Chapter 1
My horses ran with all their speed. Their icicle bones chimed together with each movement, leaving a sound like Christmas bells in their wake. Behind us roared my blizzard. Snow came down hard, bathing the world in white. Before us was the untouched, virgin gardens of spring and summer. Just before my carriage, the leaves and grass began to die. The grass and flowers withered. The trees' leaves changed color and fell to the earth. I destroyed what my sister created, such was our routine. The cycle had been going on for eons and it would continue for many more.
As the team drove on, my pale eyes wandered the landscape ahead, admiring the life I was about to ravage. Although I am the spirit of winter, of the cold, ice, snow, darkness and death, the beauty of my sister's handiwork is not lost upon my seemingly blind eyes. I know my work is just as important as hers, but I cannot deny that I sometimes tire of the morbid nature of my own work and the loneliness that it has driven me to. I have never known warmth, love, or life. I know only the cold, hate, and death. Such is my nature. However, I have long longed for something different. How was I to know that that change was so close at hand?
Suddenly, my eyes noticed a flash of red to the left of me, just past the border of the blizzard. I hailed the horses to stop and they did as I commanded. I sat and stared at the brilliant red thing. At first, I thought it was a fire, but no, it was hair. Strands of flaming silk writhed in the wind of my storm. The creature that bore this hair was half buried in a snowdrift.
Slowly, I rose from my seat and stepped off of my carriage to approach what I believed was a corpse. No living thing could endure such cold as the kind that surrounded me. I approached at a snail's pace, intrigued by the pop of color before me, so different it was from the sea of white and icy blue. To my amazement, the being began to stir. It lifted it's upper half up slightly on quivering, thin arms. The pale snow fell away from it's black cloak, draping away from it like the softest of blankets. I was in shock, seeing this red haired thing living and breathing with me so close by. I reined in my power to it's minimum, to keep from finishing it off accidentally. The blizzard that wailed around me, softened it's screams and eased up on it's torment of the world. The storm slowed to a gently falling snow.
The being, still shaking like a leaf at the sight of my approach, swiveled it's head towards me. I met the ever green eyes of a girl. Her skin, though now covered with ice and frost, was rosy with warmth beneath it. She exuded heat and life, everything that I was not. This girl, this child of spring and fire, took the Ice King's breath away.
"H-help m-me." She stuttered through chattering teeth, before falling back limply into the bed of snow.
I looked around myself briefly, to be sure that no one was watching. I was not known for my kindness and I didn't wish to change that. However, the shivering sprite at my feet intrigued me. Careful to keep my power in check, I scooped up the girl and carried her back to the carriage. I held the girl in my arms as we rode back to my palace in my kingdom of eternal winter, so that the warmth from her body would not melt through my carriage. I have never experience the feeling that this girl invoked. The heat of her was amazing in itself, but there was more to it than that. I felt…compassion for her. I worried, I fretted. I didn't want her to die. Such an odd feeling. That I enjoyed this feeling was even more astonishing.
The icy floors of my palace echoed with my footsteps as I carried the girl through it's halls. Not knowing what else to do with her, I simply laid her on my bed to sleep away her chill. I took one of my many bear pelts and draped it over her. Such fragile things these humans were. They needed heat to live. I knew that quite well, but in a world of constant cold, simple blankets were the only source of warmth I could provide.
I finally left her to her sleep and wandered back through the palace halls to my throne room. Around me stood my frozen servants. Beautiful maidens and strong workers stood in various poses, like a garden of ice sculptures. Above me dangled an icicle chandelier, it's sharp points pointed precariously down at me. I took my seat it my massive throne, my back resting against it's beautiful, snow flake design. I pulled my white reindeer fur around my frame, suddenly overcome with frigid emptiness now that the girl was no longer within my embrace.
I leaned my head against my knuckles, feeling quite tired after suppressing my power for so long and to such an extent. I glanced at the mirror that sat beside me. It was an enchanted mirror. One that was given to me by a troll, who's life I threatened when I was much younger and hastier. It showed me what I wished to see. My sister's garden, the garden of eternal spring. Ravaged, destroyed, and dead. A frozen waistband. I smiled at it. How she would weep if it ever came to pass. Then the image shifted, forming something new. I saw the red haired girl sleeping peacefully under a mound of furs. She stirred. Her long lashes fluttered open, revealing her lovely eyes. She sat up and looked around in wonder at the room around her. No doubt she was troubled by her new surroundings. How did I get here? She must have been wondering.
I watched her slip off the edge of the massive bed, dragging a fur with her and pulling it tight around her shoulders. She shivered still. The mirror shifted several times, showing the girl in different parts of my palace as she drew closer to my throne room. Finally, she came to it's massive doors and her dainty hand, the fingernails dirty from working in soil. touched the spiraling crystal handle.
