Page 78 of Winter Gods & Serpents

“It well not but you see I have not had my fun today, and if I am not allowed to kill him,” she said, pointing her dagger to me. “It will have to be just anyone.”

“It’s all types of innocent then, no one is spared.”

She shut her eyes tight. “Voice of reason, is that you? Have not heard you for a while.”

She gave a quick snide smile before charging toward the crowd her soldiers were parting. Her revenant stance shifted somehow. I saw her head tilt to the side, the next step changed, something around her air varied, the lightness yet the force of her muscles stringing in her body almost predatory; like a lioness ready to pounce on her prey.

“Hello there,” she greeted the man kneeling to the ground, who held a bruised woman by the hair.

She’d been shackled by her ankles, dirt and grime clung to her half-torn remnants of a dress that barely hung to her. Bruises, blood and much had veiled the thin features of her, but the white shadows of pain rampant and thick almost blurring my surroundings, forcing me to shut my senses down.

The man grabbed a leather belt from the ground and said, “Nothing for you here to see Captain, move to your business.”

The passer-by’s who had halted at the show, flinched and continued about, almost fearful at the man’s authoritative tone.

She laughed and then turned to us brows raised. “Did you hear that, we have no business here, what are we doing?”

Her soldiers levelled a stare on the man, a hand over all their swords, ready to their captain’s command.

She crutched to the ground on his eye level. “Yes, I give the orders as you see. Let go of the girl.”

“She is my child, my problem, my business.”

“Is she? I have some business with her too. How did you inquire the bruising, the lice, and cuts? You look a painting,” she commented casually.

The man threw his head back laughing, and she chased his laughter too with a vileness of her own. An odious sound. “I am the towns bailiff,” he introduced, letting go of his daughter. “I knew Isjord raised some tough women.”

“Oh yes,” the princess said, tracing the movement of the girl to the safety of our side.

What was she doing? Did she really agree to this monster’s way?

The girl scrambled to her feet barely walking two steps before almost collapsing, caught only by my arms. She shivered, bled, smelled, and clung to me tightly.

“You are safe,” I offered, half shielding her.

“I know her,” the girl whispered in a cry. “I know her. Don’t let her hurt me.” Was she more afraid of her than her father?

“So, how did your fascinating work come to be this…fascinating?” the princess asked the bailiff.

Caiden blew an exasperated breath beside me. “Blessed gods, could you not just give her a hobby instead of this obsession?”

The father sneered glaring at the girl I held. “She went around dallying with a lowlife, unblessed slave of one of the rich here. I caught her just before she lost her virtue, taught her a lesson and she is ready to be shipped to her buyer in Vrammethen. She wanted to taste rank flesh of the unblessed, I’ll give it to her. It’s what she wanted, is what she got.”

The princess threw a scalding look to the girl who sobbed in my arms. “Did she? She wanted it, asked for it?”

She could not be serious.

“Yes,” the man said proudly. “By the last time, she went limp almost searching for my belt to hit her again.”

“Fascinating.” She stood and reached a hand to help the man stand. With no notice I saw the dagger previously strapped to her thigh on her hand and right on the man’s side. “She wanted it, just like you wanted that?” She stabbed him again. “She asked for it, just how you asked for that?”

He dropped to the ground bleeding a stream, but not dead, only careful spots hit nothing vital.

I had been wrong.

“Of course,” Cai murmured annoyed beside me.

She stretched her neck and shoulders turning to us. Flipping the dagger to hold it at the blade, she pointed it to the girl. “You have choices. Nightmarish nights or nightmarish nights with the image of you nailing this dagger where his heart is asking it to be.”