Heart of Winter (The Drake Chronicles Book 1)

by Lauren Gilley

  Revna wanted to shake him.

  She traded glances with Birger and Bjorn, a question forming on her tongue–

  And the door slammed open. Rune strode in, his thunderous expression the image of his uncle from days gone by. “Uncle!”

  His tone snapped Erik out of his trance; he glanced up sharply, gaze already narrowing. “What?”

  “You must do something about Oliver!” Rune flung out an arm, half-supplication, half-challenge. “Tessa was crying, and it’s been five days, and he’s still sick, and you must do something.”

  Erik held still a moment, then he dragged in a rough-sounding breath that lifted his chest, and snarled, “I’m not a physician. What would you have me do?”

  The same fury flared in both of them, that of helplessness, of frustration, but it painted Erik as glacial and heartless, and Rune as fiery and impassioned. “You could tell Olaf to get off his old ass and actually do something! There must be other herbs – other cures. Things we haven’t tried. Write to Drakewell, if you must – send for a shaman! But someone knows something, I know they do, and we can’t just give up.”

  The fire snapped in the hearth, and Rune’s fast, open-mouthed breathing sucked up the rest of the quiet in the room. This was to be a test for Erik, a turning point – for good or for ill. He’d faced such challenges before, and always he chose duty; chose country; chose coldness. She expected that now, heart already sinking, because each time her brother closed himself off from all feeling, he chipped away another bit of his hope and happiness. One day, she would be left with only a shell: an Erik-shaped puppet who could run a nation without flaw, but who couldn’t remember what it felt like to smile.

  She traded a glance with Birger, who shook his head fractionally.

  Bjorn looked glum.

  But then, with a screech of chair legs over stone, Erik stood. His face settled into the mask he wore to battle: the resolve and determination of a warrior who would take any measure, risk any injury to achieve victory. “Go and find him. Drag him away from whatever he’s doing – whatever he’s doing. Bring him to Mr. Meacham’s chamber.”

  Rune blinked at him a moment – then grinned. “Right.” He spun and ran out of the room.

  Revna took a sip of wine to cover her smile, and Birger did the same, she saw, gaze sparkling over the rim of his cup.

  ~*~

  “Ice rose?” Olaf’s bushy white brows shot up. “Your majesty, that’s – that’s recreational. It’s a hallucinogen.”

  “I’m quite aware of what it is.” Erik had put on his king voice. His Do Not Question Me voice. The sound of it had sent Olaf from groggy to shaking in his robes. “We were given some at last year’s Midwinter Festival. A gift from the Beserkirs. Do we have it still?”

  “Y-yes. I keep it under lock and key.”

  “Get it.”

  Wide-eyed, almost dazed-looking, Olaf stepped out into the hallway and turned toward the tower where he kept his surgery.

  “Ice rose,” Revna said, smiling. “Now there’s an idea. I never would have thought of that.”

  Erik’s gaze shifted to the bed, and the too-still, too-pale figure lying upon it. “Well. Desperate times.”

  For five days, Oliver had been flushed, sweating, and restless, kicking and stirring beneath his covers, murmuring nonsense.

  He’d clearly taken a turn for the worse in the past few hours, though. All the color had left his complexion; he was as bleached as the pillow beneath his head. He’d been losing weight, she’d known, but looked as if he’d dropped a stone since dinner, the bones of his skull sharp beneath waxen skin, his throat as fragile as a flower stem. His chest barely moved as he sipped shallow breaths through parted, chapped lips. He burned to the touch, though.

  Tessa mopped at his brow with a damp cloth, looking too pale and thin herself, worn out from tending to her cousin. She glanced between them and said, “Ice rose?”

  “It grows north of the mountains,” Revna explained. “Not a rose at all, but a kind of weed; it’s so hearty its roots grow on top of the soil, with little hooks that grab onto the ice. Its leaves look like little white roses, which is how it gets its name. Shamans use it to inspire sacred visions – they say it enables them to commune with the gods, or with spirits that have passed beyond the veil. Young clansmen chew it for a thrill. It makes you see and hear things that aren’t there.

