Page 191 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

She ran and threw herself in my open arms, pressing her face onto my hair, holding me tight as if I'd disappear. She shook, her hands were firmly pressed to me as if I might just slip away. Her cries tore my heart and mended it altogether at the same time. “Where have you been? Where have you been, Snow?”

I held her. I was holding my sister again. “I am here now. I am here.”

Her cries grew louder, turning hoarser. “You were dead.” She pulled back, lacing her fingers through my hair, searching me like I might still be a fiction of her imagination. “He said you were dead, Snow. He said the Adriatians killed you and mother. Is she alive, too?”

There was hope in her stare and I was going to break it. My throat was clogged, and my words came out choked, “No. She died that night. The same night I thought you died.”

I expected her to falter at the revelation, but she only nodded like she’d made peace with her death. With mine, too. “Did Aryan tell you where we were?”

I tensed, anger roiling in gales through my heated blood. “No, I killed him before he could.”

Her mouth parted in surprise. “You killed…Aryan?”

“Freed his big head from his ridiculously small shoulders.”

She winced a little and then laughed. It was still the same. The exact same bubbly laughter. And it hurt my heart—terribly and so fiercely. “Did you play ball with it like you used to tell him?”

“Heavens,” Mal murmured to himself, settling next to the chestnut basket.

“I did,” I said, and we both giggled. “Hung it on a pike, too, but it festered with flies, not caterpillars.”

She ran a sleeve over her watery forest eyes. “Eren did tell you butterflies don’t grow like that.”

“He did,” I said, reaching to smooth my fingers over her face. She was real. All of it was real. “He did.”

Leaves rustled from our periphery. “Thora, what—” The deep edged voice stopped when I stood and turned round to face him. Tall, much taller than I remembered him, my brother stood there, mere feet from me, staring at us. Hazel eyes, black short hair like he always kept it, that little scar over the bridge of his nose and the other across his upper lip when I made him trip in the kitchens—all were still there. My brother was truly here. His gaze jumped from me to Thora. “Tell me gods aren’t playing cruelly with me now.”

A sob crawled over my throat at hearing his voice again. “Gods wouldn’t know any other way,” I said, my voice shaking.

He let out a teary, choked laugh and I ran, jumping in his arms. I felt ten again, when he would haul me round and spin until I saw stars flash in my vision. He still smelled the same. Like pine and snow. My brother still smelled like my brother.

“How?” he asked, breathless. “How?”

“I ran,” I whispered, my eyes welling and pouring hot tears. “I ran away.”

His hand cupped the back of my head. “You did well. You did so well.”

That broke me. Broke me entirely. My heart wept again. “You promised,” I accused, squeezing him tight. “You promised me.”

He held me tighter. “I am sorry. I am so sorry.”

Tears flooded my eyes. “When did you get so tall?” I asked, refusing to let go of him.

“Why haven’t you grown at all?”

I smacked his shoulder and he put me down. Sadness dripped from the corners of his expression as he ran his finger over the scar on my cheek. “I am so sorry, Lin.” He cupped my face, still staring in awe. “My little sister.”

“Why are you eating my chestnuts?”

I turned around at the indignant sound of my sister. Mal had sat cross legged on the forest floor picking on chestnut skin. “Why, were you going to eat them all yourself?” he asked, giving Thora a long, slow perusal.

“Who is he?” Eren asked, protectively standing at my side.

Mal shot up and extended a hand to him. “Malik Castemont, at your service.”

Eren shook his hand, fully confused. “Castemont? You’re Kilian’s brother? Little Mal?”

Both Mal and I stared wide eyed at my brother. “Do you know of him?” Mal asked, glancing at me apologetically.