Page 210 of Winter Gods & Serpents

Just as the half dead spirit left, Pen came to bring me the dress Moreen had picked for the Solstice ball. The one I’d completely forgotten was only a day close. An event that I hated, one carried only to insult the memory of my family. Tomorrow would be the thirteenth anniversary of their deaths, yet my father danced around chandeliers and stuffed his stomach in candy while others serviced him exalt.

“Well,” Pen said in a grimace, while both of us studied the contraption the crone picked for me to wear. “At least it’s not a funny yellow or green.”

Layers of lace, tule, almost a skirt that seemed like five, trumpet sleeves that widened about two feet, a neckline climbing up almost to the jaw that could make nuns and monks appear immodest. Now that I saw it in more vivid detail, I’d take a green or a yellow dress with no questions.

“Pen, swear me an oath to tear it, burn it and then have a royal painter paint a middle finger with the ashes to gift Moreen as a farewell gift.”

She blinked almost stunned for a moment. “Framed…or just the canvas?”

“Whatever suits your relish.”

“What will you wear?” she asked, taking the insulting dress down from the hanger. “If you will go naked, please let me salute my mother before my hanging.”

“Severely tempted, however, have you come over my mother’s wedding dress in her chambers?” It was an Olympian dress, one of the most beautiful one’s ever seen. A plain white silk ball gown coming in a tight shape around the torso and dropping to thick layers and skirts of tule, the long sleeves cropped from the bust exposing the shoulders like wings of star spirits. I would always make mother try it on for me to admire its beauty and hers with it.

“Yes, I often take it out to admire it, the white silk is blazing. It would look fantastic on you, good thinking,” she said, before leaving for the garment.

When she returned she was jumping around happily at her find. The dress had not been damaged, but I was about to alter it slightly. Pen had almost cried at my request but had done as told, nonetheless.

* * *

The whole morning the castle vibrated in movement and buzzed with preparations of the ball celebration, as per usual my father would have put all the rich he owed to prepare for it. He liked boasting greatly about his thirty years as a ruler to everyone, particularly foreign emissaries. The Solstice ball, an unnecessary holiday to welcome the coming winter. Before, the season was a blessing from their god, but seeing it had become more a burden to their lands compared to advantage, more and more had chosen to forsake the celebration thinking winter a curse rather than a blessing. The royals kept the tradition more as a celebration of their rule than anything spiritual. The concept was not even the worst part of it, everyone was to be dressed in white to symbolize the snow and ate white sweets and danced around a white adorned conifer tree for a whole night.

Cai entered my room dressed in an all-white uniform, which judging from his face he did not enjoy as much as I was. “Pen made us all dress like dead spirits, she should applaud herself for the job, I look dashing nonetheless,” he exclaimed, spinning around. He did look dashing and handsome.

“You are a peacock, you know?”

“A handsome one.” He studied me “You look better, how is the heart?”

I could not answer, my silence seemed to have offered him my reply.

“Soon we go home, a couple more weeks, cakes. This will all be over. The Lords are falling into line one by one, once you bound the oath we move to Adriata. Isjord will stew in their end and Adriata will meet their end.”

I offered him a smile and a nod before heading onto my dressing chambers, though now a stone weighed inside my heart. Penelope coiled my hair to the back of my head and placed a gold crown adorned in red rubies atop my head as well as a matching set of large earrings, it was my mother’s wedding crown and jewellery. I looked complete already, but the red rubied jewellery and crown were not the main attraction, my mother’s dress fitted me to perfection. I took Pen’s word that I looked something beyond beautiful and then pulled the long gloves over my arms to conceal several blood oaths I’d made.

Cai gawked like a dead fish. “Collect your eyes, you will need them for a while longer.”

“You look beautiful, cakes, you always do.”

We both headed towards the winter garden. The other three were to wait for me at the entrance of the ball room, I wanted to see my mother, Eren and Thora first.

Cai collected three red roses for me which I used to replace the old ones I had put last time. Another year, another solstice I had spent speaking into nothing and now to their graves. My heart wept and continued to pierce hard but was unsure what exactly it was feeling; anger, love and vengefulness were tangled in such a bunch. Right now, I was everything but empty, quite the opposite, my vessel filled to such a level it was not only tipping, it was flooding my surroundings. Before they could take over, I had to will them shut.

Every year I allowed myself to make a wish on this day. “One last time, gods and heavens, please let this all be a nightmare, let me awake in their arms and with their voices around me. Please,” I pleaded hard before them.

And as every year, gods and heavens forbade that wish tonight too.

Chapter 39

Solstice and Sweets

Kilian

Anxiousness had not fled my body since being told about this ridiculous ball. One more place for her to be surrounded by danger—one more place for her to show danger enough to provoke her father again. If one asked me, I’d keep the both of us in her room till the day of the agreement, till when she bids us goodbye.

“Should one of us go and look for her? She should have been here a while ago now,” Mal said, pacing back and forth the corridor.

We were to meet Snow and Caiden at the hall entrance, but they were taking longer than what was planned. Both of them were capable enough to fend the whole castle so my anxiousness was not severe, despite Mal’s words. But I did regret not staying with her before and letting Caiden take a shift to escort her to us. I’d considered breaking that promise too, when she had sat calmly brushing her black silken hair, severely tempting me to gather her in my arms and make her moan my name louder and harder till the new day grew.