The Winter King
Page 31

“That was . . . interesting.”
Despite the pain flaring up and down her spine, she gave a quick, wry laugh. “Yes, it was,” she agreed.
She knew that when the forces of Winter and Summer clashed—either in nature or on the battlefield—sparks had a tendency to fly. But this was a first. She wasn’t sure whether the explosive response was a one-time shock caused by the joining of two powerful forces or the ominous portent of a stormy relationship to come.
Already, the wind had died down, and around the chapel, more lights flickered as the servants hurried to relight the candelabras. Khamsin curled her fingers around the railing and tried to pull herself up. A strong hand cupped her elbow and lifted her easily to her feet. She glanced up in surprise at the Winter King. Was he a kind man after all? “Thank you.”
He inclined his head fractionally. “It would not do to have the new Queen of Wintercraig collapse at her own wedding.”
The little flicker of warmth she’d been feeling snuffed out. Immediately, she castigated herself for her brief moment of moonstruck fancy. What ridiculous foolish sentimental tripe had she been thinking? Marriages between great houses were about wealth and power, not people. He was concerned about appearances, not her.
“I’m fine. I can walk on my own.” She tried to tug her arm free, but his fingers remained clamped around her elbow.
“Allow me to escort my bride to our wedding feast.” It was not a request.
Did he think she would bolt? Where would she go?
Even so, her first instinct was to resist his effort to impose his will on her. She hated restrictions of any kind, and she always struggled against even the slightest effort to cage her. She tugged her arm harder. His fingers went cold. Goose bumps pebbled her arm beneath the warmth of her velvet sleeves.
“Do not be foolish, Autumn,” he whispered. His voice was soft but utterly without warmth. “I will not tolerate open defiance. Especially not here, in public, before your father’s court.”
Already her brief spurt of resistance was fading. She didn’t have the energy to sustain it. Not now, at least.
Surrendering, she let him lead her down the chapel aisle and outside to the open courtyard that had once been a lush, manicured garden filled with carefully carved and tended hedges and flowering trees surrounding a sparkling fountain. The fountain was silent now, the water drained to prevent it from freezing. The flowering trees were skeletal ghosts standing guard at the four corners, and a light blanket of snow covered the fancifully carved hedges, flower beds, and lawn.
Khamsin drew a deep breath as they headed back to the main palace. The air was brisk and chill, a welcome relief to the stifling warmth of her veils and velvets. It cleared her head, and helped her to remember that the man walking beside her was no gentle lord but a conquering warrior, the enemy to whom she had just been sold as the price of her life and the survival of her family and war-torn homeland.
The wedding feast was a long, dull affair for which Wynter had little patience and even less interest. He suffered it only because he knew his bride—the still-veiled princess beside him—was weak from lack of sustenance. She’d practically collapsed twice on the way to the banquet hall—would have fallen except for his hand at her elbow. He’d suggested she retire to her rooms to rest, but she’d refused, saying she simply needed something to eat and drink. She appeared to have been right. The slender hands carrying the wine cup to her lips weren’t trembling half so badly now as they had been an hour ago.
“Eat,” he’d commanded when they’d first sat down, and the servants had placed plates of steaming meats and vegetables before them. After her first few laborious efforts to eat with the veils still shrouding her face, he’d ordered her to remove them.
She hadn’t. Showing a spine he was beginning to realize was much stronger than he’d originally thought, she’d folded back only enough of the layered silks to bare her chin and lower lip. The rest of her face remained hidden from view.
He’d allowed her the small rebellion. She would learn soon enough that no one flouted his will without consequence. At the moment, he had the victory he’d earned, the princess he’d demanded, and a wedding night yet awaiting him. He could afford to be magnanimous.
A spate of boisterous, drunken laughter made him glance towards the far end of the hall. Verdan, face flushed with drink and probably one or more of the intoxicating herbs offered at all the tables, stood beside a table of Summerlea lords, laughing and lifting his cup in a toast. On the dance floor nearby, a dozen or more brightly clad courtiers twirled and pranced as if they hadn’t a care in the world.
Wynter’s lip curled. Summerlanders. Self-indulgent, hedonistic fools. Look at them—Verdan chief among them—celebrating their own defeat as if it were somehow their victory. And here he’d thought they would all be crying in their wine, not drowning in it.
Beside him, Autumn set her cup down and pushed back the plate of fruit and cheeses he’d insisted she sample after the main meal. Her father and friends might drink and dance, but she, who was paying the price for their lives, had no appetite for blind frolic.
Nor did he.
Wynter pushed back his chair and stood. He held out a hand to his bride. “Come, my queen. Let us retire.”
“What? Surely you aren’t leaving so soon?” Verdan, loud and laughing, stumbled forward. The wine in his cup sloshed over the rim.
“It is late, and your daughter is tired.”