Page 120 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

The two rulers perked in their seat, glancing at all of us with some terror. “And what do you know about the sceptre?”

“Plenty that my uncle revealed before he tried to kill me so he could get inside Adriata and get the kingdom along with their sceptre.”

“Aryan Krigborn tried to kill you?”

I put a hand to my chest. “A tragedy, really, our family has always been so loving and tight with one another. It came all so unexpectedly.”

The king smiled a little. “Still, for your father to sacrifice you—”

“My purpose to him ended the day I possessed no magic.”

His brows jerked. “There were rumours from Winter court a few years back that he wanted to make you heir.”

“A rumour, as you said.”

“We are sorry for your loss, Snowlin,” Cora said. “Your brother would have made a great king.”

“So am I.”

“So, you are aware of the sceptre?” Magnus sighed. “And you are aware that Silas has the Solaryan piece?”

“He also has the Hanaian piece,” Moriko said. “And we want to make sure that is the last he gets.”

“Damned hells,” Cora muttered, turning to her already horrified husband. “He has two already.”

“Three,” I said. “Considering the Isjordian one.”

Magnus blinked away a daze. “Are you certain? Last we know his soldiers still roamed the Isline temple.”

“Unless he lied, I presume so.”

“This…alliance, how do you suppose we can help?” Magnus asked, still doubting.

“We are here in hopes to stop Silas from making them four,” Moriko said. “His Krigborn greed surpasses what many might have thought it to be during their time. It won’t be long till he collects them all.”

“We want to track and find one piece and place it under craft,” I said. “Father can then spend the rest of his immortal life searching for it for all I care. You are the one with the most information out of all of us—you can help us find a piece of the Octa Virga.”

Cora said, “I am not quite sure how we can be of help.”

“How did you find out where the Isjordian piece was hidden?” Kilian asked.

“We didn’t,” Magnus said with a resigned sigh. “That witch of your father’s has a potent magic stain. When she came to steal our piece, one of our Magi Healers made contact with her magic and managed to contain some of the essence in her. From there we used a Dark Crafter of ours to trace her magic pattern. We tried again not long ago, to ensure the Seraphim piece remains out of their touch, but it seems she has caught a whiff of our tricks. Now not one drop of her magic is felt anywhere.”

“But you knew about the sceptre?” Moriko asked. “Before Silas stole it?”

Cora shook her head. “No. Not a thing. In the vault where the sceptre was found there were scriptures in old Tahuma, mostly babbles and riddles, but under where the sceptre was kept, there were engravings in the old language of gods. Mostly runes scattered here and there, nothing easily legible to the normal eye.”

I sat a bit straighter. “Then how did you read them?”

“Solarya holds the world's knowledge in its very core,” the Sun Queen explained. “We have libraries dating since the time of Cyra still intact. It took us weeks, but we got there. Translated all the inscriptions and then dug for more information with a private group of scholars to keep the rumours from spreading and sending our kingdom on high alert. There was not much, only enough to gather what Silas was planning.”

“Anything on where to find the rest?” Moriko asked, hope fleeting from her cold eyes.

Cora shook her head again. “No. The eight Dark Crafters that were tasked with hiding them swore a magic oath to their silence and then…sacrificed themselves. All they knew died with them. The guardian was never meant to be raised again—I am certain of it. This was the only solution to an indestructible problem.”

“Where was the Solaryan piece hidden?” Kilian asked. “The one in Hanai was in a sacred land, the one in Isjord is in a temple. The pattern is confusing. Perhaps that could give us some lead.”

It was Magnus’s time to wince. “Theros, a tomb of a…hybrid Aura. The boy was a prince of one of my ancestors and a whore who turned out to be a Scarlet. He barely reached the age of seven before nurturing his abilities. He took out an entire city up north, the ground there still toxic with his magic, the air burns your skin, and the ground is ash that infects your body with temperature till you boil and die. His remains were dangerous, so he was buried deep underground, layers of layers of protection shielding him and not to mention the Crafter’s veil erected after one of the eight Crafters hid the sceptre piece.”