The Winter King
Page 159
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This part of the tunnel went on forever, long and steep enough to make her knees and thighs ache well before she reached the bottom. It didn’t take long to lose sight of the shimmering wall of water and the landing, then there was only endless, descending blue-white ice around her, broken intermittently by the occasional sconce burning its eerie, flickering blue flame. She began counting the sconces to give herself some measure of passing time.
One hundred sixty-five sconces later, the tunnel leveled off and opened to a chamber deep within the glacier on the other side of the mountain.
Khamsin thought she knew what to expect. Galacia had said there was an ice palace, like the one Wynter had taken her to during the Festival of Wyrn. Well, it was a palace, and it was made of ice. But that was where all similarities to the wintry delight she’d visited in the Craig both began and ended. The sheer enormity of what lay hidden in the glacier beneath Wyrn’s temple defied description.
The Palace of Wyrn lay situated in a cavern so large it could fit the whole of Gildenheim with room to spare. Massive columns—each wide enough that ten grown Wintermen standing fingertip to fingertip would barely circle them—soared a hundred feet into the air, holding aloft a mighty pediment carved with the bas-relief figures of Wyrn and her once-mortal god-husband Rorjak. Rearing, fifty-foot snowbears stood guard at the base of the broad steps leading into the palace. An ice garden almost as beautiful as the one Wynter had created in his Atrium bordered a wide path that led to the palace . . . all built on a giant’s scale.
Khamsin was acutely aware of her own insignificance as she crossed the distance from the tunnel opening to the palace steps. Those steps were as massive as the rest of the palace, each riser easily five feet tall, but in the center, a series of smaller, mortal-sized steps carved into the giant treads allowed her to scale the stairway with relative ease.
At the top, a colonnaded exterior gave way to an enormous, open room dominated by two massive thrones, each holding a gigantic seated figure carved of pure ice. Wyrn, resplendent in flowing robes and wearing a crown of giant sparkling snowflakes. And Rorjak, her mortal love turned god, whose spiky, ring-of-icicles crown struck Khamsin as an eerie premonition of things to come.
A number of passages led from the throne room, but Kham headed straight for the arched, pillared opening at the back. She passed through several more chambers, each more magnificent than the last, but spared the glittering beauty little more than a passing glance. She was on a mission to save the man she loved, and all the greatest wonders of the world could not have tempted her from her path.
At last, she reached the final room at the rear of the palace. The body of the second priestess, frozen like the first, lay sprawled near the threshold. Kham whispered an apology and stepped around the woman to enter the great, domed rotunda.
All around the perimeter of the rotunda, life-sized statues of male and female warriors stood sentry in columned bays. Unlike the other statues in this place or the frozen bodies of the priestesses, each of these sculptures appeared lifelike, as if living people had been posed on their pedestals and encased in a layer of clear ice. Each sported a fabulous jeweled weapon worth a king’s ransom. Swords, staves, bows, pikes, shields: treasures to distract would-be thieves from the real treasure in the room, bait for those fool enough to try stealing from a god.
Don’t touch anything. The statues are enchanted and will defend what rests here.
At the center of the room, rimmed in a circle of ice blocks, lay what looked like a pool of black oil eight feet in diameter.
This was it. What she’d come for.
Khamsin’s nerves jangled as she approached the Ice Heart. The contents of the well were dark and unfathomable, the surface still as glass and glossy enough to see her reflection.
She’d never given much thought to the gods. Oh, she made her devotions to them, of course, but she’d never truly considered the idea that the gods had once walked amongst the people of Mystral, that the tales of their exploits had been true.
Until now.
The gods were real—their tales were true—and the existence of this well of dark power proved it.
And somewhere at the bottom of that black pool—the distilled essence of a corrupt god—lay the legendary sword of Roland Soldeus. She could sense its presence now, as if some part of the sun had broken off and fallen into the well.
Now, she just had to retrieve it.
Despite being buried deep within the heart of a glacier, warmth danced at her fingertips as her power rose in response to Blazing’s proximity. Laci’s hopes about Kham’s ability to withstand the frigid depths of the Ice Heart might actually have merit.
You are a Summerlander, your weathergift one of the strongest in centuries. I’m hoping that gift will allow you to survive the Ice Heart.
A sound, like crackling ice, and a flash of movement in her peripheral vision made Khamsin spin around. Searing pain sliced across her upper arm as the spear aimed at her unprotected back ripped through her furred robe and scored a deep furrow on her arm. Her arm fell limp to her side, paralyzed. Indescribable cold screamed along every nerve ending.
“What the—?” Kham gaped as she got her first look at her attacker. One of the statues had stepped off its pedestal and lunged at her. This one was a woman, tall with long, white hair and blue-white skin. Her eyes were pale and colorless, but just looking at them drained the warmth from Khamsin’s skin. She advanced on Khamsin, a long white spear clutched menacingly in her frozen hands. With each measured step, the ice coating her skin cracked and fell away in a thousand tiny flakes, then re-formed almost instantly.
