Swiftcurrent Creek I wanna hold you close

The skies were sombre and silent in response to her plea. Releasing a quiet sigh, the woman resigned to hopefulness. There was no confirmation that her grandmother watched over the Bay, but Atka and Sos had taken her soul. Her funeral had been a grand affair, she remembered, and Nutaaq had spoken in fondness of the favour They had shown her. It was a sad thing that Jinx could scarce remember Nauja's face; the woman had been her milk mother, her mother's mother. She was nothing but a stranger of Jinx's past now.

Her ears tugged back when Ira's voice, demanding and edged with greed and superiority as it was, sounded at her back. With a wry grin she turned herself to face him, her gaze approving. Yes, princeling, said her eyes, all the world may be yours. Seize it and do not let go.

"You have become good at sneaking, princeling," she observed in a silky voice. Though she did not say it outright, this was a trait she approved of in the boy. Jinx herself was apt to sneak about, finding as much value in eavesdropping as she did in prying information from lips. That Aethon had taken on this quality, be it from her or from his own desires, made her proud. "Tell me, what things have you learned from the shadowsss? You can learn much of those around you by listening when they do not want you to do so."

Encouraging bad behaviour was what Jinx did best. One day, she would encourage Aethon to plot against his own, to unleash upon them his power and superiority. It was an inherent trait of her bloodline to be supreme, and there was no doubt Jinx would instill that in him. Given half a chance, she would unleash him upon the world with the training of an assassin and watch the carnage unfold. But Aethon was not an assassin; he was a king, by rights. She would make him into an assassin king, if she could. An assassin king could not fear the ambitious rising up against him; he could slit their throats in the night, and they none the wiser, so they would not.