The Wildest Winter
In the cracks of light, I looked for you
Summary: Viviane had not been Under the Mountain. As her childhood friend, Kallias had been protective of her to a fault over the years- had placed the sharp-minded female on border duty to avoid the scheming of his court. He didn't let her near Amarantha, either. Didn't let anyone get a whiff of what he felt for his white-haired friend, who had no clue- not one- that he had loved her his entire life.
Read More: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | AO3
[six months before the curse]
“Are you sure about this?” Viviane asked, eyeing the curved blade in her hand. Not with distaste for the crystalline steel glimmering beneath a full sun, but because it was inherently an unfair fight. She had to wonder if Nikolai, who had remained behind after Calanmai, was even aware of what she could do with carefully timed ice alongside a Winter Court blade.
Nikolai had stayed to help her train more sentries they hardly needed. Autumn wasn’t so desperate they’d stage an invasion, though Kallias was unnerved after the ice bridge had gone tattling to the High Lord, who of course had money for more soldiers. Nikolai was to oversee and Kira had been begrudgingly called back to court.
That, Viviane supposed, was for the best. Nikolai had come home that morning coated in blue, his eyes wild, his skin practically frosted over. Whatever had happened had unnerved him enough he refused to speak about it and Kira had sworn up and down nothing had happened.
Viviane wondered which was worse—they had sex and it was so good it freaked them out, or it was so bad they couldn’t make eye contact any longer.
That was how she felt with Einar. All that build up only to be fucked on his dining room table for the better part of two hours. She hadn’t dared tell Kallias the reason she couldn’t finish wasn’t because Einar was no good—he’d done his best with his lips and tongue and teeth—but because she couldn’t get her friend out of her mind. She’d tried. Viviane had taken control, had climbed into Einars lap, eyes locked on his.
Not Kal, not Kal, not Kal—
For all the good it did. In the end she’d faked it and gone crawling home like a miserable, terrible friend. Viviane still didn’t know what had possessed her that day. Maybe Calanmai merely heightened the tension growing between them, twisting it into lust. It had faded by morning—faded with each new carefully drawn sheet he’d made for her where he detailed how much it cost to treat the water each month. She’d fallen asleep with her head on his shoulder and woken alone in bed. Kallias had likely put her there before venturing into the city himself, because when Viviane woke, he smelled as though he’d been drenched in arousal not long before and his hair had been wrecked.
It didn’t inspire jealousy in her, at any rate, which made it easy to write the whole night off as a one off.
“Square up, Viv,” Nikolai ordered. She almost rolled her eyes at the command. They stood down in the valley in a makeshift training ring Kira had erected decades before. It would have been the perfect place for expanded barracks and an armory, had the High Lord ever allowed her such a thing. Perhaps Nikolai’s influence would change all that. It was the second to last missing puzzle to crafting her city as a major player. The very last was convincing both Kallias and the High Lord that the emissary from Hybern should be allowed to visit—to trade with them. Not just Hybern, of course. Autumn, Spring, and Summer, too. And with even a fraction of the High Lord’s court coming to live in Wegen, even if it was just to ski when the weather was mild, was enough.
Barracks first.
Nikolai pulled his icy blade from its sheath, the metal singing in the air. Viviane ignored that Einar had come to watch, his dark eyes blazing with curiosity. She also ignored that Kallias had said he’d come three days before and still hadn’t. All of those things were distractions.
She twisted her blade, offering a show of her teeth that wasn’t quite a smile. She waited for him to lunge before offering her own strike. Nikolai, she’d been told, had some magic of his own. Viviane wanted to find out just how much. And, perhaps, wanted to show off to the people she oversaw, if only a little.
It was a careful dance of her feet and body, of knowing how she moved against the wind and the squelching mud. Nikolai was a warrior, trained just as she had been, though not quite as quick on his feet.
Not as careful with his magic. He was the first to strike, panting as he sent a blast of skin shredding ice her way. Viviane barked out a laugh, dodging it easily.
And then rained a torrent upon him. Nikolai had to choose between defending his person with his blade and risk her icy wrath or block the ice and risk her blade. It was the oldest trick in Viviane’s book. She thought that because she used her magic so infrequently, and never at its full intensity, that people often forgot what hummed in her veins.
Forgot why a future High Lord courted her attention.
