Blood for the Snow by Brien Feathers

Author:Brien Feathers [Brien Feathers]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Brien Feathers
Published: 2022-08-25T00:00:00+00:00

Rows of long tables with long benches bolted to the deck crowded the mess hall. Vents and pipes ran through the interior of the low overhead and circular lamps lined the bulkheads they were fastened onto.

Obedients serviced the mess, one of whom brought Sasuke a bottle of warm rice wine that he would share with Shen, seated across the table from him. Self-satisfied with his own cleverness, the scribe waited for Sasuke’s move. Whichever piece Sasuke touched, Shen’s next move would be checkmate. By the time Sasuke saw it, it’d already been too late. So as a gesture of defeat, he slid a rook across the board, to which Shen smiled.

“How is it going?” asked Giselle about the chess match. She sat next to him eating human food Adeleke had cooked for her especially. The large woman from Houma was the only free human on board.

“Well, Shen works for me.” Sasuke smiled at his woman. “So, when he wins, your husband wins.”

Zahra, a small girl with a black headscarf, who’d been reading a book one table over, giggled at Sasuke’s remark. A shift had just changed, and humans and Elder alike crammed the mess hall, sitting in groups, eating and socializing.

Obedients had grouped with their Whisperers, and Dede looked to be playing cards with her officers. She lost a pot, but then said, “No, I win,” to which the Obedient who won replied, “Of course, Mistress, you won.”

The scribe hadn’t given his checkmate, so there was a lecture coming, Sasuke supposed.

“Despite your long age and keenness of mind,” said Shen, and there it was with the schooling. “You lose because you don’t take to heart the truth, something which even the girl Ana already knows.”

“Enlighten me, Shen.” Sasuke poured his own wine and drank it too, perhaps his time was coming to an end, who knew. He would be better served not wasting a minute of it idle. Drinking was an activity, so there, he was doing something other than waiting.

“The purpose of the game is not to keep more of your pieces at play, but to trap the opponent’s king,” — gliding his bishop into place— “checkmate, a novice trap.”

Thank you for the lesson. Taking a drink, Sasuke scoffed. Each time he remembered the loss of two, he drank, and the Seeker’s words never left his mind. He’d been drinking around the clock. He’d passed the command to Drake, hoping to keep the losses to himself—personal. He hadn’t wanted his loss to equate to losses for Elder command. But he wouldn’t discuss it with Shen because he’d get a lecture like this. He also knew what Shen would say: kill Ayka. Order the death of his daughter, that was a loss of honor, and the death of Ayka itself was a loss of love—already, the loss of two.

Cannot, thought Sasuke. If Sasuke lost, it’d be because he lost a fight. That was all, end of discussion.

“Demitri Zaitsev calls,” spoke Shen. “I realize you’re busy and I apologize for the

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