The Winter King
Page 69

He stayed there with Valik and Firkin for more than an hour, talking not about war but about the Craig, the changes that had happened since he’d left three years ago, the small, personal things Barsul hadn’t put to ink during their years of correspondence, and more. Three men had been sent last month to face the mercy of the mountains: two ra**sts and a child-killer. All had perished in the ice and snow. It was unusual to have so many such crimes in a single month.
Wynter had known one of the men. He’d been a rough sort of Winterman, but Wyn had never considered him brutal enough to ram a fist into his own son’s head with enough force to slay him.
“Things are starting to change, Wynter,” Lord Firkin said, “and not for the better.”
“Is it the Ice Heart, do you think?” he asked. “Has the power grown so strong in me that it can now feed on others?”
“That’s a question for Lady Frey.”
“Then I suppose I should go get cleaned up and pay her a visit.” Wynter took leave of Valik and Firkin and headed up to his rooms. His valet helped him shed his armor and ran a hot bath so he could wash off the stink of travel. Lady Frey objected to the presence of unwashed men in the goddess’s temple.
As he pulled on clean clothes, his hand absently rubbed his chest, and he thought about the men who’d met their fate on the mountain. Was he to blame for the madness that had gripped them? He couldn’t shake the possibility. His chest still felt cold and tight after freezing that map in the council room.
Valik was right to suspect Kham’s Summerlander magic was affecting Wyn, but not in the way he thought. Ever since the night of Khamsin’s terrible storm, Wyn had spent most of his time in her company, and he’d realized he felt more human and more at peace than he had in years. He’d hoped that meant the Ice Heart was melting, but today, within minutes of leaving her on the steps of the palace, he’d felt himself growing colder, more impatient, angrier. That brief flash of icy fury that froze the map wasn’t dissipating as quickly as it had in the past. And that did not bode well. Not for him, and not for any Winterman.
In fact, the only time he wasn’t aware of the cold in his chest was when he wrapped himself in Khamsin’s heat.
The front of Wynter’s breeches went tight, and he swore softly under his breath. This part of Wynter’s obsession, Valik had gotten right. All Wyn had to do was think about the little weatherwitch, and he grew hard as stone. That didn’t bode well for him either. She was a Summerlander, sister to Wynter’s bitterest enemy, that bride-stealing, child-killer, Falcon. They’d wed not out of affection but political expediency. He knew where her loyalties lay, and it wasn’t with him. If he was foolish enough to let himself care for her, she would use his affection, as Elka had, to betray him.
No, so long as that Rose burned on her wrist, she was someone he could never trust enough to love. She was a womb to bear his child. Attachment to her, need—even if only sexual—was dangerous.
And yet, even knowing how vital it was to keep an emotional distance between them, he found himself opening the door that joined his rooms to hers and walking through it.
She wasn’t there. He knew it as soon as he entered. Her scent was slightly faded rather than fresh, and there was a certain dull emptiness to the air that would have been charged with energy had she been present.
Her clothes now hung in the dressing room. All her plants and potted trees had been arranged around the upholstered sofa in the reading alcove. Delicate crystal flacons of perfume were displayed neatly on the stone top of her vanity. Wynter made a mental note to return the book and jeweled toiletry set he’d taken from her back in Vera Sola, and to have several of the growing lamps delivered to her rooms to keep her blasted remembrance garden alive.
He wandered from her bedroom into her large receiving parlor. Here, her scent was strongest. She’d stood there, by that couch. He crossed to it and breathed deep. Yes, here. Other women had been with her, half a dozen of them, but hers was a scent easily separated from the rest. So different from her sister Autumn’s. How had he ever been fooled before? Hers was a scent so distinct, he would recognize it anywhere now, no matter how diluted.
The cape she’d worn this morning lay draped across the chaise. He bent to pick it up and pressed it against his face. It smelled of her. The jasmine she’d used to wash her hair, and the bold, electric freshness that reminded him of the mountains after a powerful spring storm.
He wanted to close his eyes and rub his face in the gathered cloth, marking himself with her scent, marking her cloak with his. Instead, he forced his fingers open and let the fabric spill to the floor.
“Your Majesty? May I help you?”
Wynter turned swiftly. Foolish, Wyn! Very foolish! No one had been able to sneak up on him in years, but he’d been so preoccupied, he hadn’t sensed the little Summerlander maid’s approach.
“Where is your mistress?”
“In the west gardens, my lord. She said she needed fresh air after Mistress Narsk and the seamstresses left.”
Wynter walked to the balcony windows and looked out. Sure enough, several stories down to the west, he found his wife traversing the walks of the terraced western gardens. She’d donned one of her fur-lined Summerlander cloaks, but her head was bare, her distinctive dark hair easy to spot even at a distance.
The moment he clapped eyes on her, he felt the tug in his chest. The yearning to go to her, walk with her, bask in her fiery warmth.