Deep Kiss of Winter

"What in the hell are you doing here?" Nikolai demanded. "And whose blood is that?"

Conrad studied the cell bars. "I don't have time for questions."

"You have to leave!" Murdoch said. "They'll execute you if they capture you."

He gave a rough laugh, clamping hold of the bars. "Defy them to do either." Gritting his teeth, he strained against them.

"Those are as protected as your chains were," Sebastian said. "The wood, the metal, and the stone surrounding them are all reinforced. You can't possibly - "

Conrad wrenched them wide, breaking the metal.

"My God," Nikolai murmured.

Conrad had gotten stronger?

"Need your help to find my Bride!" In a frenzy, Conrad yanked the wreckage free. "I'm not mad... but I need you to trace me to every cemetery in New Orleans. Do you know where they are?"

Nikolai gaped. "Your... Bride?"

"His heart beats," Murdoch said.

"Do you know where they are or not?" Conrad bellowed.

Nikolai nodded slowly. "I know all the cemeteries. Myst and I hunt ghouls there."

"Will you do this?"

"Conrad, just calm - "

"Fuck calm, Nikolai!"

"So this is Conrad Wroth," Kristoff said from behind him, surrounded by his personal guards.

Without turning, Conrad sneered, "The bloody Russian. What do you want?"

Kristoff seemed amused by this. "I'd known the Wroths were genetically incapable of fawning to a king, but a modicum of respect..." His demeanor was self-satisfied, almost like he'd planned this all along.

Conrad faced the natural-born vampire.

"You've taken out my entire castle guard," Kristoff said in a casual tone. "Something a Horde battalion couldn't do. My informants didn't tell me you were this strong." His pale eyes were expressionless, yet Murdoch knew he was calculating. "But then, you've been blooded."

"I don't have time for this!" Conrad snapped. "I'll kill you just to keep you from speaking."

The guards tensed, hands at their sword hilts.

"Kill me? You wouldn't know your Bride if not for me, if not for your brothers. You'd have been dead three hundred years ago."

"I've put that together!"

To Nikolai, Kristoff said, "He took out the guards without killing a single one - almost as if he was making a point. You were right. Conrad isn't lost." He cast Conrad a quizzical glance. "He's... quite a few things, but he's not irredeemable. And I can concede when I have made a mistake. Though you should have come to me instead of willfully breaking our laws."

Nikolai exhaled. "I couldn't take the risk that you would say no. He's my brother," he said simply.

Kristoff turned back to Conrad. "Swear fealty to me, and all of you leave today as allies. Otherwise we fight."

Conrad gritted his teeth, eyes darting, but eventually he grated, "I'll vow... that I'll never engage you or your army."

After an appraising look, Kristoff said, "It will do. For now." To the other three brothers, he added, "Take a week off. And do get your Brides to cease plotting my downfall."

When the king and his men disappeared, Nikolai said, "Conrad, you must tell me what's happened for me to help you. Who is your Bride?"

Conrad hastily said, "Neomi, this beautiful little dancer. Love her. So much it pains me. Have to find her."

We're free. I can go to Daniela at last, Murdoch thought, barely hearing what Conrad told them, something about cemeteries and resurrections - needing to listen for his Bride's heartbeats?

Sebastian said, "The ghost thing again," just as Murdoch muttered, "Con's thoroughly lost it."

Conrad snapped his fangs at them, his red eyes glowing. "This happened!"

"I don't know what outcome I'm hoping for," Sebastian began. "Either Conrad's irretrievably mad, or his Bride is a spirit from beyond whose corpse is lost. This seems like a lose-lose."

"He always did things differently," Murdoch said absently, scarcely believing the fact that Conrad had gotten loose - and been blooded - and that Murdoch and his other brothers were freed. All was right with Kristoff.

I can possibly win Daniela. And keep her. But first he had to find her. Murdoch dared a slap on Conrad's back, saying, "I would like to stay, but I have an emergency that's weeks overdue. Good luck, Con." With that, he traced from the castle.