  “But the Beserkirs say they used to keep a few leaves of it tucked inside their cheeks when they went raiding down South. Said it kept the awful heat down there at bay.”

  “Will it break his fever?”

  “It’s worth a try. I don’t think he can get anymore incoherent.”

  “No,” Tessa agreed, glumly.

  Erik paced tight circles at the foot of the bed, leather tunic swirling around his legs, darting glances toward the bed on every pass, his hands – linked together behind his back – tightening on one another until his knuckles turned white beneath his rings.

  Oh, you silly fool, Revna thought, fondly, sadly, hurting for him.

  “It’ll work,” Rune said, overflowing with optimism now that he’d gotten Erik involved. His faith in his uncle had always been unfailing, and Revna hoped that it always would be. He laid a comforting hand on Tessa’s shoulder, a touch that had the girl looking up and smiling softly at him – poor Leif, Revna thought with an internal sigh. “You’ll see. The ice rose will work.”

  Olaf finally returned, huffing for breath, a small, sealed chest in his arms. Two serving boys followed him, toting a wooden tub between them. “The ice rose,” he said, setting the chest on the desk. He motioned for the boys to set the tub down before the fireplace. “And I have another idea, too. Ice rose or not, it’s time to get his temperature down, and cold cloths aren’t going to be enough.”

  A third boy entered, and then another, the first carrying pails of water – the second pails of snow.

  14

  Erik held his first sword when he was three. It was carved from wood, and not even a foot long. His memories of that moment were fuzzy, at best; a toddler’s blurred impression of smiling, laughing adults, and of swinging so hard he nearly fell over.

  His first steel sword had come at age seven, a gift from his grandfather, commissioned to suit his height and build, as ornate and rune-carved as his father’s massive longsword. Arne had one, too, and they would spar with them in the yard, under the watchful eye of Sig, the armorer, the steel crashing and clanging, the impact shaking up their arms, so they grunted and swore, but didn’t stop, the thrill of it pressing them on and on – until Mother shouted down from the window, or one of them busted their knuckles.

  When he was fifteen, nearly six feet tall and still growing, with hair sprouting on his chin and chest, he commissioned his own sword, his true sword, the one he carried, still – Krig. Grandfather, the Half-Blood, was dead, and it was for him he named his sword. War. Erik was to be the warrior. Herleif was dead, too, but Arne was crown prince in his place, and it would be Erik he sent out to face their enemies; Erik who would spear hearts and cleave necks for him, in defense of their nation. Arne would be the Wall Between Worlds, and Erik the blade.

  His hands had been shaped by swords, and bows, and spears. By the buckles of vambraces, and the laces of padded doublets, and the grit of whetstones. His arms were strong from sparring, from battle; from killing, and maiming. He’d been forged in the fires of violence, not in a wild haze of bloodlust, but through careful practice, and steady purpose. Hotheads didn’t make for good warriors; he’d been hand-crafted, from the time of his birth, to be a weapon.

  Now he was a king, which he’d never thought to be, and for which he’d never asked. And kings spent too long indoors, organizing, weighing, measuring, politicking. Too much time sitting still – time to reflect upon the fact that other things had shaped his hands, too.

  Like the plushness of his mother’s yarn as he rolled it out slowly for her, the clack of her needles a soft, soft echo of the ring of swords clashing
in the yard down below.

  Like the silken strands of his horse’s main clenched tight between his fingers as he leaned low over his neck and urged him faster, faster, Arne’s outraged laughter at being beaten echoing behind him.

  Like the warm, worn-smooth calluses of his father’s hand when Frode showed him how to adjust his grip on his bow or his sword.

  Like the quicksilver warmth of his littles sister’s tears when he swiped them away with a careful thumb after she’d taken a spill from her pony.

  Like the shape of his big brother’s fingers, too hot to the touch, just before the fever claimed him.

  Love had shaped his hands, too. Gentleness. Grief. They were strong, capable hands, and they’d seen plenty – seen too much – and they would cling tight to the things he held dear, and push away that which threatened him.

  He’d not thought to find a threat in a sickroom, watching serving boys fill a tub with cold water and snow.