Curious, I decided to play a little trick on her. I closed my eyes and slumped my head to the side, pretending to be asleep. I watched her enter from beneath my own white lashes. She jumped back in surprise at first when she first laid eyes on me. I was a troubling sight to be sure. I had the body and face of an ethereally beautiful man, with long white hair and pale skin. However, from my head grew a beastly crown, the antlers of a magnificent stag.
Perhaps overcome with curiosity herself, she stepped timidly towards me, her green eyes wide with awe. She was quite lovely for a mortal. I wondered if she was indeed a sprite, for no mortal creature could ever be as beautiful as she. She seemed to glow in this place, shining like a sun, her light filtering through the crystal surfaces of the ice palace. She stumbled on her way to me, her small feet sliding on the frozen lake that served as the palace floor. I made ice form on the bottom of her shoes, keeping her steady from then on. She didn't notice this at all.
"The Ice King?" I heard her whisper, her voice strong, yet as light as a snow flurry. "He's real!" She gasped softly. She reached towards me. Her hands lightly touched me, one resting on one of my antlers, the other on my cheek. I opened my eyes in a flash. Startled, she sprung away with a small squeal of fright.
"What were you doing out in my blizzard, woman?" I asked, raising my head from where it rested on my knuckles. "I found you half dead in my snow. You would have been buried in it, if not for my…kindness." I said, finding the last word difficult to form on my tongue.
"I-I'm looking for someone." She stuttered, her large eyes blinking rapidly.
"And who would that be, my dear?" I asked, trying my best to sound pleasant.
"My little brother, Joshua." She answered, tears springing up in her eyes. "He's…He's disappeared. Vanished. I was told that you, my lord, sometimes take people and make them into your servants." She said, glancing fearfully at the frozen figures around her.
"I'm afraid that whoever told you that was mistaken. I create my servants from my snow. I breathe life into them from the trees and animals that I kill with my frost. I do not take humans." I rose from my throne and stepped carefully over to her.
"If you don't have him, where else could he be? I've been searching and searching for days." She cried. Tears fell down her cheeks.
Smiling as kindly as my frozen lips could manage, I touched her warm cheek with my hand and caught a tear with my finger, turning it into a crystal jewel of ice. Taking her hand, I placed the jewel tear inside and curled her fingers around it. "Cry no more." I soothed. "Tell me about Joshua. What does he look like? I may not have him, but nothing that is within my lands can escape my notice and I own the world. If he is alive and breathing, I will know where he is."
"H-He's twelve years old, about to my shoulders in height. He has shaggy brown hair and green eyes like mine. He has freckles on his nose and a dimple in only the right corner of his mouth." She rambled, her desperateness evident in her tone.
With a gentle hand on her arm, I guided her over to my mirror. "This mirror is magical. It will show us whatever we want. It may help to find your little brother. Let us see. Where are you, Joshua?" I whispered. The mirror before us shifted erratically as it's all seeing eye, searched for the lad. If finally stopped. The glass was blotted out with red, showing no form, nothing that I wanted to see. I scowled at that.
"What? What does that mean?" The girl asked innocently, her large eyes blinking up at me.
"It…cannot find him." I replied, hesitation in my otherwise unfaltering voice. "Which means…either he is being hidden from me purposefully or he is no longer of this world."
Tears streamed down the girl's face in a torrent. "You mean he's dead!" She wailed. She grabbed my arm and clung to me. Her warmth went to work on my again and annoying human emotions began to bubble up. I felt sorry for her.
"That has yet to be proven. As I said, he may be being hidden from me." I said, tearing my eyes away from her so that she wouldn't catch me staring.
"But who could possibly hide him from you?" She asked. "You're the Ice King!"
"I'm not the only Lord of Nature. There are others. Mother Earth, Father Time, and then there's my sister." My eyes narrowed in distaste. "The Fire Queen. I would be willing to bet that her hand is at work here. As the giver of life, she sees nothing wrong in using lives at her whim."
I felt the girl's fingers dig into the fur wrappings around my arm. I looked down and saw that her eyes were now lit with fierce determination, her red brows angled sharply over them. "Where can I find her? I must save him!" She demanded.
"She's far from your reach, girl. She resides in a kingdom of eternal summer at the opposite end of the world. My reign has just begun. It will be many months before she begins her journey North. Besides, if she truly has your brother, there is no hope of him returning."
"There must be! There must be away!" She cried, clawing at my robes with the desperation of a drowning victim.
