Page 49 of Winter Gods & Serpents

“I killed a guilty lord, Nick dear.” I gave him a wink and he flared almost ready to stand and strike me. “By power bestowed to me as your king’s daughter, I can appoint any lord to duty. Don’t you have ice cream to go make, let the important ones deal with matters of court.”

Just like that, one oar had been pushed to sea substituted with another. Sebastian Kirkwall had a nice ring to it. But Snowlin’s oar is a better nickname.

Chapter 13

Salt and Sea

Snowlin

Last night, Thora and Eren had showed in my dreams. My siblings, whose features laid almost forgotten in a corner of my memory I so rarely chose to visit.

When I awoke, I headed for their resting place wrapped tightly in my cloak, and slept in the ground next to them. Despite the freezing ground and air, my sleep had been dreamless and sound. It reminded me of the few nights we had spent together, when Thora would crawl in my bed and then Eren’s footsteps after midnight, air around him thick with fatigue and faint smell of blood after a long day at training court.

You have grown, he would whisper. You can protect Thora now. Well done, miss Lin.

The words hung loose in the air and my hands reached for my brothers sword still wrapped in his essence.

Lin, I will call it so. My sword will carry your name little sister, but it will never honour the strength you have.

“What strength, Eren?” I murmured to the open sky melancholically shedding loose flakes of soft snow. “Even the cold hurts me.”

I waited as though I would hear an answer or his warm laugh, it was only familiar silence that greeted me.

Cai had slouched to the ground behind the maze wall, no words just the usual silent understanding. He’d never asked not once, what I saw, why I did what I did, what hunted me most.

“You never ask.” I said, settling beside him.

He stretched his back with a groan. “Asking is not my thing and answering is not yours.”

I gathered myself tight under my cloak. “You don’t want to know?”

He threw an arm around me, rubbing my arm for warmth. “You don’t like telling.”

“Yes…I don’t like telling.”

He brought out a piece of paper from his pocket. “He wants you to inspect Grasmere for a delivery.”

I straightened, narrowing my eyes on the confusing order. “I am to patrol Brisk tomorrow, why this?”

“The envoy said it’s a direct order from your father.”

I almost jumped from where I sat. “I take orders from Sam, why is he getting involved on a captain’s duty?”

“This was Sam’s duty now passed to you.”

I flicked the envelope open. From handwriting to the red wax seal, all my fathers. “A general’s duty to a captain?”

He glanced shortly over the letter, as usual, unbothered to think it anything concerning. “You recon something is happening?”

“It is strange, that is all,” I said, fiddling with a hangnail. Strange? It was absolutely to not be trusted as what it seemed. I still kept quiet though.

He shook in laughter. “You can say it, lady paranoia.”

I frowned. “I will not say anything, and I am not paranoid. It’s a sense, you know it.”

“Ah,” he said quietly. “Did you hear about that moose attack on Modr the other day? The guards could not stop talking about it.”

I got on my knees facing him. “What moose attack? You recon Hanai sent them.”