Page 128 of Season Warriors & Wolves

She remained hidden under the shadow of the library. “Something doesn't feel right about any of it. Until I am sure none of this is prompted, god or human, I say we do and think nothing of it.”

“What is it that we can do to begin with?” Thora asked, chewing on her fingernail.

“Evacuate Isjordians?” Eren threw out there, silencing all beside me. He narrowed his eyes when I laughed. “Offer them sanctuary, Lin. You cannot tell me that you think all of Isjord wants what our father wants? He is forcing innocents, children, and paying the poor to fight in this war, too.”

“You’d be surprised how many are willing.” I pointed my chin at Elias. “Tell them. He’s seen both sides of that frozen world. If the land is rotting, it definitely has been doing so with their help.”

“Both of you are right,” Elias said. “But I stand with V, we wait it out till we have something more to go about this.”

“And then?” Eren asked again. “What then?”

“I’m not going to potentially invite father’s spies and crooks anywhere where our people reside, Eren. Not to spare Isjord from dying off.”

He stood. “Think about it, Lin. Just think about it first.”

“Visha, you stay,” I said when everyone turned to leave.

The witch waited for everyone to leave and shut the door.

“What’s wrong with you?”

She lifted her dull green eyes up at me, looking exhausted all of a sudden. “The land rots. Suddenly, there is someone who can feed it.”

“You are thinking too much into this.”

“Am I?” Visha asked. “All we’ve done is not think enough. We throw a rock into a lake and find out it’s an ocean.” She took a deep breath, straightening her shoulders. “I’m coming to you not only because I think something is wrong. I can feel something wrong, Snowlin. Ever since…since…lately, I’ve felt more.”

“Of what?”

“Everything.” She looked at me then, the look spoke more than words—words that Kilian could never know. Since I saw your visions.

I paced back and forth in my room after she left. Thinking of this whole thing from its start. From the time my exile ended till now. Visha was right. First the zgahna, then I find out of my blood, and now…now I’m apparently feeding the land? The gods were playing. The fools only knew how to throw dice. And every time they tossed, a whole new side showed.

A shadow in Kilian’s garden made me halt.

My brother stood there, alone in the middle of the night, hunched over, staring at his own feet. I’d never noticed how alone he always looked. How alone he always was.

“I might be biased because he was my friend first before my brother-in-law,” Kilian said, laying down in our bed, flipping through one of my annotated books. “But he was right. In his sense, he was right. Though you were right in yours as well.”

“I’ll be back in a moment.” Grabbing Kilian’s jacket, I rushed towards where my brother stood, watching the shy creatures of the garden finally circle the flowers.

Eren opened an arm for me to snuggle closely to him. “Everyone is trying to understand what you are feeling. But I am afraid if you are feeling at all.”

Nothing had changed. He worried about the world, but who worried about him? “What about you? Are you feeling at all?”

He looked at me with the same soft smile as before. “I think so, but not giving emotions a face almost convinces you that you have no emotion at all, doesn't it? It is how they are. To be worn. If they are not worn, they end up being eaten by moths at the depths of a closet and you are left but with scraps of them, torn, no longer wearable, faded. One might try to salvage them, but would they be the same? Would they feel the same?” He sighed. “I doubt them sometimes, the scraps I was left with after being made to hide them for so long. I doubt whether I feel things as I should. Whether I react as I should or if I am not reacting at all to something I should react to. Whether I am truly feeling what I feel or just projecting what my mind is saying I should feel. So, I hesitate. I let go. I forget. I don’t take much to heart. But I am grateful to even feel those little scraps.”

He kissed my brow, pulling me closer to him. “He’s torn through yours entirely, hasn’t he?”

I leaned onto him entirely, wiping a hand over my eyes. “I don’t know. Father took something from me this time. I don’t know what, but…he took something.” I turned to him. “The same thing he has taken from you. So you must know what it is.”

His expression was gentle and so was his sad smile. “I’ll think about it. If I find out, I’ll let you know. You will tell me as well, right?”

“Right.” I sucked in a sharp breath. “What you said before, I will think about it.”

“Because you want to weaken our father’s support, is it not?”

“Well, my motives might not be decent, but it does work in Isjordians advance, doesn’t it?”