November 26, 2024 • 86 mins
This week, the Traders visit the icy land of Wintercraig in a romantasy full of weather magic and intrigue as they cover The Winter King by C.L. Wilson. This is Part 2 of 4
Triggers: torture, abuse, loss of pregnancy, discussion of off-page war and rape
Tropes: damsel in distress, enemies to lovers, magic systems, miscommunication
KU: Yes
Recommendation: Yes?
For more of the author, check out www.clwilson.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I'm gonna record.
(00:06):
That's okay, claps are good.
I know.
I know.
I know.
Okay, let's go on the seven second mark.
I'm gonna do something real quick, restlessly.
(00:34):
I'm like what am I doing?
I'm gonna take one unforgettable moment.
oops...
I feel felt sorry for you.
remember the last time we talked about this? I think it was in October, like, no it was
(00:57):
two weeks ago, you're right. It feels like a lifetime. Yeah, like I've slipped a lot
since then. We have a new president-elect. My faith in humanity is gone.
(01:22):
It could be. Look at people. Yeah, I know if you're a Republican, don't listen to this podcast.
Fuck off. No.
(02:01):
Yeah. Yeah, that's totally fine. And the thing that I wanted to say,
(02:31):
too, if I haven't said this before, is that the mic upgrades will help with that. So I did done say
that. There we go. It's gonna be a fun episode, guys buckle up. Look, it's been a week. What a year.
(03:00):
Oh my god. Yeah, fuck off. What's the handmade tail top, like,
Narkbitch name? I never watched it, so I don't know. It's like, oh, okay.
(03:35):
I don't know. What's it be, kitty girl? I don't know. I can't watch the handmade tail. It's too close to home.
(03:59):
I said that when it came out during the first Trump presidency, and I'm sure it's not gonna watch it now.
But we'll just wipe Mariko. I'm so sorry. Yeah. Thanks.
(04:40):
Oh, I love that. Yeah, I like that. I like that a lot. I didn't know that about that, too. I've always loved it.
(05:03):
It was like one of the first ones that you got, like the first big visible ones that I remember you getting.
Nice. I love that. I love that so much. Can I tell you something that I was thinking about last night, and I don't even know if it's a fully formed thought yet, but I, you sent me this that thing on Instagram that made me cry.
(05:42):
And then I started thinking about all of the things that I admire about you, and one of the things that I admire about you is that you have this really deeply ingrained, I don't give a flying fuck, like vibe, which is so interesting because there's like this also very strong people pleasing, like, I think that's been beaten into you by your mother.
(06:08):
But seeing that like, peel back more and more, especially over the last year has been just like so fucking awesome.
Yeah, yeah, I agree. I mean, like, because every time, because you do the Minnie Mouse place when you're doing the people pleasing thing, and just like the real you is just like, no, I'm gonna do what I fucking want.
(06:40):
Even when we were in high school, you would do things like that and say like, I don't give a fuck and I would be like, you don't give a fuck. That's awesome. What is that like?
(07:02):
Yeah, drama. Yeah. Anyway, I just had to share that with you. Dear Dari, is your laptop moving?
(07:28):
Anyway. Yeah, so shall we get to this?
All right, you leave me in. Today, we are talking about part two of the Winter King by CL Wilson. This part will cover chapters eight through 15 and it is part two of four. So buckle up.
(08:07):
I'm gonna be real honest. It's been a fucking minute since I read this and I'm reading these notes like, what is happening?
(08:33):
Guildheim. Yeah. You have a sixth of the book left because it's 600 and some changes long.
Yeah. No, I know that whole relationship is a little bit weird, actually.
(09:09):
1012. I don't know.
(09:33):
Yeah, no, I think that's the whole thing that I don't like about it. Yeah. Like, I don't want to spend, well, I don't know. I haven't been starved for human interaction my entire life, so take this with a grain of salt.
But I don't have a whole lot of, I didn't have a whole lot in common with a 10 slash 12 year old when I was in my early 20s.
(09:55):
Granted, I was in college and drinking my face off, but that's not the point.
Well, her only friend was her nursemaid, which again is staff.
Yeah, oh girl. Okay. Anyway, so let's get into it.
(10:19):
So if you will remember, I sure didn't, that we last left off that Cam made a very powerful resolution.
And then the very next chapter, chapter eight, we pick up with Cam on the brink of death.
And so I read this and the scream I scrumpt, I was like, which is it girl?
Like, you can't just say, I'm not going to let anybody get me down, especially not no man, and then die. Like, essentially.
(10:49):
I'm just going to say, I'm not going to let anybody get me down, because I'm not going to let anybody get me down.
So I'm going to say, I'm not going to let anybody get me down.
(11:12):
Literally. Yes.
Yeah.
(11:35):
Put her in the sun for a couple of hours. Isn't she fine?
Yeah.
Dun dun dun.
(12:18):
Yeah. There are a lot of like, plot twists. I just wish that there were fewer of them, because like,
I will say this book, damsel in distress is really hard. It just feels like a lot.
Like at some point, yeah, she should be traveling with a bunch of guards, because she gets herself into trouble like, constantly.
(12:48):
But girl, back it up.
Yeah, like a stiffed wing could blow her over.
(13:17):
Truly. All the time. Yeah. Or how do I make it like, like your dad knows when a thunderstorm brews?
I would have, I would have tested that to the point where he didn't fucking know.
And I would have summoned rainstorms at the same time every day.
And just like, how did you not do that? That's how I would entertain myself.
(13:44):
Oh, did you read the part where she heats the snow?
Yeah. Yes.
Yeah. Girl.
Well, and if you can do that, what else can you do?
(14:10):
Can you make things wet?
Yeah. Well.
(14:38):
No, it's good. It's good. So Cam is dying.
And remember, they're in like this, I want to call it a smorgasborgas of like, people in armor, but it's an army.
And they're essentially walking back to their home, which is, sorry, just a wild concept I'm actually thinking about right now.
(15:08):
Wow. So this, this column of like, people marching from one place to the other, mostly men, is stopped again.
And it's been four days that they're stopped that her health has deteriorated to the point where Winter Surgeon has to examine Cam.
(15:29):
The surgeon says that, well, she hasn't eaten in two days and the maid has been helping to cover it up out of loyalty to Cam.
Cam's wounds are infected and this has now gotten into her bloodstream.
So Winter's like, we gotta, we gotta split up, right?
Like Valak, you take the majority of these soldier boys to Gildenheim and I'll stay here with my new wifey.
(15:54):
And Valak's like, that's a terrible idea.
Respectfully, no.
Hi, Ruffys.
Get off your phone. No.
Valak says, you know, Winter, it's not that I don't believe that you can't defend yourself,
it's that I know that you're going to be distracted and that's not a good place for you to be.
(16:16):
So Winter's like, cool, everybody else go home. Valak and a couple of other guards, you stay.
And we're going to rest until Cam is either dead or well enough to travel.
Yeah.
I mean, those are the two options, I guess. We can't just live here on the side of the road.
(16:37):
So in Winter's tent, the surgeon attends Cam by cleaning her wounds and then packing them again with a different type of poultice
since the one that she had been using obviously wasn't working.
They do this every hour, for three days.
When her fever spikes on the third evening, Cam summons a storm in her delirium.
(17:01):
This storm is so violent that it's like ripping holes in the tent and like setting fires with the lightning.
So Winter has to use his ice heart power to cool her body and like embrace her to bring the fever down, right?
Because she's like delirious from the temperature that her body is.
He does this twofold, right? He doesn't want her to die, but also he doesn't want to die from the lightning that's striking all around them.
(17:26):
So he's like, okay, how do we make this stop?
Inwardly, he tells us, quote,
That was the insidious price of the ice heart. Each use of its power, no matter how minute, robbed him, Winter, of some irretrievable portion of his humanity.
After three years of war and death, so little of his former self remained, he felt even the tiniest additional loss like a hammer to the heart.
(17:50):
He could literally feel himself growing more distant, more unfeeling, more like the dread, soulless monster of legend, end quote.
It is kind of a wild concept, and I- we get a lot of information about how it works.
(18:14):
We don't get a lot of information about where it came from.
Uh-huh.
Right, like who- who likes him and who doesn't? Like...
(18:41):
It also struck me as the kind of thing like in Harry Potter, where you have werewolves who don't know themselves or their loved ones when they turn into a werewolf.
Like that's kind of the vibe I got when like you turn into the Ice King.
Which is terrifying.
(19:05):
Right.
Well, and then what happens when two people drink the ice heart?
Or are there two kings running around?
(19:31):
Yeah, it's- yeah, we- well, lucky for you we don't get answers to these questions.
So this- go ahead.
(19:57):
Oh, you haven't gotten there? He definitely comes back. Spoilers.
Yeah, he's a little bitch too, so can't really put that.
So Winter is trying to use his lack of body heat to cool Cam down, but that doesn't entirely work.
(20:19):
So he has to use his own weather gifts to bleed Cam's storm until it dissipates.
So he essentially like freezes the like rain part of it to make it like a drier storm until there's not enough moisture for it to like exist, essentially.
Something. I don't know. I'm not a meteorologist.
(20:43):
Before this, I know that you'll be surprised to learn I am not a meteorologist.
So before the storm totally dissipates, Cam is struck by a bolt of lightning, but instead of killing her, it heals all of her wounds completely.
After that, what a twist. After that bolt, the storm completely subsides and they are able to rest without fear of death.
(21:13):
In the morning, Cam wakes up and learns that she's been out for five days in total. Winter brings her food and both of them are almost too horny to let her eat.
Because they're both naked and like she's no longer in pain, I guess. They're not naked. He's got like a loincloth on for some reason, even though it's snowing outside.
(21:39):
Yeah, she is naked though. She's just under like furs or something.
So she's eating, right? And as she does so, she asks him how many men she killed with her storm. Just offhandedly, she's like, so how many people died?
And he's like, no one died, sweetheart. And Cam is shocked and relieved by this.
(22:05):
Winter goes on to tell her that he starved her storm before it could cause any real damage. And she's like, what a thought.
So she eats in peace. She's really happy, feeling like a hundred bucks. And so Winter calls for a bath.
As people are bringing in the stuff for the bath, there's like servants and a couple of people, he feels himself being unusually aggressive, intense with other people in the room with Cam.
(22:32):
He chocks it up to his wolf and nothing more.
Very that, yeah.
So when they're alone again, it's clear that Winter intends to bathe Cam herself and Cam is like, this is uncomfortable.
(22:58):
But this was so awkward, because he tells her, he essentially goads her into letting him bathe her by saying things like, quote, I didn't know you were such an oath breaker.
As my wife, you swore to offer me the fruits of your life, which is such a weird way to say I'm owed sex.
Well, and she says it back to him, but it would like in that context, I just think of gonads and I'm like, no, thank you.
