Page 73 of Winter Gods & Serpents

“You don’t look well,” she said examining me, her hand on my forehead and a shiver sent a shudder all over me. The air, it was too suffocating, I couldn’t breathe.

“Do all funerals last this long? I’m starving.” I moved back from her doubtful stare. “I wonder if any of these putrid ilk shed any tears for my mother, if they were this sorrowful to the young lost lives of my siblings?” At demand my brain began to spin feigned images of their amusements and joy when laying my loved ones to rest. If they laughed and celebrated, if they thanked their unheeding god.

“It was private, only your father.” Sam came from behind putting a hand on my shoulder, his eyes sorrowful. “Alaric did not tell you?”

I shook my head. “He refuses to speak about them.” He would not even utter my mother’s name, not even to himself.

“He thinks he failed them.”

I blinked a storm. “How did you know?”

He smiled with woe. “He was not difficult to understand. And I was there when we found you. It took him a long time to believe you were actually alive, he’d… lost all hope,” Sam said, drowned in remembrance.

“Now he berates me for skipping vegetables,” I joked to liven the mood and he smiled.

He pulled me away, cautious to prying eyes. “You father will know; he will soon trace lead onto your plan to have the Lords removed. It is one thing to have them take your side and quite the other having them killed.”

Sam had grasped my intentions the second I had told him of my friendship with Freja. Mad, undoable, dangerous, the exact words he had said while pacing back and forth before me. I had told him about Myrdur, the reason of my return, my plans for Isjord, my actions on Adriata. He had not believed me for a long while till the second I killed Esbern. My plan went from destroying to overturning to corrupting Winter court. This ship had loyal oars, but why did I need to puff their feathers if I could just pluck them and substitute the peacocks with vultures—my vultures, who would venture in my behalf to aid my father’s cease of reign.

“He won’t, because she did nothing except encourage,” Nia revealed, eyes glued to the wooden casket resting ready to be buried.

Sam glanced between Nia and me. “What do you mean?”

“Snow has put me in his trail since her lesson about galleys and oars when she met Freja. A few days ago, Kalius met Helga to put terms to her silence regarding her relationship with the General, to keep the scandal from erupting and having him loose the title he carried for ten generations. Apparently, Kalius knew of her and the bastard children, he’d aided them for years. Helga demanded quite the demands that got the Lord quite heated. They got into an altercation after threats were made. The medi healers report I plucked from the archives showed his heart stopped from age. My expertise however, held tabaco, grease, drinking habits and stress from all that has happened surrounding his family as the ultimate heartstoppers.”

He frowned with surprise. “He died on his own?”

“Why is it harder to believe that he died on his own than believing I did not kill him?” I asked, somewhat offended.

“Because it was perfectly matched to your intentions.”

“Gods picking the lesser evil.” I answered.

“Many have proved that sinners prayers are answered too.” Nia added slyly.

“If he had not died?” Sam countered. “Was he not one of your…oars?”

“She planned to kill him before even finding a way to corrupt him. That poor substitute of a human would never take her side. That would have left the situation on my graces,” Nia said proudly. “Finally given my winter bane potion a go, it would have left medi healers scratching their magic.”

Though she’d boast about it, she’d been most thankful she had not needed to avail her skills. Nia experienced death abysmally, I’d never put her on the line of killing no matter her skill. She would never have to kill someone if I could do it for her.

“Human poison?”

Nia rose her chin proudly. “With few alterations, one deadly to Aura too. No one better than the unblessed know poisons, even to us Aura.”

I threw an arm around her neck. “She is my little genius; did you know she is a herbalist?”

She crossed her arms and scoffed. “Only when she needs me, other times I’m either miss menace or boss in boots.”

Sam smiled widely shaking his head. “What will you do with Freja?”

“Nothing, she is my ally.”

“You trust her.”

“Trust?” I laughed. A strong word for someone who would at times not trust her own senses. I peeled my sleeve back enough to make the thin bracelet tattoo curling around my arm. A blood oath. “We have a bargain. Her freedom and my support, for her trust.”

Freja and I had fallen to agreement, once Isjord was overthrown she would be free to travel the continent how she had always wanted. We’d bonded on our dislike for the patriarchal society that had pressured our unhappiness and bruised our courage, she’d thought this was the perfect time to have it come crashing down and agreed to support me moving forward with procuring Isjord out of my father hands. But words were good as nothing, a blood oath that claimed life as a price on the other head quite the deal setter, and I had not needed to persuade Freja too far, she had nothing to lose.