Page 44 of Winter Gods & Serpents

She scoffed and nodded. “Fine by my behalf.”

She knelt in front of the young couple in their hold, looking back and forth at the two terrified souls. “Were there not enough Isjordian whores to fuck that you crossed a whole wall to get an Adriatian one? Is there something special between their legs that I am not aware of?”

Mal’s gaze as all of ours turned to the captain and her biting words that settled rough on our skin. The young man was Isjordian.

Her cold stare piercing into his frightened one but he dared speak. “We are in love, we did not mean any harm to anyone, just to be together,” his breath trembling and his face pleading while holding his weeping partner tight.

The Isjordian captain did not drop her smirk, as if amused she cocked her head to the side. “Ah, you are in love. That ought to do it, right?” Her head turned towards us and she took a deep bored breath, her brows raising in question. “Would Adriata allow an Isjordian to live on their lands; would you accept the man if I were to give him to you?”

Her question took me aback, she did not sound as a lenient one, didn't feel like that either, considering the horror from Nesrin’s shadows and reaction toward her. Was this a test if we would break our laws for them?

“Yes, we would,” I responded flatly. We would if it meant sparing a life.

“It is all settled then,” she said and turned to her subordinates. “Nia, untie him. He is free to live in your borders, but if he is as much as to breathe near ours he will be killed at first sight, no trial.”

As soon as she untied him the guards handed him to our side, Grey barely holding his fearful limping body up.

“My wife?” he demanded in ragged breaths and I turned to the captain once again.

Her lips twitched. “She will stay in Isjord, looked after and cared for, both her and the creature.”

Ire flared through my veins like never before. I dug my heels on the ground to stop myself from committing to any dangerous thoughts.

Pleased from our reaction her smirk grew to a wicked smile. The punishment for them was to separate them. This was unusual, Isjordians were rough on their prisoners but not in this manner. Flogging, banishment to the unblessed isles, imprisonment to hanging. Isjordians didn’t get creative, not with their prisoners.

The young man sobbed pleading towards her, Nesrin and Gray holding him from both arms to stop him from crossing, and I could hear Mal muttering curses to the gods behind my back. She was breaking her kingdom's laws too, a captain making such a decision was unusual, unless her plans afterward were different.

I felt sweat beads coat my temples, my body stiff from tension. “She is Adriatian, as much as I would like to rely on your word I don’t rely on your people. She is expecting his child, one who should not be raised without a father. Hand her to us, banish her with a criminal record I do not care, just hand her back, she is of no use to you,” I spoke.

She knelt in front of the pregnant woman. “We should have thought of that to start with, shouldn’t we?”

The young woman shook from anger and fear as she tightened her arms around her stomach. “You are a monster, gods and heavens will curse you this day for leaving my child without a father in your waste lands,” she shouted and spat in front of her.

The captain reached over her shoulder and murmured to her ear, “No one thought about leaving me without a mother when your kind drew a sword through her chest, and that my dear was when the gods and heavens cursed me.”

She rose and motioned toward Nia who dragged the woman outside the tower premises shouting and screaming.

I felt a stab at her words, my people had killed her mother. My magic floated through me again to read her and I went still. No emotion, nothing, she had no shadows. I narrowed my eyes confused. This had never happened to me before. All had shadows; humans, blessed and unblessed, even animals, even beast from the dark sea. What was she?

“Bored, so soon?” she asked playfully, studying my confused sight.

The three men grew uneasy on the other side when she motioned the soldiers toward one of the young kneeled on the ground to position him next to her. Putting a hand on his shoulder, she then turned to face the older one. “I hear you know the best ways out of the wall, even some sweet maps, care to share how that came to be?”

He laughed rough and angry at her and shook his head. “Not to an Isjordian bitch I won’t.”

In a flash she unsheathed a dagger and pierced the young man's shoulder, who screamed in pain and fell to the ground forward.

I motioned to move toward them at the sight but Nesrin gripped my arm pulling me back. “You cannot save them, not from her. Six trials I have witnessed with her, none escaped unscathed, they are dead by her decree,” she explained, surrendered, her eyes glued on the Isjordian captain.

Ruthless. Abnormally ruthless, this felt no longer as a trial for the crossings—a trial for her justice, vengefulness.

The captain lowered on her heels pulling the young man’s head back by gripping his hair, her hand swinging the dagger playfully. Isjordians were known to be cruel but this one was a monster of our doing, my breath tightened in anger.

Tilting her head to the side she seized the old man again, his lips pursed back refusing to back down to her. “It appears I was unclear. It was not a question intended not to be answered.”

Seeing she was not about to get an answer she flipped the dagger to her grip and pierced the young man again on his back.

Shrieking in pain he collapsed to the floor and I shut the gates of my magic that intensified at the feel of life seeping away. Taste of acid on my mouth.