Page 220 of Winter Gods & Serpents

Who was her?

Squinting tight I tried to refocus the ceiling painting on my sight with no avail. The blood leaking onto the room had reached to my neck nearly overtaking me. I forced myself to swim forward in the thick, skin creeping liquid. A familiar voice echoed twisted and strange words about the room, my mother’s voice. It’s dark crafters magic, this is not real, I repeated to myself over and over, moving to exit the pool of blood. Then I heard Eren, moments later Thora, both pleading for me to save them, to not abandon them again.

My entire surroundings turned to that night, bloodies bodies lying lifeless ahead of me. Flashes of black Adriatian steel sending sparks clanked and hurdled around me. It smelled the same as that night, black smoke coated my tongue. Thunder and fire crackled, snow and soot dropped around me coating my charred white dress as my mother’s words from that night repeated again and again. I had frozen, claws of fear and sharp talons of darkness dug deep in my mind. My whole body trembled as everything around me blurred by tears.

“Stop, please, stop,” I pleaded to them, making myself move forward. The voices and screams of my loved ones grew louder and disturbing, they anchored and aimed to stop me.

My hands fell over my neck and my lungs swallowed the last bit of air. I drowned between blood, my tortured memories of that night and sorrow. It was the crafter's veil. It is the crafter's veil. I tried to repeat those thoughts over and over, but I could not breathe let alone move.

Run, Snow. Run, my snowflake. I heard her voice again. It was not the crafter's veil. I knew it, I could feel it whisper over my ear as it always did.

I grabbed onto the string of feel, pulling onto it, and forcing my feet to take a step forward and then another.

By the time I managed to leave the blood-filled room my chest rose furiously, panting and gasping for air. Before I could collect myself and prepare to enter again, a sharp pain hit the back of my head sending black flecks to my sight. A blurred figure stood in front of me, and I toppled to the cold marbled floor, the world spinning and thumping into darkness.

* * *

Snowlin, Snow? My little snowflake, awaken. They are waiting. My mother’s soft melodic voice echoed again in my buzzing heavy head. The back of it and my neck completely taken over by a dull sharp pain, my ears whizzing sharply noise of glass scratching metal.

I shook my head and cracked opened my throbbing sore eyes, pins and needles blurring light and shape. More than a dozen masked men stood before me cramped inside a massive wooden walled room. A man sat on the table a few feet away playing around with my sword and daggers, my brother's sword.

“She has awakened, you did not hit her that hard after all,” one of the men said in Tahuma to the others who laughed all together. They were not just any men, they were Solaryans.

How had they managed to get me out of the temple without the others noticing? Considering how long I had been inside it, the others should have already been in there. Right now I was praying they hadn't entered to face what I did.

“We have great plans for you, little sweet princess, we hope your father is more loving than he looks, our price will be high,” the one that seemed to be their leader spoke.

I shifted my bound wrists round to loosen some of the pressure they had put on my skin. “He is not, you are wasting his time, but not mine, I am exactly where I wanted to be,” my voice was hoarse and breathy, the attempt to clear my throat only hurt. “What are you looking for, in Isjord?” I questioned. However, I didn’t plan on staying here forever.

All the men laughed themselves to tears, none answered me, instead a fist met my cheek sending me further back the room wall and my head in thundering pain.

I spat blood in front of me and clicked my jaw. “Losing those chance of getting out of here alive. Tell me now or they will level to zero,” I threatened, straightening myself, but they all laughed again, and a leg kicked my shoulder viciously toppling me to the floor. I heard the click of my shoulder dislocating and felt the stab of it all over down my spine, I was breathless from the radiating sharpness and dullness of the pain.

“Last chance gentlemen, what are you looking for?” I asked panting, almost gasping for air.

This time they did not laugh, they looked angry at my persistence. One that had slouched down to the wall beside me carving a piece of wood with my dagger answered, “A piece of the weapon your father will use to ultimately kill us all, little princess, ask him better when you return to him in exchange for it. He stole ours, it's only fair we steal his.”

Piece? What weapon needed pieces? I then guffawed, my head lolling back and forth from amusement. Getting back on my father? What was this, a game of tag? Had the poor Sun King already fried his brains under the heat of Cyra?

Their leader threw a kick on my stomach. “Shut that fucking mouth or I will, you leşar.”

I had managed to back away but not enough to avoid all its impact, my organs shifted at the force of the blow. “What weapon?” I asked fully in Tahuma. “This bitch is curious.”

“One of the worst, a divine one,” the man who’d answered me before explained.

I blinked annoyed. “There is no such thing as a divine weapon, never has been. Gods bare no weapons but peace and prosper, the only divine gift is that of spiritual. Forbidden is gift of that gifts greed, forbidden is the divine ruling above one and many. No god shall gift weapon or war,” I recited from the Caelus liber. “And If such thing was here, why did he need to get it from you or Seraphim?”

He dropped his poor attempt at a wooden sculpture. “It might not be a weapon but to your father even a lump of hair is. And I said piece, princess, piece. There are eight of them.”

I rolled my eyes. “Can someone elaborate or are you trying to spare your voice, is that why you eat your letters?”

One of the men brought eight fingers forward, crutching down in front of me, his russet gaze rimmed with ire. “One in his lands, one he stole from us, the others elsewhere and together they make one. That good enough for your half animal head?”

Eight souls part her living. Eight souls guarded to keep her from living. The words flew around me almost alive.

The men laughed all together and I fashioned one following them. “Adorable, you need fingers to count.”

The leader growled, his fist glowing bright and he charged for me with losing patience. “Blind or a mute, what shall I make you, ybris child?” he said, lowering to his knees, eyes alight in malice of a killer—death stare of a mercenary.