(23:32):
Yeah.
But he's like, we're married and like marriage, blah, blah, owed physicality, like, are you gonna deny me that and be an oath breaker and she's like, absolutely not.
Yeah, well, I think so they actually have that conversation in a second, but even here she's like, you know, I wouldn't be mad about it.
(24:10):
Right.
So okay, he bathes her and as he does so, Cam asks about his threat to kill her if she doesn't give him an air in a year, and he tells her that he can't afford to not have an air.
And if she doesn't provide one, he will have to take another wife.
So with that truth hanging between them, Cam literally says, quote, as the beginning of heirs holds such dire import, I suggest we get to it.
(24:35):
And so they copulate a lot.
Yeah, maybe you started intimidating me. Let's go.
Okay.
And I'm gonna, I'm not gonna lie. I didn't hate it.
(24:58):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So this, this scene is definitely a lot closer to how I remember Christine Feehan being like it's specific but but somehow not so like most often it refers to like a sex, rather than like a dick, for example.
(25:21):
But it has no issue talking about nipples. It's such a strange combination, because it also feels a bit like stodgy because they scream like husband and wife during it.
Like, I don't think I've done that in my entire life.
And like, I know what the author was going for, but like, come on.
(25:49):
And like,
this
And like, I don't think it's giving anything away to say that like all of the sex in this book is pretty vanilla.
(26:23):
No, you just showed me some missionary style bullshit.
Yeah. And like, I think the foreplay in this type of book is like this kind of animal magnetism that they have with each other, but it just doesn't really do it for me after a while.
(26:52):
Yeah, that that's really the thing.
So I need a lot of diversity. Come on.
So in this scene too, right, they do it a couple of times and in one of the scenes, she gets on top and there's a little bit of teaching happening that I could honestly do without, because he has to teach her how to be on top, which like is fine, but it's it's very stilted in practice.
(27:20):
And I didn't like it.
(27:45):
Which is also like doubling down on the fact that they know nothing about each other.
Yeah, this is.
You have more places for your feet to go on a horse because like you're in the air and your feet go around the horse, whereas like when you're on top of somebody they're like folded back and like a warrior pose.
(28:17):
Honestly, tried it can't recommend it.
Yeah, because it definitely makes it more of like an acrobatic feet than like copulation.
(28:44):
You immediately focus on how like hard your thighs are burning.
No, not at all.
Okay, so they spend the night like that and the next morning winter is back to putting distance between them as they prepare to ride to Gildenheim as soon as
(29:13):
they can finish every time.
So as soon as Cam is back in the carriage and it starts moving she's sick and she bolts to relieve her stomach of breakfast.
Winter thinks at first that she's running away, which like these people are zero to 100 and like no no time flat and I can't handle it.
(29:45):
She's betraying me.
Oh wait, she's just peeing.
Got it.
Okay.
Yeah, brother.
(30:11):
Yeah, you need to relax.
So winter goes over to Cam hurling and cams like brother I can't ride in the carriage and he's like cool right on my horse instead baby.
So the first day is rough because she has to ride side saddle because she's an address.
The next day however winter has her dress soon into pants so she can be more comfortable.
(30:35):
That next day winter also doesn't wear his armor so her hair won't get caught in it which that honestly sounds like the worst part.
Yeah, I also appreciate this is the first book that I've read that has like nights and armor and blah blah that's actually talked about the practicalities of how awful armor actually is.
(31:01):
Yeah.
So they travel in the days are long and they share each other at night there's not a lot of closeness between them even though they ride on the same fucking horse.
Finally they reach.
I don't know how that that would work but okay.
(31:27):
Yeah, they only speak when they're having sex.
My lady.
(31:50):
So finally they reach Gildenheim and winter is welcome like a hero cam is introduced to like a fuck ton of people that you can't remember and we shouldn't either because they don't matter.
But there are two people that matter and one of them is Lady Galicia Frey who is the high priestess of Wern and also Reika Villani who immediately has cams backup because she's overly familiar with winter.
(32:16):
Once inside winter deposits cam with his head of serpents and immediately leaves her behind cam tries to remind herself that she's had a lifetime of being ignored and shuffled out of view so this should be nothing new.
But she can't help but notice that this feels different. She chides herself to not go and catch feelings for this man that this is a political marriage.
(32:47):
Couldn't be feelings.
Yeah, I remember that too because it's such a like modern way to look at it like catching feelings for somebody.
(33:10):
Once more.
Dude, the grow lamps I can't.
Yeah, okay, but that's like one of the continuity errors right like this thing is brought up and it's like focused on like oh we got to bring the lamps we got to make room for the lamps and the carriage and then like the lamps disappear when she gets to Gildenheim and I'm like girl you live in the white north you're going to need those fucking grow lamps.
(33:38):
Right.
But what do I know.
So many times.
So as cam is led to her chambers she results to learn the palace like the back of her hand in her rooms she is reunited with Bella and realizes how much she missed her.
Before before before the head of servants leaves cam asked her to organize a tour of the palace for cam for the next day.
(34:03):
As she settles in cam thinks about Falcon and admits to herself and to us that his actions had never really made sense to her.
She's searching for blazing to compound that crime by stealing a king's bride felt like a capital C choice.
But after having had sex with winter she's like I get it.
(34:29):
Still she wonders where he is and whether he realizes the price that everyone else has had to pay for his actions.
So in the first winter we learned that Falcon is suspected to be in a place called Calberna some island nation in the western sea that we don't know about because we don't have a map.
(34:53):
And a nap.
I could use a fucking map yeah.
So Falcon is suspected to be with Elka still going to do that again because my thing moved.
(35:15):
So Falcon is believed to be with Elka still.
And as they plot no.
We learned that Falcon is still with Elka and as winter in his men plot Valic makes snide remarks about how besotted winter is with cam and that doesn't sit right and that doesn't sit right with winter.
After this meeting winter resolves to see Lady Galatia but before he does he tries to see cam but she's not there and so he tries himself for being so besotted.
(35:44):
Okay right.
Yeah he's kind of the worst.
(36:12):
I mean I guess something we should note here is that Valic is Elka and Rhaegh's cousin also.
So we don't ever get confirmation of this but I do wonder how much of this is like kind of getting his backup because Elka was there and like Rhaegh is going to become a thing and so like I don't know maybe it's his own ambition.
(36:41):
Yeah.
His motivations don't make sense.
Right.
(37:10):
That's a really good point.
That's very weird.
Yeah.
Yeah so we don't need inspec- insespec- spaghetti there.
Inspec- spaghetti.
And skeddy.
So over to the temple of Wern.
(37:32):
Galatia meets with winter with weariness.
She tests him.
I have to say it like Galatia.
So Galatia tests him to see if the ice heart has taken him too far.
To do this he has to put his hand into the flame of a torch and because his hand burns that signals to her that he's not totally frozen.
(38:00):
When his skin doesn't burn by fire he'll have totally turned into a demigod of myth the ice king and he must be killed.
Cool.
Sidebar.
Winter just has a burned hand now that we never go back to.
So Galatia tells winter that the garm have come.
(38:26):
The garm are giant wolf-like monsters that serve the frost giants and the frost giants are minions of the ice king.
She tells winter I've told no one but you yet.
And he's like good talk.
Okay.
(38:48):
So we learn other things in this interaction like the fact that winter and Galatia go way back and may have even been betrothed before she was called into the service of the goddess.
Winter tries... why?
Why in slow spaghetti? Why?
(39:22):
Yeah.
Right like pick a side. Also you guys were eight.
(39:49):
Yeah it's very strange.
So winter tries to bait Galatia into admitting that she's jealous of cam and uses her first name in this interaction.
Lacy. But Lacy slash Galatia seems pretty unflappable and uninterested. She's just like move along. Nothing to see here.
(40:12):
I'm glad that that wasn't a thing.
Wires every woman in this court obsessed with winter. Also it's kind of a dick move for winter to be like are you jealous Lacy?
Like fuck off dude.
Pass.
(40:36):
Wasn't interested back then. Still not interested now. I like my sisters. Thank you so much.
So Lacy slash Galatia tells winter that they need to organize a hunt for the garb and that were it not for outstanding threats.
Winter may have more trouble at home than he expected. Too many enemies who want his throne.
(40:59):
She gives him a warning that he probably has less than a year to sire in air and hopes to keep the ice heart at bay.
As winter leaves he tells her of everybody that he knows he'd rather that Lacy be the one to slay him if it comes to that.
(41:32):
So it is worth noting here that when he arrived she was threatening him with this ceremonial spear which is the way that you kill an ice king.
You have to take this spear that was in lore the ice king's wife's and like plunge it through their heart.
Yeah. Anyway.
(41:57):
Back to Cam who is reluctantly getting fitted for more winterized wardrobes.
She tries on one of the dresses in muted winter colors and...
No.
As she tries on one of the dresses that is in muted winter colors winter arrives and Cam realizes that their rooms connect.
Winter gives Cam back her mother's things that he took from her the day that they first met and he almost raped her against the wall.
(42:24):
But these never come back to the story so don't worry about it.
Yeah but it's a gardening book I thought for sure that was going to come back.
But no.
Cam just thanks him and tells him that he's the one who summoned... wait no.
(42:47):
Oh okay. Cam thanks him and then she reveals to him that she's the one who summoned the storm that killed her mother.
Winter tells her that's ridiculous because she was a child.
No one should blame her for the death of her mother.
He tells her quote, you aren't a monster or a curse on anyone's house and you didn't kill your mother.
Cam's head spins with the dichotomy of the winter king as they head to court dinner.
(43:10):
She remarks inwardly quote, how could he offer such disarming kindness and compassion while planning to execute her at year's end if she didn't bear him a child?
That means to an end.
(43:31):
That's just going to make the whole thing much harder.
So at dinner Cam does not have a good time. She feels alone and lost.
It's clear that she's an outsider and Rekha makes sure that she knows it in the worst way.
Rekha encourages people around them to tell their stories under the guise of welcoming Cam but it just strives home how much they all know each other.
(43:52):
That and Rekha's handsy with winter.
We learn here that Rekha is Elka's sister and also Valak's cousin. Cam immediately sees how ambitious she is.
As the dinner goes on, Cam gets more and more angry and ends up summoning a storm outside.
But before she can kill anybody, she excuses herself.
(44:13):
In her room she dismisses Bella and tries to calm down.
But winter quickly joins her and asks her what the fuck.
She's like, oh come on, you can't be blind.
I saw what was happening and he's like, Rekha is just a friend and nothing more.
And that's what Cam says. She's like, Rekha wants to sit on your throne.
And in both ways.
(44:37):
And this is when she says that she expects fidelity from winter.
As her life is forfeit, if she doesn't have a kid, she only sees it as fair.
