Page 82 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

Her cheek was soft and warm under my touch. My calm storm. Always so close to rage. Always so peacefully violent.

A damned bell rang in the distance along with Kemeri shouts of the new day rising ahead and Snow jerked awake.

Her breathing had gone hard and ragged. “What…what time is it?”

“Sunrise.”

Still in half disbelief, she examined the room as if we were in some sort of danger. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

I looked down at us, at her body beyond tangled with mine—her arms were tight around my chest, she had hooked a leg around mine and the other between my thighs and hooked that one over my other knee. “You’ve rounded me like a snake. How could I wake you?”

She quickly untangled her body from mine and pushed away, hauling herself to the end of the bed. There was a look of horror on her face—more like realisation. She ran her hands through her hair, tugging the strands with panic. “I forget,” she murmured to herself, pushing up from the bed and backing toward the door. “I forget.”

Barely managing to stand, I got myself ready, changing the damp bandages to clean ones. The wounds were gnarly and deep, but not the worst injury I’d sustained. They were, however, odd. Yesterday it had not been so obvious, perhaps from shock, but today I felt a splinter in my magic. Like a chain missing links, attempting to connect and not quite connecting. Like a ghostly arm holding a solid one. Whatever had injured me, it had a similar trace of magic as mine or had been made from the same magic as mine.

Snow and I left our rooms at the same time. She wouldn’t even look at me once. And now there was disgust on her face. Her regret hit me hard—almost harder than the pain from the wound.

“The servant said Nia is here. She will take you back to Adriata,” Snow said as we made our way to the dining rooms where Moriko waited for us.

“We will return together,” I said, and she stopped only to turn and glare at me.

“No.”

“Certainly not no. Your knowledge on anything magical is not up to par to mine. Not to mention,” I said, tapping a finger on my chest. “This thing that clawed me seems to have a similar magic essence to mine.”

Her pretty sun eyes fell to my chest. “What do you mean?”

“It went for my soul, not for my life. In a similar way to how my magic works.”

She frowned. “How can it do that?”

“Many ways. One: be created by dark magic. Two: be born out of dark magic. Three: forged by the hand of a divine being. And four: be born out of the divine, that is a guardian, godling or a lower god.”

“Moriko said the thing didn’t look like it was from the Ater battles.”

“She was probably right. Because it cannot be, love of mine, enough worrying your brain with it. Obitus law is the law of the god of gods, it is not something any god and especially us can change. Let’s go before the sound of your stomach grows frightening.”

“Fine.”

“And fine it is.”

Both she and I froze on the dining room doorstep. Snow for an entirely different reason from mine as she didn’t seem as surprised as I at Moriko pushing her tongue down Nia’s throat.

“Moriko is who Nia is seeing?”

Snow sneered. “To my unfortunate eyes, yes.”

I cleared my throat and Nia practically jumped three feet back at the interruption. “Kilian…Snow.”

“Such an ill-timed interruption,” Moriko said regretfully, pulling Nia to a seat.

“How can we be interrupting if we were expected?” Snow asked, angrily sitting on the cushion. If one could sit angrily.

I leaned to her ear. “Why are you killing the mood?”

“Would you not be uncomfortable if you witnessed your little sister being eaten alive by another?”

I nodded. “Thank gods I have a brother.”