The Winter King
Page 127
Frost crackled across every surface of the room and prickled across her skin. Her chest felt tight. Each breath hurt. “What are you talking about?”
“Do you even know what truth is? Or would it burn your tongue like fire to speak it? Do you dare deny your crime?”
“How can I deny anything when I don’t know what I’m accused of?” she cried. As stunned as she was, she was also starting to get angry. How could he have gone from sensual, seductive lover to raging Ice-Hearted bastard in a matter of seconds? What did he think she’d done? “What crime have I committed?”
“This!” He snatched up the frozen block of tea with his bloodied hand and crushed it with one flex of his fingers. “How long have you been drinking this? Since the day you learned that the mercy of the mountains wasn’t the death sentence you thought?”
“You’re angry because I’m drinking tea?” Had the man gone insane?
“Don’t play the innocent, Khamsin Coruscate. It doesn’t suit you. You know damn well I’m not talking about the tea, but about the poison you brewed with it! Or did you think perfuming your tea with jasmine would hide the odor of that herb from my nose?”
“Poison?” Khamsin gaped at him. “You think I’m trying to kill myself? Are you mad? I just spent the better part of three months trying to win over your people in order to save my life.”
“Stop!” Wynter shoved her hand away, then snatched up the teapot and flung it at the stone wall. The pot shattered in a million pieces, splattering steaming liquid and shards of broken porcelain in every direction. “Wyrn take you! Quit your lies! What sort of fool do you take me for? We both know you didn’t put enough of the herb in that tea to end your own life, only the life of any child in your womb!”
Alternating waves of heat and cold washed over Khamsin, and they had nothing to do with the powerful weather magic brewing in the room. Her stomach flipped, and for a moment she thought the tiny bit of breakfast she’d ingested would make an abrupt reappearance.
“Are you telling me there’s an herb in that tea to stop me from having a child?” It was her turn for her voice to go low and dangerous. Her fists clenched at her side. The bitter aftertaste of the tea she’d sipped filled her mouth anew. The frost Wynter had spread across the room began to melt as Khamsin’s own anger fueled her power and heat began radiating from her.
For the first time since the rage had come over him, she saw a break in the blizzard in Wynter’s eyes. A sliver of doubt crept in. “Are you telling me you didn’t know?” He remained stiff, suspicious, but no longer certain.
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you.” She knew her own eyes had turned to pure, shifting silver. Electricity crackled through her veins. Sparks popped at her fingertips. “What’s the name of the herb that’s been put in my tea?”
“Black tansy.”
“How do you know of it? Does it grow here?”
She could see that he’d begun to believe her. The blizzard in his eyes had slowed to small flurries swirling across the ice blue of his irises.
“Elka used it,” he admitted. “Our engagement was long. Neither of us wanted our first child to be born a bastard. And no, it doesn’t grow here. She imported it from an herb woman in Summerlea.”
It didn’t grow in Wintercraig, but it could be easily imported.
Or brought in a coach traveling from Vera Sola.
“Where is my maid, Bella?”
“You killed my child.”
Khamsin stood in the cold, drafty stone cell of Wintercraig’s dungeon and fought the urge to fry her former maid with a lightning bolt. She’d just come from a meeting with Galacia Frey, and the High Priestess confessed her belief that Khamsin’s hemorrhaging womb that first month had, in fact, been the result of a miscarriage. She’d kept her suspicions secret to spare both Krysti and the Konundal woman Wynter’s deadly wrath. Not even Lady Frey had suspected the miscarriage was deliberately induced.
Clapped in irons and chained to the floor of the cell, Belladonna Rosh met Khamsin’s accusation with a flat stare and obstinate silence.
After overhearing Wynter and Khamsin’s fight and realizing she’d been found out, Bella had tried to flee the castle. She’d nearly succeeded, despite the fact that Wynter had stormed out on the balcony overlooking the courtyard and shouted for the palace to be locked down. In a matter of minutes, the whole of Gildenheim transformed from royal palace into a fortress braced for a siege. The portcullises were slammed into place, the gates behind them closed and bolted with massive slabs of iron-reinforced timber. Wynter’s White Guard lined the barbican and tower walls three deep. Every courtier, servant, and civilian not armed for battle disappeared through the closest doorway, clearing the way for Wynter’s troops.
With an easy exit blocked, Bella had waited for the initial furor to die down, then attempted to smuggle herself out of Gildenheim in a farmer’s cart the following morning. She hadn’t counted on the guards searching every pack, wagon, cart, and person coming in or out of the palace. After a brief struggle and a final attempt to flee, she’d been clapped in irons and taken to the dungeon.
“That day in Konundal, when I hemorrhaged so badly I nearly died, it wasn’t just the Lady’s Blush or the kick to the belly that injured me,” Khamsin accused. “You’d dosed me with tansy. You suspected I was with child, and you killed it.”
