Page 81 of Winter Gods & Serpents

“Only catching up with you father, you’re a tough one to beat. Move, I stink of pig blood.”

How did she get speak to him like that?

“You will not run wildly about my kingdom. We have rules and punishment. You are a captain, not an executioner. Dismissed from all your duties. From this moment you are to do nothing. You are not to leave these walls, cross those gates. Do not force me to lock you in some dungeon.” He’d gone red and she’d gone pale in boredom.

“My fun has just begun,” she said mirthlessly. “All of this free time in my hands, what will I do with it? Yes, first I will visit Rose hall, then Bruma halls, then…maybe I’ll write a letter to my betrothed and tell him all sort of fun stuff about breeching walls, fleet numbers, soldier numbers and all sort of delicious detail. There is no secret in marriage, is it? I better begin being as honest as I can with him.”

Did she not know how close Silas was to clawing her throat out?

“You would not dare,” he said, carefully glancing around those that heard her.

She did dare when she said, “The wall is weak by the western cliff, the land below is ice therefore it takes a little heat and some persistence.” She clicked her fingers. “And you are inside your very city.”

“How dare—”

“Venzor,” she continued, unafraid and unbothered. “The bay between Grasmere and them has a dam, it conceals a secret that takes you right inside—”

“Enough,” he shouted, almost shaking to control his ire. “Patrol only, you are to deal with no prisoners, no crimes, nothing but patrols, checks with the wall guards and documentation handling with the Lords. Are we clear?”

She had just threatened the King of Isjord and gotten him to comply to her own terms.

She grinned like a feline, and bowed deeply to her father. “Clear as ice.”

All frosty ire, he strutted defeated to his castle.

Caiden parted to his quarters and I settled by her door, waiting for Nia to take shift with me.

“Ice isn’t clear,” I spoke before she made to her door.

“Astute observation, Adriatian.” She halted and then leaned back on her door to face me. “When is Mal coming back?”

Why did she keep calling my brother Mal? “But you wound me, princess. I thought we had just begun getting along.”

“He promised me moon treats,” she said, leaving me aghast in my own sarcasm. “You know, those little crescent moons that have that gold syrup atop, they taste of apple and butter. My brother brought them once when he returned from Sidra.”

“Moon…treats?” I asked. “You mean loonor?” Children sweets?

She shrugged. “I suppose.”

I frowned. “Why did he promise you that?”

She unsheathed her dagger and showed me some sort of complicated trick with it. “I showed him how to do that.”

She was not joking.

“You exchange bargains with my brother now?”

She tilted her head, swivelling a heavy gaze over all of me, each time she did it she’d only frustrated me further and I believed she did it with that purpose in mind. “I would have asked him for one of your king’s limbs but where would the fun be in there, I want to dissemble him myself.”

“A day after,” I said, retreating to the wall, tired of a will to argue with her and sort of bothered by her directness. “He returns a day after tomorrow.”

She nodded and then halted again turning to me, taking a few moments, wanting to say something. “H-How is your mother? I mean…his mother? Yours too?” She blinked to herself. “Both of yours?”

Why did she care? “She will be fine.”

She cleared her throat, nodded, and then abruptly halted a third time.

“Yes?” I asked blowing a tired breath.