The Ice King’s Consort (The Ice King Chronicles #1)

Chapter Four

I woke up with a start, disoriented and confused as to what had happened.

I immediately was aware that I was enveloped in heat, and as I blinked my eyes a few times, the reality of my situation sank in.

A very warm foot was hooked around my ankle and a muscular arm was wrapped around my waist, pulling me up into a hot wall of naked hardness—and some of that hardness in particular was rudely poking me in the hip.

I turned and to my horror I saw Lord Juul’s head on the pillow beside mine.

I was also quite naked and obviously in bed with him, wrapped in his arms with not much chance of getting away any time soon, or until Juul allowed it anyway.

He was making soft snoring sounds against the nape of my neck and small puffs of breath ruffled my hair with each exhale.

Images of the battle we’d been in with the ogres were flooding my memory, and the throbbing in the back of my head reminded me that I’d fallen and hurt it.

Tarrak had been wounded in the same attack, only much worse.

Where was he? Moving slowly and trying not to disturb Juul, considering the precarious position of my backside, I craned my head around to make sure I wasn’t dreaming, and I was actually in bed with Lord Juul.

I was surprised to see he had a large bandage on his shoulder, with a stain of blood on it that told me the wound was still seeping.

I wanted to look at it, but I also wanted to get out of this bed and find the chamber pot under it.

My bladder was insisting the chamber pot come first.

I moved as slowly as I could, trying to ease myself out from under Juul.

Of course, the irritating man woke up right away, tightening his arm around me.

“Where are you going, and why are you waking me up at this unholy hour?”

Perhaps he wasn’t quite awake after all, as his speech was slow and slurred, and he never opened his eyes quite all the way but peered at me through a small blue slit in those thick eyelashes.

I pulled away from him, or tried to, succeeding only in twisting my body over onto my stomach.

Juul smoothed a hand over my ass.

“Mmm, a tempting offer,”

he said, still sounding half asleep, “but I’m afraid I must refuse.

I wouldn’t be of much service to you at the moment.

Perhaps later.”

He fell over on his back then, and I could see that despite his bravado, he was really hurt and probably not even conscious.

Remembering the heat of his body, I reached out to feel his forehead, and I was alarmed to realize he was burning with fever.

He had already sunk back into an uneasy sleep.

I noticed his breathing was unsteady too and it worried me.

I began mentally making a list of the ingredients I would need to make a fever tisane for him, when the door suddenly opened, and the king himself sauntered in.

I grabbed the blanket to pull up over me and he glanced at me and rolled his eyes.

“Seriously? You’ve been injured, Pavel.

I’m not so desperate for bed partners that I would molest you on your sick bed.”

“We both know I’m your consort in name only.

And I still have no idea why, by the way.

But how did I get here with Lord Juul like this? Who brought me here?”

He raised one imperious eyebrow at me.

“Certainly not me.

I believe it must have been the servants.

When we brought you and Lord Juul back here, you were both unconscious. Naturally, we focused our attention first on Juul.”

“Naturally,”

I said, managing to roll my eyes only a little.

“At any rate, I found out that my soldiers had directed the servants to bring you here to tend to you while the healers were working on Juul’s wounds.

It was a simple mistake.

You were riding with him all morning, and the soldiers were confused.

Since this isn’t a large castle and already strained to overflowing with the siege on the estate, we decided to leave you both here.”

“How convenient for you.

What happened with the ogres?”

He shrugged, a gesture that was becoming familiar to me.

“We killed them all, of course.”

“All right, then listen to me, please.

Lord Juul’s very ill.

He’s burning with fever, and I need some things to make up a potion to heal him.

Look at how pale he is.”

“Yes, he lost a great deal of blood.

He insisted on fighting long after he was wounded.

But the healers here at the castle said he’d be all right.”

“Well, they’re crazy, because he won’t be.

Not without some help.

I need to give him my potions.”

“Your potions?”

he said, looking down his nose at me.

“I told you the healers have already tended him.

He has no need of your home remedies.

If he’s still feeling ill by tonight, they’ll come back and apply leeches to bleed him.”

“He’s burning with fever.

And he’s already lost too much blood.

And they’ll bleed him over my dead body.”

He gave me a look that promised my death could easily be arranged.

But I persevered.

“I’ll show you the ingredients, and you can see there’s nothing in the potion that would hurt him.

