Page 222 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

I took the buttered bread and ate it, meeting every curious and amused gaze on the table with a narrowed glare.

Alaric’s whistles grew closer to us and he strutted in with a bright crooked smile on his face, taking a seat at the head of the table. “Morning, children.” He pointed a fork to Thora. “Your hair is lovely, kid. It suits you.”

My sister touched her sloppily braided hair. “Driada did it for me.”

He made to say something to me, but shyly retracted back, a red flush creeping on his face. What in the heavens?

Cai shovelled food quickly down his throat before he rose to leave. It had been barely a minute since he’d sat.

“Cai,” I said, grabbing his arm. “Eat properly.”

He shook his head, still chewing. “Myrdur is infested with Isjordian rats of all sorts.”

I grabbed a piece of bread and stood with him. “Let’s go then.”

One by one, the whole table rose, and Cai dropped his head back with a groan. “No, you all will finish first.”

“How about we all eat,” Eren said, looking at Cai. “And then we all go, hm? Sit, General.”

I stopped chewing. General?

My friend’s mouth twitched just a little and he sat back in his chair, resuming his meal. By the end of lunch, the muscles in my eye had gone sore looking between him and my brother. The more they glanced at one another the more I was convinced that—

“Why have you called Vidarr, kid?” Alaric asked, calling me to attention. “Last I know you’d sent him to Seraphim to check on your father’s camp.”

“Putting your nose in the business you never like to smell, old man. My spy’s business is stinky stuff.” Vidarr did the heavy lift work over the west of Numen.

He gave me an assessing look. Ohhh, he knew something. “Does it have to do anything with the fact that Grasmere is in your hold?”

Every cutlery on the table went quiet.

He pointed a finger to my shoulder. “Saw you leave last night for Adriata with a new bargain on your arm. Considering you’d sent Sebastian after your banished half-brother to hold him prisoner, and that his pregnant betrothed is Gara Grasmere, the chain fell right in the correct links.”

Sigh. You could not keep one secret in this kingdom.

Kilian slowly turned to me and peeled the dress off my shoulder with a finger to reveal the bargain band. “How did I not notice?”

“Remember how distracted you were making all sorts of prayers?”

The look on his face was utterly blank. Was he stunned?

“By half-brother,” Eren said slowly. “You mean Reuben? You are holding Reuben Krigborn prisoner?”

“No.”

“Lin,” he warned, trepidation pulsing through his summer forest eyes.

“He is a guest in my dungeons.”

He sighed with disappointment, but I saw fear flash through my sister when she asked, “Reuben is here?”

“No,” I said. “Reuben is in the dungeons.”

Myrdur had been restless. Not only from the spirits that had not passed on or the constant attacks from Isjord. The zgahna was no longer whispering, it was now rumbling like thunder. And I didn’t understand why. I already had a sceptre piece and that meant he wouldn’t be able to form the Octa Virga. Was war that near us?

We all sat on the ruin rock wiping blood out of our hands and weapons that was still hot on our clothes and metal. For each attack, father had doubled the number and I was sure that sooner than later his curiosity would get the best of him and he’d send the beasts.

Eren frowned over the ruins' distance, hazel eyes murking with shallow pain—one I’d seen before when mother used to take an evening off from grief and tell us about the night of Draugr. “They were barely teenagers. We killed children.”