Page 284 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

“It meant everything to me.”

“The false sense of likeness is not love, Demir. Just because you both see the same shapes in the stars does not mean you are in love. You were greedy for greatness, and she was greedy for the human feel the divine are so fascinated with. You saw her like a trophy, and she saw you like a pet. You both sacrificed one another for a lie.”

“It wasn’t a lie!” he shouted, his skin fluttering with green scales like a reptile, and I felt that sense of chilling air flutter around me again.

“Is this what you do to the one you love? Make her my father’s slave?” I gave him a polite smile. “Come, dear, admit it. All you want is to prove yourself among the gods. You. Are. Desperate. You seeked exalt and power, and when you got denied the highest form of it, you became petty. Poor, poor you.”

Demir shook his head. “We are this realm's salvation from the stench of the divine. Once this land becomes ours, no god will ever dictate our living and then I will aim to bring down their lands next. Aurora will be free. She’ll be free to live with me. We will both have defied gods and won.”

My whole body shook from laughter. I laughed so hard that my belly hurt and my jaw was sore. “Pathetic little dog, you dream so big. Did all that immortality feed on your brains?”

“Don’t underestimate your father, child,” Silas’s voice boomed around the tower, and I froze. “I thought by now you’d know better.” One of the soldiers behind them pulled off his hood and revealed my father’s face.

He stepped forward, eyeing me top to bottom as if he was seeing me for the first time. “I’ve never given you credit before. You did everything so efficiently. Just like I’d taught you. But to hide this, what you are. I have to give it to you, you’ve outdone efficiency. I should have known the moment I stared into those eyes that you were going to be what I planned for you to be.” His eyes flashed all twisted malice. “No matter the fire in the gold, you were frost itself.”

“It was a team effort,” I said and watched my father’s doubts tick on his temple. “Yes, father. All three of us had magic. Uncle did sort of guess when he sent news to the Adriatians thirteen years ago and welcomed them through your front gates.”

His features were steel. Oh, might Silas, to be betrayed by the one his heart held most dear. “Now that is a poorly thought lie.”

“By your brother,” I clarified. “A poorly thought out lie by the man who had been betraying you more than just occasionally.” I clicked my fingers and pointed a finger at him and his jaw ticked just a little. “Reminding me to hand you his bones. I am quite finished with his body. Alas, it’s missing his head.”

He glanced around a little, at Visha and Oryn and then back at the entirety of Highwall. And then he laughed. Laughed hard enough to send every sense in my body charging from the alarm. “I am proud, young rose. So proud.” The words made something rumble in my chest. He shook his head and pointed a finger back at me. I was past flinching, but I felt the weight of that judgement. “Though you’ve disappointed me a little. Such greatness to have such a strange weakness when I worked hard to rip it off of you. You were almost perfect. Almost, my child. But I didn’t want you to be perfect anymore anyway.” His mouth was pulled in such a vile smile. “Have you forgotten how dangerous it is to have something worth losing?” He clicked his tongue all discontented and I felt ten again. Small and powerless. It felt as if I was his to wield. It almost made me want punishment—for disappointing him.

It was slipping away from me—control skidded between my fingers and all that Kilian had worked hard to teach me slid at the furthest back in my mind. Lightning broke the skies and hit the Isjordian earth, casting my father a sinister crown of light. I’d broken a promise. Without knowing, I'd broken a promise I’d made to Kilian. Blood soaked my gloves as I tried to regain command of my mind and body.

The day darkened. Not from me—not from thunder and storm. It darkened with night. The heavy scent of spring bloom and cool taste of night air filled the space around us. A gust of black winds swirled out of thin air and blasted while Kilian tore through it. Soaked from rain, his face was cast in shadows, the white and grey of his eyes gone and now veiled black.

Relief.

Pure relief settled in me. The world had stopped spinning.

“Brave,” Kilian growled, slowly walking to me. With every step he took, the ground beneath charred and lit in a trail of black fire. “To come so close to my lands. And threatened my queen, Silas Krigborn.”

Father sneered. “Mighty Night King made a puppet of my daughter’s.”

“Mighty Winter King made an oaf by his own insanity.” Kilian stepped closer to the veil, almost going through it. And I was praying for his saintly patience to return to his body. “Get the hells out my lands. Stay the hells out of my kingdom.”

My father sneered but held his composure somehow. “Then won’t she miss her little…friends? Won’t you miss your brother?”

Ice coated my veins when Melanthe waved a glowing red hand and nine bodies stood on their knees beside her.

No…no.

My vision had blurred, fear rippled through my bones as I took in all the faces before me. Freya, Ibe, Ivar, Albius, Sebastian, Celdric and…and—

I met the pair of strong russet eyes that showed no fear and then honey soft ones which I’d stared at for ten years stained with tears. Mal and Nia stood in my father’s line—they stood as his prisoners.

A cry crawled up my throat, images of Sam tortured and lured me to lose control.

“The sceptre pieces and your life for theirs,” Demir said with a wicked grin.

Kilian’s hand grew tighter around mine and he pulled me behind him, shielding my body with his. “You don’t want to do this, Silas.”

My father simpered, folding his arms across his chest. “Does that mean you’ve made your choice? Her over your brother?” He laughed—laughed harder than I’d ever heard him laugh before and in that moment, I knew—we had lost.

I knew the moment I saw their faces that we had lost.

Sebastian and Celdric raised a chained fist to their chests. “Signe oșh toc etter sben ys zguh.” We will rise between sky and clouds, they both shouted and bowed their heads.