He asks whether that's the only reason but she deflects.
They end up having sex and winter pushes her to tell him why she wants fidelity.
And she ultimately tells him it's because she will not share.
(45:17):
A baguette.
Yeah.
Yeah, well especially because they have this conversation and there's no long game here when it comes to sexual tension.
(45:47):
Because as soon as they get into a room with each other and they're alone, they have sex.
Like, yeah, there's no slow burn bullshit here.
Well, and it feels like it could have been more interesting if he was like, I am not going to have sex with you until you tell me.
(46:15):
Like, why you want fidelity?
Right.
(46:39):
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
(47:01):
Right.
This is like kind of a minor threat, not even concrete evidence, you know.
Yeah.
So in the night on the floor, winter lies next to Cam as she sleeps and is like, man, I really got to get my shit together.
(47:22):
He describes Cam like a drug that he can't get enough of and he wonders if he really is enchanted as Valix suspects.
When Cam rouses and reaches for him again, he compares her to Elka.
Cam is possessive and fiery.
Elka, nor any other woman had ever acted like that with him.
He realizes that keeping her at arm's length is going to be very difficult.
(47:43):
When she falls asleep after another round of sakes, he whispers in her ear, quote, I am no oath breaker either wife, I will honor my vows.
Wife.
(48:07):
Well, and like, I feel like he's willfully missing the point.
Like, like her, her concern was like, look, Reka clearly wants your body.
And like, you should be fidel, fidelatous to me.
And he's like, cool.
(48:29):
But like, that doesn't deal with the problem that Reka is like throwing herself at winter.
And she does become a problem.
Spoilers.
No.
(48:59):
Yep.
Right, like at least validate my concerns a little bit.
So in the morning, Cam is alone. And when she rouses, Bella informs her that Reka is waiting for Cam, like for an audience.
(49:21):
And so Cam lets her in, fully still in a robe and like flaunting all of the sex that she had last night.
And so Reka starts things off by saying that she wants to make sure they didn't get off on the wrong foot the night prior.
Cam plays dumb, which puts Reka on the back foot.
Cam capitalizes on this by saying, quote, spare me your fluttering lashes and false confusion.
I'm not susceptible to your charms. Let us be frank with one another.
(49:44):
You want my husband. I will not share him with you. There. The matter is out in the open now and the battle lines are drawn.
Which I kind of loved.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(50:19):
Later that day, Cam has luncheon with the court ladies, which Cam finds stifling and awkward. Compounding that they serve a bunch of fish with which turns Cam's stomach.
She makes friends with a lady male character who's an older court lady with a kindly demeanor whom we learn was somewhat of a surrogate parent to winter after the death of his own.
(50:43):
She tells Cam that winter's parents died on a frost giant attack when he was 16 and his brother was 10. No worries.
Yeah.
(51:06):
Yeah.
No, not at all.
Also, like, who summoned the frost giants? Like, I'm confused whether the frost giants in the garb just exist outside of when there's potentially a new ice king to like command them.
(51:36):
Are they in hibernation or do they just live all the time?
Right. Like, I have so many questions about that.
Anyway.
So after lunch, they're like all sitting around and cam's bored and eventually declares that she wants to take a walk in the terrible weather outside. But she realizes that all the ladies feel obligated to go with her.
(52:07):
So she's like, no, no, no, I just want time alone. You guys stay here. And Lady Mel also y'all suck.
And Lady Mel runs interference for Cam to the point that like, Cam hugs her. Which just like, why manic pixie dream girl bullshit.
(52:35):
Well, she doesn't, she's like kind of there in scenes when like we get like a smearing of Cam at a luncheon that she hates. But the most we get is like Lady Mel talking to winter afterward and being like, she's miserable.
Yeah.
(52:57):
Yeah.
She's not a huggy person. She's she grew up alone. Like I'm surprised she even knows what a hug is.
(53:29):
So our manic pixie dream girl cam walks outside and she thinks about the idea of Falcon coming to save her. And that I that idea fills her with a deep sense of dread.
She convinces herself that this dread is because she knows winter would start another war over her if she was taken. She muses that if Falcon has blazing blazing.
(53:51):
She muses to a so stupid I hate it. She muses to herself though that if Falcon has blazing winter would not win that fight and that fills her with even more dread.
Because she has feelings.
(54:14):
Yeah, it's the miscommunication trope of all miscommunication tropes.
It's inviolating but I have to say that's not the part of the book that I like the least. So...
(54:47):
Right.
Exactly. Or death. Or both.
Why are we spending time on this? Yeah.
(55:13):
So later that afternoon cam has a tour of the palace. We learned that the palace is massive with several basement floors and floors above the ground. She doesn't even tour 10 other floors that her guides just say are filled with empty rooms for nobles and visiting dignitaries and servants.
That's a big fucking palace.
(55:44):
Yeah.
I'm kind of outrageous that it's that large. I mean like my office building is like 16 floors. So it's like half that size. It's still pretty fucking big.
(56:15):
Yeah. Yeah, how does that make sense?
Either way cam dismisses her guide and goes into some of those areas by herself but she's interrupted by a different servant fetching her for dinner. Cam finds it odd that the servant was able to find her but she doesn't dwell on it.
(56:37):
The servant... she's an idiot. She doesn't realize she's being followed every moment of the day.
Yeah, I mean that's where the whole like, at the beginning of part one when she was like fighting a ghost or whatever, there is definitely a simplistic side to her.
(57:02):
And if I dwell on it too much, it makes... it's like cringey but I try not to.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
So this servant is young and we learned that they've worked at the palace since they were eight.
There's a bit of illustration about the society here but it's dry and it doesn't matter so we're gonna move on.
(57:28):
The crux is that the palace has a school for all the children. The crux is that the palace has a school for all the child labor it employs.
Cam wants to share her country's lawyer with the children so she arranges to attend a history lesson to do so.
But when the time comes no one shows up and the teacher tells her that the parents aren't keen to have her meddling in their kids' studies.
It's just a very weird like rejection scene.
(58:18):
I have about five more questions.
And they try to brush it off and they're like, oh yeah, they mostly like clean rooms that aren't used so it's very light labor. I'm like, it's still labor.
(58:48):
Yeah. Anyway, this rejection leads Cam to find an empty spare room in this palace and cry.
When she comes out it's clear that there are a bunch of servants who had been listening to her sob and so she hardens her heart.
She says, quote, she'd offered these people friendship and they'd thrown it back in her face. She wouldn't make that mistake again.
(59:12):
At lunch her day gets worse because a prank is pulled where someone has ordered her, quote, favorite lungfish and eels.
One bite has Cam running to the side and throwing up.
Well, I think that's intentional. Yeah, we know why. There's a reason she's not a bitch, but you know.
(59:36):
Girl.
Truly, truly.
So then we see Liddy Mel explaining to Winter and Valak that this was a prank and it was in portaste.
Winter asks how Cam is settling in otherwise and Mel is like, she's not.
She doesn't have any agency or friends and she's restless like she's bored. She's like, she needs a friend, but I don't know who.
(59:59):
And Winter's like, yeah, same. I know nothing about her except how to have sex.
And so in the meantime, Mel suggests Winter spend more time with her. She says that there's a kindness to Cam and a great deal of loneliness.
She doesn't think that Cam is a threat like Valak does.
At dinner.
(01:00:22):
Yeah, I think so. In this conversation, Mel is like, I don't have time or the energy to run around after her. Like, I'm not the one.
No. And especially after Cam gets her like 10 year old friend and she's like literally climbing walls, I can understand that.
So at dinner, Rekha is simpering and Winter excuses himself early to see Cam, who did not attend.
(01:00:47):
He finds Cam sitting on her balcony in a storm and carries her inside where he dresses her for bed and tucks her in.
Sorry, I'm going to do that again.
He finds her sitting on her balcony in a storm and carries her inside where he dresses her for bed and tucks her in.
She asks if he'll join her, but he says not because she's ill.
And she doesn't even put up a fight or snark about it. And that fact that Cam isn't hiding this weakness,
(01:01:12):
alarms Winter so much that he crawls into bed with her and they have a bit of sex before she falls asleep in his arms.
But like always, he leaves before she wakes up.
I don't either. The like waking up alone thing sucks.
(01:01:38):
Right.
The next morning Cam is kind of relieved that Winter's gone because she doesn't have to address her weakness with him.
And it's here that I realized that this book is creating the cardinal sin most of the time by making us live every fucking day with these people.
(01:02:03):
And I swear this book could have been 200 pages shorter if we didn't do this.
But it's...
Nope.
And I hate that it's like that night, the next morning, that night, the next morning, like can we...
(01:02:25):
We're just going to dinner for dinner's sake. There's nothing happening here.
Right.
So Cam is sitting in her room. No.
Anyway, it's the next morning and Cam is sipping the jasmine tea that Bella makes her every morning and it's bitter again.
(01:02:47):
So Cam is about to mention how to brew it correctly when a note is delivered from Winter that Cam is to start writing lessons that day.
Valak is there to teach her and he's a little bit prickly, but there's another nice man named Braun and he gives Cam a very patient mare to learn how to write on.
As Valak leads Cam's horse in a circle, she asks him whether he hates her because she's a summerlander or because of his cousin Rekha.
(01:03:16):
He scoffs at the idea that Rekha fancies Winter. So Cam says, quote,
Who knew men of the North were so easily deceived?
Just a little bit. And so from that Cam surmises that Valak finds her a threat to the king.
She tells him, quote, in case you haven't noticed subtleties are not my forte. When I wish someone harm, they storming will know it.
(01:03:44):
And it's here that Valak tells her that because she lied when she was wed to Winter, he will always think less of her.
And here again, I'm just like, there's no gray area to be had. Like give it a rest, dude. You saw the condition that she was in.
What choice did she have?
(01:04:06):
Right. Like, oh yeah, I'm sorry I lied so I didn't die. Have you never been in that position? That must be nice for you.
So Valak leaves and Cam has a much better time alone with Bron and it's the first time in her life that she feels free.
And finally, finally we get a slight passage of time where Cam doesn't see much of Winter except the dinner and in bed.
(01:04:30):
She's learning how to ride, she's having a great time, and then one day Bron takes her to the village of Cornundle?
Something. Yeah.
As they ride in, it's clear that the people are wary of Cam. She notices that the people seem to have fared the war slightly better than the summer landers.
(01:04:52):
Bron tells her about the ice heart and how it allowed Winter to focus his power on only part of the continent instead of putting his people through a suffering endless Winter as well.
She clarifies that that sounds like the power that he was using wasn't power of his own, but Valak is like, nope we're not talking about this, let's talk about something else.
And she thinks internally, quote, could someone, like me, strip Winter of his devastating power and return the summer throne to its rightful heirs?
(01:05:21):
And to which I say, to what end, lady, do you like him or not? Like, rightful heirs who?
