the entire cavity.”
“Tildy.” Kham laid a hand on the nurse’s shoulder and waited for her to look up. “Can you save him?”