I stared into the abyss of her eyes. I saw seas of tall meadow grass, I could smell it, the grass, soil, the wildflowers that were just springing up. I could practically feel the warmth of the sun, it's rays shining down on me, thawing my frigid flesh. But then I realized that it was merely her warmth that I felt. I'd never know what the sun truly felt like. She was the closest thing I'd ever have. I fought the urge to wrap my long arms around her waist and draw her in closer to me. I felt the odd and foreign stirrings of desire in my belly. I wanted her, this woman, this spring nymph and earthly goddess. Lucky for me, she was already within my grasp and had yet to discover her error. A sly grin stretched my cold lips painfully as a cunning and cruel idea conjured itself within my head. "The Fire Queen believes that she is the lord of all living things, that they belong to her. The only way she will give up a possession, is if she is offered something else of equal value." I stepped away from her and began to saunter around the room. I circled my many servants one by one as I continued to speak, never taking my eyes off of her. "How far would you be willing to go for him? What would you give up?"
"I'd die for my brother!" She confessed, loud and strong. There was no doubt in her voice, no hesitation.
I frowned slightly at this. It would be such a waste to have her die, for such beauty to rot away. "What if she asked for more than that?" I asked.
Her brows furrowed over her eyes in confusion. "I-I don't understand. How much more could I give?" She asked.
"What if…" I paused, my pale blue eyes meeting her green ones. "She asked for your soul? Would you give her that or would you leave your brother to his fate?" I could tell that this caught her off guard. She gawked at me, her petal lips falling open in surprise.
Her hands clutched at the fabric of her skirt as fear registered in her features. "She…She can do that? Would she? She's the lady of fire, light, fertility, life. Would she truly be so cruel as to ask for my soul?"
I made another pass around a pretty servant girl, her lovely features frozen into a solemn expression. Her lips were pressed tight together, neither a frown, nor a smile. "My sister and I are polar opposites in every way. I am winter, she is summer. I am patient. She is hasty. She is life. I am death. Only one of us is kind. The other is quite cruel, but you have no way of knowing which one that is at the moment. No way to be sure."
"Are you not the kind one?" She inquired, a red arch raising slightly over her right eye. "You saved my life and you have been good to me this far."
I bowed my head a moment, allowing the long strands of my hair to act as a veil, hiding the cunning grin that spread across my face. She couldn't be more wrong. The only reason that I was being kind was for selfish reasons only. "You may come to change your mind about that." I said. Willing the smile to disappear, it vanished and I set the mask of cold melancholy upon my face. I looked back to her again and admired her beauty as I continued. "I have a proposition for you." I began, walking slowly towards her. The air sang with my dramatic footsteps. "I cannot confront my sister directly. Doing so could endanger the safety of your world. I can, however, guide you on your way. But…I will not do this without a kind of payment."
W-what do you want?" She asked, backing away from me nervously.
"I will make you a temporary servant of mine. This will keep my sister from trying to keep you as well as your brother. If you fail in convincing her to release Joshua, I will set you free from our arrangement and you may return to your home. But…if you succeed, you must promise me your eternity and remain here…with me. Refuse this deal, and you will stay my servant for the rest of your life."
"With all due respect, my lord, this is horribly unfair!" The girl screamed at me angrily, her hands balling into fists at her sides. "What you propose is that I set my brother free and never see him again!"
I narrowed my eyes at her, my cold expression faltering only slightly. "Your brother is in the Fire Queen's embrace now, girl, and you have unwittingly found yourself in mine. You passed the point of no return long ago. What was will never be again. The only question left is, how much do you love your brother? Would you be willing to give up your after life, to never experience Heaven, so that he may? Would you go so far, for him?"
The girl stalled, her eyes shifting wildly in thought, even as they took in my tall, imposing frame. "I-If I succeed, what will happen to me?" She asked, fear evident in her voice.
"I will make you as immortal as I. You will never grow ill. Your fair skin will never dull with age. You will never die. You will serve as my companion and consort for all time." I whispered into her ear, a slender fingered hand, reaching to stroke the softness of her warm cheek.
"C-Consort?" She gasped with ragged breaths, her eyes bulging as the word registered. The cheek under my hand grew warmer, filling me to the brim with satisfaction.
"Yes, consort. You will be treated well, I assure you. Every need will be met." My voice grew huskier against her flesh. The smell of life that poured out of her skin was intoxicating. "Every desire will be sated. You will be treated like a queen."
I felt a tear roll across the back of my hand. It froze on my skin and I pulled away to take in the sight of her crushed expression. The tears fell softly across her skin, like rain drops on a window pane. "If I do not agree I will stay here until I die and never see Joshua again. If I go and fail, I'll return home, but Joshua will never be free. If I succeed, he will be free, but I'll never see him again. I'll be here in this frozen hell forever. No matter what I do, Joshua will always be out of my reach."
"Nothing can make things go back to the way they were." I whispered, a hand brushing through the long strands of her fiery hair. She stood as still as the servants around me, her only movement was the shuttering of her shoulders as she cried in grief. "Even my father, the lord of time itself, cannot do that for you. You must make a choice. Either Joshua forfeits his eternity or you do. The choice is yours."