Page 190 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

“It’s too close to the village,” Mal said as we met halfway. “A hunter or even children could pass through here and notice this. This isn’t the work of a Glare. Their magic is solid and physical like that of a Verglaser, like every magic of an elemental is.”

I shook my head. “I would have recognised the scent of dark craft.”

“Perhaps,” he said, pushing a hand through the shield, “not dark craft. Could be the work of a Magi healer. Those white witches aren’t much better. If Kilian was here he would have made some sense of this.” He turned to me. “I say we go in.”

I grabbed his wrist, pulling it out of the shield. “I will go through, the last thing I need—”

Before I began to disagree, he grabbed my hand and pulled the two of us across the thin shield. “You were saying?” he asked, flashing me a smug grin.

“Malik Castemont, you damned idiot.”

“You’re welcome. Now let's go. The sun is almost down and we both know you’re practically blind in the dark.”

This idiot.

“Shit,” he hissed, shaking the map and compass. “Shit.”

I grabbed the map and noted the now dried patch of blood. Opening a part of my magic, I called electricity. The moment the flush of magic skittered between my fingers, relief filled me. “I can use magic.”

“Just not dark magic. Definitely the work of a Magi healer.”

“We were close, it can’t be far from here.”

We dove further and further in the forest before we decided on a break. The heat was too much and too soon after I’d spent weeks freezing over in Isjord. My lungs were on fire and my skin felt like sandpaper over my bones.

“What’s that?” Mal asked, reaching a woven basket and a bow that laid resting on a bole nearby.

Before he even reached close to it, a hooded figure jumped from the tree crown above, a dagger in their hand that was aimed at him.

Mal faded away in time before it even grazed him.

Quickly, the hooded figure spun on their heel, twisting the dagger between their fingers aiming toward Mal again.

The hand on my sword froze. My head repeated that dagger motion over and over. The familiarity of it struck me with memories.

It goes over and then under. The trick is in the wrist, twist too much and it will move quicker and then lose balance, Eren’s voice boomed in my ears as if it was as fresh as that day.

Mal faded right before them, grabbing onto their wrist and spinning them round to have an arm wrapped over their neck before pulling their hood down.

Angry emerald eyes hit me first, and then the rest of memory flushed through in an aching throb in my pulse. The same soft features, the same round stare, the same pouty mouth and the same long dark hair that we shared. She resembled nothing of the little quiet girl I remembered her to be. The one who liked her hair neatly plaited, who made bows out of dress scraps dyed pink with rotten cherries that Ken saved us. The girl—the woman—standing before me resembled nothing I once remembered her to be. She was beautiful. Grown.

She thrashed in Mal’s grip, strands of wild hair falling over her face. “Let me go!”

When she turned to glare at him over her shoulder, a smile crept over his face. “Well, hello, little bird.”

It was real. She was real.

“Thora?” I asked, taking a small step forward. If I moved too suddenly, would it all disappear—would she disappear again?

She stopped writhing, her gaze snapping to me. Stillness. It was as if the whole world had halted its rotation. It felt as if anything else didn’t matter when my sister’s gaze found mine.

I pulled the hood down and her expression shattered, breaking into fragments of pain and confusion.

“Thora?” My knees weakened and I crumbled to the ground, tears streaming down my face and blurring the figure of my sister ahead. “Rora?” It was not a dream. It was not. I could not breathe. My sight had fogged as I called for her again, “Rora?” Would she heed my call or would she disappear like smoke?

She took me in for a long moment. Noting every detail of my face, from my scar to my hair to my eyes. “S-Snow?” She shook her head and squeezed her eyes tight. “Can’t be. Can’t be.” Tears stained her cheeks and she sobbed, dragging her fingers through her hair. “She is dead. She is dead,” she repeated, covering her ears, and then sobbed louder when she opened them to find me standing before her again. “Snow.”

“Rora,” I whispered between tears.