Page 201 of Winter Gods & Serpents

She’d been planning this for a long while, this truly was her battle.

“Did you hear that?” Snow gasped mockingly. “They will fall within a year. I have not the slightest idea how you were to cover that up, but now father will know it was because of you. Your dear King will be your end.” She clapped afront his face. “Beautiful tragedy, I’d pay coin to read about this.”

He shook his head. “I beg of you.”

“Did I not tell you Renick? That you will one day be at my mercy. I hold onto my words, very tightly. You will pledge for me, and you owe me one more favour for Sam’s life.”

He swallowed and then nodded between strong dark notes of disapproval. “I will.”

“Blood oath.”

He shot up. “What?”

“You will give me a blood oath, Nick dear. I don’t trust my own heartbeat, what makes you think I trust a python?” She took off her glove and extended a hand to him. “You will pledge your life. I vow blood, flesh and bone, ash and soil,” she recited, and magic floated around her lifting her hair in waves. “You, Renick Salazar, will pledge to my allegiance, and I, Snowlin Krigborn, will keep my word.”

He shook his head, but she leaned and took his hand, squeezing it tight. “I, Renick Salazar, vow blood, flesh and bone, ash and soil, to plead your allegiance, and you, Snowlin Krigborn, will keep your word.” There was a small gleam under their sleeves where the magical bargain would have made mark.

Blood oaths were purer in darkness than dark itself. The more you tied to yourself, the more your soul grains to pieces. How many had she signed?

She peeled her sleeve back to reveal a line of tattoo wrapped around her arm amongst few others. She examined the oath with relish. “Who would have thought all those lessons would come to such help. Shoo, Renick, back to your hole,” she flung with her hand and the commander rapidly exited the room. Her arsenal had grown, she was close to her plans by large paces, they were no longer just steps thought. Today there had been a cost and no longer just at her expense. Sam had been killed.

Slowly she took small steps toward Samuel’s lifeless body, lain in blood. Her knees gave away afront him, and she rose a trembling hand, reaching his cold face. “Sam, Sam. Oh Sam, what have they done to you.” Her voice shaking almost a whisper, the chant of his name a prayer, a plea. The armour flaked to a carcass, she’d peeled out of it. “Open your eyes, I am here now. I won’t make you hold your heart in your hands anymore. I will give up—I will give it all up, for you Sam. Just open your eyes…please.”

Her head dropped forward, and she took a deep heavy stuttering breath. “You promised me, you promised. You promised to come with me. You promised to be close to me,” she murmured in breathless paces. Snow loved Samuel, and he loved her. A single tear rolled down her cheek and my heart ached hard.

“Forgive me,” she whispered, raising a trembling hand to stroke his face. “Forgive me Sam, for putting you in danger. Forgive me for not protecting you. I couldn’t protect you either.” Her head fell resting in his chest, long moments as she silently mourned him. “I can’t feel your heart anymore.”

The realization in her voice breaking—it tore me throughout. Through the hopelessness and the dusk of helplessness, I did only what I could do, let my shadows around her, gathering tight. Magic and warmth seep through me and onto her as she stood there cold and coldening, strength devoured. She didn’t let him go, did not move till day grew to night, till the clouds grew to thunder and till limbs grew numb. She would not part with him, she would not let us touch him or even get nearby. Silence—utter silence, nothing but horrible nothingness.

* * *

“She does not seem strange,” Penelope said coming out of Snow's room, “She keeps humming that terrible song again and again and murmuring to Memphis endlessly in Calgnan, otherwise she is just her normal self,” she explained. Her lips pursed back in hesitation and she threw an unsure glance towards Nia.

“Pen it is okay, tell us,” Nia pushed.

The young servant fiddled with her apron nervously. “You know those black marks in her back, they have somehow shifted, not their normal shape. What are they? I have never asked her, but I have always been curious.”

Nia halted her endless circling at her words and cast a long look to Caiden. Her tattoo had shifted, it was after all dark craft.

“It is just a tattoo Pen, and don’t be silly they cannot shift around, you must be mistaken,” Nia answered, but I saw a speck of lie in her shadows. She was getting better at hiding but I had seen enough. Nia had told me that Snow had seen a crafter before to remove her nightmares, but to them that was simple tricks not one that required to be marked by them. Had it been what Melanthe detected on her, the scent of magic from another dark crafter?

“But I swear, they—”

“That is enough, Pen,” Caiden interrupted sternly. He knew of them as well. I did not question further neither did Mal, we could not care what they were, just wanting to know she was well.

“Samuel, he came and saw me while you were away, the night you left for Arynth, he had just returned from Casmere,” Penelope revealed, and the two friends crowed over her.

“What? Why did he come to you?” Caiden asked hurriedly.

“He…he gave me a letter for her. He had this look in his eyes, something was wrong—very wrong. He kept repeating that something was terribly wrong, like he’d seen the dead or…worse. My mother thought he’d gone mad, that the frost got to his Solaryan head. But I told her, Solaryans are not bothered by the cold either—”

Caiden grabbed her shoulder flaring in demand startling her. “What letter? What was wrong? Speak.”

“Cai, enough,” Nia warned. “Come Pen, try remembering all he said and did, please.”

Penelope had fallen into a pit of overwhelm within herself and struggled to gather words to speak. “He didn’t say much more but the next morning he’d returned to Casmere and then…when he returned again he’d gone fully mad. The servants said he killed twenty soldiers to get past the king, he tried to kill her father.”

“Heavens,” Nia murmured, covering her mouth in shock.