Page 125 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

The sun ruler slowly smiled and nodded. “You know her well.”

“You have no idea,” Snow murmured to herself.

“So,” Magnus said, “An alliance.”

The Solaryan morning sun was blinding, but it didn’t seem to bother Snow. She snored softly on the bed, cocooned in the middle of the enormous thing and drowned by the sage coloured cottons and pillows. Her sleep had been sound for the most part and when I’d felt her distress, I’d gathered her in my arms till she calmed.

“You two match one another well,” Cora said, ghosting a palm up and down my wounds, a beam of light emitting from her fingers. The Sun Queen had been more than punctual, arriving at dawn in an attempt to heal my wounds.

My gaze never left her sleeping form. “She’d say otherwise.”

“How come you went against the odds?”

Sighing, I leaned back on my seat. “Most people pray for rain, I prayed for thunder.”

Cora spared me a smile. “I’ve met her once before, you know, at her aunt’s wedding to my son. I doubted she remembered me, and she didn’t remember me. She was the rudest little girl I’ve ever met.”

A smile ghosted on my lips when Snow made a deep snoring sound. “I’ve met her before as well. Before everything and the agreement with her father.” I didn't know why I admitted it to Cora.

“Before the attack, you mean?”

I nodded. “At Urinthia Delcour’s coronation, when we were children. And few times after.”

Cora’s hand stopped hovering and she looked over at my sleeping wife. “Something tells me she doesn’t remember this either.”

“No, she doesn’t.”

A bell rang from outside somewhere in the distance, surely to notify morning hours and it seemed to startle Snow awake with a jolt.

She stared ahead, wide eyed, her cheeks red with wild hair plastered to them. She was panting for air. “What…what time is it?”

I flicked through the pages of the book a servant had brought me this morning about the Abendrot tomb in Theros. The burial of the royal Ybris and the location of the sceptre piece. “Sunrise.”

She looked around the room and then at the bed where she laid. “Where did you sleep last night?”

I flicked to a tunnel map that ran sideways. “I didn’t.”

“The bed is big. I could have taken the other side.”

“I can’t sleep unless it is in total darkness. They keep the torches outside lit at night too. It was too bright.” I shut the book and went to her, sitting on the edge of the bed. “It wasn’t because of you.” Dropping a kiss to her forehead, I stood. “A servant brought you something to wear. I’ll wait for you outside.”

The same servant girl who I’d asked to bring me the book stood outside of our bedroom. I flicked the book open to the page of the map and turned it to her, pointing to the entrance of it. “The entrance noted here is right in the middle of Theros, but your king mentioned that someone left through the sea not through here.”

She nodded and then pointed to a spot in the Theros sealine. “The inner caves have a few exits here. Children play there all year long, you can catch some colourful fish there, too.”

“And would other maps have these exits noted?”

She thought for a little while and then shook her head. “I wouldn’t think so. They start big but go on very small.” She lowered her hand down to her knees. “They only come to about here and you have to crawl through them diagonally. Some are even smaller.”

“Who else would know about these?”

“All other children in Theros. Everyone has been there at least once. Some sneak to see the Abendrot tomb, though they shouldn’t really.”

Magnus had a rat. Someone on the inside had given him the information an Isjordian surely ought to not be aware of. Was it his own son? But the Brogmere lord that Snow had killed had no clue about the sceptre whatsoever. If he’d been the only means of contact between Silas and Otis, the Sun Prince, that theory would prove wrong. It had to be someone else.

Snow came out of the room, her brows pulled in a frown. She had a hand over her chest and another clutching her dress to the side. “Who got me this?”

The servant girl gave her a smile. “Queen Cora selected it herself. It suits you well.”