  “Are you trying to give him frostbite?” he snapped, and if his voice came out rough and unsteady, Olaf didn’t react.

  “We’ll have to be careful that we don’t,” the physician said, absently, testing the water with his fingertips. He shook off droplets and nodded. “The trick is to cool the body without triggering hypothermia. This feels about right.”

  “About right?” There were still little chunks of snow melting on the surface. “Plunging him into that will kill him.”

  Olaf sighed. He braced his hands on his hips and looked up at Erik with the same fond exasperation he’d been giving him all his life. “The fever is burning him, lad. If we don’t do something to beat it back, it’ll burn him all up, and he’ll be gone. This – along with the ice rose – is our best option.”

  Erik glanced toward the bed, shocked all over again by the paleness of Oliver’s face. He was nearly the same color as the sheets. Herleif had gotten like that, right at the end, in that snatched moment before Erik was hustled from the room: the rosy bloom of the early fever had given way to the marble white of death.

  He took a breath, and it dragged and caught painfully in his chest. “Fine,” he gritted out. “We’ll do it.”

  “Very good, your majesty. Ladies, if I could have you out of the room – yes, thank you.”

  Tessa lingered a moment, hand pressed to the back of Oliver’s lifeless one.

  Revna sought Erik’s gaze on her way out, and he could read the mingled support and concern in her eyes, the same blue as his own – but softer. More openly loving.

  When she encouraged him – when she’d spoken that first night of the fever, nudging him toward something he wasn’t supposed to want and definitely couldn’t have, so full of understanding and love without judgement – he couldn’t help but feel that he was failing her. She wanted him to be happy, and in that way, he would always let her down.

  The door closed behind the women, and Olaf turned to his assistants. “All right, boys, if you get on this side, and you get on that side, we’ll–”

  “No.”

  Five pairs of eyes swung toward him.

  “Your majesty,” Olaf began.

  “He’s not a felled log to be juggled between four people,” Erik said. “Tell me how it’s done, and then get out.”

  Olaf sighed, but he conferred with his assistants, and they all slipped out.

  In the quiet left by their departure, the loudest sound was the faint rasp of Oliver’s breathing, shallow and too-slow.

  Olaf caught Erik’s gaze and held if for a long moment, lips pursed, brow furrowed. Erik braced himself for a rebuke, or the sort of over-stepping comment that would get a man banished for daring to speak to a king in such a way. There would be no banishment from Erik, because he would have earned whatever was said.

  But, when he spoke, Olaf said, “Take off anything you don’t want to get wet. We need to get most of him in the water, and you’ll have to support his head to make sure he doesn’t slip under.” The physician’s beard twitched as he offered a faint smile. “It’s not cold enough to freeze him, laddie. But don’t come crying to me when your teeth start chattering.”

  “Have I ever?” He reached for his belt buckle, and refused to feel hopeful. Not yet, not yet.

  ~*~

  In the deepest throes of the fever, Oliver’s consciousness was only a thrum of useless energy, an itch, a burning pain in every muscle, and eyelids too heavy to lift. After, once it broke, he could recall only a low murmur of conversation around him, washing over him like the tide, and the remembered urge to comfort those who fretted over him, though speech lay beyond him. It was no different now: he was exhausted, but unable to sleep, he was in the dark, but he couldn’t force his eyes open; he sweated, and twisted, and writhed before everything stilled, and dimmed, and then there was nothing. There was…

  Cold.

  There was an awful, biting, breathtaking cold. It burrowed through his skin and into his bones; wrapped tight around his chest until each breath was an agony. He could feel himself shaking; could hear the ripple and splash of water as his fingers and toes twitched.

  “Shh, shh. Lie still, it’s all right.” A soft, deep, familiar voice. Erik’s voice. And large hands petting over his hair, his face, his chest, warmer than the cold that gripped him, a comfort that he leaned into blindly, seeking more of it. “I’m sorry for the cold, it’s only for a little while.”

  His fever dreams had never been quite so cruel. The pain and weakness and panic were always bad enough, but now, to be taunted with the impossible, to lack the strength to push back against such fantasy…his eyes burned, his tears fire-hot as they slid down his cheeks. A callused finger wiped them away with great gentleness, and he couldn’t take this, he couldn’t.

