Page 28 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

“As there always is for each of your madnesses,” Alaric murmured, pinching the bridge of his nose all frustrated.

“Never do anything without cause for the harm. You taught me that,” I said.

“Pinning this on my parenting again?” the old man sighed.

I shrugged and then unravelled the rest.

Isjordian soldier after soldier cleared their path for me, their faces terrified as I made way to my uncle.

His sword hit mine, sending him flying feet away, current and static surrounded my blade. He stood once more and before he could make step forward, I raised my palm releasing my magic once more, half of his body frozen, pinned still by ice and frost.

“How—how did you do it? How is this possible?” he asked as ice gradually covered his skin.

“A kingdom cannot be built in a day, and you are foolish to think you can destroy it in one as well. Now the question is, dear uncle, how are you going to do it? I mean, pay for what you have done?” I asked, lifting my blade to his throat. “How could your death possibly satisfy me? Maybe I should do more than just kill you. Shall I carve your insides, keep you conscious while I rip your soul piece by piece? Surely no heaven could accept rot like you anyway.”

His body trembled. It was not from the frost, it was from me. The wide fear in his eyes fed so much of my hunger. “You cannot…you will not kill me.”

And I took offence from the fierceness of that statement. My eyebrows rose in question as I let a wicked grin spread across my face. “Isn’t it prophetic, uncle, how my mother was the one to break your black little heart and I to carve it out? How happy you must have been, to see her bleed and die. Now tell me, how will I feel when I do the same to you?” I said, letting my blade graze his neck until a stream of red chased down his rotten skin.

“Thora and Eren are alive,” he blurted out as the frost rose to cover his face. My grin turned to a snarl at his ridiculous words. “They are alive, I have kept them alive. The night of the attack they were not killed!”

“You think me a fool?”

He jerked his head in denial. “This is not a lie. Your father doesn't know. I planned to use them for my own plans, after all Eren is the heir to the throne.”

His words settled heavy in my chest. They could not be, he was lying. The world started spinning. The sword clunking faded from the background as mist and fog clouded my reality, my chest was storming, the heartbeat loud on my ears and pulsing around me.

Lies. Lies. It was all lies. “If they are alive, what makes you think I need you?”

“You cannot find them, sweet niece, not without me. You will have to turn this realm upside down and inside out,” he said, huffing a long vile laugh, as if he still owned my courage.

Mirroring his smile, I got in his face and said, “Upside down and inside out it is.”

His features wide in horror as I swung my sword, impaling his head from his body, dragging it down to pierce his already dead heart.

“Convenient time for all of you to be so silent,” I said with a sigh and dropped back on my seat.

Alaric abruptly stood and paced the room. He’d not once uttered the name of my mother or siblings, never had he sat down with me to reminisce their memory because it haunted him every day. “I would know. I would know if they were alive. How could I not know?” And there it was, the blame and the guilt. “The ballroom had burned to the ground, kid, I know. I remember,” he insisted, his words stuttering. “I checked every burnt body there. Every. Single. One. One by one. I found your brother’s sword next to where he’d burned. And I found Thora’s smaller one right next to him. I buried those bodies, Snow, with my own hands. I buried them.” He stopped and ran a shaking hand over his mouth. “Who have I buried if not my children?”

“He lied to her,” Cai’s passive voice began chipping a fragment of my hope. “Saw an opportunity to distract Snow from killing him and took it. Enough thinking this more than it is—a lie.”

I frowned.

“Cai,” Nia said. “What if he was not?”

“There is a way,” Visha said quietly. “To find out if he lied or not. If they are alive or not.”

Nia shook her head. “She won’t do it.”

I leaned on the table. “Do what?”

Visha said, “Let me enter your dreams and let their souls pass onto the Otherworld. If they pass, they are spirits and if they don’t, whatever has been hunting your sleep is not the dead. Just your own demons.”

“No. He will help me find them. I’ll search every corner of this realm if I have to. And with their help, I’ll be able to do it ten times as fast.” Using my siblings as an excuse was a low blow, but I needed Cai not to hate me right now.

“If you think he can find them,” Alaric said. “Let him find them. Anything, we will do anything.”

“You do know that your siblings will be hunted down like day one if the Adriatians figure out they are alive. And you do know that the first to hunt on them is your…it’s…him,” Cai stuttered out, running a hand through his dark locks.