“Mother save me, Viv,” Nikolai panted. “Were you trying to kill me?”
Her victory was short-lived. As she walked to her friend, offering him a hand and noting where the blood staining his lips and cheeks, a new voice called through the mountain air.
“Now me.”
Nikolai’s smirk told Viviane everything she needed to know. She turned, her eyes finding Kallias as he swung his powerful body over the fence with ease. Just to the left of him was Einar, watching her friend with guarded, almost distrustful eyes. She’d forgotten he’d only been interested in her when he learned Kallias was up at the palace.
It was a question for another day. Kallias had never once let her beat him and Viviane didn’t relish being beaten into the dirt in front of all the people she was supposed to oversee.
“Where’s your sword, Kal?” she taunted, annoyed when Nikolai handed his over before leaving them alone in the muddy pit.
“Miss me?” he asked, cocking his head to the side. The cold air ruffled at his white air, all but kissing his fair cheeks red.
“Were you gone?” she replied blithely, pretending to examine her blade.
He shook his head, running his tongue along the inside of his cheek. “I missed you.”
“Why wouldn’t you? I’m funny, I’m pretty, I’m smart…all the things you lack—”
His blade sang through the air before she could finish, crashing into hers with such force it made her bones vibrate. Gone was Kallias’s easy amusement–those eyes were practically granite against his glacial face. She had to remind herself that this was how he focused—this was how he’d always been in the ring.
Your enemies won’t smile when they kill you, Viv.
She smiled, noting how he stumbled ever so slightly—not enough to turn things in her favor but enough to remind her that Kallias was so easily distracted by someone acting in a way he didn’t expect.
She sent him that first blast of ice, catching him against the cheekbone. He snarled, flinging his own magic viciously back at her. He was so much stronger she couldn’t avoid it all—she felt the burning sting against her exposed neck. She smelled the salt of her blood in the air but didn’t dare touch it. Not when Kallias’s blade came singing towards her. Viviane slammed to the ground, her whole body squelching into the cold, muddy ground in an effort to block him.
It was easy to forget what Kallias was beneath his refined clothes and his fascination with numbers. He’d taught her to fight, afterall. His body was a weapon—he was an animal. He snapped his teeth against the cold, one of his thighs pressed between her legs as he bore his blade closer and closer to her wound.
Viviane took a risk, letting go of the hilt of her sword to press her frosted palm against his face. He roared against the pain, distracted just enough for her to plant her boot into his chest and push away. There was nothing fun about this fight anymore—it wasn’t quick like with Nikolai, nor was it particularly like a dance. It felt like a true battle where only one of them could walk away with their pride unwounded.
Kallias sent another vicious blast of ice and wind directly at her, one Viviane offered up in equal measure. He cut his face again, though not half as bad as his own shards, which sliced through her jacket, exposing her skin to salty mountain air.
She hissed, slammed right back to the ground as Kallias snarled in her face. His teeth were inches from her neck, his thigh wedged between her leg so hard she could feel the radiating heat. The only thing keeping him from pressing his body wholly against her was her blade between them.
Her arms shook from the effort.
“Surrender, Viv,” he whispered. “Let me clean up the blood.”
“You’re a bastard,” she replied. It didn’t matter. He wrenched her blade from his hand, tossing it to the ground and then pressed his own gently against her skin.
“An admirable effort,” he murmured, removing his blade and replacing it with his hand. All at once his body was off hers and Viviane couldn’t decide if she was angry or she was disappointed.
She took his hand, her body aching as she stood. No one made a sound—not Nikolai, who watched with eyes rounder than saucers.
And not Einar, who had gone ashen in the wake of their brutal showdown.
“What’s with them?” she whispered, letting Kallias brace her body against his own.
“They’ve never seen your kind of raw power,” he offered charitably. And maybe that was true. Maybe they hadn’t expected that kind of magic to blow out of her.
But privately, Viviane thought it was Kallias who had surprised them. She’d forgotten what he was like when he was unleashed—how uncomfortable the High Lord had once been of him and the magic glowing silver from his skin. No one had ever dared voice those concerns out loud, but Viviane understood them as she looked from the shocked faces of the warriors around them.
Kallias had all the markers of the next High Lord.
She reached between them for his arm. She didn’t want to think about how she’d lose him should that ever come to pass.
