Page 229 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

Visha peeked from behind Nia.

“Yes. I cut his head and tossed both onto the Hollow Sea.”

They all stared like I was now fully mad, except one. The red headed witch stared blankly downwards, the emerald pupils jerking fast up and down.

“What is it Visha?” I asked.

She raised her wide stare to us and I immediately saw what I rarely saw from her—panic. “It’s not made, Snow. It’s born from the magic of heavens, if nothing kills it and it regrows limbs. This thing is of heavens.”

“Maybe our whitestone swords do not work on these creatures because Eren’s sword injured it, it still had the marks of the wounds from where I stabbed it.”

“Your sword is something called an anima accissor,” Kilian said. “Soul killer.”

I frowned, turning to my brother. “The smith said it bore no magic.”

“The smith was right. It bore no magic because it is magic itself. The metal was of Olympian soil, forged with Seraphim fire, under Cyra’s light, beaten with the black steel of Aldric, quenched in Crafter blood and Isjordian snow, and the emerald stone is the heart of an Aitan sphinx. It was made for an Elding. It was made for you, Snow. Everyone just assumed I was the Elding since I was the eldest.”

“You tell me this now?”

“It was not meant to bear any meaning to us. We swore to never use our magic.”

“You swore,” I said through clenched teeth. “You.”

My brother’s face fell and I immediately regretted my words.

I looked around for the one who usually mocked my thoughts. I waited for him to laugh at my conclusions to make me calm about my panic, but I couldn’t find him. “Cai. Where is Cai?” Where was he?

I pushed through all that had gathered around me and ran toward his quarters only to find them empty. Reaching his balcony, I bolted to Taren, searching the usual taverns he frequented only to find them void of his presence. Kvan. Lyn. Amur. Kilerth. Drava. Volant. I searched every tribe only to find him nowhere. Where was he?

Light rain began pattering on me and it was slowly turning dark. Panic settled again. The same panic only he could soothe.

Panic. He’d panicked, too.

I bolted to Fernfoss, searching the village by foot and when I found no trace of him, I ran through Soren.

He’d leaned back on a billowing alder, eyes shut, his mother’s pendant in his hand.

I’d stopped running for a while now, but he never had—my friend was still running.

Slowly, I sank down next to him. “She is with her parents now.”

He turned to me a little. “You believe none of that crap.”

“I’d like to believe it just this once,” I said, gathering myself tight. “Believe it with me, Cai. It’s an order. From your queen.”

“And if I disobey?”

“I will have you banned from every bakery shop, Drava to Fernfoss.”

His expression turned cold. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“I’ll even have someone paint you a portrait and hang it around each shop with a reward if they ever catch you buying any sweets. Then, I will write a decree that by my order no cook, professional or not, can ever bake you anything. Ever. You will live a life of savoury foods until you beg for me to end you. And then—”

He chuckled a little and wrapped an arm around my neck, rubbing a fist on the crown of my head till it burned. “Alright, alright.”

“It was not your fault,” I whispered. “Tell me that you know that. Tell me, Cai.”

His head dropped back on the tree. “It isn’t. But if I could blame someone, it would be me.”