Page 214 of Winter Gods & Serpents

“Please visit Arynth after your marriage, Snow, you will be missed dearly,” he said to her before saying his goodbyes, but she did not answer. It looked like something had happened between them, nothing else explained her cold reaction. We’d left earlier than expected from Arynth last time, had something happened?

I lowered to her again. “What is wrong, love, I thought you had taken a liking to him?”

“I still like him, Kil, he just showed to be one of the same pack after all.” Disappointment—her voice was laced in disappointment.

Groups and groups of attendees came to greet for hours long, Snow stood and headed to leave.

“We are not finished,” her father said.

“You are not, Moreen and the half breeds would have not been, but I am. Do enjoy having your pride caressed, even gods find it hard to wash the blood of murder out of their hands, maybe this will soothe all the gnawing. Compensation for when you burn at the hells of Caligo,” she said going down the stairs.

“I don't plan on going there any time soon.”

“All the mightiest kings die, check the grave of your father, all the bird shit there should give your reality a check.”

He laughed roughly. “You won’t get to see me like that, I will make sure of it. I will bury you before my hair grows white.”

Her father’s words creeped over my skin, the hate and vileness of them crawling.

Snow only held her amused expression, if I didn’t know what rippled through her heart at those words I would have fallen for it. “Such certainty,” she mused in a grin. “Since I don't do threats I will issue a small warning, gratis for the one who sired me. If you want to hold to that statement, I’d sleep with both eyes wide. You should be happy your frustration pleases me more than your death. Imagine if I had spilled that little poison in your clothing. It would have been one heck of a show. And father dearest, you would not want to live with my spirit haunting you to madness.” She toasted her goblet to him and descended down the stairs.

Snow plainly threatened him, she reminded him what he was, human. His eyes slipped to me and his frustration grew twofold. We left dark and thick shadows of anger, enough that the whole room ceiling was filled with them.

Casually as if her father had not just spewed the vilest form of hate, she headed to the food tables and filled her cheeks and arms with food. Her attention to the room as she munched on some white powdered soft sweets studying those in attendance and swaying slightly to the music.

“Quite the sight.”

“It is, you should have seen the ones when I was younger. They were so much grander, perhaps Isjord is faltering after all,” she responded, almost choking on her food.

“I was talking about you, my little glutton,” I murmured close to her ear.

She stopped, swallowed, and wiped her mouth with her glove like a little child. “I will join the dancing, maybe you will find me doing that prettier than me eating,” she said in a sneer, and threw the rest of the sweets to me. An obvious misunderstanding, I found her pretty doing anything, especially when she ate.

Linking arms with Freja, they both jumped around at the cheery jig till they were panting and tired and sagging onto one another, no longer taking steps, only swaying in place to the jumpy music.

“She grows very uneasy during these nights, I still have no idea how I did not find her running through a forest today,” Caiden said, approaching, and grabbing food from behind me. “Pinch me, she is even dancing.”

“Why does she do that?” I asked, he had never been close with me, but I still asked him.

“That night she lived because her mother told her to run, she has not stopped ever since, her words are Snow’s trigger,” he admitted. “Once it was only a couple times a week, then everything begun triggering her; a memory, maybe a mention of your kind, black steel, then it became worst, sometimes she’d lock herself in her room, not standing the sight of the moon. She was not robbed out of life, like her siblings and her mother were, she was robbed out of living. Trapped, only able to run.” He turned facing me. “She still is, otherwise she would not be here today, waiting to marry your king.”

I could not imagine what she had been through that night. The woman jumping around to the music was the one who had gone through all that and much more, my guilt towards her was taking jab after jab. I did not deserve to want her, to have her. How must I remind her of that night and the horrors she went through and was still going through to this day, yet she let me shout, annoy, argue, touch, and comfort her. I hated myself for forgetting who I was and what my people had done.

“Do not underestimate what she holds within, my family suffered the same at the hands of her father, had she not been here he would already be dead, no one will be able to hold her when she meets your king, Kilian. You have not seen her plans for him,” Caiden added, before leaving.

He was right, just because Snow had changed around me and Mal it did not mean what she felt for Adriata or its king was gone—her revenge was not gone, it was what kept her away from me, why she didn’t want to hear my words. My heart had its answer, but my mind became thick with fog.

I could hardly navigate through my own thoughts. So lost in my head and Caiden’s words, Snow had slipped from my sight. Panic creeped all through me as I rampaged between the crowds, the corners of the halls and the food tables. I could not lose her, not now, not like this. Long minutes passed searching, my heart heaving in worry looking for her everywhere, and before I headed to alert the others, I noticed the floating balcony curtain and her figure flashing behind it. My heart was near to stopping.

“You wish to kill me still, I thought we had changed our stances?” I asked still panting from worry, but she only looked at me in surprise. I ran toward the large balcony where she stood and gathered her in my arms, making sure she was real, that my mind had not betrayed my sick heart. “Do not leave like that, Snow.”

She lifted her toes to kiss my chin again. Such an innocent gesture that left me utterly impaled. Burying her head in my chest, she quietly said, “I just needed to leave there, the air was growing suffocating.”

The air was not suffocating, she was jittery as if wanting to take off in a sprint, like she wanted to run away and far. This would be the thirteenth year of her nightmares and here she was almost reliving it again, another solstice night and with Adriatians all-round her, one even holding her on his arms. I held her. Realization struck me and I let her go, pulling away. She frowned and moved quicker than I did, grabbed my jacket and dragged me back to her, wrapping her arms tight around my waist.

“I didn’t say move away you Adriatian bastard, did I?” she murmured between us.

I planted a kiss on the top of her flower-scented head, and at that moment it really me struck how I would lose her. The feel of her hair, the paces of her breaths, the exact gold of her irises, the precise sound of her words, the vibration of her laugh…there was too much to remember, and I had so little time.