Page 80 of Winter Gods & Serpents

“You should have stayed well-hidden, you vermin of hells,” a cold ice thin voice called, reaching us. The priest wore spite and disdain well enough in his features before I read the very same shadows. The robes of devotion he wore were somewhat soiled with pretend.

“Murdoc,” she called, too meek from how I’d usually heard her. They knew one another.

“You should not be here, and you should not be doing this,” he spat, making a step for her all rage almost wanting to strike her.

I stepped between the two and the lanky priest stumbled a few steps back almost dropping to the ground. “I’d be a bit careful how you speak to her and I’d be terribly, terribly careful when you approach her.”

He laughed all slime and vile. “Adriatian. Yes, protect her then tear her to pieces. How I would have loved to have seen her shredded by you.”

My grip went to my hilt at the acid taste of those words, but a light hand rested atop my own, and the owner finally stepped forward. Battle rage wearing her lids.

Her hand went tight around mine; I didn’t think she’d noticed that she still held me.

“What is it Murdoc, why did hells open their gates to free you today?”

His mouth twisted. “Bailiff Sander was a good man; he will receive a proper burial.”

She snorted, and then blasted in a euphoric laughter. “No.”

“What?”

“He. Will. Not. Be. Buried.” A grin spread wide in her lips, but I saw the shiver and her grip tightened around my hand. “What will you do, Murdoc? Preach me mercy? But didn’t you teach me yourself that monsters needed their monstrous ends?”

I studied the priest. So much hate, entitlement and unremorseful linger of malice for a person of faith. There was something wrong, but this time it was not with her.

She let go of me. “Scatter, before I scatter you over him, Murdoc.”

He snarled, his lips peeled back to reveal rotten teeth. “Gods will skewer you in hells.”

She gave him a wicked smirk. “This is hell, and I am fire. Shouldn’t you be scared, you sinning little saint?”

She knew how to make a man shiver. Murdoc’s shadows of hate overlapped murky with fear.

“This doesn’t end here,” he shouted from behind as she begun walking away from him.

She waved a hand in the air. “It will never end and you cannot die for you will repent first. You owe me three souls.”

What had the priest done? What had he done to her?

“Did you just let that man live?”

She flicked a bunch of hair back as she strutted forward all grace. “I don’t like rotten flesh, darling.”

That word again.

Silently, we backed toward the stables. Too silently. Silence was a bad tell, it had to be, she was rarely silent.

“Who was he?” I asked, as we mounted our horses.

No reaction wore her face, almost convincing me she was fearful. She couldn’t be, she wasn’t. I didn’t want her to be, not with me around.

I saw her swallow almost nervously before she answered. “One who taught me to despise cages.”

* * *

A crowd of soldiers gathered by the stables in Tenebrose castle. A luminescent angry red mist circlet the vicinity, blurring the sight of her father. I never had seen someone with that much anger and when he saw her he turned something murderous.

“Having fun?” he shouted. “Murdering just about anyone? From lords to bailiffs?”