Page 52 of Winter Gods & Serpents

My feet turned to liquid and I fell to the soft snow coated floor, the cold travelled through my gloves to my palms sending me in a wakening jolt. It drew me to consciousness, limbs at last obliging me.

“Duck down.” Cai drew his hands forward as the rest of my soldiers obeyed his order. A slice of air shot from him all around us, the men fell one after the other, sliced limb by limb. Flurries of wind travelled furiously above us and they gathered around Cai, the tentacles of air grasping their masked pray as it swiftly cut through them sending bits of flesh flying from all of our side. Snow had lifted along with branches as his hands moved in a chanting dance directing the element to its target. Cai was a Zephyr, air Aura, a powerful air aura. He was descender of a prime bloodline emanating from the first ever ancestors to be blessed with magic. If my father found him, he’d be dissected in pieces and then reassembled into a beast of his sick trials.

“The Solaryans,” one of my soldiers called, “they are gone.”

The stutter of anxiousness returned to my breaths. “They saw you, Cai.”

“Snow, it won’t matter—”

“Spread,” I ordered my soldiers, interrupting him. “Find them.”

I spun round trying to let my senses decide where they had gone and then took off between a thick strap of forest. Wind cutting my skin, branches holding me back while I pushed deeper inside Fernby forest. Faint smell of fish surrounded me; one I knew well. The two Solaryans had been in that ship for days they had to stink of it too.

I unsheathed my daggers, spinning them to my grip while I pushed further towards the trail of scent.

A branch veered in my aim and I ducked back avoiding the hit. The footsteps of the other one crunched the snow behind me, and I spun evading another strike. Spinning the daggers to hold them from their blade, I threw one and then the other in their directions.

Fighting between heavy breaths, I made for their lifeless bodies lain between cold snow and made to retrieve my blades from their skulls. All energy drained from my limbs and I struggled to dislodge the blades, ending up to the ground between them myself.

“One hundred and five, one hundred and six,” I murmured to the nothing and the open sky.

Not moments later, hands picked me up steadying me to my feet.

“I couldn’t let them, they’d seen you,” I explained. He silently shook all snow from my clothes, like a little child being cleared from mud of a playground. “They would have said something, sold the information and hurt you.”

“They could have,” he answered and guided me back to the rest of the squadron.

But they might have not. The rest of that sentence hung in the air unsaid, like many other things he was too afraid to say because they might wound me.

Memphis nestled around me protectively, shielding me from the forest.

“Snowlin,” a soldier pulled my attention. “I suggest we head straight to Tenebrose, there could be more. This seems a well thought trap and they have had to know the area and your itinerary. This is the thickest strap of the forest we pass though Sable Abyss, perfect hiding position.”

“You think they were sent for me particularly? Could this not be thieves?” I asked tired, slouching to the ground.

He went and searched a dead attacker's clothing, examining his features before pulling up his sleeves. An arrow tattooed in his forearm. “Mercenaries,” he said, lifting the dead man's arm up. “These are no thieves.”

We immediately gathered our bearings and rode ahead cautiously through the faltering day. The magic burning lanterns along Sable Abyss made it more eerie than helpful to pass through, each shadow had us unsheathing our weapons. We had lost two soldiers and a third one was gravely injured.

* * *

We had reached city gates when I awoke from Cai’s arms. Soldiers came down running towards us, helping my tired soldiers covered in blood and taking the dead. Halfway to the stables my father came riding forwards, masquerading in rage.

Meeting us midway, he dismounted his horse and ran toward me. I startled when he reached and held me in his arms walking into the castle.

“Let me go, I can walk myself, this false affection is turning my stomach,” I said breathlessly, but I was not lying.

I wiggled out of his arms and wretched over the bushes, surprised I even had anything left to bring out.

Father took me onto his arms again, and when I tried to move away, he only gripped me tighter. “Call a healer to my chambers, immediately,” he yelled the order, and soldiers went running.

I could almost laugh at the expression etched in his face. Did he think he lost his precious agreement?

He dropped me lightly on a massive golden bed in the middle of a dark walled open room, draped in burgundy curtains all over, above which a massive chandelier hung and was dimly lit. It smelled of wood and deep darkness just like him, just like I remembered. This room had often been part of my nightmares. Where he’d locked me.

He paced about the room as the healer came, and then went outside for him to privately inspect me.

“You are running a high fever, princess, nothing a bit of rest and good food cannot fix,” he explained before heading out of the room to exchange words with my father lastly before leaving.