Page 145 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

“Good to see you again, my child,” father said quietly but with such venom.

Half unplanned, I jumped from the bed, charging towards him, hitting and kicking him violently till my lungs were left gasping for air. He stood there taking it all without moving. “Good?” I frowned at him. “Good that you sold me off to them despite my protest, good that I was about to die in their hands, good that you were made a fool?” I asked in my best hurt voice. Nia would be proud of me—all the theatre she had dragged me to watch finally served me some purpose.

He closed the doors behind him and turned to me once again. “We did not know of their intentions.” Of course he didn’t, but he knew of his own, to kill and attack Adriata as well as myself in the process. It was hard to hold back a laugh. He was fooled, just not the way he was finding out he was.

“But you knew of them, father, you said it yourself that they had asked for me. Did this not make you doubt them the slightest?” I began with playing his own game. “And that attack had probably been by them so they could have brought their wretched guards in pretext to guard me to spy on Isjord, but your judgement was clouded by your dreaded spite. One that had me almost killed and my friends dead,” I shouted.

His eyes went wide as he shifted uncomfortably around the room. The attack had been his, but I wanted him convinced of my ignorance—ignorance that had been enlightened by my dear dead uncle.

“Why did you disappear after the wedding?”

Painting distress on my features, I ran a shaking hand through my hair. “Someone…something was waiting for me. I don’t remember much. There was a tower and masked men. Shortly after, Adriatian soldiers burst through the tower and I was thrown into the Adriatian dungeons.”

“These men,” he carefully pried, “who were they?”

Yours, you wily bastard. I shook my head. “Rebels or soldiers I presumed, anyone with the Ybris grudge against me. There wasn’t time to question anything. Everything happened so quickly and I passed out most of the time.”

He went silent, his yellow eyes rounding and sharpening in an attempt to see past my answers.

“They did not even bother to make him a prisoner, you know,” I pushed on an already salted wound—the perfect distraction. “They killed him right in front of me, like they had done with the rest. Piece by piece they dissected him till you couldn’t even puzzle together to think it was a human.” With that, I waited and watched.

His breathing grew laboured and there was a light tremble on his clenched hands. Exquisite. The portrait of hurt. Poor father.

I turned away from him, covering my face with my hands, unable to hold my laughter any more at his hurt reaction. Tears flooded my face from how hard I’d suppressed it.

He approached me from behind, putting a hand on my shoulder and pulling me in a hug.

The seven hells?

I froze, my body convulsing with anger. To keep my hands from wrapping around his neck, I gathered them into fists, digging into my palms and thinking of my grounding over and over till my breath grew normal and he let go of me. I had to let him comfort me. Only the weak needed comforting. Signs of weakness brought underestimation. This is why even wolves often wore the mantle of sheep to trap the shepherd. Father needed to underestimate me.

“Why did they keep you alive?”

Was that what he wanted to know the most? “They tried to work if I was hiding magic, they thought me the weapon you wanted. Their disappointment was grander than yours,” I responded, wiping my face from tears. “Probably to use me against Isjord, too.”

He cocked his head to the side. “I had an army sent there after you disappeared, not a small one at that, how did they fend them off?”

The taste of doubt in his words pushed a little anxiousness in me, it was too soon for him to pace my game. “I don’t know, father, they took me the night before, but from what I have seen they are just as powerful as Isjord if not more. They have lied, whatever they have told you, you have been lied to, father. They have deceived everyone. Everyone.” I wanted him to fear Adriata and not think of any other funny thoughts. I wanted him far away from what soon was to become my kingdom as well, away from Kilian’s lands, far from hurting him.

He seemed to believe my words for a moment before backing away, looking slightly dubious again. “I sent for Alaric, too, we found your house in Fernfoss empty. Why was that child?”

I blinked, utterly confused. “Alaric? Why would you send for him?” I questioned, pretending to gradually realise what was happening before lifting my gaze to his again. “I told you that the antidote was not anyone you knew. He has probably gone to look for me after learning what’s happened. Funny isn’t it, how it all circles back to your actions?”

He rubbed his forehead at my words. “You are right, it was wrong of me to doubt your words. Forgive me, Snowlin,” he offered, and my eyes widened at his apology, one that I had ever heard before from him.

Sunset was pale on the clouded skies of Isjord when I sat by the window. “Mister and Miss Graben in Fernfoss village, our neighbours. They looked after me for a few summers while Alaric was working in lumber, they are the antidote.” Well, lie, lie and then another lie. There was no mister and miss Graben, they were both Olympian guards in Fernfoss who overlooked the approach of Isjordians, and they certainly had not looked after me any summer which I had all spent in New Olympia and most certainly they were not the antidote. Visha had left two vials of Alaric's blood with them before I decided to return to my father whom I knew would ask for it. Whom I knew from uncle Aryan that had sent for Alaric. You have to have a perfect lie for the perfect deceiver. You cannot juggle a ball without throwing the other first—a truth for a lie. As much as it saddened me to awaken the washed-out gnomes, the antidote was my truth to gain his impenetrable trust.

“Thank you, my rose,” he offered with a nod.

“I want my quarters back. To stay till you find another merchant to bargain me off to. No one would want a useless princess around for nothing, right?” I asked spitefully.

He gathered his hands in fists and his jaw tensed yet he did not say anything but nod in agreement as I walked past him, half limping towards the corridors to my old bedroom.

The servants had readied my chambers in no time. Father had not bothered me for three days, but he’d left written messages with my breakfast. Empty words and wishes for my quick recovery.

And for three dreaded days I had to remain bedridden while my feet were itching to explore.

Today he had sent word for breakfast, so I readied myself onto a velvet sapphire long sleeved gown and gathered my hair with a tie behind my back. I had not let servants in my quarters, nor help me. For some odd reason they were all new faces, including the guards patrolling the castle.