Page 54 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

A shadow caught my peripheral attention again and I ran after it, catching the form right before it took the exit by lifting a tall wall of ice over the doors.

They raised a hand in my direction and my body locked in place. Umbra. Not Isjordian. Panic crawled up my throat.

But to his bad luck, I didn't need to move a single hair to use magic. A cloud of lightning flakes soared around me in a sphere and then blasted, levelling my surroundings to the ground and the Umbra to tiny pieces painted on the wall.

I heaved, breathing hard. Drops of sweat coating my temples from the magic of shadows.

A metal bound book remained where the Umbra had stood, the metal casing was still hot, and I couldn’t find where it unlocked. What was this damned book?

The frosted beasts had fragmented into chunks from my earlier blow, but I could still note their strangeness. There was an oddity about the Aitan creatures, and it wasn't the unusual colour of their pelt. Cai would probably say I was overthinking this, but the hounds of Dyurin were calm creatures, triggered only from a sole target that their handler would have needed to command in the old language of gods. For them to act as they did toward me, I had to have been the target, which was impossible considering the Umbra couldn’t have known who I was. Not to mention that Canes were not directly trained to kill, they were trained to sniff out magic and nullify it. How would my father have managed to sneak those inside with how guarded the wall was? And this was what they’d come for? A book?

There was someone who could answer me, so I went to seek him.

“Shit,” I murmured, remembering, and running back to the alley of the blast. Flinging back the cloth covering the bottom of the tent, I bent down and reached to help the old woman and child stand. I brushed a bit of ash from the little girl's cheek. “You were not scared, were you?”

She shook her head.

“Is your house within walking distance?” I asked.

The old woman nodded, silently.

“Would you like me to walk you there?”

Both nodded this time.

“Where are her parents?” I asked the old woman, hooking an arm under her shoulder to help her limp. Clearly, she needed someone to take care of her, not the opposite.

“Papa left when I was born and my ma has died,” the little one said, burying her face in my hair, looking upset.

“Mine too, kid.”

She turned to face me. “My ma is a star.”

“Mine is a winter sky.”

The old woman was staring at me, so I turned to stare back at her. And when I did, she gave me a smile. It left me blinking to myself for a little while. They had no idea who I was, did they?

With one hand, I pulled on one of my diamond necklaces and gave it to the old woman. In Olympia, jewels didn’t hold any richness or significant worth, our mines were boasting with them, but they did anywhere else in Numen. “Pay someone to help you with her.”

Her sunken face had gone pale and wide staring at the golden jewellery littered with diamonds. “I cannot.”

I pushed it to her again. “Yes, you can. It was an order not an offer.”

With a shaky hand, she took the necklace and tucked it in one of her skirt pockets.

“Right over there,” the old woman said, pointing two alleys down to a small house wedged between two tall buildings. She bowed her head. “Thank you, my queen.”

Oh. She knew who I was.

The little girl bowed too, almost losing her balance on her little feet. “Thank you, my queen,” she said with a little squeaky voice.

I blinked a little taken aback and bowed, too, before heading toward the city square. Something tugged on my dress and the little girl poked her head to my side when I stopped.

She extended a hand up to me, holding a little half withered yellow flower.

“For me?” I asked, taking the silly thing for some reason.

She nodded and then bolted back into a run toward the house.