Page 241 of Winter Gods & Serpents

My hands fell over my head, dizzy and light from realization. It had begun, her revenge had begun. How? Gods, how—how had she done it?

Chapter 45

Check and Mate

Snowlin

Big bad wolf hiding behind the tree. Big bad wolf almost swallowed me. Little Snow small as a deer. Little Snow battled the fear. The honey soft voice hummed around the hollow room.

“You know my snowflake, this once you were brave, but danger does not find you the same way twice, the big bad wolf might have run away from you, but he will return, this time prepared for whatever trick you did to him. The castle walls are to keep you safe, the forest is too large and dangerous for my little Snow,” my mother said wrapping a bandage to my foot after having tripped in a tree branch running away.

“Mother, I am always brave, I want to be the big bad wolf, then they will have to run away from me,” I responded in a snarl, poorly imitating a feral cat at best and making her laugh. The sweetest melody to my ears, sound so pure that made falling snow tremble and melt mid-air.

She had wished hard that I had become the white sheep that never stood out from the crowd, that I fit in as she had not, that I never let danger even approach me, let alone touch me. She’d become afraid of wanting to do anything more than survive. Living was asking for too much.

But my path had always been that of the big bad wolf after all, though never carved by myself. The daughter of a rose and a serpent, a mess made of venom, blood, thorns, and sweet scents is not made for vanity as a rose is never made for plucking, though many wish for the taste of prickling pain.

My palm begun cooling over the wound on my side, a thin coat of ice forming atop sealing it in place, making the bleeding stop.

I marched up the enormous obsidian bridge alongside Memphis, drenched head to toe in seawater wearing my torn wedding dress, turned almost brown from blood and salt. Though I’d thought I’d make my return as a spirit, I was very much alive.

Thunder clapped loudly alongside, echoing around the terrifying enormous black castle raising between heavy rocks and mountains that fluttered in and out of sight from the heavy lightning striking my surroundings endlessly. A symphony of deafening silence and thunder mixed in the air, and I the conductor. Blue flamed torches danced feverishly atop the pillars lining the bridge that directed to the dark giant towering among and between clouds.

Soldiers scattered alongside it, all dressed in grey leather armour, hoods drawn over their heads and their faces concealed, solemnly still, a hand over their hilts, blending seamlessly between the grey mist of sky. We were high enough that air tasted sweet and tangy in electricity.

A familiar tall figure approached in my direction coming from inside the castle walls. Eyes darker than his surrounding, a grey beard adorned his stern rough and scarred face, his grey hair shaved at both sides arranged in a bun atop his head, exactly the vanity concerned man I had left him four moons ago.

You see, there are many great villains in everyone’s story, but none is greater than the one these villains have created themself. If there is one thing I have learnt in my many years of torment from my physical and emotional demons is you either fight, side with your nightmares or you become a nastier one.

Signe oșh toc etter sben ys zguh. We will rise between sky and clouds. I rose from worse.

He fell to his knee and the guards behind followed in motion one after the other, echoing like dominoes. His scarred face twirled in a welcoming smile. “With Nubil’s blessing, to Caelum heaven. Welcome back, my queen, how was your holiday in Isjord?” he asked playfully, studying the gnarly sight of me, somewhat expectant of it.

“With Nubil’s blessing, might it welcome us. It went fabulous, Alaric, perfectly fabulous,” I answered, giving him one of my satisfied grins.

Nightmares were everywhere around me, but I, Snowlin Edlynne Skygard, daughter of Serene Edlynne Skygard, heir and queen of Olympia, am the vilest of them all. I was no princess, and I could be no queen for I was already one. One of the many faces of Khryn, the goddess of deceit, was the past, I wore mine as she had. But my, wasn’t she right. Indeed, one's older self is already the perfect lie—the mask of weakness she called it.

“Isjordians have always been poor at dressing, but what on five heavens of Nubil are you wearing?”

“It was rather nice,” I said, smoothing the scarps of fabric that now resembled a dish cloth. “Lysander's daughter picked it for me.”

“Penelope?” Alaric asked in bewilderment. “How is she?”

“On her way here.”

He laughed. “A reunion. Thought you’d fall for your fathers trap and only bring me his head. This is much better.”

The thick warm static air of Olympia had been what I missed most, it sent my blood racing and dancing with such thrill, almost electric.

I did not retch and ache in that frozen wasteland for nothing, especially having to conceal so much of me. I got what I needed, answers, which my uncle had so generously handed me in mere minutes after I spent months searching for them to no avail. When he rode with us to Adriata I finally knew I had not spent my opportunity there for nothing, they were heading for something—something bigger than I had originally doubted. Nia had trailed him for weeks prior to secret meetings and gatherings. She had insisted he was indeed hiding something and somehow had convinced me to chase the danger. He had met general Moregan and the ex-Lord of Brogmere almost every day, and afterward, he’d seen Melanthe twice. Quite the interesting crew, right? The very same one that had spun my father’s plans all together, the same one I had been doubting all separately without making connection. I had always regarded him as a useless game piece. It was not like me to underestimate people, but this time they almost caught me off guard.

The walls of the castle shimmered as the light hit their sleek surface, my hand softly grazing them, remembering what I had been missing for months, home. My home, my kingdom. Blue flame torches lit the grand corridors and massive obsidian chandeliers suspended heavy from the ceiling lit in candlelight. White gossamer drapes hung over the large arched windows, they fluttered at the soft becalling wind of the mountains as the capital of Olympia, Taren, grew along the tall face of mountains, down the abyss and valleys between the rocky giants. My chest boosted in pride at seeing the city broiling alive in front of me.

The kingdom of Olympia stretched all along the Isliot peninsula, separated by a dozen of tribes. They lived amongst sea lines, forests, villages, mountains, and every other crook of space along it. A secluded population, did not deal with their neighbouring kingdoms nor did they need to, they already had everything. Myrdur, the old city of Olympia laid from the edge of Volant mountains to where Fernfoss village is built now, that was not nearly half of the Olympian population, but my father did not know that; no one from outside knew that. They only knew nothing survived, lived, or breathed behind zgahna, the cursed mist of the Volant’s, the tallest peaks in the whole of Dardanes.

The night of the attack, few of those residing in Myrdur had retreated secretly towards the deep caves and tunnels that ran hidden among the line of Volant mountains and escaped.

The mist was magic, protective magic left by my ancestors, the elder Skygards, veiling our presence. Veiling the tribes of Olympia while they lost the largest one, Myrdur, the one of my origin.