Page 50 of Winter Gods & Serpents

He snorted, eyes folding in halfmoons along with his smile, that small black mole disappearing. “Oh yes, Hanaian moose, they kept giving fluent orders in Kemeri too. Perhaps, Hanaian spies?”

I slowly retreated to my seat. “There is no moose attack, is there?”

He shrugged. “There could have been.”

I flashed him two middle fingers and he swirled two gusts of wind chucking a bunch of snow in my face.

* * *

Grasmere, a port city in the south of Isjord that dealt mostly with the trade between Solarya, White bridge Island and Isjord, held perhaps the greatest fleet in the continent, the Isenhound. Its warmer waters made it easy for ships to pass through without the difficulty of icebreakers or Verglasers on board to break ice. Grasmere had been my father’s mechanism to Isliot peninsula when he attacked Olympia. The city ran by an old lady, a true Isjordian patriot and my father’s biggest supporter. A true bitch one might say, one that is I.

Nia had stayed back again, her obsession with Renick and Bruma halls had become concerning.

My soldiers and Cai had now grown used to our trips, they chatted the whole way through, but I had been running a fever and my whole body shook lightly, too tired to partake, their voices gone into a void while we rode forward.

When we reached the city walls we could feel the fresh sea breeze, the sound of waves thundering loudly as they crashed by the rocks and the smell of fish that made my stomach turn.

Cai extended a bottle of mud foam, an elixir for sickness that Nia had mastered better than its creator, given how many times she’d prepared for me alone. I inhaled the liquid over a cloth and my stomach returned to normal in matter of moments.

The crinkled old lady awaited my squadron by the city gates. Thin, her hair in several braids turned completely white, features sunken from age, still elegantly beautiful and her eyes two dark pearls. She stared at me all wonder as though she had just seen the dead, a look I was getting a little too often lately.

“Fascinating, how much you look like her,” she said in a sneer.

“Fascinating, how you are still petty after so many years, dear.” I bit, dismounting Memphis and she frowned. The wicked old fox disliked me for the strangest of reasons, because I was a half Olympian. That was it, her greatest peeve; anyone not Krig blessed was Malena detested.

“You are not speaking to just anyone and however impossible it seems to appear, you are a royal,” the sea spirit lectured examining me in an irked expression. “Some respect would have been ideal.”

I managed between tired and dizzy to huff a mordant laugh. “Earn it, then you shall have it. Now show me to the port or do I need to fetch a lead? You are my father’s bitch but a bitch nonetheless. I would suppose habits are hard to forget.” Hilarious, this woman was, who did she think I was, to scorn me like a child. Respect? What blessed respect, this woman didn't know how to spell it let alone recognize its meaning. She probably had been most happy when chosen by my father to lead the troops from here to Myrdur and kill Olympian women, men, younglings, and babies. Just imagining her grin as she slaughtered my mother’s people made me sick.

Malena’s mouth twisted. Despite the resistance and berating shape of her features, she forced herself to turn and take us to the port.

I tried my hardest to focus straight ahead, my surroundings had warped and fogged ahead of me. Loud oscillating sounds of sails and chime of bells of docking ships accompanied my ringing headache.

I stumbled but Cai caught me, his hand lifted to my forehead. “You are burning, Snow,” he said, worryingly surveying my state.

“Don’t be ridiculous, snow melts it does not burn.” I joked, but I was really burning, and melting; my back was coated in sweat.

He flicked my forehead. “This one is giving me brain freeze, let’s see a healer before heading down there.”

I shook my head, and he lowered his lids to me in annoyance. “If you collapse on me I’m not carrying your fat stubborn head,” he warned, yet he held a hand behind my back all the way to the port.

Dozens of sailors awaited at the port afront their ships with faces drawn in what looked like worry and distress. They greeted and guided us into one of their ships. Confused by what they had to show I followed silently, the swaying prow along with the fever almost made me fall twice.

“We have never had this, Captain. Solaryans are cocky bastards but they had never acted hostile towards us,” said the ship captain. Gathering his hat anxiously onto his hand, he removed the top of one of the wooden crates.

I ran over the taffrail and retched my stomach raw once, and then twice.

Cai carefully gave me hand to straighten, pumping air in and out of my blasting lungs.

I approached the crates once more, dozens of them filled with rotting fish heads and insides to the brim. “Why would they send this?” I queried disturbed, running my finger over the Tahuma engraving at the side.

Urun ryah. The sun sees.

Was this a sign of a trade deal growing cold, had they been unsatisfied with any of Isjord part of the shipment, or did they want to cut ties with Isjord, none of which made sense. Solarya was the biggest importer of Isjordian goods, they needed their part of the deal as much as Isjord did. If they were to cut their ties with Isjord, father would stop Hanai ships who used their waters to send goods to them as well. Whatever the situation, Solaryans would be the side with the most losses, and it made very little sense to bring this hostility between them and Isjord.

“I am not sure, Captain, but my men are saying that we are preparing for a deal with Adriata, and it has not settled well for the islanders,” he explained, covering the shipments and showing us out of the ship.

Solarya always attempted settling ties with Isjord. I was not the only game piece my father had used to settle an agreement. He had married my aunt Eleanor to their fourth prince in promise of four dozen ship fleet and deals of elk, coal and much more. My father was about to damage his ties to fix those with Adriata, did he consider the other kingdoms were going to react this way?