Page 19 of Winter Gods & Serpents

He peeled his sleeve back revealing a braceleted tattoo round his wrists. The old blood oath engraved in black runes spelling Myrdur. “Not Isjord, I have.”

What? He had tricked my mother out of a blood oath. The zgahna, the restlessness of the lands, all was because of him, because all laid under the name of their killer.

I sneered, my hands searching for my absent daggers. I would cut that hand off. “Those were to remain free lands, Olympians rest restless, the soil leaks of blood and the air cursed. You made a blood promise to my mother, you would not do such thing. You promised to be satisfied with your war and lay no claim on those lands.” How had he tricked her? It was impossible to trick a blood oath, it could claim your life.

He rose a brow all unbothered. “Serene is dead and so is the oath, but I can make one with you, if you will quietly agree to this.” The other half; after my mother died it had gone back to him, her other half. Hells.

“You make deals with me now?” I grit out holding onto my flaring calm.

“I’m a politician not a brute, my child.”

“Politicians don’t have morals, politicians are brutes.”

He reached and tucked the thornless rose behind my ears before quietly threatening, “Agree to this or I will have Alaric’s head on a pike, you dragged to Adriata in chains, his guts latched as flags for your dowry and Myrdur levelled to sea.”

Another laugh escaped from me while his own satisfaction leathered down. “There we go, now you have a deal. Should have started with that killer line for your pitch.”

Stolidly he asked, “Why provoke me? I can have you do all that I want and keep Myrdur too.”

I took the rose he stuck in my hair and brought it under my nose; odourless. A rose with no scent, austere decoration—a red decorative lie, just like his threats. “You know what you have raised; also aware of the fight I would put up and from what I see you really, really want this agreement. Threats and punishment, you know those petty tricks have no leverage against me. Do you know why I never truly became your weapon?” He remained fixed and expressionless on me. “Because, father, you could never shackle or tame me no matter your attempts. Had you done that, even human I would have been your mightiest sword. So, here you have me, shackled by one ankle. Praise, it only took you twenty-three years and a desperate agreement, but you have done it.” It was not the threat that had made him desperate, it was the bargain. I wanted to hear the threat to know the severity of his desperation.

“You have my eyes, young rose,” he finally spoke again after stark silence. “The only one who has my eyes. Eren and Thora had your mother's emerald ones, Reuben and Fren, Moreen's. Had you not had that one trait, I’d never think you were mine.”

“We can only dream of such delights, unfortunately.” I said, putting the rose back behind my ear and flashing him a smile.

He levelled a doubtful stare on me. “What do you plan to do with Myrdur, since it was enough to convince you to wed the night king?”

“What do you plan to do with Adriata, since it took a whole land to convince me to wed the night king?” I bit back.

“Do you have to fight me on every occasion?”

“Yes,” I said fluttering my lashes at him. “It pleases me greatly. So, are you trying to annihilate the spirituals too or just weaponizing their ignorance for something greater?”

He flicked snow from my shoulders before gathering a bunch of my locks between his fingers. “It is past me child, humans are foible and breakable, untethering to command only to their brittle emotion. You cannot weaponize something that feels.”

“Then what are you getting from that deal? What was so precious that you had to seek and sell me out after twelve years for, especially when you knew my reaction exactly?”

He smiled, too terribly entertained. “For someone who has no desire in royal affairs you do want to know more than you should. It was not the same reaction I had expected, I’d hoped you would have been happy to have your mothers’ murderers under your clutches.”

“But I do, father. He is in front of me right now,” I spat with years and years long of spite. His smile faltered, wearing a face of a slighted beast. He had said enough and I had heard plenty.

Seeing him distracted I stood to leave, all that talking to him had tired me enough that my eyes felt heavy. A buzzing sound thumped the sides of my head and my body numb enough to not feel my own. Getting stabbed felt better and less painful than having to speak to the venomous serpent that was my father.

“You were not dismissed, I was not finished,” he called from behind.

“Yet here I am, leaving. What will you do?”

“Snowlin,” he shouted interrupting me.

“Exactly father, you will do nothing,” I shouted back, waving a hand over my shoulder. “You have me by one shackle, I have you by two.”

* * *

I jolted awake in the middle of the night panting, sweat beads stinging my eyes. My demons refusing to let me go even in my dreams despite having just faced the very real ones. That night played through and through every time I shut my eyes to sleep. By now, each name, sound, face, every smell and every smear of blood that covered my face, all were memorized to hunting detail. The feel of the black metal that had pierced my skin, the hands of blood hungry Adriatians that had pulled my hair and hit me, the sword that had gone through my mother’s chest. Her screams and my own, the blur of the black smoke and the heat of flame eating air. Every sense of my body refused to forget that night. I tasted the metallic sting of blood as if the wound in my cheek still leaked fresh.

Bile rose to my throat, rushing me to my feet. Halfway, knees betrayed my weight and before I hit the hard ground strong arms gripped me and lifted me up. Cai. Within the moments he lowered me down in the bathroom, I retched my stomach open on the sink till breath could not meet my lungs and tears streamed my eyes. Pleasantly all memory fleeting by the pain.

“All is fine, do not make that face,” I said to the stern features behind my back while I lowered to wash my mouth. It didn't suit him, I needed his comfort features, those that had always managed to soothe me out of my nightmares with teases and jokes.