Page 174 of Season Warriors & Wolves

“Not much of a choice.”

The woman sneered. “Your father has no business with us. I’m sure he will be satisfied with whatever he steals from the rest of you false believers.”

“Not when you have something he desires.”

“And what is that?”

“Your death. As long as you stand alive, you have something he wants.”

Looks were exchanged—concerned looks, but the man still said, “We will take our chances.”

Thora stepped by my side. “Our father has already started killing you. The war might not be your place to die, or he might not be interested to have your lands, but he is killing you, nonetheless, without you even realising. Has winter left since it last came?” she asked, her old Ysolt strong—much stronger than mine. “When have you last seen skies, sun, fruit and herbs? Winter was a blessing of cleanse, not a suffocation and a reminder of what we once had that has not buried underneath all of it. If I feel it, I’m sure you do, too.” She lowered and sank a hand in the snow. “This is no blessing. This is not our god’s blessing. Not his curse either. This is a grave. And you’re being buried. Abandoned. Godless though you waste prayers still to someone who has already shunned you.”

“Strong words from such a small thing,” the Isline King said, his smile cruel. “To make wild claims in the name of our sacred is deserving of death in this land. Have you come to die on my lands, child?”

My sister stood, her gaze hardened on him. “Wild is the assumption that you can kill me before you are buried alive in your pitiful blessing.”

He stepped forward, his sword in his hand and aimed at my sister who slipped from my grip and walked right to the edge of it.

She grabbed the steel and directed it right to her throat. When blood began soaking and staining her grey leathers, Mal’s chest rattled with a low growl, shadows raising around us.

“Wait,” I said, grabbing him tightly. “He will be ash before he even thinks of hurting her.”

The barbarian king’s eyes travelled between the three of us and then the thunder above before dropping back to my sister’s. “What is it to you if we die out here or with you?”

“Fear,” Thora said. “Father fears you. You ride besides us and we have the pleasure of seeing him seethe with fear. Your numbers will not raise us or cost us, but it might be what will cost the king of Isjord courage and what might give his people tenancy to their own decisions. He sees you ride with us, he will fear. They see you ride with us, they will think twice about riding with him.”

Mal smirked. “Little bird is a little wolf.”

“Fear,” the king repeated and looked over at me. “For fear.”

“For fear,” I agreed. “And your magic. Only ice can break ice.” Only a fraud can deceive another fraud.

He slowly pulled the blade away and stepped back. “Who rides against him?”

“My kingdom, Olympia. My husband’s kingdom, Adriata, and Hanai. I expect more to join.”

The look he had did not warm up, but the harshness lessened. “What an impressive foe your father has created.”

“Numbers are solely numbers. Father has more.”

“I meant you. A creature like you.”

Mal slid before me, eyes dark and voice darker. “Call my queen a creature again, I dare.”

The king surveyed the darkening shadows and raised a hand. “An honest mistake. Will remember it for the future.”

The woman who had stood next to him looked livid, grabbing onto his arm and pleading, “Papa, you can’t possibly—”

“Only ice can break ice,” he echoed back, repeating the words King Edric had said to his two sons, Isline and Tenebrose, right before they had decided that they would solve their dispute for the throne with violence. From the look he gave me, I was thankful to have paid attention in that particular history class and that he still believed that King Edric was not an absolute cunt of a man. “If there is a threat to my people and the land we were bestowed to protect, we ought to take it to heart.”

“Do we have a bargain?” I asked when Thora retreated to my side.

The king nodded. “Have your bargain, Krigborn child.”

I grit my teeth and held back the tongue that wanted to say ‘Skygard’ and handed him the plaque Visha had prepared for me. “A means of communication.” He took the grey stone, studying it. “It will heat and glow when I send call for you. Speak my name to it when you wish to communicate with me.”

“Dark magic, papa,” the woman snarled. “We do not mess with dark magic.”