  Let me die or wake up. Please. I don’t want this sort of lie.

  The voice rumbled on overhead, heedless of his suffering. “Do you think it’s working?”

  “He’s moving much more,” a voice answered, rough at the edges with age, but brisk and practical. “See his eyelids twitching?”

  “Yes, but his lips are blue, Olaf.”

  “We can warm him plenty once the fever breaks. Give it longer. Oliver, lad, can you hear me? Can you open your eyes?”

  Fingers raked through his hair; a thumb trailed along his cheek, tracing a warm tear track. Oliver drew in a breath that burned, and managed to crack his eyes open.

  Blue. All he saw was blue. A dark floor, and dark walls, and dark ceiling, and blue light glancing off the bright corners of blue planes, and blue spikes, and blue shards. Ice. It was ice – a cave full of ice, and the blue light of night, studded with stars beyond the mouth of it. Another light, too, even bluer, the bright hue of a clear summer sky just before dusk; the blue of sapphires, dazzling in the noonday sun.

  Erik’s hands: on his throat, on his jaw, spreading wide over his collarbones, holding him in place, shielding him.

  Oliver wet his lips, tasted something acrid and sharp, and said, “What is this place?”

  The blue light from within the cave swelled and brightened. There was a sound: a low roar, growing louder. An animal sound, echoing, and booming, reverberating up through the floor, grumbling inside his own chest.

  “Oliver.”

  Another voice, distant and blurred, said, “That is no bear.”

  “What – what is it…?”

  “Oliver,” Erik said, cupped his jaw, and tipped his head back. There he was, with his hair in waves around his worried face, the sapphire light glinting off the beads braided there. And his eyes, as perfect, as blue as the light that pulsed around them. Blue enough to drown in. “Can you hear me?”

  Oliver’s hand seemed to weight a hundred pounds, but he lifted it, and though he didn’t understand the water that dripped from it, he managed to reach up and curl one dark braid around his finger. He tugged on it, and Erik lowered his head – down, down, until the heat of his breath fanned across Oliver’s face, so pleasant after all the cold. “I’m glad it’s you,” he told him, and fel
t his lips form a smile. “You’re a very good dream to have right before the end.”

  Blue eyes widened. “Oliver, no–”

  The light expanded, a flare of jewel-blue, and then white. It burned–

  And then nothing.

  15

  When Oliver woke, he knew that the fever had broken, finally.

  He felt like he’d been dragged behind a horse for five miles.

  He cracked crusty eyes open and winced against the sunlight streaming in through the window. Even shifting his head fractionally on the pillow had pain firing through every muscle. He ached…everywhere, and his skin felt raw, like he’d baked in the sunlight. But his head was clear, save the lingering fatigue, and he knew that he wasn’t hallucinating when his gaze landed on the large figure slumped down in a chair by his bedside, eyes closed, chin resting on his broad chest.

  The king of Aeretoll snored softly, wearing nothing but trousers and an unlaced tunic that clung to the heavy muscles in his arms. For all their size, his bare feet looked strangely vulnerable on the rug.

  Oliver rolled his head the other way, and found Tessa standing in the open doorway, one hand on the doorknob, her shocked gaze fixed on the king.

  His throat was dry, and his voice hoarse, but he managed to whisper, “What’s he doing in here?”

  “I don’t know. I just walked in.” Then she gasped, and turned toward him. “Ollie! You’re awake!”

  Her exclamation sent Erik awake with a snort.

  She winced. “I’m sorry, your majesty.” She perched on the edge of Oliver’s bed, and he struggled to sit upright; she deftly stacked pillows behind him, so he could lean back against them. “But Oliver’s fever broke!” she said, excitedly. “Look.”

  In the moment that his eyes opened, Erik’s gaze flitted back and forth across the room, searching, his body instantly tense and ready for an attack. Then Oliver watched him take in his surroundings, watched the tension ease as Erik realized he wasn’t in the field somewhere under assault. He let out a deep breath, features relaxing – until his gaze landed on the bed, and Oliver in it, and then the strangest thing happened.