Heart of Winter by Lauren Gilley
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 felt 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.