A Court of Watchful Shadows

Packed ice

Cutlery clinks on plates like icicles shattering in the main hall of the manor as I sit through this excruciating dinner.

Every dinner here was excruciating.

The tension of the room could be cut with a knife, the cold gobbling up any chance of a happy smile.

I didn't have any smiles to give now though, not after my mother, not after Amarantha.

I was ripped from my remorseful thoughts as my father opens the hole in his face to say "Jolly good that screeching Amarantha was finally put down." He chuckles at it completely unaware of the similarity between Amarantha and himself.

"Of course it is my liege." Ziven, his right hand man replies. Ziven is an absolute boot licker, hoping to take my father's place ruling over the weaponry at winter court and tries his best to get into his good graces.

Cyrus, another one of my father's men just nods along. He was less ambitious, more of a reserved type who enjoyed a simple life. The lesser of all evil, he wasn't evil in all honesty. Just comfortable with his life.

I turn to look at Lythe who remains silent, pressing his thin lips together not even looking up from his food. He probably answered my father telepathically, he was daemati after all. My father is a controlling man, so it doesn't come as a surprise that he has a daemati in his arsenal.

"No word from my estranged child?" He croons

I stay silent.

"Speak for yourself woman!" He roared out, pieces of the food he was eating flying out onto the table.

I look over at Cyrus, who has always had my best interests at heart. He shakes his head at me as he knew I was about to retort. He knows my sharp tongue too well, and has been cut by it many times this past month.

I couldn't bite my tongue, not when Amarantha's name had come up and blown the lid off my temper. A lid that was easily blown now.

"Oh father, careful or you'll slip on the slime trail of hypocrisy that follows all hypocrites." I deadpan looking at his furious face.

His nostrils flare as he fumbles for words, his mouth opening and closing.

"You look like a fish blubbering there, looks like you're the one who hasn't got anything to say for themselves." I smirk knowing I've humiliated him.

He quips a look at his right hand Ziven, giving a 'deal with her' nod.

I catch this and abruptly stand up my chair screeching across the floor behind me as it's pushed back with force. "No need." I spit and storm out. Leaving the room in deafening silence.

This was how majority of the dinners in the time I spent with my father went - and why I didn't attend the majority of them.

I didn't go back to my room in the manor, I instead explored outside knowing my father's overgrown lap dog Ziven would come looking in my room for me later. I internally gagged.

I made my way out of the house across the white fur carpets and past the frozen fae lights.

I suppose they were supposed to make the house seem more homely, less frozen over but any warmth or coziness had been brought by my mother to winter court and had since frozen over in her absence - the entire manor losing its feminine touch.

Even my room I hadn't bothered to rekindle since my return, for I was an empty shell now, too miserable to return to Dawn court. I'd rather blend in with the ice and snow of winter, spend my time lurking in the shadows of frost.

I roamed through the woods surrounding the manor, snow crushing under my winter boots, as I storm on, anger was the only strong emotion I felt these days. I hadn't felt a shred of happiness since the death of my mother and completely isolated myself due to it. It was better to be alone anyway, no one you love can get hurt if you choose not to love anyone.