Page 70 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

I picked a garni from her bunch and for some odd reason I sniffed it only to regret it a moment later when the sulphuric smell burned my eyes. “You will work with him, no one else.”

She snatched the garni from my hand. “What have I ever done to you?”

Mal chuckled and snatched the garni I held a moment ago from her hand. “Be nice, Visha, we have known one another since before we could walk. This will be fun.” He winced at the smell, too, before throwing it out of the window. “That was a disgrace to flowers.”

Visha sighed. “It was not flowers. It was sour poison root for the rats.” She pointed a look on him. “Seems like it didn’t work anyway.” Reaching behind the large marble table where she usually performed her craft on me, she grabbed and dropped a red leather grimoire atop. “There are three possible ways for us to go forth with this as I’ve discussed with Kilian. One: we venture inside your dreams, grab their essence and I place a tracking spell. Most efficient and quickest.”

“Two ways then,” I said, hoping to sit on the table as she flicked the coffee-coloured paper. Definitely not doing that. A Dark Crafter’s duty in this realm was to send off spirits to the otherworld. Celesteel despised denied and ungiven peace after death. The cold god of death was most compassionate in a sense—besides those he deemed unworthy of heavens which he sent right to hells. But those were plenty warm, too, so perhaps he was a gentle soul after all. If my siblings weren’t alive, the presence of her magic would banish them off to pass on. And if they were alive, she’d banish my mother.

She parted the grimoire over some strange drawings of a cloak. “The other is to perform a blood craft tracking on them, but if they are under a veil or craft or any other magic, it will not work. Blood scent craft can be nulled under spell.”

I shot to my feet and glanced at her grimoire. “But we found Melanthe.”

She pointed to a line in Borsich like it was supposed to make all sense to me. “We traced my cousin’s magic signature which she and her sister share. You and your siblings all wear a separate magic signature from the mix of your bloodlines. You’re an Elding, an already overpowering magic which makes certain essences from you deviate from theirs.”

Mal nodded. “Most reasonable one so far is the blood craft if we are lucky enough and Aryan didn’t think that far as to use magic to hide them,” he said, rubbing a hand over his stubbled jaw. “What about the third option?”

“Manual search,” she said, shutting the grimoire. “I will give you a memory potion to access deep parts of subconsciousness, to places and situations you might have forgotten. If they were locked anywhere, it had to be nearby. Otherwise, who would look after their wellbeing? A nearby place you are probably aware of, somewhere Aryan visited, a place where your siblings’ magical imprint could be hidden.”

I nodded. “Give me the potion.”

She reached onto her cabinets and retrieved a flask with lavender coloured liquid inside. “I’d suggest you take it with someone in the room. Though you can direct the memory magic to target a specific thing you are searching, it can sometimes manifest into the spiritual to show you something else. There are some memories our brain locks with the purpose not to ever remember.” She gave me a little glance full of doubt before saying, “And I am sure you might have plenty of those.”

“Sure,” I said, snatching the thing from her hand.

“Before you consume it, think of what you wish to find in your head. I suggest you find a calming environment and someone who centres you. If your thoughts are all over the place it will probably get you lost elsewhere.”

“Mhm,” I hummed, shaking the glistening bottle to make the lavender pieces at the bottom float around.

It was only a couple of hours before I had to retreat to Adriata, but I supposed it was enough to get this over and done with. Paper, ink, and the potion were set up on my bed. Nia was in Eldmoor, Cai had set up camp in Myrdur, Alaric was in Kvan assisting Cori and Penelope was being trained by Visha in craft so that left me to do this alone.

I sat on the bed, laying the pen and paper before me and then took a sip of the little bottle of lilac liquid that tasted like cat piss and rainbows all in one. There was no time for me to gag because my sight was veiled with flashing blurred sights.

My pulse drummed loud enough to drown the thunder outside and once it calmed, the images sharpened and slowed, allowing me to grasp a clear view.

Isjord. Training courts.

I was on my hands and knees, my fingers smaller and bloodied. I was in my own body, yet I wasn’t. No movement I made was my own. I was merely a spectator.

My whole body jerked when a ghostly whip hit my back. Blindly, I reached a hand back to touch my flesh, expecting it to burn, but nothing met my touch besides the old scars. The whip hit again and again. Yet I felt nothing.

“Break, I said,” A gravelly voice growled in my ear. “Break!”

The man suddenly roared in agony before collapsing before me. I held a rock in my hand. No, not me. Younger me. “How about I break your toes?”

Something tugged on my head, and I was no longer just watching—I was one with my thoughts again.

“Hold her back,” Renick shouted at the guard behind me as he limped backward with a bleeding foot. “Hold the goddamn thing back.”

Soldiers surrounded me, but no one dared approach. They’d never come closer than that. Only Renick, uncle and Murdoc could come near me.

“Play with me, Renick,” I cooed, and the man shivered with what father had taught me to be a play of fear. Perhaps he was playing with me. No one wanted to play with me.

Suddenly, a hand wrapped around my wrist—a much larger hand, decorated with heavy gold rings that made my body recoil at the memory of the pain they gave me when he hit me. “You’re embarrassing, Renick,” Aryan spat before dragging me out of the training courts. “I’ll show you how to break more than toes, Olympian scum.”

Father stood on the balcony overlooking the courts, observing everything that went on, and I smiled and waved at him. “Papa.”

With one last look of scathing disdain, he turned round and left. And like that, my smile died. I hadn’t seen anyone in days. Not my mother, or Alaric. Even Thora and Eren were kept away from me. Father didn’t want to see me either. He was getting angrier by the day. I was at the age to bloom my blessing, to become an Aura. I was not giving him what he wanted. Ma, Alaric, Lysander and Eren, all of them had made me swear on the secret and wear the seal that contained the magic I’d bloomed since the day I breathed air into my lungs.