Page 141 of Winter Gods & Serpents

I removed my fingers from her skin. “It sounds like you want it to be more than that.” Did she have feelings for him beyond friendship? Did it bother me?

She rubbed her forehead where I’d touched a second ago. “Now, now Kilian, it doesn’t suit you darling.”

That word again, she used it almost knowing what it did to me. “Funny ways you find to avoid answering me.”

Her face drew to soft lines. “Cai and I are only friends and that is what we will always be, but we did try to be more than that…once. Well, maybe more than once in that once.”

I gave Memphis another stroke. “Why did you settle on only friends?”

“I was young, easily charmed and he was…Cai, charm incarnate.”

“You two are alike in a sense. I’d think you’d get along fine together, he cares about you more than many care about themselves.”

She rose a brow at me. “Trying to set us up again? Am I not marrying your king, what would the Obscur Asteri say about his guard playing matchmaker for his future wife?”

I grimaced a little and she laughed. That sun-coloured laugh. “Don’t call him that.”

Her hand extended next to mine as both of us stroked Memphis side by side. “Heard he cracked the skies and almost summoned night in the middle of day. My guardian said it shone black stars in the blue heaven of Nubil and afront Cyra for a week. Sounds a scary man with a deserving scary name.”

“He was a boy with scary powers, that is all. Now a man with useless ones.” The lone Obscur could only learn the craft on his own. The magic had leaked out of control and almost summoned night in the middle of day. The black stars had been cracks of night peeking through blankets of day. Only a boy with no control of his powers, but people adored another being to fear, humans were born for submission.

“Careful how you speak about my future husband,” she exclaimed, feigning authority and a straight face.

I fashioned a bow. “Apologies…my queen.”

She bit her lip, her face red with wanting to laugh but she held onto the act and cleared her throat. “Forgiven.” And then she laughed. “You know coming from your mouth, my queen doesn’t sound so bad.” She wiggled her brows up. “Imagine on those night times, or was it day?”

I gave her a look and patted Memphis one last time before leaving toward my horse. I was indeed beguiled. “Stop flirting with me.”

“But I am your queen,” she grumbled all play, and I smiled to myself.

The city was quiet at evening, the sounds were muffled and contained within the households, the air casually broke from the howls of wolves, a common sound we had heard in Isjord. She directed us down towards an array of black cobbled labyrinth paths till we almost reached the outskirt where the height of the city wall could be seen only by crooking your neck. We stopped afront a small wooden house between a bakery and a closed flowery. A sweet spot that fit too wildly with the grey fort of Isjord.

She lightly knocked on the door and swiftly the young pregnant Adriatian from the trials came into view and threw herself over Snow.

“I have been waiting for you,” she said cheerfully, showing us in.

I did not understand what was happening. Had the cold frosted my brain? Were this not the woman that had cursed her to gods and heavens?

“My apologies, Amerie,” the princess offered.

Mal stepped toward Amerie, his eyes circling around her. “Are you well?” he asked, carefully assessing her.

The young woman nodded in a smile and motioned for us to enter her home.

The house was simple and spacious, furniture was arranged lightly in the dining room, beiges and browns. It was warm, filled with the smell of sweet baking’s, spices and mistletoe; a family home.

Amerie beamed with joy. “You came.”

“I thought you might like to see a familiar face, well two handsome familiar faces,” Snow said, sitting down reaching for the biscuits displayed on the table. “That was me and Nia, the rest of the entourage was to scare the wolves.”

Mal scowled. “Stray from wounding my handsomeness, princess.”

She silently laughed munching on biscuits. “It cannot be wounded any more than it already is.”

He flicked his tongue at her and she back at him. I frowned to myself in realisation, that was why she annoyed me so easy. My brother's carbon copy.

Caiden gave Amerie a hug. “Have you lost weight? The food is a drastic change in here but to lose a whole pillow of a stomach, very strange?”