Page 34 of Season Warriors & Wolves

Poor Demir. If it did that to his hand, what would it do to his stomach now that Nissa’s mother and the rest of the servants had sprinkled it all over his food? And where he slept? Or the clothes that he wore?

Chapter nine

White Kingside Castling

Kilian

Five months. Five long months since Snow and Mal had been taken by Silas.

A season had changed, and another was about to. But thankfully, Silas had yet to complete the sceptre, let alone weld it together. At least that is what Elias had managed to slip by last we had contact.

“Are you certain?” Visha asked, still holding tightly onto the vial containing a partial solution to one of my issues.

I reached my hand forward. “Quite certain.”

She still held onto it, half pulling it back. “Dreams are sent by your goddess, and you know it well, if you chose to suppress them—”

I took the vial from her and downed it. “If she is not in my dreams, why should I dream at all. I don’t care for the nonsense of gods. Or their warnings. If Silas marching around with a divine weapon, three armies and two of the people I love most in this life is not enough of a warning, then I don’t know what is.”

“Snowlin really is bad company.”

“Any news from Eldmoor?” I asked, tossing the small flask in the crackling fire pit.

“It seems the shortage of herbs is affecting Silas’s Crafters. Red Coven had seen Melanthe’s sisters lurking around the black markets. No ingredients means no more beasts.”

“Good,” I said, standing. “Have Macaria order merchants to sell them cheap substitutes.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not done fucking with Silas just yet. If they look hard enough, they will find what they need elsewhere. If we give them something that could ease their needs, for cheaper, quicker and with low effort, then not only will they be casting faulty craft, but be under our surveillance. We can put two and two together just by knowing what they buy most. What veils they have around the walls, how they treat their sick, what they feed their beasts, how they create those beasts.”

She nodded. “I will make Macaria aware immediately.”

“Good.”

Penelope raised her head from the feet-long book before her and offered me a small smile.

I tousled her hair as I went by to leave. “Don’t work her too hard, Visha.”

Thora had chosen to train in Olympia again despite the obvious cautionary looks she threw around the cliff where the upper training grounds stood. And even though she had chosen it on purpose to train her fear along with her muscles and magic, she was regressing rather than progressing. Forcing yourself to like something you despise never worked.

For the tenth time, she had thrown her gaze to the height below us and narrowly missed my rather gentle attacks.

“Thora,” I called, knocking her weapon out of her hands, but she unsheathed her daggers, coming for me again.

A flick of a wrist was all that it took me to pry them off her.

She dropped down and sprawled on the gravelly floor. “I’m useless with weapons. Why can’t we train with magic?”

“Because magic can become unreliable, and your father has recruited some of the best Crafters in the realm who can disarm your magic with a look if caught in their traps.”

She glanced at the cliff again and seemed as if she was holding her breath.

I sighed and sat next to her. “Holding your breath? Does that even help?”

Her attention snapped to me and she sunk inside herself again. “A little, but then I start getting dizzy. And I hate feeling dizzy, it reminds me of when Snow and I caught the shivers once after we went to play with some winter squirrels.”

“Have you thought about trying to jump?”