Page 83 of Winter Gods & Serpents

“It doesn’t, does it?” she continued. “After all, she is the ybris, a vile creature of the unnatural, now a pawn who your King will most likely have mysteriously killed not hours after that agreement sets in place. I know your kind, Kilian, very, very well. It never surprises me how soulless you spirituals are, how the divine rules over every human aspect, how the living depends on the gods' graces and the fates set by them. It won’t kill her, the restlessness and the fatigue, you will.” She then turned back to her Kemeri written toxicology book, flicking the pages silently. “What is belief but tales and threats of gods who fear and cannot control human nature and bound it with fictious shackles of obedience with promise of heavens. Are they not the ones that say life cannot be all sweetness and purity, and then offer the very same to entice us into belief? Hypocrisy or just spiritual salvation by means of deceit? And you fell right for it, that fear that allows submission.”

Now I knew why the two of them were friends, bonding over heathen ways. “You speak too sourly for something you don’t understand.”

“And you sort act too rashly on the very same basis of understanding.”

I almost scoffed. “Is it Adriatians or gods that have hurt you?”

“Does it matter, it always comes in circles with you sort and gods. Either could have hurt me and both would be as guilty.”

A book slammed down at the other side of the table, the princess throwing glances between Nia and me. She sat down, shivering in cold. “Vexing my friend now? Aren’t you having a blast?”

I unbuttoned my jacked and stood towards her.

She scooted away from me. “So soon going out of your word. The realms turning sideways to hells already?”

The teasing beast I swear could almost make me laugh sometimes.

I threw my jacket over her shoulders, the skin under pimpled and prickled from the cold. When I peaked at her feet it was then I vibrated in frustration. “What’s with you and the blessed shoes?”

She removed the jacket throwing it back to me. “I didn’t say I was cold, nor that I wanted your opinion on it.”

I threw it around her again, tucking it tight I lowered face to face with her. “Jacket, or I drag you back to your room and tuck you nice in bed. I’ll even sing ‘Children of the Forest’ for you, dance it too if you like and then—then I’ll quietly stand guard, unbothered and undisturbed by your face, that mouth or your freezing limbs.”

She’d done it again, riled me up beyond the usual.

Her face had gone still, unblinking. “How dare you speak to me like that?”

I opened my hands just slightly and bowed my head. “Pardon me, Your Highness.”

Nia snorted and then busted into laughter drawing the princess’s attention. “That was a good threat.” She gave me a thumbs up. “I’d be terrified Snow, imagine to be tucked in bed by him. Better take the jacket.”

“You know,” the princess said, almost vexed, pulling her arms through the too large jacket. “I’m too tired to argue or joke with either of you two.”

“Then sleep, heathen.”

She laughed shortly and tiredly, pointing a sleeve covered hand to her head. “It’s too loud.”

“You don’t have to go there tomorrow, Snow. Cai said he and Sebastian could deal with it,” Nia offered, putting a hand over hers in comfort.

Both wore gloves, I’d never seen either without. No, the three of them did, all the time.

The princess shook her head, willing her features to certainty that her friend did not buy. “I will go, I want to deal with it myself.”

Confused I looked between the two friends. “Where?”

“Where you can see just how charming my murderous wiles are, Adriatian.” There was no teasing or joking in her voice. She was a scary thing to behold in this stature. “I won’t let you forget, nor your King nor your kingdom, that I don’t let my revenge grow cold.”

She stood abruptly and I followed suit. “Where are you going now?”

Her face stern. “There is nowhere to go in hells, you just adjust to where it burns less or…most. Depends on what you crave.”

I frowned at the level of her dramaticism. “You’re tiring me. Where is that?”

“The kitchens, I am hungry.”

Nia shut her book loudly, the two friends shared the same love for dramatics apparently. “You just ate, not an hour ago, then the buns, the cinnamon rolls even the damned fruit. Sit, I’ll ask the servants to bring you some carrots to munch on. You will get your stomach upset again and I don’t have enough wort raisin for your pain.”

“Really Nia, carrots?” she grumbled almost devastated. “What are next, avocados?”