Page 165 of Season Warriors & Wolves

A man leaned forward. “My neck,” he said. Eldmoorians. They were Eldmoorians?

“Nice offer, but that would kill you,” Snow replied.

“No, no, my neck. A necklace.”

I reached for the gold necklace hidden under his shirt, breaking the chain and turning the gold pendant around for any sort of inscription. A whole list of…names was carved on the back.

“It is craft,” he said. “We use craft. They obey at the call of their name. A name only we know.”

“How many have you sold to Silas Krigborn?” I asked, pocketing the necklace.

“A dozen, but I heard they were lost at sea.”

“What else?”

“Much. We’ve been doing business for decades. He sent us after Olympian Aura. Wanted them trained well before they would be handed back to him.”

Few knew that Silas Krigborn was a spineless coward, but it pleased me to know he feared us in any capacity.

“What else have you traded to him? A detailed list.”

“Criminals. We’ve broken many out of all eight kingdoms for years, I cannot remember every single one of them. Banned elixirs. Blood of Dyurin blessed. Dragon bone, the heart of a sphinx, hundreds of Aura. And, uh…uh, what were those called? We had to dig all over for years.”

“Seedlings?” Snow asked, frowning, her whole body vibrating from forcing to keep still.

“Yes, yes, seedlings. Tedious process.”

She glanced at me over her shoulder. “Tedious process, he says.”

“We need you to dig for us again,” I said.

He blinked fast, starting to shake. “What for?”

Your own graves.

Chapter thirty-three

White Knight to F1

Kilian

Despite our busy schedules and what we’d come to learn about the khamir beasts, Alaric had ordered us to at least all join one meal a day to have together. Moriko graced us with her presence today and she was currently sharing a silent stare down with my wife.

“Any news from Magnus?” Caiden asked, slicing onto his meal rather quickly. Anyone could tell that him being here instead of down at Highwall or Myrdur was stressing him out.

“No war talk on my dinner table,” Alaric grumbled.

“Not yet,” Nia answered, and her father sighed.

“I wonder why,” Moriko murmured under her breath and Snow slammed her cutlery down on the table.

“What was that?” my wife asked, blinking sweetly at the Autumn Queen.

“No bickering on my dinner table,” Alaric repeated for the fifth time today, slamming his own cutlery on the table and everyone lowered their heads down on their meals and continued to eat quietly.

“Maybe we should approach them again,” Eren said carefully, looking at his sister.

Caiden scoffed. “So she can kill another of his sons?”