Because he's an asshole.
Eclipt.
(01:05:44):
Right. Well, and like, your sisters aren't well equipped, but also your sisters are fine. Like, where they are.
Right.
(01:06:13):
No, because she doesn't truly want to do that. And I think maybe this was like, trying to show her still feeling some loyalty for Falcon, but that doesn't make sense to me either because like, I don't care how much I love somebody as soon as you made my life a living hell and left me alone for three years and didn't cop to what you did, like,
(01:06:35):
girl, bye.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Anyway, they have lunch in a pub and afterward Cam continues to ruminate on the topic of treason.
(01:06:57):
But she finds the thought of betraying Winter turns her stomach. It actually makes it hurt, in fact, like a sharp pain. And as they near the end of town, they see a festival being erected and she's like almost so uncomfortable she can't like walk.
But it's here that winter joins them and distracts her from that. And she's like, Oh, great. I love having explosive diarrhea with my new husband. And so she's like trying to look for an escape but they're interrupted by the cry of stop thief.
(01:07:28):
And a small filthy boy darts in amongst them trying to escape one of the like shopkeepers chasing after him.
Winter catches him and this boy erupts in vulgar swearing and in the struggle he kicks Cam in the stomach. She keels over and there's like chaos ensuing.
(01:07:50):
So winter ends up dunking this boy in a barrel of water until he admits that he was stealing and like calms the fuck down. It's quickly thereafter that he realized that the woman that he kicked was the queen, the queen.
Soon thereafter, this boy realizes that the woman that he kicked in the stomach was the queen and he is immediately sobered and remorseful.
(01:08:15):
Cam dying tells everyone no harm has been done. My stomach just hurts. Can you let this boy go boy what's your name and the boys like my name's Christy and cams like cool I'm going to pay back the merchants for anything you stole and in return you're going to work for me for a year because I need a friend.
Love employing kids and at the end of that cam is just like I gotta go and literally runs away because she needs to alleviate the pain in her stomach.
(01:08:49):
So she collapses in the snow, overcome with cramps and where she fell there is like just blood everywhere.
My first thought in this scene even then was a miscarriage but that doesn't occur to cam until far later.
(01:09:17):
Yeah.
(01:09:43):
So plot twist or spoilers I guess it is a miscarriage but like it's confusing because two things were happening right like she was being poisoned and then also she kept kicked in the stomach so like what happened?
(01:10:04):
Regardless.
Right. Yeah. There's just so many people have to kill her. The damsel in distress is damsel in distressing very hard.
(01:10:27):
No I wasn't mad about it either I just some of the damsel in distress I didn't love like the storm on the trail thing I was just like okay can we just get to that because I it took me a lot of realize that that was the plot.
(01:10:48):
Right.
I wanted to I thought that Falcon and that intrigue was the plot and it's not.
So once.
Right. No.
Right. Yeah so once I gave into the fact that like, oh this is what I'm supposed to be reading and enjoying about I was like okay, I can enjoy this now.
(01:11:21):
It's kind of wild. No, certainly not.
So when Cam wakes up it's two days later and Glacier is there attending to her.
She tells cam that the woman at the tavern where they had lunch poisoned her and that she's been taken to the Glacier as punishment.
Then Christy pops up and cam is like super stoked that he actually is in her service now. And she's like I have a friend and cam is ready to get out of bed and take out the day and cam is ready to get out of bed and take on the day but Glacier insists that she heal.
(01:11:57):
So cam tells her that no one can make her do anything that she doesn't want to and so Galicia is like man you and winter are two peas in a motherfucking pod huh.
So then she goes on to say you know the ice heart blah blah it's slowly killing winter only love can save him from turning completely that's why you got to give him a kid.
We learned that the mythical ice king was a god named Rorschach who was the lover of the goddess Wern and Galicia tells cam that if Rorschach totally takes over winter that will bring about an apocalypse that no one can survive.
(01:12:33):
Ugh.
I don't know why he's a bad guy because he was the lover of the goddess Wern and that's who they worship so.
(01:12:58):
Or at least he didn't start that way.
I don't know.
A pack ellipse out pack ellipse.
So yeah I actually forgot that the tavern woman poisoned cam.
Yeah.
(01:13:19):
So she's so okay.
I don't think it gives anything away now but Bella's poisoning cam to like not get pregnant.
So she's like feeding her contraceptive tea something.
And then this tavern lady poisoned her and then Christie kicked her in the stomach.
But it had to be the poison slash other things because other if winter thought that Christie killed his child Christie would be dead.
(01:14:02):
Right I didn't want to upset you.
Right.
So anyway in lieu of the information about Rorschach cam is like well that tracks for why he said he'll kill me if I don't give him a kid in a year.
And Galicia is like wow men are so stupid.
And that's that's when cam is like you and I we could be friends.
(01:14:23):
And I like that energy a lot between these two.
So Galicia is like don't listen to winter he's an idiot.
I'll show you what the quote mercy of the glaciers is if you promise to rest and cams like deal.
So we haven't really talked about it like this.
We've just been saying that winter's like going to kill cam but he's always couched it in like I'm going to give you up to the mercy of the glaciers.
(01:14:46):
Everybody's just kind of assumed that means that he's going to kill her.
Right exactly.
So Galicia takes cam and Christie to a place called Mount Gerd two hours away.
(01:15:07):
There they spot winter who is not happy to see cam out about so soon.
But Galicia calls him an idiot to his face and it's like it's her right to see what her fate might be and to see the woman who poisoned her punished.
Here we learn that the mercy of the glass. Yeah it means banishment from where you're from originally.
(01:15:36):
No the mercy of the glacier.
So here we learn the mercy of the glacier not Lady Galicia. I can see why that would be confusing.
I was unclear but it feels like it's banishment from where you're from originally to another part of winter Craig and people can choose to help you or not.
(01:16:08):
And if not you die.
(01:16:38):
Right.
Yeah and I also thought that some people might be chained to the mountain so they can't move.
(01:17:01):
I don't know so this is exactly what.
Yeah so this is what winter tells cam quote winter folk are the mercy of the mountains.
We live in a harsh world where our survival often depends on one another.
There is no room in the clans for people who cannot be trusted but we are not brews or barbarians.
The woman admitted to putting a purgative in your food but even Lacey agreed that if she truly meant to kill you there are dozens of more effective poisons she could have used to ensure your death.
(01:17:28):
Those people down there are the folk from Cunundal who were willing to climb the mountain and offer her mercy.
She will be taken away from this province if she ever returns or commits any other serious crime she will be taken to the glaciers and left there to die.
So like what?
(01:17:53):
Right because he's like there's no room in the clans for people who cannot be trusted.
Literally anywhere else right?
Oh I'm so sad about that.
(01:18:15):
Like that doesn't seem like a punishment at all.
So okay cam with this knowledge is like cool everyone hates me meaning like if that happened to me it would be death so I'm glad we cleared that up.
And winter says something that I think is wildly unfair here he says whether people help her or not is entirely dependent upon her but as we'll see later that's not the case at all.
(01:18:44):
That's the thing right and for her to gaslight her and be like for him to gaslight her and be like oh you know it's you have the power to like make people like you I'm like brother you are an idiot actually.
(01:19:06):
Yeah yeah.
So in light of this information cam tells us quote her original plan had been to settle in and befriend the locals with an eye toward using that knowledge to escape the threat of death.
Now she realized that she had even greater reason to put that plan into action the people she had thought to befriend for information and assistance for the very ones who had the power to set her free should she indeed end up chained on the slopes slopes of Mount Gerd.
(01:19:37):
Or was she chained and they just came up and chained her like can people just do that.
Right.
Who has that power.
Right.
(01:19:59):
Yeah.
Are they gonna give her some lunch like.
I don't know.
So back at the ranch in the palace winter deposits cam back in her room and disappears cam listens to him and stays put and Christie teaches her how to play cards.
While they do so cam tells him about the legend of Roland.
(01:20:21):
She reveals that cam's family is descended from Roland's brother since Roland died a hero in battle.
She reads Christie a passage about how Roland's last stand.
No, she reads Christie a passage about Roland's last stand where blazing helped him be victorious against very bad odds.
Roland's sword blazing summoned fire that leveled his enemies and telling Lee his own men and Roland to only the sword was left upright in the ground.
(01:20:54):
Cam goes on to tell us that blazing disappeared after that day.
Christie shares a story of his own telling cam about how winter killed the frost giants that killed his parents which is how winter sword came to be known as gender feasts the giant killer.
(01:21:15):
I like gutter flies it sounds like thunder thighs.
So this tale makes cam realize that there are two sides to every story and that winter's own people see him as a hero just as Roland had been to the people of summerland.
(01:21:52):
It also just paints her in more of a simplistic picture like, yeah, did you think his people were going to hate him for being victorious?
Like, come on girl.
(01:22:14):
So once cam is recovered she and Christie take to exploring the palace and the land around it.
Christie teaches cam how to pick a lock and how to climb a wall.
And they put these skills to good use because one day they happen to come upon a room in one of the far turrets of the palace.
And as soon as they're in there they realize that this is winter's second bedroom question mark.
(01:22:48):
Right. And we fully never come back to this.
Why were we here in the first place?
So they scurry away and we learn about a place called the atrium which is also an off limits place to most people because it's winter's private place which just makes them want to enter it all the more.
(01:23:20):
Why are there two secret places? Why does he have two bedrooms? I just, I don't know. Why are we here?
It seems like in a very inconvenient location.
(01:23:45):
So we go back to winter who has clearly been keeping tabs on his wife and Christie. Some advisors see her as just a curious girl but Valak thinks differently.
But winter's like, dude, drop it. I've got it handled.
Back to business, we learn that Falcon has raised an army in Calberna and will sail for winter Craig in three months.
Winter orders that all of the abandoned watchtowers along the coast be reopened and freshly manned so that they can be ready for a potential invasion.
(01:24:11):
Once he's alone, winter wonders to himself whether Cam would betray him.
We learn that he has kept away from her for six weeks because Galacia said that Cam needed time to heal before they be fucking again.
Winter sees this as an opportunity to rid himself of the cloud of lust so that he can think more clearly.
(01:24:44):
You don't throw up from your vagina with a purgative.
It's not how anatomy works.
For those of you who haven't had a baby, it's the same amount of time.
(01:25:09):
So anyway, that's where we're going to end part two.
Stay tuned for parts three and for parts four.
And at some point we'll get to the end of this book.
If you're looking for a plot, you're going to be looking for a while. This is it.
(01:25:30):
We're in it. It might not seem like it, but we're deep in the plot of a miscommunication trope.
Yeah, no.
Anyway, we did it guys. That's part two of The Winter King.
(01:25:52):
Bye, C.L. Wilson. Let us know what you thought on the socials.
