Page 135 of Winter Gods & Serpents

“And about his particular indiscretions, how did you find out?”

She laced her gloved fingers together, nervously looking down absently. “Pen brought me a servant who had worked in his court, and Nia did research on his city.”

“You wanted to use them as ground for his kill, didn’t you? Not to put doubt on your intentions to interrogate him.”

“Yes, it was good ground with the lords too, not to have their feathers too erect about killing one of their own, but I truly did not want him alive either, he was not going to escape his end even it played nothing with them. The servant girl told me things I wish I had the ability to unhear before she showed me her scars, burn marks everywhere underneath her clothing—everywhere except her face and hands,” she swallowed, as if tasting the memory again. “Then she confessed the rest, how four of his bastard-born had died merely toddlers upon his sick hobbies.” She blew out a heavy breath. “I can't say that was not one of the most satisfying lives I have taken.”

Murder was not my first choice of punishment, but I could have not agreed with her more on this one.

“You wear it well, the consequence to your action,” I said, moving my thumb over the cut on her lip and then her bruise. She raised her somewhat shocked face to me, that stare all warm, soft, gold and feather thorns. “Your bravery frustrates me, but it is admirable.”

The whole castle heard them this morning, Nia had physically restrained me from breaking toward the dinning chambers after I heard Silas hit her. Then I had allowed myself to smile after her every retreat. How could she make mighty Silas appear so small? Her shaken sight, the bruise, the cut all had triggered something in me. I hated seeing her hurt.

A small smile rose on her lips. “Father dearest has a slightly different phrasing for that. How can someone expect a saint by raising a death bringer is beyond me.”

Right. She was her and I was me. I pulled my thumb away from her bruise and she inventively followed it with her eyes.

“Why are you trying to work this out? Isn’t this his problem to deal with, every ruler faces such small issues almost all of the time.”

“That’s what worries me most, he doesn’t cause or allow small issues—small issues have no part in his court. You view the top of the iceberg and your ship sinks from what is underneath.”

“Iceberg?”

She laughed jollily clutching her stomach tightly, the sound of it very radiant, like clouds when they part for scarce rays of sun, like the smell of a rose after rain, deeply intoxicating. My brows rose in question at her amusement. What did I say?

“My point was, he never acts on such miniscule stand of action, he is a peacock, grand and flashy. Pay mind to small detail you will stumble on his true plans.”

“You fear he is planning something?”

“No, not fear, doubt. Shouldn’t everyone be aware of him by this point?” She was correct, underestimation was a bad habit, especially when it came to Silas.

“That day when we returned from Kirkwall, why did you let them send the bodies back?”

She leaned back fiddling with her book again, attention detached from her surroundings. “You said one truth.”

“So you admit, you lied that day as well. And you ask me why I try to see past your actions as something else.”

My words seemed to have taken her aback, she only stared at me wide eyed in silence. “Why do you try?”

“I asked first,”

“I asked back.”

Because she confused me, because she made me dizzy with questionable words and stranger actions. Because it bothered me, not being able to categorize someone as I had been taught. Fine line between right and wrong Nia had said, but to me there was never such thing. One was either wrong or right. “Because I want to understand you.”

“They didn’t send you to understand me,” she responded, a frown began forming in her pinched features.

“Why would that be so wrong, to have someone understand you?”

“Letting on to your truths is like bleeding in front of a shark,” she said monotonal. Words that left half-sturdy from her. “You already have learned too much of my weaknesses, and let’s not forget who you are to me.” Yet her truths were like a moonflower, it took a certain darkness to open and once in bloom they stunned, and they shuddered me. If anything they had become my weakness.

“Who am I to you, Snow?”

“My nightmare.”

Her words settled the shield of air between us once again. It had always been there, maybe it had been stirred but it didn’t take to see to know that air was always there, just like her past. Two truths, a sincere one, and a heart-breaking one. I reminded her of nightmares, and she reminded me of the moon. We both saw one another in the dark. Why was she beginning to glow in mine?

We left the library at her angry growls directed at her stomach that had not stopped rumbling till she forced her way towards the kitchens. She’d removed the red cape, unbound her dark hair, the crown now rolled around her wrist and I carried her red slippers while she sprawled barefooted in one of the servants benches. She waited for her stew impatiently, chewing on the empty spoon. Ken never surprised at her presence at the servants dining halls as per usual, he greeted her and promised to quickly cook her favourite food. She was so very odd to me, she looked so normal when she slept and ate that I had forgotten who I was looking at. Hard came to believe when she stuffed her face so tight with food she could barely breathe, and when she swallowed, a tear dropped to her cheek.