He could think of only one person who'd know how to reach Daniela.

In the past, he'd gone by Val Hall to see where she had lived for the last seventy years - it was a haunting place protected by flying, spectral wraiths.

Now Murdoch returned there, ready to do battle with them in order to see Nix the Ever-Knowing. The soothsayer had been helping everyone else.

Why not me?

CHAPTER 38

"Because you bit her," Nix told him before he'd spoken a word.

While he'd been wasting precious time determining how to evade the cloud of wraiths and storm Val Hall, they'd suddenly parted for Nix as she'd casually strolled from the manor.

"That's why I won't tell you where it is," she continued. She was chewing gum and wore a pink T-shirt that read: Jedi Kitty.

Taken aback, he said, "Nix, I'm Murdoch Wroth. You've been working with my brother Nikolai, and I need - "

"I know who you are. And what you've done to poor Daniela. You've driven her straight into the arms of that hot-on-a-stick Jadian."

No, Daniela wasn't lost yet. She couldn't be. "Tell me how to get to her."

"Why should I?" the soothsayer asked in a mulish tone. "I like her with Jadian. He doesn't, oh, burn her cold skin as he drains her blood."

Murdoch flushed.

"Maybe you should do the selfless thing and let her go," Nix said. "What if she can be happier there?"

"Maybe I should give her all the information she doesn't have yet, information she'll need to make this decision."

"What doesn't she know?"

"That I'm in love with her, and I'm willing to do whatever it takes to be with her." His father's words arose in his mind: Son, you've never cared about anything enough to fight for it - or to fear losing it. Though this might have been true then, now Murdoch was making up for three centuries of not caring.

"I never told her these things." Murdoch closed in on Nix. "Valkyrie, I won't rest until I get the chance to."

She cast him an appraising glance, squinting as if he were a book she was trying to read in dim light.

He ran his palm over his face. "Look, I know you helped the Lykae Bowen several times. You've even assisted Nikolai. But you won't help me? Why, damn it?"

She blinked up at him. "Because I play favorites?"

He scowled. "Tell me anything. Anything at all."

"Anything? Okay - a lot of people have some serious money on the fact that you're a cad."

"No longer," he bit out. "Can't you see the future and know that I'm going to be good to her?"

She narrowed her eyes. After long moments, she said, "Huh. You remain eternally faithful to her. I did not see that one coming."

Irritation flared. Like he needed her to tell him that.

She shrugged. "I still won't help you find her. Even if I was moved to deus ex your machina, I refuse to portend for every Tom, Murdoch, and Harry. It cheapens the experience, and before long I'll have a reputation as a sooth-whore." She fogged her claws, then buffed them on her T-shirt. "Besides, you already know how to reach Daniela."

"How? Tell me!" From the memories?

The moment began to feel surreal, as if all of his life had been leading up to this. The world seemed to spin. He pictured Daniela carving tirelessly; he strained his memory to see precisely what she'd wrought -

"Fine, I will divulge one thing... " Nix said. "Danii's going to make Jadian her king. If she hasn't already."

Ah, Christ, no.

With that prediction, Nix traipsed back past the wraiths - handing them a lock of hair?  -  leaving him with a knot of dread in his chest. What if Daniela had married Jadian?

Murdoch's fangs sharpened. Then she'll become a widow.

He traced back to Siberia to gear up at the lodge, dragging a backpack from a closet. When he turned around, Nikolai and Myst appeared in the room.

"So this is where you've been hiding out," Nikolai said. Then he frowned. "The last place I would've looked for you. Literally, the last of your properties we've tried over the months. Siberia, Murdoch? There's only one way it could make sense to live here."

Murdoch punched clothes and cold-weather gear into the pack. "I don't have time for this."

"Make time," Myst said. "We know you're with Danii."

"I'm not with her. That's the goddamned problem."