“Take me home,” she murmured, pressing her head into his shoulder.
He was just her friend—at least for now.
KALLIAS:
[five months before the curse]
“Kal–” Kallias cut off her breathless plea, his tongue delving back into her mouth. More, he needed more. He couldn’t stop the desperate glide of his hands over her naked form, mapping her skin beneath his palms. Beneath him, Viviane moaned, grasping at his hair so viciously she was in danger of pulling the strands out by the root. He didn’t care.
Still clad in his pants, he ground against her, desperate for relief. Kallias was drowning in the scent of her arousal, drinking it down while he tasted every inch of her mouth. Kallias needed to put his tongue between her legs, needed to know if all of her was sweet. She was warm here, open and inviting and he was so wrecked he couldn’t get his stupid body to catch up with his screaming brain.
He was running out of time. He couldn’t explain it. Something was ticking loudly in his head, some countdown to his doom he wanted to avoid. Wanted to ignore in favor of his female clawing at his back.
“Kal,” she panted, arching her neck so he could nip kisses down her skin. His fingers tugged and teased at her pebbled nipples, drawing more of her arousal into the air. Burying his face between her breasts, Kallias inhaled deeply. This was what he’d been missing. This was what he needed.
He’d never felt so wild in his life. He was unrestrained for perhaps the first time in his life and it was all Viviane’s fault. He pushed apart her legs roughly, taking a moment to admire the splayed out form of her on his silken silver sheet.
“You’re perfect,” he breathed, lifting her leg to press feather soft kisses up her thigh. She squirmed, eyes locked on his face. She wanted to watch? Kallias held her gaze, lowering his face until he could kiss the pale, pink lips of her cunt. Viviane exhaled, whimpering for more.
It was a dream, he thought. She was a dream, spread open for him to taste. He went to take that first hot taste of her, to slick his tongue over her clit—-
A banging on Kallias’s bedroom door dragged him from an all too familiar dream. He’d never gotten that far before. Usually Kallias woke just as he was about to remove her clothing. To find his head between her parted thighs was a new, almost exciting development, at least where his imagination was concerned. Nothing had changed between him and Viviane. As far as he knew, she was still seeing the disappointing male in Wegen and he was…well, Kallias was doing the world's shittiest job courting her. Unless, of course, utterly obliterating her with his magic counted as some romantic overture.
He very much doubted it. Viviane might have forgiven him for it, but the people of Wegen certainly hadn’t. They’d watched him with narrow-eyed suspicion the following day, as if he might turn her to a block of ice if she displeased him. As if Viviane wasn’t capable of removing his balls should he ever deserve it.
That vicious knock forced Kallias to snarl. Night still poured through his half open drapes and his cock was throbbing with need. “What?”
“Get up,” Kira’s voice whispered from behind the door. “Right now, get up.”
He shoved the blanket off his naked body and stuffed himself in the first pair of pants he could find, artfully arranging himself so it wasn’t entirely obvious he had an erection. Kallias pulled open the door, shrugging a shirt over his head.
Kira looked scared. Wide-eyed in the flickering hall light, she lunged for his wrist and began dragging him down the hall. Kallias was barefoot, though so was she, a robe hanging off her small frame.
“What is happening?” he hissed, running a hand through his messy hair in an attempt to keep it from falling into his eyes.
“Gunnar,” she whispered. “Oh Gods, Kal….he…”
A mournful wail interrupted what Kira had been about to say. He knew that voice.
“Gunnar?”
“Killed his wife,” Kira managed, practically shaking as she led him towards the throne room. “She wanted to leave him, too. And I guess…”
Kallias’s steps slowed as he imagined it. Wanting someone so badly you would have done anything to possess them, only to realize they didn’t want you back. The females at court had been lobbying hard, but Gunnar’s wife had been against them.
“What changed?”
Kira shrugged. “Special treatment for her, hell for everyone else? I’m sorry,” Kira added softly. “I shouldn’t…he killed her.”
Kallias started to ask Kira how she could possibly know that, but the scent of blood flooded his senses. He understood why when he came into the vividly bright throne room, joining the other courtiers flooding in to witness the spectacle.
The High Lord stared at his son with lifeless eyes while his son clutched at his wife's bloodless body, kneeling half naked in her blood. It was the gravest offense in their court—to take a life, especially one as defenseless as Gunnar’s wife had been.