Please help me, Your Majesty. Oh, wait. I saw you get wounded too.”

He waved his hand.

“Mine was merely a scratch.

An arrow grazed my neck and lodged under my armor.

My men panicked and thought I had a serious neck wound.”

“Well, if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to look at that ‘scratch’ for you, as well as tend to Lord Juul’s wound.

I saw all that blood you were losing.

My skills can help.”

“Your ‘magical’ skills?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“I was only teasing and humoring you the other night.

I don’t seriously believe you have any such thing.

You’re only a mortal.”

“We made a bargain, and my skills are real,”

I told him, giving him the dirtiest look I could muster.

“If you were listening to me at all, then you should know that.

And it was a bargain freely made and freely accepted.

Are you really going to go back on it now?”

He gave me a look that was so blistering I was surprised it didn’t peel the skin off my face.

“How dare you imply such a thing? A king never goes back on his word.”

“Good to know.

Then please have the servants bring me the things I need for my potions.”

I glanced around the room and saw a writing desk sitting next to the window, so I dragged the blanket off the bed with me as I rose and wrapped it around my body, then went over to sit down and find a piece of paper, a pen, and some ink.

They were all thankfully in the top drawer, so I quickly dipped the quill into the small ink pot and scratched out the ingredients I’d need.

All the while, Tarrak was as quiet as a tomb, simply staring at the back of my head, but I worked quickly and blew on the ink to dry it.

Then triumphantly I turned and held it out to him.

He looked down at my list with disdain.

“Where did a peasant like you learn to write?”

“I went to school for a while.

Then after I had to leave, my grandmother taught me.

Please, sire, take this list and have someone bring me the ingredients.

Lord Juul is still very ill, but I can help him.”

“With your magical potion?”

“Yes.

Please, sir.

Before he gets any worse.

Time is of the essence.”

He snatched it from my hand, read over it suspiciously, and then turned and swept from the room without another word.

Before he reached the door, I yelled after him.

“And tell them to bring fresh bandages too!”

His back stiffened, but he never turned and just kept walking toward the door.

After he left, I quickly found my clothes, which someone, presumably the servants, had stripped off me and thrown down on the floor beside the bed, along with my beautiful furs.

I gave a little cry when I saw them crumpled there and quickly picked them up and shook out the wrinkles, brushed them off, and hung them carefully on hooks in a beautiful, lacquered cabinet in the room.

I had been afraid my fur hat was ruined after my fall, but it only had a small blood stain on the inside, where no one could see it. I could try to wash it out later. I decided the thick fur must have saved me from a more serious injury.

Juul thrashed around a bit on the bed, so I went over to sit beside him and smooth his covers.

I may have smoothed his brow a little too.

He was still burning up, so I found a small cloth near the water pitcher, wet it, and laid it across his forehead.

Then with nothing more that I could do, I paced up and down beside the bed for a while, stopping occasionally to calm his restlessness and soothe him back to sleep.

In another few minutes, a soft knock came on the door and a servant came in, carrying various small packets and bottles of the things I’d asked for, including a kettle of hot water.

She also brought me some fresh bandages.

“Ah, thank you,”

I exclaimed over them and set about mixing my potion.

Nothing in the potion was unusual, and all the ingredients were easily found in any garden.

But my grandmother always said I had a particular knack with them and always asked me to make hers when she needed them.

It took only a teaspoon of yarrow, one of elderberry flowers, one more of peppermint, and two cups of water. I crushed up the herbs and leaves for the first dose, mixed them all well, and set the ingredients to steep in the hot water for ten minutes. That was all. Yet, I’d had a great deal of success with my healing skills. I knew, for example, that this tisane would stimulate Juul’s body, help to hydrate him, and even relieve some of his stress and pain. An added benefit would be to make him sweat to get rid of some of the poisons from his wound.

As I worked over the leaves and herbs, pounding and crushing them, I hummed softly to myself.

It was something I had always done, so that I was hardly even aware of it anymore.

My grandmother had encouraged me, saying it would help me concentrate.

I had several melodies I liked, but on this day, I found myself humming a song about a fairy king, who once had a true love who lost her life in a faraway kingdom by the sea. By night, her spirit would visit him, but she could never stay until morning and they had to take their leave of each other at first light. It was an old melody, dark and strange and sweet, with a haunting refrain. I loved to sing it and found myself humming it sometimes whenever I was anxious or unsure. It was called “The Ballad of Fiona.”