You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Goodreads at SpiceTutorsPod.
And if you like our podcast and want more, consider joining our Patreon, where we release Patreon exclusive episodes in our off weeks.
Until next time, we'll see ya. Bye!
I'm gonna record.
(00:06):
That's okay, claps are good.
I know.
I know.
I know.
Okay, let's go on the seven second mark.
I'm gonna do something real quick, restlessly.
(00:34):
I'm like what am I doing?
I'm gonna take one unforgettable moment.
oops...
I feel felt sorry for you.
remember the last time we talked about this? I think it was in October, like, no it was
(00:57):
two weeks ago, you're right. It feels like a lifetime. Yeah, like I've slipped a lot
since then. We have a new president-elect. My faith in humanity is gone.
(01:22):
It could be. Look at people. Yeah, I know if you're a Republican, don't listen to this podcast.
Fuck off. No.
(02:01):
Yeah. Yeah, that's totally fine. And the thing that I wanted to say,
(02:31):
too, if I haven't said this before, is that the mic upgrades will help with that. So I did done say
that. There we go. It's gonna be a fun episode, guys buckle up. Look, it's been a week. What a year.
(03:00):
Oh my god. Yeah, fuck off. What's the handmade tail top, like,
Narkbitch name? I never watched it, so I don't know. It's like, oh, okay.
(03:35):
I don't know. What's it be, kitty girl? I don't know. I can't watch the handmade tail. It's too close to home.
(03:59):
I said that when it came out during the first Trump presidency, and I'm sure it's not gonna watch it now.
But we'll just wipe Mariko. I'm so sorry. Yeah. Thanks.
(04:40):
Oh, I love that. Yeah, I like that. I like that a lot. I didn't know that about that, too. I've always loved it.
(05:03):
It was like one of the first ones that you got, like the first big visible ones that I remember you getting.
Nice. I love that. I love that so much. Can I tell you something that I was thinking about last night, and I don't even know if it's a fully formed thought yet, but I, you sent me this that thing on Instagram that made me cry.
(05:42):
And then I started thinking about all of the things that I admire about you, and one of the things that I admire about you is that you have this really deeply ingrained, I don't give a flying fuck, like vibe, which is so interesting because there's like this also very strong people pleasing, like, I think that's been beaten into you by your mother.
(06:08):
But seeing that like, peel back more and more, especially over the last year has been just like so fucking awesome.
Yeah, yeah, I agree. I mean, like, because every time, because you do the Minnie Mouse place when you're doing the people pleasing thing, and just like the real you is just like, no, I'm gonna do what I fucking want.
(06:40):
Even when we were in high school, you would do things like that and say like, I don't give a fuck and I would be like, you don't give a fuck. That's awesome. What is that like?
(07:02):
Yeah, drama. Yeah. Anyway, I just had to share that with you. Dear Dari, is your laptop moving?
(07:28):
Anyway. Yeah, so shall we get to this?
All right, you leave me in. Today, we are talking about part two of the Winter King by CL Wilson. This part will cover chapters eight through 15 and it is part two of four. So buckle up.
(08:07):
I'm gonna be real honest. It's been a fucking minute since I read this and I'm reading these notes like, what is happening?
(08:33):
Guildheim. Yeah. You have a sixth of the book left because it's 600 and some changes long.
Yeah. No, I know that whole relationship is a little bit weird, actually.
(09:09):
1012. I don't know.
(09:33):
Yeah, no, I think that's the whole thing that I don't like about it. Yeah. Like, I don't want to spend, well, I don't know. I haven't been starved for human interaction my entire life, so take this with a grain of salt.
But I don't have a whole lot of, I didn't have a whole lot in common with a 10 slash 12 year old when I was in my early 20s.
(09:55):
Granted, I was in college and drinking my face off, but that's not the point.
Well, her only friend was her nursemaid, which again is staff.
Yeah, oh girl. Okay. Anyway, so let's get into it.
(10:19):
So if you will remember, I sure didn't, that we last left off that Cam made a very powerful resolution.
And then the very next chapter, chapter eight, we pick up with Cam on the brink of death.
And so I read this and the scream I scrumpt, I was like, which is it girl?
Like, you can't just say, I'm not going to let anybody get me down, especially not no man, and then die. Like, essentially.
(10:49):
I'm just going to say, I'm not going to let anybody get me down, because I'm not going to let anybody get me down.
So I'm going to say, I'm not going to let anybody get me down.
(11:12):
Literally. Yes.
Yeah.
(11:35):
Put her in the sun for a couple of hours. Isn't she fine?
Yeah.
Dun dun dun.
(12:18):
Yeah. There are a lot of like, plot twists. I just wish that there were fewer of them, because like,
I will say this book, damsel in distress is really hard. It just feels like a lot.
Like at some point, yeah, she should be traveling with a bunch of guards, because she gets herself into trouble like, constantly.
(12:48):
But girl, back it up.
Yeah, like a stiffed wing could blow her over.
(13:17):
Truly. All the time. Yeah. Or how do I make it like, like your dad knows when a thunderstorm brews?
I would have, I would have tested that to the point where he didn't fucking know.
And I would have summoned rainstorms at the same time every day.
And just like, how did you not do that? That's how I would entertain myself.
(13:44):
Oh, did you read the part where she heats the snow?
Yeah. Yes.
Yeah. Girl.
Well, and if you can do that, what else can you do?
(14:10):
Can you make things wet?
Yeah. Well.
(14:38):
No, it's good. It's good. So Cam is dying.
And remember, they're in like this, I want to call it a smorgasborgas of like, people in armor, but it's an army.
And they're essentially walking back to their home, which is, sorry, just a wild concept I'm actually thinking about right now.
(15:08):
Wow. So this, this column of like, people marching from one place to the other, mostly men, is stopped again.
And it's been four days that they're stopped that her health has deteriorated to the point where Winter Surgeon has to examine Cam.
(15:29):
The surgeon says that, well, she hasn't eaten in two days and the maid has been helping to cover it up out of loyalty to Cam.
Cam's wounds are infected and this has now gotten into her bloodstream.
So Winter's like, we gotta, we gotta split up, right?
Like Valak, you take the majority of these soldier boys to Gildenheim and I'll stay here with my new wifey.
(15:54):
And Valak's like, that's a terrible idea.
Respectfully, no.
Hi, Ruffys.
Get off your phone. No.
Valak says, you know, Winter, it's not that I don't believe that you can't defend yourself,
it's that I know that you're going to be distracted and that's not a good place for you to be.
(16:16):
So Winter's like, cool, everybody else go home. Valak and a couple of other guards, you stay.
And we're going to rest until Cam is either dead or well enough to travel.
Yeah.
I mean, those are the two options, I guess. We can't just live here on the side of the road.
(16:37):
So in Winter's tent, the surgeon attends Cam by cleaning her wounds and then packing them again with a different type of poultice
since the one that she had been using obviously wasn't working.
They do this every hour, for three days.
When her fever spikes on the third evening, Cam summons a storm in her delirium.
(17:01):
This storm is so violent that it's like ripping holes in the tent and like setting fires with the lightning.
So Winter has to use his ice heart power to cool her body and like embrace her to bring the fever down, right?
Because she's like delirious from the temperature that her body is.
He does this twofold, right? He doesn't want her to die, but also he doesn't want to die from the lightning that's striking all around them.
(17:26):
So he's like, okay, how do we make this stop?
Inwardly, he tells us, quote,
That was the insidious price of the ice heart. Each use of its power, no matter how minute, robbed him, Winter, of some irretrievable portion of his humanity.
After three years of war and death, so little of his former self remained, he felt even the tiniest additional loss like a hammer to the heart.
(17:50):
He could literally feel himself growing more distant, more unfeeling, more like the dread, soulless monster of legend, end quote.
It is kind of a wild concept, and I- we get a lot of information about how it works.
(18:14):
We don't get a lot of information about where it came from.
Uh-huh.
Right, like who- who likes him and who doesn't? Like...
(18:41):
It also struck me as the kind of thing like in Harry Potter, where you have werewolves who don't know themselves or their loved ones when they turn into a werewolf.
Like that's kind of the vibe I got when like you turn into the Ice King.
Which is terrifying.
(19:05):
Right.
Well, and then what happens when two people drink the ice heart?
Or are there two kings running around?
(19:31):
Yeah, it's- yeah, we- well, lucky for you we don't get answers to these questions.
So this- go ahead.
(19:57):
Oh, you haven't gotten there? He definitely comes back. Spoilers.
Yeah, he's a little bitch too, so can't really put that.
So Winter is trying to use his lack of body heat to cool Cam down, but that doesn't entirely work.
(20:19):
So he has to use his own weather gifts to bleed Cam's storm until it dissipates.
So he essentially like freezes the like rain part of it to make it like a drier storm until there's not enough moisture for it to like exist, essentially.
Something. I don't know. I'm not a meteorologist.
(20:43):
Before this, I know that you'll be surprised to learn I am not a meteorologist.
So before the storm totally dissipates, Cam is struck by a bolt of lightning, but instead of killing her, it heals all of her wounds completely.
After that, what a twist. After that bolt, the storm completely subsides and they are able to rest without fear of death.
(21:13):
In the morning, Cam wakes up and learns that she's been out for five days in total. Winter brings her food and both of them are almost too horny to let her eat.
Because they're both naked and like she's no longer in pain, I guess. They're not naked. He's got like a loincloth on for some reason, even though it's snowing outside.
(21:39):
Yeah, she is naked though. She's just under like furs or something.
So she's eating, right? And as she does so, she asks him how many men she killed with her storm. Just offhandedly, she's like, so how many people died?
And he's like, no one died, sweetheart. And Cam is shocked and relieved by this.
(22:05):
Winter goes on to tell her that he starved her storm before it could cause any real damage. And she's like, what a thought.
So she eats in peace. She's really happy, feeling like a hundred bucks. And so Winter calls for a bath.
As people are bringing in the stuff for the bath, there's like servants and a couple of people, he feels himself being unusually aggressive, intense with other people in the room with Cam.
(22:32):
He chocks it up to his wolf and nothing more.
Very that, yeah.
So when they're alone again, it's clear that Winter intends to bathe Cam herself and Cam is like, this is uncomfortable.
(22:58):
But this was so awkward, because he tells her, he essentially goads her into letting him bathe her by saying things like, quote, I didn't know you were such an oath breaker.
As my wife, you swore to offer me the fruits of your life, which is such a weird way to say I'm owed sex.
Well, and she says it back to him, but it would like in that context, I just think of gonads and I'm like, no, thank you.
(23:32):
Yeah.
But he's like, we're married and like marriage, blah, blah, owed physicality, like, are you gonna deny me that and be an oath breaker and she's like, absolutely not.
