Page 4 of Season Warriors & Wolves

“Very.”

I rolled my head back to look at the stained ceiling. “Give me a day.”

“What are you proposing?”

I’d even surprised myself at how good I'd become at bluffing. “With him. I will propose it to him, not his squire.” I tilted my head to the side. “Vas, son of Zoltan, waste of what could have been just a wank.”

I was certain that the sting of his fist had truly left me deaf in one ear, but it was absolutely worth it.

Two days. That is all it took for my father to resist temptation, to think and strategize a way out of the mess I’d made on his behalf and to finally come to a conclusion that I was…well, right.

“You wanted to speak with me,” father said finally, stepping inside my dark room, looking around the empty space only so he wouldn’t have to look at me. As always. He’d always avoided looking at me—at what he did to me.

So he came. As predicted. Fear was a funny little man. “No, you wanted to speak with me.” I raised my chained hands. “I am in no place to make demands. You came here. If you came here, then that can’t possibly mean anything else besides that you’re in an absolute shithole.” I chuckled. “Take it from here, I’m not feeling particularly talkative.”

He cocked his yellow head back and glared at me under his lashes. “You were right in what you told Demir.”

After all, it took two to dance a waltz of manipulation. “Was I?”

He bent down, and though we were at quite a distance, I could tell his slimy gaze glinting between the dark as he snarled a vile grin. “Well played.”

“My, thank you.”

He grabbed my hand and lifted it up, inspecting the black tattoo curling around my ring finger and down my hand. I knew why he laughed next. “First thing I taught you was to never attach yourself to another. You went and did just that. Have I been such a horrid teacher? I’d be disappointed if it wasn’t I who was winning from your foolishness.”

I curled my fingers around his, holding onto him while I leaned closer to whisper, “You’re scared of him, aren’t you?” There was a long stretch of silence as he measured my reaction. “It’s okay, papa. It is normal to be afraid. The most normal thing you have probably ever done.”

“I’ve rarely been afraid, my rose.”

“You’ve also rarely told the truth.”

He raked his slimy gaze over me, over the scars and the wounds he always had refused to see. So much disgust in the eyes of the man who had given me life. “Look what you've done to yourself.”

My grip tightened around his hand, and he hissed when I forced ice to grow like claws on my fingertips. My whole body violently shook, and blood began dripping from the corners of my mouth and down my eyes and nose from the strain of magic. “Not just of my husband, you’re afraid of me, too.” I chuckled. “How many feet underground are you holding me while you clutch your witch tightly at night for safety? Do I haunt your dreams, papa? You look like a painting in mine. Torn to shreds. Bleeding dry. Air drained out of your pitiful lungs.”

He glanced at the stream of blood gushing from my wrists and almost snapped a muscle forcing his eyes to meet mine. “Madness. There is nothing else to explain you, daughter.”

“Well, well, doesn’t your blood run well through me.”

He stood and stomped away. Just before he shut the doors, I said, “It was nice doing business with you.”

Chapter two

Black Pawn to E5

Snowlin

Snow, there was so much of it. Everywhere, on everything. Cold and frost had swallowed all sorts of life around Isjord which now remained only a thick coat of blistering white. It was the middle of July, yet it felt as if it was the start of January. My eyes had yet to accustom after a whole week of leaving the Tenebrose dungeons. My body, too. It had taken a dozen healers and too many days to heal my body that still slightly ached if I made a sudden move.

The chains on my neck, wrists and ankles rattled with the slightest movement I made away from the window and towards my bed. And the pain of the magic forged metal binding me not only tied but powerless, had long turned dull and offered me no consolation at all. Inside me was as hollow, my flesh and organs had thinned and starved to make space for the grief I’d swallowed with each breath I took since seeing Nia bleed out before me.

You are a maniac. Her words echoed about the very room she had said them long before.

“So you keep saying,” I whispered back, laying down on the bed.

I forced myself to breathe out the memory away—to concentrate on what had kept me less than sane but not enough to go mad. Not exactly revenge as it was a pure need for the destruction of all.

The old woman who was tasked to serve me was rather quiet, even her steps were light, almost on purpose. She stole a glance or two but had not looked at me otherwise. She set down a rose coloured dress on the foot of my bed before waddling to me, reaching for my hand and helping me up, almost startling me. “Get up, girl,” she finally rasped, glancing at the doors as if she had revealed a royal secret. “Or they will get you to your feet. It’s been days and they can well see that you are able to walk now.”