And maybe I was a bit worried about Lord Juul, actually, since that old song came into my head.

I wasn’t even sure where I’d first heard it—it seemed I had always known it, and it usually had the power to soothe me.

I needed soothing because I was truly concerned about how pale Juul looked.

I hadn’t seen him wounded, but he’d obviously had an arrow to the shoulder, and he’d lost a great deal of blood. I was afraid he might die, if the truth were told.

I gazed down at him, realizing I was attracted to him, and what on earth was I thinking? He had been nothing but rude to me since the day he’d come to my father’s house, and his manner hadn’t changed.

If anything, it was getting worse.

But why did that song keep playing over and over in my head? I wondered if it were possible that he’d cast some kind of spell on me to make me come with him more easily that first night.

I knew the Elves had some type of magic, but I couldn’t remember exactly what from the old stories my grandmother used to tell me. She knew more about the fairies actually, than she did the other fae. I wondered why that was.

I gently eased the bandage off, taking care with the edges that wanted to stick to the wound, and I winced in sympathy when I saw his shoulder.

Red and swollen, the outer edges of the hole the arrow made going in looked to me as if they needed stitches, but I had no thread or needle and not even any hot water, except for a little left in the kettle.

I decided to just press the wound together as best I could, bind it tightly, and speak to the so-called healer about it when and if he ever came by to check on his patient again.

After I cleaned Juul’s wound and applied a little of the liquid from the tisane to it, too, for pain relief and to reduce the swelling, I closed it with my fingers and then applied the bandage as tightly as I could and still not cut off his blood supply.

The wound was in a tricky spot and hard to bandage tightly.

I finally managed it and closed my eyes, imagining a healing song I could sing for him, picturing in my mind what healing to his shoulder would look like—a faint scar, but healthy, smooth skin all around it with no redness or swelling and no poisons festering underneath.

I asked him to drink the rest of my tisane for me.

He was barely conscious, but he roused himself enough to rest his head on my shoulder while I held the cup to his lips, and he drank it down as I sang softly to him.

He closed his eyes when he was done, and I settled him back down in bed, pulling the covers over him.

All the while I sang softly to him as one after another song came to me, ones my mother used to sing to me long, long ago, before she got to be so afraid. They were mostly soft and gentle lullabies, and I sang all I could remember. Afterward, I went over to my coat, still hanging on the hooks inside the cabinet, and found my pipes inside the pocket.

I sat down on the bed beside him again and softly, tenderly began cajoling the notes to come out and dance for me.

That’s how I thought of it—as if the notes were dancing in the air, those beautiful, strange old things.

And they were dancing just for me, because I asked them to.

I could almost see them, floating and whirling around my head.

As my tune came to an end, Juul fell into a more peaceful sleep, and because my head had begun to ache a bit, I drank the last of the potion myself and lay down beside him to close my eyes too.

Just for a minute—or at least I intended it to be for only a minute or two, but when I awoke, the sun was setting outside the window, its deep golden hues streaming across the foot of the bed.

I was alone in the room, with no sign of Lord Juul.

I sat up in bed, disoriented and wondering what to do.

My stomach growled a little, and I tried to remember when the last time was that I ate.

And where was Juul? Did he wander off somewhere in a feverish state, and should I alert someone? I ran to the door to fling it open, but before I could reach for the doorknob, the door opened and King Tarrak himself stood there looking in at me.

He was fully dressed in a beautiful suit of emerald green.

He looked as if he’d never been ill or wounded—make that “scratched”—at all.

“Tarrak! What are you doing? How is your wound?”

Touching his neck, he said, “What? I told you it was nothing.”

He turned his head to show me smooth, unblemished skin.

“Besides,”

he said, “apparently, a wound is nothing at all to be worried about when I have my own personal wizard traveling with my army.

Well, why are you standing there with your silly little face all pale and your mouth hanging open? Don’t tell me you’re speechless for once.

We all heard your singing and the pipe playing a few hours ago.

It sent half of my men to sleep and the ones who were wounded are all healed up now. Including Lord Juul.”

“Y-you heard me?”

“Yes.

It was heard all through the castle, like I said.”

He looked thoughtful for a moment.

“Unusual.

But come along.”

He motioned me forward.

“I’m starving and Lord Turog is holding supper for us.

You can ply me with your endless questions while we eat.

I can see you’re dying to.”