Page 230 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

River Taren flowed languidly along its distended bank, unbothered by the crowd of people gathered beside it or the light drizzle that made its surface ripple like velvet. Cori’s funeral was packed with all sorts of faces I’d never seen before. Family, they all said. They were her family, yet when her parents died, it was the mother of another that raised her.

I loathed funerals. Loathed them more when I had to bury someone I cared about. A child I cared about. Just a child. Little Cori was a child.

How many like her had I bid goodbye in this very same river?

How many more did I have to bury?

Tears were dry, the dull of white garments was comforting and most were chatting about their own memories of Cori—they were all lively and innocent memories that caused the small crowds to lighten with laughter. And I was grateful.

There was only one body hunched over the small wooden casket. The only one who was never afraid of mourning. He’d done it thousands of times. Become a slave of it by now. Alaric wiped tear after tear, a hand resting on top of where Cori laid below. He’d bid goodbye to her mother and father not long ago—buried under the same white painted wood.

Alastair had taken to reading the rituals after I refused to utter a single babel of gods. The elder tribe leader stood tall and strong despite his broken age—the luxury he’d given up right after his human wife had died. He’d given up his eternality…for another.

Immediately, I seeked him in the crowd, only to find him already staring at me.

Come here, I mouthed.

Shortly, after pushing through the crowd, he stood by me. It wasn’t till he wrapped an arm around my shoulders that I realised I’d been falling and falling. His sturdy touch had just caught me.

“Mourn her,” he said only for me to hear. “There is no one to avenge, Snow. Just mourn her.”

I don’t think I know how. I only seeked that—retribution. This time, however, there was no one for me to demand retribution from. Silas? The gods?

What Tristin had told me still haunted me. Her too, she had said. I was holding Cori hostage, too. I had to let her go. She deserved to be among her family.

A few young girls broke from the crowd, they rested colourful rose bouquets on the small coffin, marking the dull grey of weather and mourning with a vibrance of the prettiest flower I’d seen.

A snort left my mouth, and I couldn’t help the laugh that followed suit. I paid no mind to the attention on me and I laughed hard and even harder. “Cori,” I said, pressing a shaky hand to my mouth that couldn’t hold back the remnants of bitter amusement and something else that made my body quiver. “She…she—” The damned laughter would not let me speak. “Cori was deathly allergic to flowers.”

I’d not realised the tears wetting my cheeks until Kilian pulled me into his chest, hiding me from the world. When he made to pull away, I clutched his jacket tight and hid my face between the flaps. “Don’t let them see me like this. Don’t let them see me weak.” Hide me. Hide me like you hide the truth of our end.

I stayed like that, breathing in spring in a world of cruel winter, through the last calls of her life, through the sung praises of her infectious youth, through the torch lighting her small wooden coffin and till they pushed her away onto the Taren River that would soon flow onto the lakes hidden under mountain caves. It was said a guardian of Caelum resided under there and would fly your soul himself toward the gates.

Today I made another wish. I wished that all tales of heavens and gods were true. For Cori, I wanted them to be true. For her to meet her mother and her father and be happy.

“She will go now,” Kilian murmured in my hair. “Look at her one last time.”

And I did as he said—I watched the small boat carrying her flame down the river and disappear between the tall valley.

Chapter thirty-five

Imber

Snowlin

The meeting room was grave and silent. Where Cori had once sat, a wrath of white chrysanthemums stood. No one dared to remove them even after days of her passing. It was like all weather had paled since she’d stopped from sitting in my court. If I let them take away the flowers, it would be winter again.

It was Moriko who spoke first, “Silas is not stopping at all. He is fully readying for war. He’s lost his guardian, but he has not lost his army, nor his monsters. My spies have caught sight of his soldiers still in Eldmoor, Seraphim and even down to the unblessed. I am not sure if he has realised that he is missing a sceptre piece or not, but even so, I believe he is trying to gather an alliance.” She pushed two scrolls to Kilian and I. “Those were counted two nights ago.”

Kilian unrolled the papers and sighed at their content before passing it to me. “He is planning to do this the plain old way, isn’t he?”

The numbers—they were endless. Humans. Aura. Dark Crafters. And possibly more monsters wherever he’d hidden them.

Albius leaned forward. “It is time, Snow. Claim Winter court.”

Eren tensed as I knew he would. But salvaging with peace was not something I could do. Nor had I any intention of trying to do so. Not with my father at least.

“She can’t, not peacefully at least,” Alaric explained. “Not when Silas has distanced every Lord and Lady out of his plans. Not when he has full control of his Aura and soldiers, these new beasts he has created or the foreign Aura he has gathered from all sides of the realm. How long before he dismisses his court and reigns despotic rule over Isjord? The man is a self-proclaimed autocrat. How much more do we need to see him do without his court’s approval? How much do your personal armies have? Five thousand? Ten thousand?” My Regent scoffed. “Isjord has over four million soldiers, two million Aura and a set of probably thousands of beasts.”