Yeah, well, I think so they actually have that conversation in a second, but even here she's like, you know, I wouldn't be mad about it.
(24:10):
Right.
So okay, he bathes her and as he does so, Cam asks about his threat to kill her if she doesn't give him an air in a year, and he tells her that he can't afford to not have an air.
And if she doesn't provide one, he will have to take another wife.
So with that truth hanging between them, Cam literally says, quote, as the beginning of heirs holds such dire import, I suggest we get to it.
(24:35):
And so they copulate a lot.
Yeah, maybe you started intimidating me. Let's go.
Okay.
And I'm gonna, I'm not gonna lie. I didn't hate it.
(24:58):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So this, this scene is definitely a lot closer to how I remember Christine Feehan being like it's specific but but somehow not so like most often it refers to like a sex, rather than like a dick, for example.
(25:21):
But it has no issue talking about nipples. It's such a strange combination, because it also feels a bit like stodgy because they scream like husband and wife during it.
Like, I don't think I've done that in my entire life.
And like, I know what the author was going for, but like, come on.
(25:49):
And like,
this
And like, I don't think it's giving anything away to say that like all of the sex in this book is pretty vanilla.
(26:23):
No, you just showed me some missionary style bullshit.
Yeah. And like, I think the foreplay in this type of book is like this kind of animal magnetism that they have with each other, but it just doesn't really do it for me after a while.
(26:52):
Yeah, that that's really the thing.
So I need a lot of diversity. Come on.
So in this scene too, right, they do it a couple of times and in one of the scenes, she gets on top and there's a little bit of teaching happening that I could honestly do without, because he has to teach her how to be on top, which like is fine, but it's it's very stilted in practice.
(27:20):
And I didn't like it.
(27:45):
Which is also like doubling down on the fact that they know nothing about each other.
Yeah, this is.
You have more places for your feet to go on a horse because like you're in the air and your feet go around the horse, whereas like when you're on top of somebody they're like folded back and like a warrior pose.
(28:17):
Honestly, tried it can't recommend it.
Yeah, because it definitely makes it more of like an acrobatic feet than like copulation.
(28:44):
You immediately focus on how like hard your thighs are burning.
No, not at all.
Okay, so they spend the night like that and the next morning winter is back to putting distance between them as they prepare to ride to Gildenheim as soon as
(29:13):
they can finish every time.
So as soon as Cam is back in the carriage and it starts moving she's sick and she bolts to relieve her stomach of breakfast.
Winter thinks at first that she's running away, which like these people are zero to 100 and like no no time flat and I can't handle it.
(29:45):
She's betraying me.
Oh wait, she's just peeing.
Got it.
Okay.
Yeah, brother.
(30:11):
Yeah, you need to relax.
So winter goes over to Cam hurling and cams like brother I can't ride in the carriage and he's like cool right on my horse instead baby.
So the first day is rough because she has to ride side saddle because she's an address.
The next day however winter has her dress soon into pants so she can be more comfortable.
(30:35):
That next day winter also doesn't wear his armor so her hair won't get caught in it which that honestly sounds like the worst part.
Yeah, I also appreciate this is the first book that I've read that has like nights and armor and blah blah that's actually talked about the practicalities of how awful armor actually is.
(31:01):
Yeah.
So they travel in the days are long and they share each other at night there's not a lot of closeness between them even though they ride on the same fucking horse.
Finally they reach.
I don't know how that that would work but okay.
(31:27):
Yeah, they only speak when they're having sex.
My lady.
(31:50):
So finally they reach Gildenheim and winter is welcome like a hero cam is introduced to like a fuck ton of people that you can't remember and we shouldn't either because they don't matter.
But there are two people that matter and one of them is Lady Galicia Frey who is the high priestess of Wern and also Reika Villani who immediately has cams backup because she's overly familiar with winter.
(32:16):
Once inside winter deposits cam with his head of serpents and immediately leaves her behind cam tries to remind herself that she's had a lifetime of being ignored and shuffled out of view so this should be nothing new.
But she can't help but notice that this feels different. She chides herself to not go and catch feelings for this man that this is a political marriage.
(32:47):
Couldn't be feelings.
Yeah, I remember that too because it's such a like modern way to look at it like catching feelings for somebody.
(33:10):
Once more.
Dude, the grow lamps I can't.
Yeah, okay, but that's like one of the continuity errors right like this thing is brought up and it's like focused on like oh we got to bring the lamps we got to make room for the lamps and the carriage and then like the lamps disappear when she gets to Gildenheim and I'm like girl you live in the white north you're going to need those fucking grow lamps.
(33:38):
Right.
But what do I know.
So many times.
So as cam is led to her chambers she results to learn the palace like the back of her hand in her rooms she is reunited with Bella and realizes how much she missed her.
Before before before the head of servants leaves cam asked her to organize a tour of the palace for cam for the next day.
(34:03):
As she settles in cam thinks about Falcon and admits to herself and to us that his actions had never really made sense to her.
She's searching for blazing to compound that crime by stealing a king's bride felt like a capital C choice.
But after having had sex with winter she's like I get it.
(34:29):
Still she wonders where he is and whether he realizes the price that everyone else has had to pay for his actions.
So in the first winter we learned that Falcon is suspected to be in a place called Calberna some island nation in the western sea that we don't know about because we don't have a map.
(34:53):
And a nap.
I could use a fucking map yeah.
So Falcon is suspected to be with Elka still going to do that again because my thing moved.
(35:15):
So Falcon is believed to be with Elka still.
And as they plot no.
We learned that Falcon is still with Elka and as winter in his men plot Valic makes snide remarks about how besotted winter is with cam and that doesn't sit right and that doesn't sit right with winter.
After this meeting winter resolves to see Lady Galatia but before he does he tries to see cam but she's not there and so he tries himself for being so besotted.
(35:44):
Okay right.
Yeah he's kind of the worst.
(36:12):
I mean I guess something we should note here is that Valic is Elka and Rhaegh's cousin also.
So we don't ever get confirmation of this but I do wonder how much of this is like kind of getting his backup because Elka was there and like Rhaegh is going to become a thing and so like I don't know maybe it's his own ambition.
(36:41):
Yeah.
His motivations don't make sense.
Right.
(37:10):
That's a really good point.
That's very weird.
Yeah.
Yeah so we don't need inspec- insespec- spaghetti there.
Inspec- spaghetti.
And skeddy.
So over to the temple of Wern.
(37:32):
Galatia meets with winter with weariness.
She tests him.
I have to say it like Galatia.
So Galatia tests him to see if the ice heart has taken him too far.
To do this he has to put his hand into the flame of a torch and because his hand burns that signals to her that he's not totally frozen.
(38:00):
When his skin doesn't burn by fire he'll have totally turned into a demigod of myth the ice king and he must be killed.
Cool.
Sidebar.
Winter just has a burned hand now that we never go back to.
So Galatia tells winter that the garm have come.
(38:26):
The garm are giant wolf-like monsters that serve the frost giants and the frost giants are minions of the ice king.
She tells winter I've told no one but you yet.
And he's like good talk.
Okay.
(38:48):
So we learn other things in this interaction like the fact that winter and Galatia go way back and may have even been betrothed before she was called into the service of the goddess.
Winter tries... why?
Why in slow spaghetti? Why?
(39:22):
Yeah.
Right like pick a side. Also you guys were eight.
(39:49):
Yeah it's very strange.
So winter tries to bait Galatia into admitting that she's jealous of cam and uses her first name in this interaction.
Lacy. But Lacy slash Galatia seems pretty unflappable and uninterested. She's just like move along. Nothing to see here.
(40:12):
I'm glad that that wasn't a thing.
Wires every woman in this court obsessed with winter. Also it's kind of a dick move for winter to be like are you jealous Lacy?
Like fuck off dude.
Pass.
(40:36):
Wasn't interested back then. Still not interested now. I like my sisters. Thank you so much.
So Lacy slash Galatia tells winter that they need to organize a hunt for the garb and that were it not for outstanding threats.
Winter may have more trouble at home than he expected. Too many enemies who want his throne.
(40:59):
She gives him a warning that he probably has less than a year to sire in air and hopes to keep the ice heart at bay.
As winter leaves he tells her of everybody that he knows he'd rather that Lacy be the one to slay him if it comes to that.
(41:32):
So it is worth noting here that when he arrived she was threatening him with this ceremonial spear which is the way that you kill an ice king.
You have to take this spear that was in lore the ice king's wife's and like plunge it through their heart.
Yeah. Anyway.
(41:57):
Back to Cam who is reluctantly getting fitted for more winterized wardrobes.
She tries on one of the dresses in muted winter colors and...
No.
As she tries on one of the dresses that is in muted winter colors winter arrives and Cam realizes that their rooms connect.
Winter gives Cam back her mother's things that he took from her the day that they first met and he almost raped her against the wall.
(42:24):
But these never come back to the story so don't worry about it.
Yeah but it's a gardening book I thought for sure that was going to come back.
But no.
Cam just thanks him and tells him that he's the one who summoned... wait no.
(42:47):
Oh okay. Cam thanks him and then she reveals to him that she's the one who summoned the storm that killed her mother.
Winter tells her that's ridiculous because she was a child.
No one should blame her for the death of her mother.
He tells her quote, you aren't a monster or a curse on anyone's house and you didn't kill your mother.
Cam's head spins with the dichotomy of the winter king as they head to court dinner.
(43:10):
She remarks inwardly quote, how could he offer such disarming kindness and compassion while planning to execute her at year's end if she didn't bear him a child?
That means to an end.
(43:31):
That's just going to make the whole thing much harder.
So at dinner Cam does not have a good time. She feels alone and lost.
It's clear that she's an outsider and Rekha makes sure that she knows it in the worst way.
Rekha encourages people around them to tell their stories under the guise of welcoming Cam but it just strives home how much they all know each other.
(43:52):
That and Rekha's handsy with winter.
We learn here that Rekha is Elka's sister and also Valak's cousin. Cam immediately sees how ambitious she is.
As the dinner goes on, Cam gets more and more angry and ends up summoning a storm outside.
But before she can kill anybody, she excuses herself.
(44:13):
In her room she dismisses Bella and tries to calm down.
But winter quickly joins her and asks her what the fuck.
She's like, oh come on, you can't be blind.
I saw what was happening and he's like, Rekha is just a friend and nothing more.
And that's what Cam says. She's like, Rekha wants to sit on your throne.
And in both ways.
(44:37):
And this is when she says that she expects fidelity from winter.
As her life is forfeit, if she doesn't have a kid, she only sees it as fair.
He asks whether that's the only reason but she deflects.
They end up having sex and winter pushes her to tell him why she wants fidelity.
And she ultimately tells him it's because she will not share.
(45:17):
A baguette.
Yeah.
