Page 174 of Winter Gods & Serpents

The old queen sunk further down her seat, tracing her granddaughter's predatory movement about the room with the corner of her cowed gaze.

“Melanthe’s sister, father’s crafter. The wine red haired Eldmoorian witchling, she still serves you?”

She studied Snow through flurried brows, assessing the odd request. “You lived child, try and hold onto that life. Whatever you are trying to meddle will be dangerous. I know Silas, he won’t spare you. Let him be and for your fate pray to the gods, and send them to the heavens,” she said in a plea that the princess definitely took for a threat.

She halted, her fingers atop the wooden table swirling dust in circles before she rose her head to her grandmother. “Gods do not care, and heavens might go lit themselves aflame. Do you think I fear your son? When you live my life you fear nothing,” she approached leaning down to her head level, tracing a finger over her grandmothers face. “Every wicked was once a saint but one born wicked can never become a saint, so save your new found belief blether for one who gives a rot. Now, will someone call the one I am seeking, or shall I fetch her myself?” Spite in each biting word.

“You have changed girl, truly.”

Snow scoffed, moving away from her. “What did you expect when you cook sour poison, a sugar tart? Now, send for what I need, precious little house you got, would be a shame to wreck,” she subtly threatened, wiping a layer of dust from a painting.

Why did I let myself get this entertained from this? Her belligerence was sophisticated, to those in her clutches skin creeping, to me severely attractive. I liked that side of her, feisty but with such poise and composure. People forgot the prettiest roses had the sharpest thorns, but this rose had a sharp dagger inside her too. Even at the least favourable situations she had held herself high, her battle of wits was unchallengeable, likewise her fighting.

Her grandmother sat silently huffing smoke till a red-haired girl in servant clothes showed. Her pale skin had greyed and hued in colours of fatigue and violence. Shoulders crooked forward, cautiously entering the room throwing assessing glances to all of us before striking stunned at Snow. The crafter’s poise that her kind always wore had vanished from her halo leaving her with a servants robe of humility. Isjordians and their vices of feeling above just every other kind truly made for a morbid culture.

“Privacy, Cerelia. Whatever poison I will order from her I don’t want father dearest knowing,” Snow threw to her and she stood to exit in all her pique.

The Eldmoorian rose her head, a fearful look in her face before she stuttered out, “I…I don’t make poisons.”

Snow scoffed. “Anyone can make poison dear, different ways. I will teach you how to make mine.” She traced her grandmothers steps leaving the room till the doors shut behind us before turning to her again. “I need your blood, nothing more. It is not you I need, it’s your sister.”

The young crafter rose her chin all challenge. “My sister is dead,” she spurted out courageously. Her shadows of fear masking the rest, she was smart, aware that there were Umbra around her, a skilled crafter.

Snow turned to me. “Did sweet Melanthe look dead that night?”

The sister paled and swallowed when I shook my head in answer.

“Don’t play with me witchling. I know you can feel each other through tugs of magic. I am a royal, I have read all about your neat tricks. Now blood and preferably an explanation on how she is alive?”

The girl retreated back. “I cannot betray her, it would be as betraying the King. She serves him and if he doesn’t want you to see her that means something.”

Snow stood annoyed and unsheathed her dagger and the girl called two gusts of magic to her hands. My own magic floated round us, blanketing around Snow and grabbed onto whatever shadows stood amongst us to pull in protection.

The girl suddenly clutched her chest and gasped for air, her magic faded no longer a threat. Caiden’s fist extended forward toward the crafter, his magic restraining air from her lungs. “Speak witchling, she might like to play with you, but my patience runs dry pretty easily. Shall I turn your lungs to dust or let Isjordians have their way with you? King Silas could have sneaked a crafter but it’s still illegal here. Isjordians are suckers for tradition, burnt at stake was it not, or drowned by Seer sea?”

“You heard him, the pretty face or a place of your choice?” Snow asked and the girl nodded in fear, still unable to breath.

Caiden pulled back and she begun coughing, her eyes wide and her face red as she examined the Zephyr. She lifted her arm and Snow dragged the tip of her dagger drawing blood, dipping a white cloth in it before folding it neatly and handing it over to Nia.

“How is she alive?” Caiden questioned.

The girl hesitated before glancing over at Snow, who had sat cleaning her dagger. “She has told me very little, we have not met more than discreetly. The Caligo mark, it was on her, two horns of guardian Keres of the soul gates, meaning she had reached the otherworld, even entered it. I know it sounds mad, she died, but she did also not come from the dead. Mel said something had saved her, dragged her from death, literally. I don’t know what that meant,” the girl hastily explained, her eyes bouncing in fear about the room.

Her explanation was either a blatant lie, either told by her sister to fend us off, or an evil truth that was about to make this situation a bit more complicated. For someone to be dragged from Caligo onto the living realm was nearly impossible, complicated, and dangerous. Just as an impossible there was always the little chance of possible. Why exactly on Silas’s court? If it was enough to bother Snow, it bothered me too.

“Lower your magic,” I called. “If you speak the truth, why are you masking it for us to see?”

Snow peeked shortly at me before flicking her dagger in threat to the crafter again. Slowly gust of colour swirled around the crafter, revealing the truths and more she’d hit. She was in pain and she was in half. The other half missing. She’d sold her soul.

I gave Snow a nod, she had not lied.

“Where is Melanthe now?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know, last I met her your father had ordered her to the azul hela.” Seraphim, fire lands.

“Why is she needed there?”

She shrugged unknowingly. “I don’t know, there is not much for us to do there anyway, the further we are from Eldmoor the more our magic fades, we have to be near Celesteel’s gates in Asra to draw mana from Caligo and wield a good amount of it. That much further away her magic would be as faded as in Vrammethen, inexistent.”