Page 10 of Winter Gods & Serpents

“What do you think he wants?” Cai asked absently.

To use me, kill me, torture me again, the list could go on and on. I could well be leading myself to a trap. Problem was, that to find out I’d have to fall for it. “Whatever it is, it will be nothing I will like. I am worth nothing to him, if he wanted my return, he must have found use for me after all.”

“You are still the crown princess, the heir to the throne.”

His words made me laugh. “He will outlive gods before he passes that title to me. My brother was different, father adored him, raised and treated him like a future king,” I explained. “He despised me, a powerless disobedient child. He’d rather pass it to his bastards than me.”

“What if he still hopes you have magic?” he asked wearily. “To want and torture them out of you again?”

“He knows what he will find, nothing.”

Venzor laid merely miles away when we noticed the unending city walls that stretched for miles ahead. A terrifying giant of stone, steel, magic, and frost. The grey stone walls towered the landscape for miles, breaking the ghostly white scenery. Sentries were heavily armed and dispensed all over the wall and gates, the blue coats hovered around at ready for any unwanted visitors. We showed letter of passage stolen from the Isjordian soldiers, necessary if anyone wished to enter any city in the kingdom. Since the night of the attack twelve years ago my father seemed to have raised security measures around his cities. More than occasionally on our journey we spotted sentries patrolling the main roads, forests, and city outside parameters.

Nothing had changed from my last visit to Venzor from when I was a child. Wooden cottages and buildings with onyx stoned roofs spread and heaved like wild mushrooms beyond the city walls. The air warmer within them and filled with the smell of cinnamon, baked goods and burning wood. People paced hurriedly in their furs around the streets attending their business, moving as puppets, their attention heavily concentrated to their work. Only dogs rose their heads and noses at us, but even they did not bother paying any more attention than that. People of Isjord were grown used to visitors, these lands were the main connection between the six blessed kingdoms, no one could enter the other without stepping in Isjordian soil first; the kingdom had profited richly from these circumstances. Venzor was even more surprising visited on feet, the cobblestone was warm beneath my soles. Magic cursing through it to keep the city warm. Isjordians were not affected by the cold but it made Isjord suitable to foreigners who loathed the freezing temperatures. A large proportion of Isjord was foreigners, manual labours, and many more skilled artisans. The population had been in decline for hundreds of years bringing the decision to open borders to other kingdoms.

After having our fill of food in a small tavern and locating ourselves in an inn for the night, we headed for the city. Halting afront a printing house, Nia and Cai dispersed to their business leaving me alone. A bell chimed as I pushed the door open, and a white head popped up from beneath the dusty oak counter.

“With Krig’s blessings, how could I be of assistance?”

My eyes hovered around the walls filled with news pamphlets, the shop completely ordinary. “I am told you can fake letters. Trina sent me to you.”

His eyes shot wide and he moved quickly, hovering around the windows before shutting the door tightly. “Hells, no one told you that business is not to be said out loud for patrols to hear?”

“Apologies,” I said bowing slightly.

“What letter?” he asked nervously lowering his specs down to rub the bridge of his nose.

“An identification letter.”

He pursed his lips and shook his head. “Letters pumpkin, not the impossible. I do not fiddle with allowing criminals from wherever you sort are onto Isjord.”

“Patriotism is poor substitute for coin.”

“And coin is not worth a hanging. I forge simple letters, if you have nothing of the sort, the door is behind you.” He pointed putting his specs on and shuffling through pamphlets.

“Your wife did not say so, she bragged to my friend vastly about your skills. Ten years she said, you’ve been forging the unblessed as Isjordians. She was very proud of you, lovely red hair also offered to read my friend's hand. A crafter in Isjord, how impossible. How illegal,” I provoked. Nia had oiled the barmaid for information, but she’d spilled beyond extent and very happily, it had made her so dizzy she’d complained of a headache all the way here.

He smacked the papers down in frustration. “Mad woman, she’ll be the death of us both. How many and for whom?”

I gave him all instruction to work on Nia’s and Cai’s documentation. My father would not allow a soul in his castle that he did not feel safe having there.

I drummed my finger on the glass counter. “Could you recall forging a birth certificate for a lady called Helga Larsen about eighteen years or so ago?”

He blinked confused at my request. “I would not remember; memory is rusty you see with all the words I put down every day.”

I threw ten pieces of gold Dar on the table and he smiled.

“Any other detail?” he asked, chucking the coin in his pocket.

“A brothel owner, here in Venzor called Iris Meadows. The bastard children are of someone high up in kings court.”

“A general,” he recalled quizzically cleaning his specs with the edge of his shirt. “That woman could not keep her mouth shut for the heavens. Yes, I do remember.”

“Do you happen to have a copy?”

His expression pinched in concentration and he raised a finger at me before heading around the back. Moments and rustling sounds later he returned, blowing dust atop a document before handing it to me. “I always keep a copy if they decide to return for another. May I ask what you need it for?”

I eyed the document with relish. “A good luck charm, in befriending the general. I will pick the documentation in the evening. Good day to you.”