Page 152 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

“I called him,” Alaric said, pointing to a chair. “Come have a seat. Quickly, I don’t wish to chase a rodent down my corridors again.”

He took a seat and threw a glance at the collection of bones laying on Visha’s marble table. “That your lover, V?”

The witch didn’t even spare him a glance. “Yes.”

He nodded to himself. “Could tell. You’ve sucked the soul out of the poor guy.”

Alaric chuckled at Visha’s stunned expression more than at Elias’s joke. “I gather the two of you know one another well enough.”

“Yes,” Elias said. “Pretty well I’d say. Until she decided to vanish from the face of the realm and not let anyone know why. Not even her friend. If I even dare call myself so.”

Visha lifted her indignant stare at him. “Missed me, didn’t you?”

He smiled at her. “You probably have missed me more, V.”

Calm and collected, she asked, “How is Snow doing? I presume you haven’t made all that journey here to waste my time.”

The Venzor heir nodded. “Good, considering the General she was put under.”

“What General?” I asked.

“Demir. He returned shortly after you left for Adriata. We hadn’t seen him since Silas had tasked him to Seraphim about a year or so ago. Weren’t expecting him to return either since Isjordian troops are still in Heyes, presumably to retract their sceptre piece.”

Nia stood, suddenly anxious, but then so was everyone. “Why wouldn’t she be doing well under his command?”

“Demir is a sick son of a bastard. He chews his prey then plays with it then chews it again.” He cocked both hands on his hips. “Snow, however, seems to be doing great with him.”

“Stop playing around, rich boy,” Caiden said, nudging him hard with his shoulder as he came in with a healer. “What did that mean?”

Elias casted a small glance at me before saying, “The two seem…close.”

Close?

That made Caiden chuckle somehow. “Snow is probably spinning the poor guy in circles to get him to speak. She probably thinks he has some sort of information. I pity whoever gets her attention.”

Elias shook his head. “Demir shouldn't be messed with. He is not—” He looked at all of us. “He is not me. I was…enamoured with Snow, he is obsessed. Like he got a new toy to play with.”

A glass shattered on the marble floor, and we all turned to Visha. The Crafter stood frozen, her eyes veiled red and her body convulsing.

Elias ran to her side. “V?”

“Don’t touch her,” I ordered, and he stopped right before her.

The ground beneath our feet shook, furniture clattered banging on one another and flasks blasted in the air, shattering to pieces.

Cai lifted a shield of air, enshrouding us away from the chaos. “Someone shake the witch awake before she turns Taren to dust.”

The tremors stopped all of the sudden. Visha gasped awake, breathing hard and dizzy. “As I’d predicted,” she said too calmly for what she’d just been through. “The beast is not created by my aunt. Nor by the god of demons. The beast is of Caligo. It is made of death. Its soul smells rotten like it has been dead a long while—a really long while.” She went behind the marble table and pulled a red grimoire. “But there is no beast of Caligo who carries the rotten smell, they are all made of pure death and unable to die.” Her eyes glowed red and the grimoire flipped open, the pages rapidly fluttering till it stopped with a snap, parting on the pages illustrating some type of beasts. “It makes no sense.”

“If it turns human as Magnus and Kilian presume,” Caiden said, “the beast could be made of Caligo blood, like the Ater battle monsters.”

Visha tensed, her grip on the grimoire turning her knuckles white. She glanced shortly at Alaric who’d blanched at the mention of the wars and then shook her head. “It is impossible. No beast can cross the threshold of the heavenly gates.”

And she was right. It was impossible. Obitus law—the law of realms. All that were born and existed in one realm can only stay and exist in one realm until death. It was not just any law that prevented it. It was a godly law—the law of existence itself. Not Silas, not the gods themselves could they turn it around unless Fader himself ordered it.

Nia chewed on the tip of her glove. “Melanthe could have dragged something out with her from there.”

“Still,” Visha said, letting her shadows for the first time visible in sight—panic. “Impossible. No matter her skills, it is something that defies nature itself.”