Page 188 of Winter Gods & Serpents

“Sweet round heaven of Cynth,” Mal muttered from my side.

“Tired?” Kilian asked, tucking a bunch of hair behind my ear, his thumb gently stroking my cheek aiding to the fatigue.

I nodded. “Very.”

“Let me help you. I cannot see you like this.”

I couldn’t let magic get to my head, no matters whose it was, I couldn’t. “You know the only way.”

He turned stern—more than the usual. “If I fuck you it won’t be to put you to sleep, woman.”

I giggled weakly, whatever it would be for I just wanted him to. Tired, I slouched back in my chair, munching lazily on a toast and indulge in the soft caress of his hands when I felt the air grow light. Fragrant on tangerines and lemon flowers probably from mister spring sat next to me. Involuntarily my lids gave up and I was thrown in the dark void of sleep.

Fog grew out of the winter gardens of the castle, slowly crept along the ground above the trees and through the sky surrounding me, all I could see was its grey shadows, I searched around, but I was alone.

“Snow,” a little voice called before me, a girl – a little girl with dark hair and the deepest emerald eyes stood in front of me, dressed in a little blue dress with frills and lots of layers. Thora, it was her, my little sister.

“Thora…Thora, what are you doing here?” I cried, tears streamed from my sore eyes and I moved towards to hug her, but she disappeared. I screamed her name and ran through the gardens looking for her till I was faced in front of their resting places. She stood there with a rose in her hand over our mothers grave who was pooling and leaking blood all over the garden and over Thora.

“Why is my name on that one, Snow?” my little sister asked. “Am I dead?”

My throat swelled in emotion and I did not hold back my cries, I nodded towards her, my whole body hurt at seeing her, at hearing her, my little sister.

“But I am not dead,” she said in scowl. “I am alive, look at me,” she continued, waving her hand towards me and within flashing seconds she vanished in a smoke and the world around me sucked itself into nothing, empty darkness.

I awoke around the dining room, Nia and Cai now sat across us chatting to Mal. No one had paid any mind to me, thank the blessed heavens for sparing me the embarrassment. When I leaned to move forward I noticed my hand under the table clutching Kilian’s. I stared down in confusion at our interlaced fingers, his thumb gently smoothing over my hand as if in reassurance. For a while I held it there before I noted the blood and jerked it away, free from his. Gods, I’d clawed his hand hard enough to draw beads of blood. I’d hurt him. I wanted to apologize, to ask if I’d hurt him, yet my mind still circled the odd terrifying dream and the hollow feel of my head after being dragged from it.

After breakfast I headed towards Arynth centre, Nia, and Kilian behind me. Yet to apologize to him, I had not even dared look in his direction. We went past the busy main roads towards the training courts of the Isjordian soldiers, and as I had expected and planned amongst them stood the one and only Elias. His returning itinerary came through in Arynth, I had him in this small city to my advantage, away from castle distractions and fresh with information from Hanai.

“Elias?” I called in such a perfect surprise that I shocked myself. He looked tired and worn out, probably at the long travel he had gone through in such a short time. Elias had to be one of my fathers most trusted confidants and probably had intentions of keeping him as such by betrothing him to that sea lurch.

“My raven,” he responded in blatant shock. “What are you doing here?” He examined our surroundings and at the two behind me.

“I want to ask the same, how are you not up north? Have you lied to me?” I asked in an upset voice and I pulled myself away from him, in acted disbelief. Sigh. I would punish myself later with endless thoughts of my evilness to Elias’s kind soul.

He looked terrified. “No…no Snowlin, I have not lied. I can explain to you, just…just not now.” His attention fluttered around taking in our surroundings, his soldiers and the one’s behind me. He wanted to be in private.

I turned towards Nia and Kilian, whose eyes had darkened and almost pierced a hole through Elias’s head. He had stilled, both however looking taken back, probably their gears had just started shifting over my initial plans for the trip to here.

“I will be fine now. I am with Elias. You are free to wander till I return,” I said waving my hand to them both, hoping they would just oblige. Kilian tensed and made to move forward in objection, but Nia stopped him.

I nodded in thanks and understanding and linked my arm to Elias, planting a kiss on his cheek before heading towards the guest house he was staying at.

I surveyed the sage green room, decorated in the gold and dark wood Isjordian furniture of the most extravagant shapes. Stopping by the bed, I sat at its edge facing him. “What else, is your hair fake as well and your affection towards me the lie I had originally detected it to be?”

He half kneeled in front of me, holding my hands, anxiously shifting them around. “None of that part has ever been a lie, and you know better than to say that.” he hesitated but continued, “I did come from the north, just not our side of the north. Your father had sent us to retrieve our people from Koy in Hanai.”

I already knew that. “Hanai? Isjordians in Hanai, for what reason would they need you to retrieve them, Elias, what are these fables? You think of me a fool?” My voice angrier and my face crowned in a deep frown.

Elias stood, hands on his hips, circling distressed about the room. For a second I thought all my work had been for nothing, when he sat in bed next to me and said, “Your father sent to retrieve a relic from them, and they were caught in the attempt.” My father had infiltrated Hanai for an object? Risking his soldiers’ lives was one thing, but risking their exposal was another. If Hanai knew Isjordians were behind it there would be troops marching their lands, Queen Moriko of Hanai was not the forgiving kind. I suppose that was the reason he had asked immediate dispatch of Elias’s team to retrieve them. It took a moment and then it clicked, the Adriatian Aura in Brisk. They had been working toward this mission, the ‘element’ they were to retrieve, was it this relic?

“A relic, this is all for a relic?” I raised my brows at him. The part that disturbed me the most, what of this object was so important. Why my father had his eyes on it and how did Hanai come upon it? Elias was either lying to get out of this or my father had truly lost his already fragile mind.

He let out a deep sigh. “Yes, according to your father one of great importance to Isjord, we were told it used to belong to us, bestowed to us from our god Krig and stolen centuries ago before being located just recently in Hanai.”

I did not understand, I grew up studying and reading history books all my childhood in preparation for my place as princess and never came across such an object, let alone one that belonged to Isjord. Isjord was a very plain kingdom compared to the rest, their connection and adoration to their god and heavens were already towards faltering, their temples closed years before I was born and their only sacred book, Eirlys liber, despite being extremely thin, included only overly repeated and hyperbolic phrases that boasted their god Krig. He had a scarce number of heavenly guardians, all which I could easily recall by name, his realm plain like ours and certainly nothing about a relic resembling what Elias described. The mention of such an object did not skew my brain as much as the true reason why my father was looking for it. But I knew it was not to bring back their adoration to their god. This did not appear as the normal grand scheme of my father, but from him I expected everything, whatever this object was it had me already scared.

“Why would he need that?”