Page 107 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

Instead of moving towards us, the beast stepped back until it disappeared inside the darkness. Steps of its descent were light and soft, almost too quiet.

Last I remembered, its feet had large claws attached and he stomped enough on the ground to leave massive footprints. The first floor of the prison was littered with rock, wood and mud. Yet there was no sound as it passed through.

“What did it look like, Mal? That thing—what did it look like?” He could see through the veil of darkness.

“Like nothing. It was fog, perhaps from the craft veil around the tower. It could be there to protect it.”

“I don’t think it was the beast from that day.”

He reached closer to the entrance of the tower, frowning the more he stared ahead. “Are you certain?”

“It gave the same sort of alert, but it can’t be the same beast. It is too different physically. Father could have created more of them. It has to be more than one. He could be using the one from Hanai to make more. The soldier in Hanai said that he’d seen Melanthe feed on its blood. Perhaps others are, too.”

Father was breeding beasts. That meant he was readying for war. If he had succeeded in creating obedient ones without need of chaining and taming, that meant the war was closer than we thought. He was fixing all the mistakes the Seraphim king made when he raised Aurora. There would be no one to challenge the guardian if we were all too occupied protecting our lands from his army of Aura, human and beasts. Father knew he was winning. He was acting arrogantly, carelessly even—it only meant he was certain of his victory.

Then something else struck me. “Mal, I don’t think the memory was meant for my siblings. I think it was meant for the beast.”

“Do you think you might have come across it before?”

I shook my head. “I would have remembered. I would have felt it like I felt it now. But I didn’t even know of its existence before I took the memory elixir.” My head hurt from how hard I was pushing memories out of their depths.

He rested a hand on my shoulder, breaking my focus. “Crafter magic works in odd ways. Visions, foretelling and foreboding—in that sense. I wouldn’t think about it too hard, Snow.”

And I agreed with him. “Henrik better have found a way to that Oryn priest.” Right now, he was the only person who could give us an answer.

He raised a brow. “Henrik? Why are you calling him that rotten name?”

“It is his name.”

His expression darkened. “It was our father’s name.”

“Your brother,” I said carefully, “he told me about him. And you.”

He flashed me a stupid but oddly sad grin. “Bet he recalled it with fondness and deep nostalgia.”

“Why do you consider your brother an ally of your father’s?”

His amusement fell. “Let’s go home,” he said, extending a hand to me.

“Taren is my home, Mal, not Adriata. And as your queen I demand you answer my question.”

His hand dropped as did his russet stare. “Because no matter what he did to Kil, no matter what hell he made him see, no matter what he did to me or my mother, no matter how he was, my brother never hated him.” He huffed a laugh as if he’d just realised what he’d said out loud. “All I wanted was to feel as if I had not imagined all that our father did to me. And him, too. At some point I thought I made it up, like there was no justification for what I felt and that I was wrong. Kil pretended nothing had ever happened. Pretended it was all justified. Believe me, Snow, what he did to me, to him, can never be justified.”

“I hate your father, Mal, and I’ve never even met him.” I extended a hand to him. “We’re a team of two now.”

“Three,” he said, grinning only like he knew how to grin. “Cai, too. Though the arsehole is pretending to be all mad and sulky at me right now.”

Chapter fifteen

Supplicum

Kilian

When Snow and Mal had returned last night, they had been beyond disturbed. After they had both fidgeted all night long in my room coming up with all sorts of madness, this morning Snow had rushed to quell her thoughts with violence and my brother with women and liquor. And I could do nothing to stop them both as my duties required my full attention. After a meeting with Albius and Sebastian, a check on the Sidra sealines for any sighting of eudemons, a trip to meet with the young Sidran priestess to discuss my trip into the Danics, Driada’s weekly meeting with her healer and ten documents to sign later, I had finally the time to fade to Olympia to meet with Visha.

Taren was quieter than usual, the corridors almost empty and even soldiers were no longer in their assigned positions but looking outside the windows.

“Something interesting outside?” I asked.