Page 17 of Winter Gods & Serpents

“Yes, you said it, I am their princess. That makes me the most pompous princess of them all.” I took a big bite from my toast. “Just playing my part.”

She shook crumbs from the collar of my dress. “Let us not upstage main leads.”

I frowned. “How can I be supporting with this face?”

* * *

I circled around the castle bored to bits and headed towards the soldier’s training courts. I had always liked to observe them since I was a child. I’d sit there memorizing their moves and imitate them when training with Alaric, who had always said he was impressed at my ability to reproduce them with exact sharpness.

The training courts were at the back of the castle grounds a few minutes’ walk away. Nia tried her best to persuade me this was a bad idea, but she came to make peace with it after the second round of our argument that I’d instead tour the city.

When we approached, the soldiers took a halt, studying and looking in wonder towards us, most of them half naked and all sweaty. This would be my best preferred landscape in all Isjord.

Letting out a low whistle I waved at them to continue. “Finally, some change in scenery.”

“Isjordian soldiers? You call that a change in scenery?” Nia asked in an expression of disbelief.

“Half naked Isjordian soldiers, Nia.” She shook her head, but I let my eyes ponder around the muscled flesh around me.

“Your Highness,” a strong familiar voice called behind my back. A voice I had heard often argue with my father and a voice that had been gentle to my mother. A voice that had caught me spying the soldiers training, one that had scolded me for lifting blades twice my weight, one that had nursed my leg when I had tripped on one of the muddy courts.

“Samuel.” Before he could respond, I wrapped my hands around his neck, and hugged him tight. He was one of the three Isjordian generals serving my father, extremely skilled and loyal. One very dear to me, he’d probably seen the most of my torture here and never backed down in defending me even if it got him punished.

“You have grown well, a spitting image of her. I never had the chance to express my condolences,” he expressed in a bow. My father had hidden me in his chambers for days after the attack, closed to everyone, going as far as not letting me attend my mother's and sibling's funerals. Immediately after, I was banished to Fernfoss.

“How is Alaric?” he asked, bringing me out of my thoughts. They had both grown close to each other during Alaric's time in Isjord as my mother’s sentry, often they had trained and lounged around taverns together enjoying one another's presence, well more than just enjoyed. A few instances where I had joined them onto their leisure I’d noted their undisguisable like for each other. Never understood what happened between them, why they had broken up.

“Grumpy, demanding and growing bald.”

He laughed deeply at my remark. “Sounds the same one I remember.”

The training courts snaked and expanded for long miles into sight, mud splattering around as half naked bodies duelled hand to hand and steel to steel. Sheer force, different from what Alaric had taught us. They relied on muscle mass and bruteness of force but applied with technique they made for fearsome soldiers.

“No Verglasers?” I noted examining the empty courts that used to blister in ice from all sides with Aura learning their craft. Elementals had it easy to call upon their gifts, the art of learning to wield it adjustable within little time, but the Bruma Order only harvested the finest most outstanding talent for their battalions, their training just as rough. I’d seen countless of them bleed to death from exhausting all mana to the brim of it just so they could please their king.

“Their station was moved at the north side of the castle. We have had a good batch of them lately, your father decided to move them in a separate court, Bruma Halls. The commander still takes great pride in his students but he’s particularly triumphant at the new elevated state the Verglaser school has given him. No offence to the late king, but your father knows what to utilize best, with him it was sheer strength, your father is all about careful tactics.”

Renick Salazar, the Bruma Commander. The man who flashed in my nightmares before I even knew what they were.

“I see Renick is still fondling my father’s balls,” I said wearing the disappointment that he’d not dropped dead somewhere up the northern mountains where he was from.

He halted and turned to me wide eyed.

“My pardon,” I said with an apologetic bow. “I meant…licking his boots?”

Sam laughed jollily and gently patted my cheek, the dark rough sound made sweet and gentle. “Alaric always wanted a daughter after you were born, flushing in envy at your mother. He must have been so happy to raise you.”

“We have had our moments. I might have made him lose his wits about a dozen thousand times but he’s managed.”

“He didn’t wish to come with you?”

I shook my head. “He is better needed where he is.”

“I see.” His voice all disappointment and a spec of hurt flashed in his umber irises.

“Why did you not leave with us, Sam? I know Alaric asked you.”

All woe, he dropped his lost attention to the ground. “This is my life, all I ever knew. Alaric wanted peace, a family to the brim with children, a nice house by a meadow; and I was this, a soldier. I will be till the day I die.”