Yeah, well especially because they have this conversation and there's no long game here when it comes to sexual tension.
(45:47):
Because as soon as they get into a room with each other and they're alone, they have sex.
Like, yeah, there's no slow burn bullshit here.
Well, and it feels like it could have been more interesting if he was like, I am not going to have sex with you until you tell me.
(46:15):
Like, why you want fidelity?
Right.
(46:39):
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
(47:01):
Right.
This is like kind of a minor threat, not even concrete evidence, you know.
Yeah.
So in the night on the floor, winter lies next to Cam as she sleeps and is like, man, I really got to get my shit together.
(47:22):
He describes Cam like a drug that he can't get enough of and he wonders if he really is enchanted as Valix suspects.
When Cam rouses and reaches for him again, he compares her to Elka.
Cam is possessive and fiery.
Elka, nor any other woman had ever acted like that with him.
He realizes that keeping her at arm's length is going to be very difficult.
(47:43):
When she falls asleep after another round of sakes, he whispers in her ear, quote, I am no oath breaker either wife, I will honor my vows.
Wife.
(48:07):
Well, and like, I feel like he's willfully missing the point.
Like, like her, her concern was like, look, Reka clearly wants your body.
And like, you should be fidel, fidelatous to me.
And he's like, cool.
(48:29):
But like, that doesn't deal with the problem that Reka is like throwing herself at winter.
And she does become a problem.
Spoilers.
No.
(48:59):
Yep.
Right, like at least validate my concerns a little bit.
So in the morning, Cam is alone. And when she rouses, Bella informs her that Reka is waiting for Cam, like for an audience.
(49:21):
And so Cam lets her in, fully still in a robe and like flaunting all of the sex that she had last night.
And so Reka starts things off by saying that she wants to make sure they didn't get off on the wrong foot the night prior.
Cam plays dumb, which puts Reka on the back foot.
Cam capitalizes on this by saying, quote, spare me your fluttering lashes and false confusion.
I'm not susceptible to your charms. Let us be frank with one another.
(49:44):
You want my husband. I will not share him with you. There. The matter is out in the open now and the battle lines are drawn.
Which I kind of loved.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(50:19):
Later that day, Cam has luncheon with the court ladies, which Cam finds stifling and awkward. Compounding that they serve a bunch of fish with which turns Cam's stomach.
She makes friends with a lady male character who's an older court lady with a kindly demeanor whom we learn was somewhat of a surrogate parent to winter after the death of his own.
(50:43):
She tells Cam that winter's parents died on a frost giant attack when he was 16 and his brother was 10. No worries.
Yeah.
(51:06):
Yeah.
No, not at all.
Also, like, who summoned the frost giants? Like, I'm confused whether the frost giants in the garb just exist outside of when there's potentially a new ice king to like command them.
(51:36):
Are they in hibernation or do they just live all the time?
Right. Like, I have so many questions about that.
Anyway.
So after lunch, they're like all sitting around and cam's bored and eventually declares that she wants to take a walk in the terrible weather outside. But she realizes that all the ladies feel obligated to go with her.
(52:07):
So she's like, no, no, no, I just want time alone. You guys stay here. And Lady Mel also y'all suck.
And Lady Mel runs interference for Cam to the point that like, Cam hugs her. Which just like, why manic pixie dream girl bullshit.
(52:35):
Well, she doesn't, she's like kind of there in scenes when like we get like a smearing of Cam at a luncheon that she hates. But the most we get is like Lady Mel talking to winter afterward and being like, she's miserable.
Yeah.
(52:57):
Yeah.
She's not a huggy person. She's she grew up alone. Like I'm surprised she even knows what a hug is.
(53:29):
So our manic pixie dream girl cam walks outside and she thinks about the idea of Falcon coming to save her. And that I that idea fills her with a deep sense of dread.
She convinces herself that this dread is because she knows winter would start another war over her if she was taken. She muses that if Falcon has blazing blazing.
(53:51):
She muses to a so stupid I hate it. She muses to herself though that if Falcon has blazing winter would not win that fight and that fills her with even more dread.
Because she has feelings.
(54:14):
Yeah, it's the miscommunication trope of all miscommunication tropes.
It's inviolating but I have to say that's not the part of the book that I like the least. So...
(54:47):
Right.
Exactly. Or death. Or both.
Why are we spending time on this? Yeah.
(55:13):
So later that afternoon cam has a tour of the palace. We learned that the palace is massive with several basement floors and floors above the ground. She doesn't even tour 10 other floors that her guides just say are filled with empty rooms for nobles and visiting dignitaries and servants.
That's a big fucking palace.
(55:44):
Yeah.
I'm kind of outrageous that it's that large. I mean like my office building is like 16 floors. So it's like half that size. It's still pretty fucking big.
(56:15):
Yeah. Yeah, how does that make sense?
Either way cam dismisses her guide and goes into some of those areas by herself but she's interrupted by a different servant fetching her for dinner. Cam finds it odd that the servant was able to find her but she doesn't dwell on it.
(56:37):
The servant... she's an idiot. She doesn't realize she's being followed every moment of the day.
Yeah, I mean that's where the whole like, at the beginning of part one when she was like fighting a ghost or whatever, there is definitely a simplistic side to her.
(57:02):
And if I dwell on it too much, it makes... it's like cringey but I try not to.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
So this servant is young and we learned that they've worked at the palace since they were eight.
There's a bit of illustration about the society here but it's dry and it doesn't matter so we're gonna move on.
(57:28):
The crux is that the palace has a school for all the children. The crux is that the palace has a school for all the child labor it employs.
Cam wants to share her country's lawyer with the children so she arranges to attend a history lesson to do so.
But when the time comes no one shows up and the teacher tells her that the parents aren't keen to have her meddling in their kids' studies.
It's just a very weird like rejection scene.
(58:18):
I have about five more questions.
And they try to brush it off and they're like, oh yeah, they mostly like clean rooms that aren't used so it's very light labor. I'm like, it's still labor.
(58:48):
Yeah. Anyway, this rejection leads Cam to find an empty spare room in this palace and cry.
When she comes out it's clear that there are a bunch of servants who had been listening to her sob and so she hardens her heart.
She says, quote, she'd offered these people friendship and they'd thrown it back in her face. She wouldn't make that mistake again.
(59:12):
At lunch her day gets worse because a prank is pulled where someone has ordered her, quote, favorite lungfish and eels.
One bite has Cam running to the side and throwing up.
Well, I think that's intentional. Yeah, we know why. There's a reason she's not a bitch, but you know.
(59:36):
Girl.
Truly, truly.
So then we see Liddy Mel explaining to Winter and Valak that this was a prank and it was in portaste.
Winter asks how Cam is settling in otherwise and Mel is like, she's not.
She doesn't have any agency or friends and she's restless like she's bored. She's like, she needs a friend, but I don't know who.
(59:59):
And Winter's like, yeah, same. I know nothing about her except how to have sex.
And so in the meantime, Mel suggests Winter spend more time with her. She says that there's a kindness to Cam and a great deal of loneliness.
She doesn't think that Cam is a threat like Valak does.
At dinner.
(01:00:22):
Yeah, I think so. In this conversation, Mel is like, I don't have time or the energy to run around after her. Like, I'm not the one.
No. And especially after Cam gets her like 10 year old friend and she's like literally climbing walls, I can understand that.
So at dinner, Rekha is simpering and Winter excuses himself early to see Cam, who did not attend.
(01:00:47):
He finds Cam sitting on her balcony in a storm and carries her inside where he dresses her for bed and tucks her in.
Sorry, I'm going to do that again.
He finds her sitting on her balcony in a storm and carries her inside where he dresses her for bed and tucks her in.
She asks if he'll join her, but he says not because she's ill.
And she doesn't even put up a fight or snark about it. And that fact that Cam isn't hiding this weakness,
(01:01:12):
alarms Winter so much that he crawls into bed with her and they have a bit of sex before she falls asleep in his arms.
But like always, he leaves before she wakes up.
I don't either. The like waking up alone thing sucks.
(01:01:38):
Right.
The next morning Cam is kind of relieved that Winter's gone because she doesn't have to address her weakness with him.
And it's here that I realized that this book is creating the cardinal sin most of the time by making us live every fucking day with these people.
(01:02:03):
And I swear this book could have been 200 pages shorter if we didn't do this.
But it's...
Nope.
And I hate that it's like that night, the next morning, that night, the next morning, like can we...
(01:02:25):
We're just going to dinner for dinner's sake. There's nothing happening here.
Right.
So Cam is sitting in her room. No.
Anyway, it's the next morning and Cam is sipping the jasmine tea that Bella makes her every morning and it's bitter again.
(01:02:47):
So Cam is about to mention how to brew it correctly when a note is delivered from Winter that Cam is to start writing lessons that day.
Valak is there to teach her and he's a little bit prickly, but there's another nice man named Braun and he gives Cam a very patient mare to learn how to write on.
As Valak leads Cam's horse in a circle, she asks him whether he hates her because she's a summerlander or because of his cousin Rekha.
(01:03:16):
He scoffs at the idea that Rekha fancies Winter. So Cam says, quote,
Who knew men of the North were so easily deceived?
Just a little bit. And so from that Cam surmises that Valak finds her a threat to the king.
She tells him, quote, in case you haven't noticed subtleties are not my forte. When I wish someone harm, they storming will know it.
(01:03:44):
And it's here that Valak tells her that because she lied when she was wed to Winter, he will always think less of her.
And here again, I'm just like, there's no gray area to be had. Like give it a rest, dude. You saw the condition that she was in.
What choice did she have?
(01:04:06):
Right. Like, oh yeah, I'm sorry I lied so I didn't die. Have you never been in that position? That must be nice for you.
So Valak leaves and Cam has a much better time alone with Bron and it's the first time in her life that she feels free.
And finally, finally we get a slight passage of time where Cam doesn't see much of Winter except the dinner and in bed.
(01:04:30):
She's learning how to ride, she's having a great time, and then one day Bron takes her to the village of Cornundle?
Something. Yeah.
As they ride in, it's clear that the people are wary of Cam. She notices that the people seem to have fared the war slightly better than the summer landers.
(01:04:52):
Bron tells her about the ice heart and how it allowed Winter to focus his power on only part of the continent instead of putting his people through a suffering endless Winter as well.
She clarifies that that sounds like the power that he was using wasn't power of his own, but Valak is like, nope we're not talking about this, let's talk about something else.
And she thinks internally, quote, could someone, like me, strip Winter of his devastating power and return the summer throne to its rightful heirs?
(01:05:21):
And to which I say, to what end, lady, do you like him or not? Like, rightful heirs who?
Because he's an asshole.
Eclipt.
(01:05:44):
Right. Well, and like, your sisters aren't well equipped, but also your sisters are fine. Like, where they are.
Right.
