Page 13 of Season Warriors & Wolves

I shook my head. “Nothing.”

“That is not good.”

Finally, I looked up at him. Though I knew Melanthe must be listening to our conversation, I couldn’t resist asking, “You think something has happened to him?”

He snorted, pinching my cheek. “Has he been this soft around you? That fucker is terrifying. Silas better have a few pairs of drawers in his closet. But considering he likes to start shit, he might like sitting in it, too.”

For the first time, I felt my mouth rise into a genuine smile which fell quickly when I saw the matted blood under his jacket. “Mal, you…you said he hasn’t hurt you.”

“It would be foolish to think he could take the closest person to the night throne and not try to poke a few answers out of him. It’s nothing,” he added, resting a hand on my shoulder and looking all over me. “It is nothing.”

“He cannot hurt you. He knows it.”

“Won’t stop him from trying, Snow. Let it go.” He cupped the back of my head and sighed. “You won’t let it go, will you?”

“We will see.”

“He let you come down here.”

I raised a brow at him. “You know why he spared you.”

He shook his head. “He could’ve…he could’ve taken her, too, if he had wanted to threaten you with obedience. Silas must have thought the chances that Kil will fall for his traps are double if he has me and you. But he doesn’t know my brother like me and you do.”

That offered some relief and I nodded. “He won’t come. I really hope that is the truth.”

“He would have come for her, too. He would come for anyone he loves,” he said, lightly squeezing the back of my neck. “And Kil is night. He’s always moved under shadows. If you don’t see him, then he is coming.”

If you don’t see him, then he is coming.

“Stop staring at the walls, girl,” Nissa’s mother said, pushing me back on the bed and throwing the blanket over me. “And go to sleep. You look like you belong serving soup down in the kitchens.”

I grabbed her arm when she was about to leave. “Can you turn off all the candles? And draw the curtains. I don’t want to see any light at all.”

She nodded despite my odd request. “I know, girl. I know. You ought to ask me every night the same thing.” Murmuring under her breath and shaking her head, she did as told. “No wonder you look like you do.”

“Insult my attitude, but stay clear of insulting my beauty, old hag.”

“Beauty my old arse.”

When I closed my eyes, there was always something flashing from memory. For a little while, I only wanted to think of him. Without thinking of anything else. Just him. And the words he said to me in the dark.

The quiet entirety of it, the absolute darkness, I found comfort in it. The quiet was not frightening either. The shadows were so still that I wanted them to move, to stir the Snow they had created to battle the monsters now hiding under light.

If I just let go…if I just let my eyelids rest for a brief moment, I could hear him, too.

My love.

The trip had been cancelled. That was all I had been told and then ordered to not step anywhere between my room and the training grounds which my father had moved indoors to one of the closed quarters of the castle. A week. Then two. Almost another third I’d done just that. Darsan whispers had flown around that Melanthe was having health issues and could not portal the ships past Solaryan waters. Nissa’s mother, on the other hand, told me that Verglasers had not even been able to break the Seer Sea ice to even move the ships an inch, which I doubted to be a lie told for everyone to spread in order to cover the truth. Moregan had only grunted and sneered at me. I’d not seen Demir or the witch. Until the beginning of this week when father fetched me from my room himself, looking quite jolly, and then proceeded to drag me all over Isjord.

He had paraded me in every city and before every Isjordian he could find. It seemed he wanted even the dead to know that his kingdom had a long path ahead with a newer, stronger heir of Krigborn blood.

Did he realise what beast he was creating? Had he stopped to see the footprints his fear was leaving behind? His people were looking at me. At me alone. Not their king.

Father was still rattling about with some Casmere merchant about the shortage of coal that was causing his trade to go bankrupt.

Coal. How could coal be in shortage in Isjord? This kingdom even had their milk with a side of coal.

People were still staring at me from the distance as I moved from one market stool to the other, perusing mindlessly and trying not to concentrate on how badly I needed to pee. All the smiles I’d been given, the flowery wishes and adoring bows I’d received were really making my bladder anxious.