All Kallias could see was Viviane laying there, her silver hair stained red as her blood cooled beneath Gunnar’s naked knees. She would have wanted the same—maybe not to leave him, given how dutiful Viviane could be, but the autonomy to be more than just the High Lord’s wife. She would have been vivacious and, when angry, vicious.
She would have died, too. Kallias put his hand over his chest, unable to get the image out of his mind. He might have winnowed straight to her had the High Lord not taken a step towards his hunched over son.
Everyone fell silent. Even Kallias didn’t believe the High Lord would kill his own son, law or not. Gunnar made no move to defend himself and Kallias wondered if he even realized what his father meant to do until it was too late. Gunnar twisted, eyes wide as he took a gasping breath of frigid air.
Kallia couldn’t watch this. He turned, pulling his arm from Kira’s grasp. He didn’t need to be present to hear that frigid death rattle or to know the High Lord had turned his son's lungs to ice. It was the end of a dynasty as old as their territory, ruined over one spoiled male too unused to being told no.
Kallias flexed his fingers as warmth twanged through his body. He stumbled, almost crashing into a wall in an attempt to steady himself. His palm caught against the smooth surface, steadied by Kira who had followed him out.
“Kal—”
“Don’t,” he rasped, hating himself for the first time in his life. The High Lord would realize, would know the truth of the matter soon enough. His son might have inherited had he been a better father. And now a new line would rise through Winter, assuming Kallias lived long enough to see the High Lord fade.
“Kallias—!”
A woman's high pitched scream forced a groan out of Kallias, his knees buckling beneath the weight of a vicious, violent cascade of magic. His palms stung, bracing his weight against the smooth floor while raw, unstemmed magic raced through his veins unrestrained. He looked over his shoulder to Kira, who knelt beside him. Her face was etched with her terror, the screaming in the throne room just behind him ringing in his ears.
“What did he do?” Kallias managed, bowing his head against the onslaught.
“Could you survive the loss of your own child?” Kira whispered. The scent of warm blood filled the air, driving out all other thoughts. Had the High Lord truly chosen to kill himself rather than live with his grief? Kallias forced himself to stand, his legs shaking. Kira helped, bracing him against her body while he got his runaway heart under control.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Kallias whispered, flexing his fingers.
How would he ever explain this? To the court, his people…to Viviane?
“Go,” Kira told him. “The longer you make them wonder, the longer they have to plot against you. Shore up your power now.”
He had only a second to make a decision. It should have been Nikolai, he lamented. Kira ought to have remained with Viviane.
“Get your sword,” he ordered. Kira’s eyes widened, and yet she nodded, racing down the hall. He had moments to get himself together, to step into that blood-soaked throne room and pretend this was normal–that he was normal. Kallias flexed his fingers, reveling in the feel of his magic, of the newness thrumming beneath his skin.
He took a step, swearing the world around him seemed to tremble. The screaming stopped and, with a breath, Kallias stepped into the room. The sight laid before him threatened to turn his stomach. Gunnar knelt before the corpse of his once beautiful wife, a block of frigid, blue ice. Beside him, the High Lord lay in his own rapidly cooling blood, his heart half torn from his body. It was all so gruesome, so unnecessary. Kallias knew that even if he lived for a century more, he’d never forget the sight. Not of the court that now belonged to him, all staring with wide, mistrusting eyes.
Kira skidded into the room, flanked by several sentries. She still wore her blue night dress, comical against the vicious look on her face.
“Kneel,” Kallias ordered, watching those sentries from across the room. He needed their support if he didn’t want to die in the next few days. The transition between one family to the next was rocky—or, so he’d been told. Winter had always avoided those kinds of shifting power plays. His eyes drifted back to the High Lord, who loved his son so much he couldn’t tell him no. Would have seen all of Winter crumble beneath one spoiled lordling's whim then govern as he should.
It was a reminder for Kallias, who turned his back to the kneeling nobility, of what he stood to lose. How things could go wrong so quickly—how he might lose focus if he wasn’t careful.
It felt strange, ascending the white cut dais to the glittering blue and amethyst throne. Kallias seated himself atop it, sweeping his eyes over the room.
High Lord.
He’d never wanted it.
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