Whatever Myst saw in his expression made hers soften. "What are you planning?" she asked more gently. "To go to Icergard?"

"Yes."

"To bring her back?"

He said nothing, just continued to pack.

Her eyes went wide. "To live there? You won't survive it. The Icere lands make Siberia feel balmy."

Nikolai added, "It's dark now, but what will you do in the summer? At that latitude, it will be light twenty-four hours a day."

"I'll stay inside. In a coffin, if I have to."

"And Kristoff?" Nikolai asked. "You swore your fealty. And now that we're finally working on an alliance with the Valkyrie, you plan to desert the army? He'll be forced to kill you for that, especially on the heels of our last transgression."

"I know this! God, I know."

"You won't be able to see your family any longer." Nikolai moved in front of him. "Speaking of which, I know you're too preoccupied to ask, but Conrad is fine. I just left him. He was telling the truth about his Bride, Neomi. She's a comely little dancer who - if you can imagine this - adores him and calms him."

Murdoch slowed. "I am glad for that."

"How are you even going to get to this Icergard?" Nikolai said. "It's late fall in the Arctic. The temps could already be forty below. Damn it, Murdoch, think about that. If you spit, it will freeze before it hits the ground."

"No planes can fly there," Myst said. "Not even Lore planes."

He fastened up his pack. "I'll get as far north as I can, then trace the rest of the way."

"You can only trace as far as you can see," Nikolai said. "You better hope the visibility is good."

"We'll call Kaderin," Myst offered. "She'll be able to help with the logistics. She knows how to get to places better than anyone."

Murdoch shook his head. "I don't have time. And I think I know a way."

Daniela had been missing one cryomancy symbol, the one Murdoch had shattered. He would use her memories to recreate it.

Because he'd dreamed her meeting with Jadian and had heard their conversation, Murdoch was aware that her last symbol wasn't correct. He knew if he copied Daniela's work, the portal would open two hundred miles south of Icergard.

He also knew that Jadian doubted even Daniela could survive that cold wasteland - the White Death.

Murdoch shook his head hard, resolve like steel inside him. So he would have to trace a couple hundred miles north - quickly.

How bad can it be?

Murdoch had never comprehended what cold was.

An arctic blizzard raged around him, howling so loudly it pained his ears.

The visibility was maybe two feet, which meant he could trace no farther than that at a time. His muscles were weakening, flagging more with each brutal minute. He'd been forced to ditch his gear miles back.

Hour after hour dragged by... I've gotten turned around somehow. His compass didn't work. There was no way to see the stars in this never-ending storm. So confused.

If he stopped, he would freeze here. But it wouldn't kill him. He'd live on, frozen and trapped, until someone dragged him to a warm place to thaw.

Yet even that horrific fate wasn't enough to keep him moving.

No, it wasn't until he thought about never seeing Daniela again that he gritted his teeth and pushed on. Envisioning her elven face kept him going -

Were there lights ahead in the distance? Imagining it? Struggling to make out the hazy sight, he pulled aside his face guard, taking off a frozen layer of skin with it. He staggered, feeling like acid had just doused his face.

Ignore the pain. How far was it to those lights? He teleported forward, but got no closer, forced back by some kind of invisible barrier. He tried once more. Nothing. He fought to get there, grappling to reach the lights, to reach her.

Toiling... over and over.

Ultimately, his strength ebbed to nothing, and he collapsed to his knees in the snow. A vicious gust roared over him, laying him out.

With his last ounce of will, he stretched a hand forward.

"Daniela..."

CHAPTER 39

Danii sat on her throne, thinking about witches - and abdication.

I could meet with Mariketa the Awaited, bring her a bucketful of softball-size diamonds, and ask her to put me on her list.

Even if Murdoch wasn't keen on waiting fifty years, reserving a spot couldn't hurt.

And Danii could return to Val Hall, now that she could live in New Orleans safe from assassins. She'd add some serious tonnage to her A/C and really get some cold cranking.