Page 133 of Winter Gods & Serpents

“Believe me, I share the disappointment,” I said. “But as for the safe part, I’d reassure you with no doubt. No harm will come her way.”

“I am right here,” she grumbled annoyed. “Sam, could you have Van and Aster returned to their borders?”

He stared at her in hesitation. “Returned?”

She nodded. “I promised them, but they have warning and a lengthy criminal record in Isjord, they are banned to ever enter these lands.” She had been truthful; I held myself still from turning wide eyed to her.

“I have no news on the Isline villages, your father has taken complete matter to the new general Moregan, all the matters to the Solaryan vandals are passed to her and kept highly secretive, even moved the party to a separate camp from castle,” Samuel informed the princess looking around us nervously, his shadows of fear.

“Where about?”

“No, I warned you before about Moregan, I’m not sending you straight to flogging, or worse; with my own hands at that,” the general expressed, and I sighed in relief.

“Fine.” Her foot wiggled under the table nervously. “The burned Lord mentioned that the vandals have been passing through to Isjord from Casmere. I am very unfamiliar with that area and I would go if my father had not gone rabid from what I did to his beloved swine,” she informed him as we had heard from the lord.

I understood the hunt on the Adriatian trespassers, especially after finding out few were working with her father, but why was she looking into the Solaryan vandals with this much curiosity, for what reason was she so interested in these attacks?

Samuel narrowed his eyes onto the table. Confused, he rubbed a hand on his chin. “I will find pretext as soon as I can, and will head there.”

“He also mentioned my father has sent troops to Seraphim; he is after something Solarya is after too.”

Samuel struck in surprise. “I have not heard that before. Seraphim, are you sure?”

She nodded and his gaze traced down in pinched concentration. What was she concocting I could not form altogether?

“Sam, is Elias in Moregan’s team?” she asked slyly. The captain that Mal had told me had flirted with her continuously. He had gotten on her bad side and earned a punishment my brother had been too busy laughing to tell me.

“I know what you are thinking Snow, he likes you, but he would not betray Isjord for nothing, he is as stubborn as his father, Venzors are not to be dealt with,” he warned.

“Trust me Sam, I will have him like an open book before I enter his bed.”

I turned at her words and she cocked an brow up at me.

“Why the surprise Kilian, I want my fun before I marry your miserable toad of a king.”

I did not know why I grew surprised at her words; she was about to enter a loveless marriage to someone she hated, she just didn’t know how much of a toad the king truly was, and I could not blame her for her choices of entertainment.

Samuel laughed. “You do know ways to a man’s heart Snow, don’t know if you can find it around this one.”

“The only way to a man’s heart is with a dagger, but I know the way to their head.”

“An axe?” I asked. She frowned, but the general howled in laughter.

Fully turning to me, she cocked an elbow up on the chair rest, intentions full of challenge. “Didn’t take me an axe to get to yours, did it now?”

I mimicked her action. “Correct, it was poor manners, bruteness, love of danger, recklessness and many more as such. Might as well have driven an axe through, it would hurt less.”

She sneered, smacking the book in her hand down. “It’s never off my list don’t fret.”

Gods, wasn’t she gorgeous angry?

“I’d take those words to their importance boy, last time she came asking for warm advice on how to pluck an eye ended up with her plucking out her uncle’s eye,” Samuel warned, standing up.

I never have underestimated her, would not begin doing it now but differently now I knew to differentiate her threats. “So I have heard.”

Her and the general exchanged goodbyes and words of caution. Just after he left, she had been fiddling around with her book for ages brewing about something.

“Exactly how much of a miserable toad is your King?” Such innocent words. She was fiercer and more dangerous than a dozen soldiers, yet she framed that sentence so cautiously. It had been long that I had laughed to this extent, shaking, and almost tearing up.