The Winter King
Page 54

Valik turned to look at him, concern etched across his face. “Wyn? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” His vision had changed. Everything seemed paler. Whiter. A red glow emanated from Valik’s chest and radiated outward through his body, down his arms and legs, growing fainter as it extended. Heat bloom. Wynter was seeing the heat of life in Valik’s body.
He glanced down at his own hands and saw white with the barest hint of pink. The girl . . . Khamsin . . . his wife . . . looked white, too, but there was something different about her that he couldn’t define. “Is she dead?”
“What? No. Far from it. I don’t know how she did it, but damned if your Summerlea bride didn’t just use that lightning storm to heal every wound on her body. Here, see for yourself.” Valik moved aside so Wynter could come closer, then hissed in sudden surprise as Wyn drew near. “Thorgyll’s freezing spears! You’re cold as ice!” His body went stiff. His hand fell to the hilt of the sword still strapped to his waist. “Wyn?” he asked again in a cautious, clipped voice. “You all right?”
Wynter ignored him. He crouched down beside the pallet and reached out his hands towards the unconscious woman. Now he understood the difference in her whiteness. It wasn’t the chill of death. It was heat. A concentrated, simmering well of it. So much stronger than what lived in Valik that it glowed bright as day. Not the white of ice, but the white of a blazing summer sun. He could feel it tingling across his palms, thawing his frozen skin. Nerve ends prickled with returning sensation.
He leaned closer and drew a deep breath. His eyes closed as her warmth infused his lungs and drove back the frozen hollowness inside him. “Yes,” he murmured, suddenly weary. “I’m fine, Valik.” He rose to his feet and turned to clap a hand on Valik’s shoulder. “I know what you fear, but for now, at least, there’s no need. Go,” he urged, “get some rest. I’ll stay here with her.”
Valik reached up to cover Wynter’s hand with his own, and enough human warmth must have returned to Wyn’s fingers to reassure him because he nodded, and the rigid, battle-ready tension of his muscles relaxed slightly. “I’ll send someone to repair the tent.”
Wynter glanced up at the scorched holes in the canvas roof where the lightning bolts had shot through. Stars twinkled in the crystalline night sky. The air was still now, with no hint of a breeze. He hadn’t been able to feel the cold in three years, and with the heat radiating from Khamsin’s body, he doubted she would be able to feel it either.
“Leave it ’til morning. We’ll be fine.”
“They can clear up the mess, at least,” Valik insisted. He poked his head outside the tent flap and shouted a series of quick commands. Moments later, half a dozen shivering men gathered up the twisted, melted remains of the growing lamps and everything else that had been damaged in Khamsin’s delirium-induced storm and carted the wreckage out. When they left, much of the tent had been stripped bare.
Wyn waited until they were gone, then arched a brow. “Satisfied?”
“No. But it’ll do for now.” After a last, brief hesitation, Valik bowed and left.
When he was gone, Wynter moved back to the pallet and lay down on the furs beside Khamsin, moving close to the waves of heat emanating from her. The pleasure of that warmth sinking into his flesh was sublime, and so sensual it was nearly erotic. He curled and arm around her waist, threw a leg over hers, and snuggled closer.
Once she was healed, he decided, he would find out exactly how much of the shattering pleasure they’d shared on their wedding night had been real rather than arras-induced.
Khamsin woke to the nip of frost in the air and the heavy, warm weight of furs draped over her. She opened her eyes and glanced around to gain her bearings. She was in a tent. Wynter’s tent, she realized. Only most of the furnishings were gone, and there was a fine layer of frost lying over everything that remained. The tiny ice crystals sparkled in shafts of bright sunlight like the sugar coating of Tildy’s favorite pastry.
Frost? Sunlight?
She sniffed the air and caught the acrid remnants of char. Something had burned, and the scorched smell was familiar. She looked up with burgeoning dread and found bright morning sunlight streaming through dozens of holes in the canvas roof overhead. There were three large, gaping rents, and at least two dozen smaller, coin-sized punctures, all surrounded by a sprinkling of tiny pinpricks. The edges of all the holes were blackened, scorched.
It was as if someone had upended a pail of embers on the roof of the tent. Only she knew no one had. In the way that Wynter could detect the faintest of scents, she could feel the electric echo of lightning. Her lightning.
She’d called a lightning storm down upon this tent. Upon the encampment.
How many men had she killed?
She sat up with a sudden, graceless jolt. The furs covering her body fell away, and she gasped at the slap of freezing air against her naked skin. Naked? She stared down at her bare br**sts, the ni**les hardened to small, dark points by the cold. Her mind scrambled for the fragments of memories. She’d not felt well. Her back had begun to fester. The last thing she remembered, she’d been riding in the coach, praying for death to end her torment.
Kham reached a hand behind her towards her spine. Fingers fluttered over smooth skin, feeling the small raised ridges of scars but no torn flesh or scabs. She stretched her arms and twisted her back experimentally. There was no pain, not even the twinge of bruised flesh. Her wounds had healed. Completely.