One hundred sixty-five sconces later, the tunnel leveled off and opened to a chamber deep within the glacier on the other side of the mountain.
Khamsin thought she knew what to expect. Galacia had said there was an ice palace, like the one Wynter had taken her to during the Festival of Wyrn. Well, it was a palace, and it was made of ice. But that was where all similarities to the wintry delight she’d visited in the Craig both began and ended. The sheer enormity of what lay hidden in the glacier beneath Wyrn’s temple defied description.
The Palace of Wyrn lay situated in a cavern so large it could fit the whole of Gildenheim with room to spare. Massive columns—each wide enough that ten grown Wintermen standing fingertip to fingertip would barely circle them—soared a hundred feet into the air, holding aloft a mighty pediment carved with the bas-relief figures of Wyrn and her once-mortal god-husband Rorjak. Rearing, fifty-foot snowbears stood guard at the base of the broad steps leading into the palace. An ice garden almost as beautiful as the one Wynter had created in his Atrium bordered a wide path that led to the palace . . . all built on a giant’s scale.
Khamsin was acutely aware of her own insignificance as she crossed the distance from the tunnel opening to the palace steps. Those steps were as massive as the rest of the palace, each riser easily five feet tall, but in the center, a series of smaller, mortal-sized steps carved into the giant treads allowed her to scale the stairway with relative ease.
At the top, a colonnaded exterior gave way to an enormous, open room dominated by two massive thrones, each holding a gigantic seated figure carved of pure ice. Wyrn, resplendent in flowing robes and wearing a crown of giant sparkling snowflakes. And Rorjak, her mortal love turned god, whose spiky, ring-of-icicles crown struck Khamsin as an eerie premonition of things to come.
A number of passages led from the throne room, but Kham headed straight for the arched, pillared opening at the back. She passed through several more chambers, each more magnificent than the last, but spared the glittering beauty little more than a passing glance. She was on a mission to save the man she loved, and all the greatest wonders of the world could not have tempted her from her path.
At last, she reached the final room at the rear of the palace. The body of the second priestess, frozen like the first, lay sprawled near the threshold. Kham whispered an apology and stepped around the woman to enter the great, domed rotunda.
All around the perimeter of the rotunda, life-sized statues of male and female warriors stood sentry in columned bays. Unlike the other statues in this place or the frozen bodies of the priestesses, each of these sculptures appeared lifelike, as if living people had been posed on their pedestals and encased in a layer of clear ice. Each sported a fabulous jeweled weapon worth a king’s ransom. Swords, staves, bows, pikes, shields: treasures to distract would-be thieves from the real treasure in the room, bait for those fool enough to try stealing from a god.
Don’t touch anything. The statues are enchanted and will defend what rests here.
At the center of the room, rimmed in a circle of ice blocks, lay what looked like a pool of black oil eight feet in diameter.
This was it. What she’d come for.
Khamsin’s nerves jangled as she approached the Ice Heart. The contents of the well were dark and unfathomable, the surface still as glass and glossy enough to see her reflection.
She’d never given much thought to the gods. Oh, she made her devotions to them, of course, but she’d never truly considered the idea that the gods had once walked amongst the people of Mystral, that the tales of their exploits had been true.
Until now.
The gods were real—their tales were true—and the existence of this well of dark power proved it.
And somewhere at the bottom of that black pool—the distilled essence of a corrupt god—lay the legendary sword of Roland Soldeus. She could sense its presence now, as if some part of the sun had broken off and fallen into the well.
Now, she just had to retrieve it.
Despite being buried deep within the heart of a glacier, warmth danced at her fingertips as her power rose in response to Blazing’s proximity. Laci’s hopes about Kham’s ability to withstand the frigid depths of the Ice Heart might actually have merit.
You are a Summerlander, your weathergift one of the strongest in centuries. I’m hoping that gift will allow you to survive the Ice Heart.
A sound, like crackling ice, and a flash of movement in her peripheral vision made Khamsin spin around. Searing pain sliced across her upper arm as the spear aimed at her unprotected back ripped through her furred robe and scored a deep furrow on her arm. Her arm fell limp to her side, paralyzed. Indescribable cold screamed along every nerve ending.
“What the—?” Kham gaped as she got her first look at her attacker. One of the statues had stepped off its pedestal and lunged at her. This one was a woman, tall with long, white hair and blue-white skin. Her eyes were pale and colorless, but just looking at them drained the warmth from Khamsin’s skin. She advanced on Khamsin, a long white spear clutched menacingly in her frozen hands. With each measured step, the ice coating her skin cracked and fell away in a thousand tiny flakes, then re-formed almost instantly.
