Page 199 of Winter Gods & Serpents

I shook my head. No. No. No.

My father signalled Renick. I felt it then what I had forgotten to feel in a while, the fright of losing someone you love. Air thickened and reeked of malice. I made one step forward, my hand slipping on the hilt of my dagger and then at the other air drained out of my lungs. Cai’s steps chased mine from behind me, his magic sealing my breath, denying me of it. Then I felt Nia, the light touch of her magic gripping my shadows, attempting to nail me to a halt.

At the third heavy constricted step I took, Samuel shook his head. “Live…live to carry out my honour, not for revenge.”

A sword pierced his chest and life fled from him.

Time forgot its pace, it went too quick and too slow. Magic, shadows, and air held me from collapsing, held me from shouting and screaming and blasting in the waves of what I felt. Held by Cai and Nia, held by nothing of mine. Sam. Not Sam. The cry and the plead choked on my throat. My world silenced, grew younger, warped and I felt myself shift in the form of that child years ago.

“Stand girl,” my father had ordered in a leering stare that scathed all courage. “A weapon does not feel, it doesn’t weep, and it doesn’t scream or rage or fight or think. You are mine to wield, a shell whose heart beats for me to command, you cannot take it, you cannot bend it, only I can. Now stand, wipe those ridiculous tears away. Would you bleed afront a shark? Will you waver in front of my pray?”

I’d cried for the first time—I’d disappointed him for the first time that day after Renick had beat Eren to unconsciousness, so hard he had not woken for a week. I’d begged and crawled to him, tears of blood and pain had burned deep while I had pleaded for him to stop. I still felt them, marked on my skin, burning still, a reminder of never feeling again.

And I would not weep, or scream, or rage, or fight, or think but I would also never be his to wield, or please and obey. He had ripped part of my soul today, and I’d wonder if it was the last one I’d been left with. Sam. Not Sam. We were supposed to live, Sam, and now I killed you, he killed you because of me.

Chapter 37

Sky and Thunder

Kilian

Magic beamed around me, floating out of Nia and Caiden in her direction holding her still while Samuel bled under her father’s feet. Her friend, the man who adored her, who helped and laughed with her. The one she had called her family now laid lifeless in front of her. The man who had looked at her with nothing but love and admiration, the one who had cared and feared for her, dead.

“Was this supposed to hurt?” she asked coldly, before her scornful laugh broke the silent echo of the panic-stricken Winter court. “Pathetic. Even for you, father, this is so very pathetic. Shall I show you what really hurts?”

I flinched at her tone, the fleeting of the Snow I’d grown to know, replaced by this. I knew she felt, I knew she hurt, yet she almost convinced me that she did not.

He halted facing her, studying and seizing before dismissing the room from audience. “You would have been magnificent in my hands ,child, mighty even. With that heart and your languid for compassion you were perfect. Powerless, a misfortune. To my chagrin, a perfect thorn in my heel.” Contempt at her silence his lip twitched into a smirk, his shadows swirling in satisfaction. “Soon you will be the night King’s to deal with.”

She took a step closer to him, the string of magic holding her broken out of Nia’s touch. Just as quickly my brothers shadows lengthened to her, his grip tighter, more powerful and she halted at the command. “I’m a dagger, father, right between your ribs. I make you ache at every move, each breath harder than the other and you twist just slightly more than the steel allows I pierce your heart.”

“Brave words for someone so unhurt,” he provoked.

“I love it when you elicit me, I get to show you just the monster you have raised. You never once got to see what you forged, you would be proud.”

He glowered at her, the stare of a hunter. “I had not heard that name in a while, Skygard. But you are no Skygard, my bud, you are Krigborn till heavens fall.”

“I am Krigborn, my name will be marked all over it for I will scarp this bloodline till the very root of it with your bones, father.”

“Try, you can try,” he challenged, but he finally took some degree of caution in her threat, his shadows betrayed that truth he so well hid. “That is all you can do, try and gloat and threaten, petty threats and petty words, empty and meaningless just like your worth.”

He stared at her with such languid hate. I had forgotten how she was raised. I realized that side of her had always been provoked, she was never the monster. She was only a weapon.

He left, gleefully gloating in his victory.

A grin worn the Bruma Commander’s face as he strutted head high and satisfied past her. Her hand extended lifelessly and met his chest. The sound of the contact an echo accompanied by his cackling dark laughter. “You always do this after your loses, scavenge for consolidation in threats, you piss Olympian whore.”

The words drew fire from me, chest tightening in ire, yet I did not move. Not for a moment did this feel his ground like it felt hers.

Her attention never left Samuel’s lifeless body, or Nia’s movement as she shut his lids closed for the last time. “Do I?” her voice dark, deep, and cold.

“My whip and you got personal more times than I could remember, I know you to your nub.”

I finally made forward, unbearable burn flaring inside of me, he will die for what he has done to her.

Caiden’s hand on my shoulder brought me to a halt. He slowly shook his head not to interfere. “She has this—has for a while. Now it’s the time.”

I didn’t know what he meant, did not understand till Snow spoke. “Tell me, how did your wife and son die?”