Page 238 of Winter Gods & Serpents

He dragged me up once more and stood me afront the missing wall, below us white foamed waves crashed violently under the cliff where the tower was sitting. Death waiting for me all force.

“Any last words?” he sneered in my ear.

“Signe oșh toc etter sben ys zguh,” I whispered, and pulled back in a smile that made him pale.

His face wrinkled in a scowl. “What did you just say?”

His grip loosened and I stepped back to the edge of the cliff. Bowing, I flashed him a wide grin. “Thank you for your cooperation, dear uncle. You’re an impeccable story teller, loved the attention to detail.”

His expression widened following me intently as I pushed myself off the cliff until my body broke the cold lucid barrier of water.

The seas and skies boiled above and below as I was surrounded by it, devoured. A mist of crimson gathered around my body like roses in bloom. A rose scented with death.

It felt peaceful, death felt too peaceful for my liking. Maybe I was the one who didn’t want death. I passed it, ignored it, and then made fun of it for not taking me, for not being able to take me. It was chaos I craved, never peace.

The world went white, and my lungs filled no longer with air, my sight no longer with light, my senses no longer with life.

One hundred fifty.

Chapter 44

Moon and Darkness

Kilian

She ran away from me. I’d hurt her and she’d ran away from me. She ran away from me before I could tell her of a promise and a lie. A truth and a forgotten one. I’d gone to see her, to figure her and find back the girl I’d met long before all tangled to a mess. I’d prepared to take all blame, I’d prepared for her to hate me, I’d thought hating her would make it easy for me to face that end, but how could I hate her. I tried. I tried. I tried to shut my faults and my people’s faults and blame her, then guilt her with so much wrong. I’d tried all the wrong to make right. How I was so selfish?

We looked everywhere and could not find her anywhere as if she’d evaporated from face of realm. Castle grounds were all cleared for searching, the whole city dispersed with soldiers looking for her there. My fear grew, my concentration already faltered in worry. Had my people gotten hold of her, had they wanted to kill her again after all? No, that would not happen, I would never allow it.

Caiden broke into the meeting chamber charging furiously toward me, his fist landing heavily on my stomach. “If anything has happened to her, to gods and blessed heavens I swear, you damned idiot, I will kill you if it is the last thing I do,” he shouted, and all my guards tensed before I waved them down to retreat.

If anything has happened to her there would be nothing for him to kill.

Mal stood between us. “Nothing has or will happen to her, and be aware, we might be friends but he is a king. How about you try and stay alive to actually look for her?”

Caiden madly laughed. “Friends? I should have killed you both when I had the chance. It is not like her to hesitate you know. No matter what you thought you had with her, she never would betray her family, you have not the slightest idea why you were spared,” he spat in rage, before turning to leave.

He halted and turned to his quiet friend resting between shadows of worry. “You knew, didn’t you?” She did not answer and that was enough truth for him. “I will not stop her this time, neither will I get between you two to mend this…what you call a friendship.”

She laced her fingers, dropping her head in surrender and plainly lied to her friend. “She would have killed him if she knew, before the arrangement got sealed.”

He only scoffed and shook his head, almost as if he’d read through her lie.

“That day before we left the Islines, you were about to tell her, weren't you?” Nia asked, staring lost to the ground.

“Nia, I had not meant for this to happen, to hurt her. You knew who I was, and you didn’t tell her because you also knew…that I love her,” I said, feeling my air tighten at my every word.

“I stopped you.”

“Why?”

“Because I thought I knew Snow better than anyone. Because I thought she would back down and know your truth—the one you had written in those letters, but she didn’t—she didn’t love you same as you love her or read those letters or consider that you love her or consider your truth, and I was wrong again.”

There was the truth, the one I didn’t wish to hear either. “Had she received them? Had she read them.”

Nia shook her head. “The consort had kept them after they’d been delivered. They were not even opened.”

“You…read them?”