(01:06:13):
No, because she doesn't truly want to do that. And I think maybe this was like, trying to show her still feeling some loyalty for Falcon, but that doesn't make sense to me either because like, I don't care how much I love somebody as soon as you made my life a living hell and left me alone for three years and didn't cop to what you did, like,
(01:06:35):
girl, bye.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Anyway, they have lunch in a pub and afterward Cam continues to ruminate on the topic of treason.
(01:06:57):
But she finds the thought of betraying Winter turns her stomach. It actually makes it hurt, in fact, like a sharp pain. And as they near the end of town, they see a festival being erected and she's like almost so uncomfortable she can't like walk.
But it's here that winter joins them and distracts her from that. And she's like, Oh, great. I love having explosive diarrhea with my new husband. And so she's like trying to look for an escape but they're interrupted by the cry of stop thief.
(01:07:28):
And a small filthy boy darts in amongst them trying to escape one of the like shopkeepers chasing after him.
Winter catches him and this boy erupts in vulgar swearing and in the struggle he kicks Cam in the stomach. She keels over and there's like chaos ensuing.
(01:07:50):
So winter ends up dunking this boy in a barrel of water until he admits that he was stealing and like calms the fuck down. It's quickly thereafter that he realized that the woman that he kicked was the queen, the queen.
Soon thereafter, this boy realizes that the woman that he kicked in the stomach was the queen and he is immediately sobered and remorseful.
(01:08:15):
Cam dying tells everyone no harm has been done. My stomach just hurts. Can you let this boy go boy what's your name and the boys like my name's Christy and cams like cool I'm going to pay back the merchants for anything you stole and in return you're going to work for me for a year because I need a friend.
Love employing kids and at the end of that cam is just like I gotta go and literally runs away because she needs to alleviate the pain in her stomach.
(01:08:49):
So she collapses in the snow, overcome with cramps and where she fell there is like just blood everywhere.
My first thought in this scene even then was a miscarriage but that doesn't occur to cam until far later.
(01:09:17):
Yeah.
(01:09:43):
So plot twist or spoilers I guess it is a miscarriage but like it's confusing because two things were happening right like she was being poisoned and then also she kept kicked in the stomach so like what happened?
(01:10:04):
Regardless.
Right. Yeah. There's just so many people have to kill her. The damsel in distress is damsel in distressing very hard.
(01:10:27):
No I wasn't mad about it either I just some of the damsel in distress I didn't love like the storm on the trail thing I was just like okay can we just get to that because I it took me a lot of realize that that was the plot.
(01:10:48):
Right.
I wanted to I thought that Falcon and that intrigue was the plot and it's not.
So once.
Right. No.
Right. Yeah so once I gave into the fact that like, oh this is what I'm supposed to be reading and enjoying about I was like okay, I can enjoy this now.
(01:11:21):
It's kind of wild. No, certainly not.
So when Cam wakes up it's two days later and Glacier is there attending to her.
She tells cam that the woman at the tavern where they had lunch poisoned her and that she's been taken to the Glacier as punishment.
Then Christy pops up and cam is like super stoked that he actually is in her service now. And she's like I have a friend and cam is ready to get out of bed and take out the day and cam is ready to get out of bed and take on the day but Glacier insists that she heal.
(01:11:57):
So cam tells her that no one can make her do anything that she doesn't want to and so Galicia is like man you and winter are two peas in a motherfucking pod huh.
So then she goes on to say you know the ice heart blah blah it's slowly killing winter only love can save him from turning completely that's why you got to give him a kid.
We learned that the mythical ice king was a god named Rorschach who was the lover of the goddess Wern and Galicia tells cam that if Rorschach totally takes over winter that will bring about an apocalypse that no one can survive.
(01:12:33):
Ugh.
I don't know why he's a bad guy because he was the lover of the goddess Wern and that's who they worship so.
(01:12:58):
Or at least he didn't start that way.
I don't know.
A pack ellipse out pack ellipse.
So yeah I actually forgot that the tavern woman poisoned cam.
Yeah.
(01:13:19):
So she's so okay.
I don't think it gives anything away now but Bella's poisoning cam to like not get pregnant.
So she's like feeding her contraceptive tea something.
And then this tavern lady poisoned her and then Christie kicked her in the stomach.
But it had to be the poison slash other things because other if winter thought that Christie killed his child Christie would be dead.
(01:14:02):
Right I didn't want to upset you.
Right.
So anyway in lieu of the information about Rorschach cam is like well that tracks for why he said he'll kill me if I don't give him a kid in a year.
And Galicia is like wow men are so stupid.
And that's that's when cam is like you and I we could be friends.
(01:14:23):
And I like that energy a lot between these two.
So Galicia is like don't listen to winter he's an idiot.
I'll show you what the quote mercy of the glaciers is if you promise to rest and cams like deal.
So we haven't really talked about it like this.
We've just been saying that winter's like going to kill cam but he's always couched it in like I'm going to give you up to the mercy of the glaciers.
(01:14:46):
Everybody's just kind of assumed that means that he's going to kill her.
Right exactly.
So Galicia takes cam and Christie to a place called Mount Gerd two hours away.
(01:15:07):
There they spot winter who is not happy to see cam out about so soon.
But Galicia calls him an idiot to his face and it's like it's her right to see what her fate might be and to see the woman who poisoned her punished.
Here we learn that the mercy of the glass. Yeah it means banishment from where you're from originally.
(01:15:36):
No the mercy of the glacier.
So here we learn the mercy of the glacier not Lady Galicia. I can see why that would be confusing.
I was unclear but it feels like it's banishment from where you're from originally to another part of winter Craig and people can choose to help you or not.
(01:16:08):
And if not you die.
(01:16:38):
Right.
Yeah and I also thought that some people might be chained to the mountain so they can't move.
(01:17:01):
I don't know so this is exactly what.
Yeah so this is what winter tells cam quote winter folk are the mercy of the mountains.
We live in a harsh world where our survival often depends on one another.
There is no room in the clans for people who cannot be trusted but we are not brews or barbarians.
The woman admitted to putting a purgative in your food but even Lacey agreed that if she truly meant to kill you there are dozens of more effective poisons she could have used to ensure your death.
(01:17:28):
Those people down there are the folk from Cunundal who were willing to climb the mountain and offer her mercy.
She will be taken away from this province if she ever returns or commits any other serious crime she will be taken to the glaciers and left there to die.
So like what?
(01:17:53):
Right because he's like there's no room in the clans for people who cannot be trusted.
Literally anywhere else right?
Oh I'm so sad about that.
(01:18:15):
Like that doesn't seem like a punishment at all.
So okay cam with this knowledge is like cool everyone hates me meaning like if that happened to me it would be death so I'm glad we cleared that up.
And winter says something that I think is wildly unfair here he says whether people help her or not is entirely dependent upon her but as we'll see later that's not the case at all.
(01:18:44):
That's the thing right and for her to gaslight her and be like for him to gaslight her and be like oh you know it's you have the power to like make people like you I'm like brother you are an idiot actually.
(01:19:06):
Yeah yeah.
So in light of this information cam tells us quote her original plan had been to settle in and befriend the locals with an eye toward using that knowledge to escape the threat of death.
Now she realized that she had even greater reason to put that plan into action the people she had thought to befriend for information and assistance for the very ones who had the power to set her free should she indeed end up chained on the slopes slopes of Mount Gerd.
(01:19:37):
Or was she chained and they just came up and chained her like can people just do that.
Right.
Who has that power.
Right.
(01:19:59):
Yeah.
Are they gonna give her some lunch like.
I don't know.
So back at the ranch in the palace winter deposits cam back in her room and disappears cam listens to him and stays put and Christie teaches her how to play cards.
While they do so cam tells him about the legend of Roland.
(01:20:21):
She reveals that cam's family is descended from Roland's brother since Roland died a hero in battle.
She reads Christie a passage about how Roland's last stand.
No, she reads Christie a passage about Roland's last stand where blazing helped him be victorious against very bad odds.
Roland's sword blazing summoned fire that leveled his enemies and telling Lee his own men and Roland to only the sword was left upright in the ground.
(01:20:54):
Cam goes on to tell us that blazing disappeared after that day.
Christie shares a story of his own telling cam about how winter killed the frost giants that killed his parents which is how winter sword came to be known as gender feasts the giant killer.
(01:21:15):
I like gutter flies it sounds like thunder thighs.
So this tale makes cam realize that there are two sides to every story and that winter's own people see him as a hero just as Roland had been to the people of summerland.
(01:21:52):
It also just paints her in more of a simplistic picture like, yeah, did you think his people were going to hate him for being victorious?
Like, come on girl.
(01:22:14):
So once cam is recovered she and Christie take to exploring the palace and the land around it.
Christie teaches cam how to pick a lock and how to climb a wall.
And they put these skills to good use because one day they happen to come upon a room in one of the far turrets of the palace.
And as soon as they're in there they realize that this is winter's second bedroom question mark.
(01:22:48):
Right. And we fully never come back to this.
Why were we here in the first place?
So they scurry away and we learn about a place called the atrium which is also an off limits place to most people because it's winter's private place which just makes them want to enter it all the more.
(01:23:20):
Why are there two secret places? Why does he have two bedrooms? I just, I don't know. Why are we here?
It seems like in a very inconvenient location.
(01:23:45):
So we go back to winter who has clearly been keeping tabs on his wife and Christie. Some advisors see her as just a curious girl but Valak thinks differently.
But winter's like, dude, drop it. I've got it handled.
Back to business, we learn that Falcon has raised an army in Calberna and will sail for winter Craig in three months.
Winter orders that all of the abandoned watchtowers along the coast be reopened and freshly manned so that they can be ready for a potential invasion.
(01:24:11):
Once he's alone, winter wonders to himself whether Cam would betray him.
We learn that he has kept away from her for six weeks because Galacia said that Cam needed time to heal before they be fucking again.
Winter sees this as an opportunity to rid himself of the cloud of lust so that he can think more clearly.
(01:24:44):
You don't throw up from your vagina with a purgative.
It's not how anatomy works.
For those of you who haven't had a baby, it's the same amount of time.
(01:25:09):
So anyway, that's where we're going to end part two.
Stay tuned for parts three and for parts four.
And at some point we'll get to the end of this book.
If you're looking for a plot, you're going to be looking for a while. This is it.
(01:25:30):
We're in it. It might not seem like it, but we're deep in the plot of a miscommunication trope.
Yeah, no.
Anyway, we did it guys. That's part two of The Winter King.
(01:25:52):
Bye, C.L. Wilson. Let us know what you thought on the socials.
You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Goodreads at SpiceTutorsPod.
And if you like our podcast and want more, consider joining our Patreon, where we release Patreon exclusive episodes in our off weeks.
Until next time, we'll see ya. Bye!
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