Page 193 of Winter Gods & Serpents

Snowlin

A smile stood shamelessly hitched on my lips, I tried every method in the book from thinking of puppies and lone abandoned baby birds to subdue it before meeting with Albius. My chest was pulsing out of my skin and that untameable ache I had for him had hitched higher up as if still hungry for him. Maybe even more than before. I should regret it, yet I couldn’t. It should start feeling wrong, but it wasn’t, and it didn’t. He would forget it if I told him so, but I didn’t want him to forget it, only wanted him to profess more.

Nia arrived shortly after me and we both sat on the meeting room waiting for Albius.

“So?” she pretended to ask calmly, but the corner of my eye caught the smile she too tried hard to suppress.

I glanced over the window overlooking outside, hoping to peak a sight of him. “I have not the slightest idea what do you wish for me to answer that question with?”

She shrugged. “I’ll ask him then.”

I snapped to her. “You conniving quisling.”

Albius arrived interrupting us. He sat across the room, his expression flashing a thousand signs of hesitation and worry before he abruptly stood, swallowed hard and strutted towards the exit. “I will return shortly,” he announced before leaving the room. Had he not gathered us to speak?

I motioned to stand after him but I heard footsteps approaching me from behind. Nia drew her dagger and we both turned to the sound of footsteps. While I was deep in thoughts, overtaken in what had happened today I had entered a trap, one set by someone I had already settled too much trust in. It was expected when I calculated my friendship with him, but I had wished hard it had only been paranoia.

A tall, slender woman came into view. Her eyes were one of the darkest brown, that of wet soil, hair darker, straight, cut sharply just above her chin. Her features were youthful and sharp, she was elegantly beautiful and impeccably stoic. Dressed in a tight plain deep emerald cotton dress that loosely came to the floor with a flowery rose sash tied afront falling down almost the length of the dress, she looked like someone I’d once met before, long ago. A different long ago.

“We met again, Snowlin Krigborn, but now you don’t come below my chin. My name is Moriko Uzumi, Queen of Hanai,” she introduced in a strong elegant voice.

The Queen of Hanai was in front of me in Isjordian lands. Had Lord of Arynth betrayed my father or me? I did not wish to jump in conclusions that confused me further, this was either a deception raised by the Lord and my father, or the Queen of Hanai truly had wanted to meet me. A few reasons came to mind, including the soldiers my father had snuck in her kingdom to steal. Had she already found out who was behind them? What did it have to do with me?

“Queen?” Nia asked bewildered. “Like the one that…holds a crown?”

Moriko lift a brow at my stuttering stunned friend who was having a hard time processing her presence. “Yes…that one. And you are?”

Nia straightened pulling her chin up. “Helenia Drava.” She bowed her head slightly. “Her friend.”

I almost snorted. Helenia? She hated her full name, only Alaric called her that.

She swivelled a look on Nia before narrowing her eyes in question. “Drava? Are you perhaps the Olympian general’s daughter?”

“His adopted daughter, he has given me his surname. How do you know of him?”

She nodded, her sleek bobbed hair shifting forward. “We served side by side in the Ater battles. The Olympian encampments were stationed in Aru. Zephyrs and King Jonah with his Elding children, her two uncles,” she said pointing to me, “they were first line in battle. They also lost the most. Your father is a tough man, one I deeply respect.”

War stories, peaceful stories, legends, happy memories, Alaric recalled them with much pain and bitterness, he would bail in the middle without ever finishing. I had been told very little from the one who’d been the closest to my family, who remembered the most.

Nia swept a quick look over her. “Sixty years ago?”

“I am much older than I look.” A prime Aura like her probably would look like that even in her two hundred.

“Well,” I said interrupting the reminiscence. “Your Majesty, you have gone to great lengths to corner me in this meeting, recruiting the Lord and all. Please do not hesitate on my behalf.”

She took a seat across me, enthroned in her halo of might, the chair almost transformed into a dais. “Albius has been a good friend of mine for years, I had expressed the wish to meet with you for a long time now and only gave me that chance when he had studied you well enough to decide if you would go running to your father or not with information I am about to give you. He likes you dearly and deems you of great character,” she lowered her gaze studying me, “such an odd trait, given you are Silas’s offspring.”

“What a great honour to be deemed as such,” I teased. “It appears the lord has misjudged me greatly dear. My great character comes from my mother, but I am still my father’s daughter and therefore loyal to him and Isjord.” Wanting to mark myself as a traitor was not on my list of accomplishments, but I knew a lot of people would find deep satisfaction for me to earn that title and I knew a lot of people who would stage all this for me to actually become one.

Her face was still expressionless, not her betraying of any emotion. She was known to be a great queen, her people adored her, and she ruled with poised practices that her lands had never been more productive and flourishing. She was a general in her predecessors court. Hatori, the eldest king and perhaps wisest in Dardanes, had trusted her well enough to pass his throne to her instead of his own children. Moriko was a tactician and ruled over her land as one as well, carefully placing laws and regulations that benefited her kingdom and its people, well enough to bring it to ancient glory. My mother would call her an equation, she ruled to bring exact answers. She was a woman of war, yet she ruled with peace in mind.

“Do you know the easiest way to stop a war?” she suddenly asked, and I did the only thing I could do, shrug in question. “To prevent it. War is ruthless, many die, and many more lose more than just their lives. I deem you smart, despite whose side you take, and help me prevent it.”

I rose a brow at her. “You have me well confused, Your Majesty, I see no war. And just what makes you think I have any ability to prevent this non-existent war?” How had I been enveloped in so much fable to derive most of my attention from a deranged ruler that now was becoming two, and right out of my goals.

“I am sure you are aware of the growing tension between Solarya and Isjord, and your father takes me a fool not to notice his troops readying at our borders and the spies he sent to infiltrate my court. The deal he is to make with Adriata, have you ever thought what he is to win from it?”

She knew about the Solaryans and about the soldiers my father had sent to her kingdom. Elias either lied to me or my father’s intentions were truly to take that rare object and the queen had not known about it. Well my father had succeeded to keep their intentions a secret, if that was the truth. It would have bothered me before, her suggestion that my father was to rage war on them with the help of Adriata, but I believed Kilian, he had not lied to me.