Page 3 of Season Warriors & Wolves

Demir narrowed his eyes on me over his shoulder, still not letting go of Renick. “If you want me to kill him, you’ve got to give me more than that.”

And so it started. I’d delayed them enough.

“Taste their blood, sailor boy.”

Renick clung to his clothes. “It is not true. It is not true, Demir, you have to believe me.”

“Farewell,” I murmured, watching him get dragged away like a dog.

What was one pawn? Nothing. I’d sacrificed worse.

Forty one days—it was almost the end of it. The end of was supposed to be my taming. Father had not changed his ways. It was the very fault and let down of Isjordians—their mechanistic and engraved ideas and old ideologies that they wrote, set in stone and enforced for the remainder of their lifetime. What a fault to have. Predictability.

First, they tried to beat the fight out of me. Though I did not fight back at all. There was no fight to fight back. Whoever beat me was too weak to satiate my thirst for blood. And whoever ordered them to beat me wanted to submit.

So, I gave them submission.

Though my skin had cracked and bruised, and my bones ached and groaned, there was not the slightest protest that I gave up. The more I hurt, the more I rose above caring about it.

It pleased them for sure. But I would argue that I was a people pleaser.

Then they starved me.

A trick humans use to teach their pets obedience. I obeyed though I'd barely starved myself out of the thing that fed me most—violence, pain and anger. Food fed the human, and the human in me was weak. Soldiers did not fight for you because you filled their stomach with food, they fought for you because you fed them rage. A full stomach sent you to the toilet, anger sent you to battle.

Once my father had taught me submission, obedience and starvation, he would come for the next thing.

Power. My power.

And power I would give him.

The air was thick with dust and smoke enough to make me cough every minute of my eternally long days, and like every time I coughed, the taste of blood weighted on my tongue and the groans of pain crawling up my throat slowly became uncontainable. I couldn't feel a lick of my magic, not only because of the craft chains sucking in every bit that flowed out of me, but because the whole room I was locked in was painted corner to corner in craft runes that glowed red the more I struggled, the more I fought to draw power.

So tired…I was so tired.

The three figures who had granted me a visit every day for the past month or so stood silently still before me. One had their features pulled in disgust, the other pursed with impatience and the other was simply and merely…silent.

Nothing. There was nothing in Demir’s face which had always been so brightly painted with his emotions. “I still don’t understand what game you are playing at.”

“Come closer,” I said, peeling my body from the damp floor. “I’ll explain it to you.”

He crouched down till we were face to face. “So?”

And in the midst of having my heart ripped open, I decided that if they were to take my heart entirely, I would rip theirs too by doing what only I know how to do best—dish out retribution. If she had been alive, she would have tried to convince me otherwise. Would have tried to make me reason. She…she would have reminded me that I have all I want. But she was not here.

“No game.” This was war.

He huffed. “You did not give up till the bitter end. That little trick you played with the lords and the walls cost us months of work. You did that to give time to the Night King, and you are doing this to give him more time.”

“You’re not as smart as you think you are, sailor boy. Time?” That made me cackle. “I’m simply petty. Imagining my father’s face when those walls came down has been my greatest gift these days. I dream about it. Fantasise about it. It keeps me well alive. How many died crushed under rock and cement? Fifty thousand? A hundred thousand? More? How many guards has he stationed over the ruins from fear that everyone will want a piece of his frosted cake? Bet it could all be seen from the height of Islines.” Slowly, I crawled closer to him so I could see the colour change on his green irises—so I could finally see his emotions betray him. “Won’t it be just so unideal if the old Krigborns knew the challenge to the throne? Wouldn’t it be just so unfortunate if they knew that father had no one lined up and eligible to take his crown? No son, no brother, no daughter—not one he can crown at least. An unborn child is no heir. Fren is the pure consequence of unfortunate reproduction, she is no queen.” I clicked my tongue. “And if I might take a wild guess, father has not found Reuben where he sent him to be.”

His brows pulled together, and he stood so quickly that the poor man got one and a half of a whiplash. There. Pure realisation. “So, you are playing.”

“No. Not me,” I said, leaning back on the cold wall of my cell. “But someone is. I just happen to have a piece of cheese on a string and the rats gather just like that”

“You have no connection to the outer world.”

“How certain are you about making that bet?”