Page 74 of Winter Gods & Serpents

Sam shook his head pointing a finger in warning. “Feet on the ground, you are not out of his doubts just yet.”

He joined the line forming ahead as the rituals begun commencing at the sound of the seventh drum.

“Who was miss menace speaking to a moment ago by the way?”

“A soldier sent from Cai, there is something odd going on Kirkwall,” she revealed, glancing around us. “There is a family down there working as bypass for trespassers.”

I let out an irked sigh. “Execute them.” We’d found more Adriatians in these lands after that day than we could find flames in hells. I had even been forced to spare Cai and send him on their chase.

“Miss ‘of with their head’ might need to hear this,” she said, frowning at my rashness. “General Moregan, she rode from the Islines to visit them a couple of nights ago along with a bunch of soldiers. His informant said they left with a dozen or so Adriatians picked up from the inn. Adriatians left willingly, unchained.” I scowled in incertitude, and she continued, “The inn was not on the list we found from Lord of Kirkwall, even we did not know. How did Moregan know—how did your father know? Sebastian had to trace them down for days.”

“Aura?”

She shrugged. “Could have been.”

“They could be recruits, father has always recruited foreign Aura in his army.” There was a special division years ago, I had not the slightest idea if it was still alive. I would have to ask Sam.

“That was also not what surprised me the most.”

My brows rose in question and she handed me a receipt in answer. Esbern Kirkwall to Pine Inn. The ex-lord had bought supplies for the inn in his name.

“Esbern was a family friend of theirs,” Nia explained.

My eyes went wide in realisation. “Heavens, he knew…my father knew about Esbern?”

She nodded. “I believe some of the Adriatians he was giving passage were for your father or at least profiting from their passing, he also charged no easy price in crossing.”

My father was still collecting Aura. “Notify Sebastian, we are to head there two days from now.”

“What do you intend to tell your father?”

“A truth and some lies. Our patrol in Kirkwall is in two days, send word for Sebastian he is to take us there.”

“And the Adriatians?”

“They have my answers. Till I get them, they remain breathing.” Whatever he needed Adriatian Aura for, it would not be up for anything I would like, and there were about a thousand line of distressing thought cursing my brain.

“This could be nothing, Snow, maybe we are just wasting time on a goose chase.”

I shook my head. “No, something is up with the islanders, Isjord, and Adriata.” Whatever my father was concocting he’d dragged Solarya’s attention. And wherever Solarya’s attention was, father needed Adriatians.

“Do you think this is connected to Myrdur?”

“No, but I’d like to eliminate the probable.”

She nodded and backed away, slowly letting Kilian approach as I took place in line with the mourning. People begun lining along, preparing for the ceremony. A grey faced old priest approached. Draped in white robes that only hollowed his expression further, a red belt with the seven guardian saints of Hodr stitched in colour across his waist. He looked every bit the god arse wipe he was. Religion in Isjord was perplexing. They directed their prayers once they needed gods not sooner, not normally, yet they held their belief with shameless pride. But praying in a temple did not make you a saint, as sleeping in a stable didn’t make you a horse—sleeping in a stable only made you an idiot as Isjordians became when they travelled down to a temple once in their lifetimes and wore a guardian saints embellishment around their belts.

The priest laid down the sacred book of Eirlys and Caelus liber, flinging through pages of the written mania of deities. “With Krig’s blessing, to Hodr heaven,” he called groggily.

“With Krig’s blessing, might it welcome us,” everyone greeted back in holy sign.

He flipped the book open, named the seven guardians of Hodr gesturing his hand up and down in calling to the heavens. As if heavens even bothered to welcome this sort. “Krig made his blessings on this soil, he’d seen lands of Isea, old Isjord; he’d fallen in love with its people. We’d welcomed his gifts and he’d welcomed our prayers, from now.”

“Till Hodr,” everyone replied in unison.

I withheld my eyes from rolling back with no intention of return so instead I murmured my spite, “Fuck the gods and their prayers.”

“Some respect, you heathen,” Kilian demanded.