“Do you even know what truth is? Or would it burn your tongue like fire to speak it? Do you dare deny your crime?”
“How can I deny anything when I don’t know what I’m accused of?” she cried. As stunned as she was, she was also starting to get angry. How could he have gone from sensual, seductive lover to raging Ice-Hearted bastard in a matter of seconds? What did he think she’d done? “What crime have I committed?”
“This!” He snatched up the frozen block of tea with his bloodied hand and crushed it with one flex of his fingers. “How long have you been drinking this? Since the day you learned that the mercy of the mountains wasn’t the death sentence you thought?”
“You’re angry because I’m drinking tea?” Had the man gone insane?
“Don’t play the innocent, Khamsin Coruscate. It doesn’t suit you. You know damn well I’m not talking about the tea, but about the poison you brewed with it! Or did you think perfuming your tea with jasmine would hide the odor of that herb from my nose?”
“Poison?” Khamsin gaped at him. “You think I’m trying to kill myself? Are you mad? I just spent the better part of three months trying to win over your people in order to save my life.”
“Stop!” Wynter shoved her hand away, then snatched up the teapot and flung it at the stone wall. The pot shattered in a million pieces, splattering steaming liquid and shards of broken porcelain in every direction. “Wyrn take you! Quit your lies! What sort of fool do you take me for? We both know you didn’t put enough of the herb in that tea to end your own life, only the life of any child in your womb!”
Alternating waves of heat and cold washed over Khamsin, and they had nothing to do with the powerful weather magic brewing in the room. Her stomach flipped, and for a moment she thought the tiny bit of breakfast she’d ingested would make an abrupt reappearance.
“Are you telling me there’s an herb in that tea to stop me from having a child?” It was her turn for her voice to go low and dangerous. Her fists clenched at her side. The bitter aftertaste of the tea she’d sipped filled her mouth anew. The frost Wynter had spread across the room began to melt as Khamsin’s own anger fueled her power and heat began radiating from her.
For the first time since the rage had come over him, she saw a break in the blizzard in Wynter’s eyes. A sliver of doubt crept in. “Are you telling me you didn’t know?” He remained stiff, suspicious, but no longer certain.
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you.” She knew her own eyes had turned to pure, shifting silver. Electricity crackled through her veins. Sparks popped at her fingertips. “What’s the name of the herb that’s been put in my tea?”
“Black tansy.”
“How do you know of it? Does it grow here?”
She could see that he’d begun to believe her. The blizzard in his eyes had slowed to small flurries swirling across the ice blue of his irises.
“Elka used it,” he admitted. “Our engagement was long. Neither of us wanted our first child to be born a bastard. And no, it doesn’t grow here. She imported it from an herb woman in Summerlea.”
It didn’t grow in Wintercraig, but it could be easily imported.
Or brought in a coach traveling from Vera Sola.
“Where is my maid, Bella?”
“You killed my child.”
Khamsin stood in the cold, drafty stone cell of Wintercraig’s dungeon and fought the urge to fry her former maid with a lightning bolt. She’d just come from a meeting with Galacia Frey, and the High Priestess confessed her belief that Khamsin’s hemorrhaging womb that first month had, in fact, been the result of a miscarriage. She’d kept her suspicions secret to spare both Krysti and the Konundal woman Wynter’s deadly wrath. Not even Lady Frey had suspected the miscarriage was deliberately induced.
Clapped in irons and chained to the floor of the cell, Belladonna Rosh met Khamsin’s accusation with a flat stare and obstinate silence.
After overhearing Wynter and Khamsin’s fight and realizing she’d been found out, Bella had tried to flee the castle. She’d nearly succeeded, despite the fact that Wynter had stormed out on the balcony overlooking the courtyard and shouted for the palace to be locked down. In a matter of minutes, the whole of Gildenheim transformed from royal palace into a fortress braced for a siege. The portcullises were slammed into place, the gates behind them closed and bolted with massive slabs of iron-reinforced timber. Wynter’s White Guard lined the barbican and tower walls three deep. Every courtier, servant, and civilian not armed for battle disappeared through the closest doorway, clearing the way for Wynter’s troops.
With an easy exit blocked, Bella had waited for the initial furor to die down, then attempted to smuggle herself out of Gildenheim in a farmer’s cart the following morning. She hadn’t counted on the guards searching every pack, wagon, cart, and person coming in or out of the palace. After a brief struggle and a final attempt to flee, she’d been clapped in irons and taken to the dungeon.
“That day in Konundal, when I hemorrhaged so badly I nearly died, it wasn’t just the Lady’s Blush or the kick to the belly that injured me,” Khamsin accused. “You’d dosed me with tansy. You suspected I was with child, and you killed it.”
