he does not trust gentle smiles. not from kaedra. not even his own children. his own wife.
blood remembers blood, but ambition remembers weakness, and he knows too well the sickness that grows when loyalty rots away.
the wind presses against his side, and he leans into it. he is stubborn, stubborn as he always had been; and he refuses to yield, not now. and perhaps not ever. the old king would remain just that: a king. so silver eyes cut down the mountain, through the endless sprawl of white that gives no promise, no favor. but he sees something; a glimmer of possibility.
his eyes are cast to his niece, cold.
"our family," he spits into the snow, "they are the first to gut you when your back is turned."