Page 92 of Winter Gods & Serpents

“You—”

“I what?”

“You were wronged and hurt. I have no word for what was done to you and I cannot have a say in what you were and what you are, but I cannot help the revolt against what you are becoming.”

“This is who I have always been, what it was planned for me to become. The only thing that has changed is my purpose. Bitter, isn’t it, the taste of your own doing?”

Terribly right again.

“Will it make you happy, this, your revenge?”

“Happy?” she flared at verge beyond offence. “I cannot wait all my life for my sun to start shinning again for a bit of light. I can never be happy, what I can be is satisfied.”

“You cannot light the world on fire for light either, Princess. Everyone can be happy, you are just choosing the path of unhappiness at the expense of your soul.”

She stilled, her eyes wavering slightly. Anger or hurt I could not tell. “You assume choices in my behalf as if you know me, as if you have been me. Isn’t it easy? To assume? Isn’t it easy to diverge all fault of your own wrongs as justifiable and then judge my own? Isn’t it easy being you, the hero I waited my whole life to tear my own cage, only to put me on another?” she asked calmly straightening herself, and it was then I felt the power of her rightness, the truth of her confession. “When you learn of forced grief let me know then, the choices you would make in my stead. Tell me then, that having to sell your soul for revenge doesn’t seem a bad idea, that one’s soul doesn’t have any worth if it is broken to begin with.”

Right, so right.

“Tell me,” I said inhaling deep with frustration. It wasn’t sympathy what I’d been raised to feel for her. “What you truly feel.” I didn’t care for it, I just needed to hear it. I needed to. I could not feel it, I couldn’t see it, I could not understand it. It hunted me, it confused me. It should not confuse me, not her. She was simple and plain, she was her—she was…she was….on heavens, what was she?

“I didn’t lie.”

I felt myself tensioning again. “You did.”

She took off towards the forest. “Take me back, now.”

“My answer,” I called chasing behind her.

She unsheathed one dagger and quickly turned throwing it to me.

I veered to the side, half an inch away almost meeting my head. She had good aim.

“I need my head to hear your answer, Princess.”

She unsheathed her other dagger and before she could throw it at me, I faded afront her grabbing her wrist. She winced and dropped the dagger only to catch it with her other hand aiming for my stomach. Both her wrists tight on my grip now.

I tsked, shaking my head. “No holes in me, I need to be solid to tell this tale around those withering bonfires you love.”

She made to kick my groin, but I caught her leg between my knees. “But my children princess, they need to exist just to hear how I got the glorious answer I am looking for.”

Her foot went under my shin, toppling the both of us to fall. I rounded her in my embrace, rolling her over my chest to take the impact of the fall before rolling her back under me, pinning her arms crossed over her chest.

She panted and wiggled furiously. “Let me go!”

“You know the way.”

She suddenly halted her struggle, panting and breathless. Beads of sweat coating her temples, her eyes heavy on me—heavy on fever and surrender. She stood silent for a moment beneath her jagged breaths, before her body completely loosened in my grip. Surrendered, she laid on the cold snow, her eyes casting heavenward, lost.

“It doesn’t feel like anything.” Soft notes left her lips, yet they shook the very core of me. “Nothing feels like anything. Pain doesn’t feel painful, I don’t hurt anymore. A hug no longer is warm, is just an embrace. A smile, work of muscles, nothing ticks to make me smile, I’ve just learnt the que for it. I don’t know what I feel in that moment you ask; I just know at that then I feel something very faint but nothing I can recognise, nothing too grave or sweet or more than a tickle. I am…so bored, every day to do it all over again and feel nothing. It is so boring to feel nothing.” Her head tilted forward, the golden gaze tired onto mine. “Here you have it, my truth.”

Nothing.

Blood begun spreading under her in veins of crimson over the white crystals. A painting—a strange painting, incomprehensible.

She shut her eyes and took a deep breath before she smiled just slightly. “It is liberating I have to admit. Dying…feels very liberating.”

And I was lost in that moment of words and heavy confessions, lost in the crookedness of that smile that bared no symbol of happiness. “You will not die. Not on my watch.”