Page 26 of Winter Gods & Serpents

“Glorious day of our ancestors?” I grit between my teeth.

At my withered reaction his smile grew gleefully, he knew which wound he poured salt. “Yes, you heard me.”

The reaction between the consort and her children had grown cold while following our conversation. Before they had never been allowed to attend the event, now it seemed they thought themselves the main stars. Moreen nodded. “I will get her something similar to Fren’s.”

“Blessed heavens don’t, spare me crone, spare me father,” I begged mockingly, and he strangely smiled.

“Pick it yourself then. Why don’t you attend the tea afternoon with the ladies of Rose court? You never debuted in the society you were born to belong, make yourself scarce too.”

Fren gasped loudly. “But she will scare everyone.”

I dropped my goblet and clapped my hands together making her flinch. “You know father, that is the greatest idea you have ever had. Moreen dearest you will be there, along with the sea urchin, right?”

The consort swallowed looking between my father and I and nodded.

“The guard outside, is he a friend?” Father asked, peaking by the closed doors. I knew he’d asked around, knew he kept a close eye on them, and knew who they were too. He was testing me and my reactions. He was lurking for weakness like he always did.

I shook my head. “Medius’s son, the guard you sent with Alaric, the girl is Drian’s daughter.”

Father had sent me off with the two Isjordians and Alaric into exile. Drian and Medius were legends among soldiers in the Winter court, but they both had very unheroic ends.

He gave me a confused look. “Where are my soldiers?”

“Medius died four years ago and Drian is half paralyzed after an Adriatian trailed us for a couple of weeks. Their children took their place.” The best lie is the one with bits of truth in them. Medius was indeed dead and Drian paralyzed, but their children were far from here and far from being Adriatian and Olympian.

“And no one bothered to notify me?”

“Why for, so two new faces suddenly trailed me about the village? Alaric thought it best like that.”

He dropped his cutlery all fury. “Alaric this and Alaric that. I am your king and your father, it should be up to me what is best for you.”

“Ah,” I said, loading up fruit in my arms, before standing to leave. “Father of the year.”

* * *

Rose hall was the ladies court in the castle. Designed to welcome pathetic gatherings where puffed peacocks like Moreen spent their useless trophy lives in gossip, tea and knitting. The latter I could do with, Alaric had forced the both of us to take knitting classes for years. The burly man had sat each Wednesday by my side pulling yarns through needles and sticks. The old fool though it a calming activity to soothe my quick temper, but the precision of the task brought immense stress to my attempts at not missing a single stitch. I’d thrown more tantrums and broken more objects at missing a loop than anything else, but at least I could knit myself a scarf now.

Fren and Moreen sat puffed up by a tattling table that could not shut up or make it less obvious that I was the target of gossip. I stood, taking the lilac yarn with me, it was mine now, I’d taken fancy at the colour.

“You have something here, dear,” I said wiping my fingers next to my mouth to the woman sat next to Moreen.

She blinked stunned and then wiped her mouth with the corner of a handkerchief. “Gone?”

“Still there. All the shit that you speak is staining.” Throwing her a handkerchief I went and sat next to the only person who stood on her own. She was young but beaten by life, dark circles accompanied her seafoam blue-green eyes. Her delicate features and thin lips had paled the colour of a corpse and the almost white blonde hair, lustreless, washed her out completely.

“Snowlin Krigborn,” I introduced extending her a hand.

“I know who you are, Your Highness.” She gave me a shy smile and shook my hand. “Freja Olsen Modr.”

Not afraid of me, I noted. A smile crept up on my face at the pleasant surprise. “The Lord’s daughter,” I said taking her in. “That makes you a candidate for a gossiper, why are you not joining the hells dominion over there?”

She threw her head back laughing and the crones took turns shaking their heads at us full in lush judgement. “More like candidate of gossip, I’m married to general Gabriel Olsen, the arse wipe of whore houses here in Tenebrose and further away.”

I spat my tea coughing my lungs out, and she rubbed a hand behind my back. “Don’t choke, Your Highness, they will think I tried to kill you. Next thing you know, they have me hung at the murder attempt of a royal, that if I am not caught at the murder attempt of my husband,” she said in a nervous giggle before letting out a sigh.

Alaric had told me about her, the only child of Kalius Modr; if she was not married, also the direct successor of the northern city. Her father was rough as winters up his city’s mountains, a strict maintainer of old tradition and avid supporter of my father’s, all in all a rotten piece of dog crap. He’d married late and only sired a daughter whom he had been most eager to hand off to General Gabriel Olsen, whom just funnily enough was someone I intended to make myself associated to.

“He sounds like a delightful man.”