Page 197 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

“It’s from a soap?” She frowned, abruptly standing and leaving the bed, heading toward the bathing chambers. Only to return with a bunch of my soaps in her hand, sniffing them one after the other, dropping whatever she didn’t like. “None. You smell like none of them.”

“I use the last one you dropped.”

She picked it up again and sniffed it one more time before dropping it again. “No, that smells bitter. You smell sweet. Like lemon flowers.”

“I smell like flowers?”

“Lemon flowers, be precise.” She climbed over me again, laying her head on my chest. “Laundry detergent,” she said to no one and pushed her head up. “Take me to the servant chambers, now.”

That made me chuckle. “They use unscented detergent because scents irritate Driada’s lungs.”

“Oh.”

“Maybe I’ve picked it up from the gardens.”

“No, you smelled like that in Isjord too.”

“A mystery. Come,” I said, getting the two of us up. “Let’s not make them wait any longer. I’m sure they are anxious to see you.”

It didn’t take long to find them. Already in the dining room and anxiously waiting for Snow.

Her sister jumped from her seat and ran almost knocking Snow on the ground. The two were like two water droplets from afar, but immensely distinguishable up close. It looked utterly unreal to me that she was joined with her loved ones—how unreal it must seem to her. “You should have stayed yesterday.”

“That is entirely my fault,” I explained.

Thora uncurled from her sister and turned to me. There was the same sort of steel in her emerald eyes resembling Snow’s. “Twelve years might have passed, but I know the way her brain functions.” She bowed her head. “You must be—”

“Kilian,” Eren called, interrupting the younger sister. My old friend greeted me with a tight embrace. Almost fourteen years and he’d not changed not one bit. He was alive—he’d been alive for all these years.

“Hello, old friend.” If I was finding it unbelievable that Eren was here, how unbelievable was all of this for Snow?

“Hello, crazy bastard.” We both chuckled and when he pulled back, his stare flitted between his sister and I. “You did it. You married her.”

The whole room went quiet.

“What are you talking about?” Snow asked, gradually frowning.

This was not how I’d planned for her to find out.

Eren looked surprised. “He hasn’t told you?”

I could see Snow’s gears spinning and cracking furiously attempting to work out what was happening. “Tell me what?”

“He was going to ask father for your hand,” Eren loosely explained before I could, and Snow’s brows dipped lower. “After you met at Urinthia’s coronation.”

Snow’s look shifted wide with bewilderment. “Urinthia’s coronation? I haven't met—” She froze. Her expression falling. And falling some more. I saw the crash before I felt it—the realisation that I’d been lying to her.

“You’re the grey eyed boy?” Thora asked, a bright smile stretching wide on her lips. “She never stopped talking about you for months.”

She’d remembered me. The thought shouldn’t have made me smile because Snow looked like she wanted to tear my head off.

“I never stopped thinking of her either,” I said, planting a kiss on Snow’s temple. “I will go now. All of you must have so much to catch up with.”

I made it halfway down the corridor when a gloved hand wrapped around my wrist. She breathed unevenly—her gilded stare searching me as if it was trying to remember and make sense. “Were you ever going to tell me?”

“Would it have made any difference?”

She stared at me as though it was the first time she’d seen me. “You pretended you didn’t know me. I remember you hating me to death when we met and now…now I hear this. It’s ridiculous. I don’t understand. It’s ridiculous, Kilian. Tell me.”