Page 174 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

It was Demir who answered, returning back inside the storage room, “I met Elias by the gates, he had not sent for you. Didn’t even recognise the writing on the paper you left me. Your scent was everywhere around the tavern and all the way here.”

“My, my. You are a dog,”

“Call it a gift—a blessing,” he said as he poured water over my arm.

I rode with Elias who had been quietly observing the whole scene without commenting. Breaking my line of overly thinking the last twenty-four hours, he spoke silently behind me, “You are good, Snow.”

“Which part exactly? If you are to stroke my ego, do it properly.”

“All of it. It appears he is not immune to your charm either,” he said, pointing his head in Demir’s direction. “Though Kilian shan’t be happy that another man called you beautiful so openly. Let alone when he finds out you didn’t roll your eyes at him.”

I threw my elbow back at the teasing mongrel. “Kilian? Since when are the two of you on a first name basis?” Since when had the Adriatian bastard managed to charm another on my side of the game?

“I respect him.”

Respect?

When we arrived at the castle, father had been waiting for us. He’d gone completely red, not from the cold but from the tight anger flaring in waves around him. The moment Reuben’s feet touched the ground, father struck him hard, making him leap back and onto the floor from the force.

Inclining my head down, I hid my giggles. This felt amazing. How I had craved his punishment for all that he had done to me and my siblings. And who better would hand them to him than his father dearest?

“Are you hurt, my child?” he asked, turning to me, in a tone full of worry that I had never heard before. I wanted to ignore the minute note of sincerity but somehow I couldn’t. Some deep part of me—very deep part of me—wanted to acknowledge it.

He brought my hands up to examine the burns and huffed a heavy sigh.

A tear slicked down my cheek, then two. I hated this, with the strength of my life. The care that I had missed for twenty-two years of my life, only to receive it in the end when it no longer mattered. To receive it when I had his trust, when I had to prove who everyone and myself were to him—for me to be hurt by his indirect touch. But I had to endure it. For the sake of what I was about to do.

“He has hurt you,” he said, reaching to wipe away my tears, before gathering me in an embrace. For a second, like I had never done before, I allowed myself to soak in his warmth—my father’s skin creeping warmth. I allowed myself to feel what I should have felt for my father all the years of torment I have received because of him. I took a deep breath, my body tightened in a flaming rage that had made me want to freeze his heart and crush it to a thousand shards. Two layers of barriers kept me from committing to my thoughts, but once they were down, he was not going to have my mercy. I would not freeze his heart—I would carve it out and feed it to him. The ultimate evil—he stood over me, his filth and stench spread all over the continent.

He let go of me. “He will be punished for what he has done, worry not,” he said, watching Reuben fighting and writhing between the hold of soldiers.

The half breed’s eyes had gone wide with wild hate and anger. Somehow, he managed to break free from the soldiers and came toward us. “No, you cannot trust her, father. I did it for us. Look what she has done since she has returned. Our family was fine till she came back. Till her rotten kind came here again, like her mother, whores of Olympian blood!” he spat.

Oooh, good one, Reub.

My father’s features smoothed to a terrifying calm and Reuben began choking and coughing. This time it was not my doing, father had grasped him till he dropped to the ground, his hands running over his throat as he struggled to breathe.

I placed a hand on my father's arm, pulling his attention to me. “Let him go, father, he is harmless and his words pitiful if not worthless. He was begging for his mother, maybe you ought to send him her way,” I said, and turned to head towards my chambers before I changed my mind and enjoyed watching my father choke the radish to his death. For now, I needed him alive.

My feet dragged painfully over the snow-soaked ground, my skin had set on fire and the cold around me did nothing to soothe it.

Demir came to my side. “Let me carry you to your chambers,” he offered. The only one that was ever allowed to do that from the day he had carried me from the winter gardens would be Kilian—he would have also known what to say to soothe me out of my cluttered thoughts, he always had the right words to calm me out of them.

“I want to walk.”

“You left that letter with me purposefully, you knew it had been a trap,” he continued after some long silence.

“Yes,” I admitted. “Elias would never write to me, let alone one of the finest quality of paper that only my father uses. Did you think that stitched writing belonged to a man who was raised as a soldier since a child? Only an idiot would underestimate me and begin a plan like that. The execution of it was just as short-sold. It was either Reuben or one with balls looser than that wimp.”

He halted, turning to me. “But he got to hurt you.”

I let out a tired giggle. “Small price to pay for the satisfaction it gave me.”

Demir lifted his hand, turning my face to examine the cut on my lip. “Be careful, Princess, when you sift this much snow you make mounds behind. What will you do once you want to return and they are on your way?”

I pulled my head away from his strange touch. He always pretended he had everything on me, as if he could read me. There was none with that skill but the silver eyed snake. “Climb, melt, pierce through, part in half, fly over. I have lived a life that has forced me to dig holes and pile rocks with my every decision. Once you are accustomed to the suffering, you master the pain, Demir.”

“Why do you put yourself through it still, if you are so versed in it?”