Page 23 of Winter Gods & Serpents

I ignored his incitements. One grows warm even to the sound of a thud once heard long enough.

“It is not of the sort, Commander,” head councillor clarified. “There has been a proposal of the demotion of her power over the court. As we know, she is the ybris, but she is also Silas’s daughter. It would give the Winter king more leverage than we thought at the start of the agreement. We have proposed her role at court to be reduced. For our subject’s peace of mind too. Do we have your votes, Generals, Commander, to pursue this new rule of demotion?”

“No,” Mal said crossing his arms. “I want her in this very table and see you tremble every time you dare speak to her.” His vote had weight, he was commander of the deadliest squadron in Adriata, if not the whole of Dardanes. A team of Empaths, Aura that didn’t need even touch to harm their enemy.

Larg scoffed and shook his head. “I am with the Eldritch Commander on this one.”

“Not mine either,” Triad spoke and stood to leave undismissed. “Call me when you have a real beast to slay, not some girl you probably already killed once.”

The head councillor sighed and turned to me. “I trust we have yours, Kilian.”

My brother glared and shook his head, expectant of the worst from me.

“No, you don’t.” I spoke. “Do you think Silas an idiot? That would make the whole lot of you idiots too. We will not take such risk. Even if it plays to nothing with him, no such demotion will happen. Kings have married worst for politics, are we this scared of Silas as to be the first kingdom to deduct the most respected woman in this kingdom. What will happen next, husbands demoting women on their right to breathe, sleep and eat? Is this the example we are setting for our people? Is this short sightedness blinding the repercussion, or is fear as corrupting as they say it is?”

She cleared her throat, her gaze jumping between several councillors who were probably the ones to propose the ridiculous thing in the first place. “No, of course not. If none at disagreement with the head General, we will pass the proposal as dismissed.”

“Do raise a hand Stregor, for dramatic effect,” my brother said standing, patting the wrathful councillor’s shoulder before leaving. But even him remained silent and in partial agreed to its dismissal.

* * *

I sat by the roof of a hill in Amaris’s bay overlooking Moor sea, the tender waves of high tides rising and falling enveloping the shore that once laid for miles down, white sand and shells now dark sea and rage. The waned moon shone pale silver but bright and full of glow, bringing us more light than the sun. The wind was not kind as it once had been, now it drew chills on the spine and sent to require mantle of heat. Once kingdom of summer, Adriata had become kingdom of the unexpected rage of seasons. Once the favoured land of gods, had now become a beacon of their fury. Adriata was poisoned, the antidote had become her.

I sighed, dropping my head forward tiring onto surrender. “How did you find me?”

Mal seated beside to me on the cool white stone. “Asked every child if they’d seen a moody statue and they all pointed here.” He handed me a paper cone filled with corn sweets of all colours. I could taste the colouring dye on my tongue just by looking at them.

“We are not twelve anymore, brother.”

He frowned. “I know you still like them, save the brooding for the council.”

I took them from his hand, the candy crackling on my mouth, taste of nothing but sugar. He was right I still liked them.

“You know he beat me once,” Mal said, taking a candy from my cone. “When he caught me eating them. He said they are for children. I did not understand what he meant because I was a child, but to him we were men the moment we took our first step.”

“Father beat you,” I said, putting two red coloured ones in my mouth, faint taste of strawberries between sugar. “Because you snuck out, stole them, wrecked a tent while running away from the seller, then flashed your arse to him before calling him a twit with three tits because of that mole between his eyes.” Mal’s list of foolhardy moments deemed no victorious, there was always room to top with another. Our father was nothing short of authoritative, it was his way or no way and Mal grew a penchant for his frustration.

He chuckled silently. “I am definitely writing my autobiography under a penname.”

“What do you want, brother?”

“Where do you think she was?”

It was always her; the only person he wished to talk about was her and the only person I never wished to remember was her. “Does it matter?”

“Will she come to kill her betrothed?”

I turned to him. “That would please you, would it not?”

He leaned back facing heavenward. “Would you not be pleased too? The man is a prick.”

“The man is a king. All kings are pricks.”

“You should have said no, Kil,” he said quietly. “You should have disagreed the same as I did. They will use her, asking for her was a trick. One way or another they will find a way to rid of her, to bound or to keep her from her father, but she is being used, nonetheless. Don’t you feel we owed it to her to have stood up and said no to the condition in the agreement? Her sister would have done fine, we are already drowning in our misfortune, we needed the agreement and could have done without dragging her back into this.”

“Mal,” I interrupted. “The council would have let Adriata drown before accepting the Ianuris agreement with Silas. She is the one that saved it, and I only agreed to save our kingdom.”

Chapter 8