Page 198 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

“Pretend, my love. It was all pretend.”

“It was too convincing.”

“I had many to convince, not just you. The whole council, the whole of Adriata. Myself, too.”

Her chest rose furiously. I’d never seen her more at war with herself. “Why?”

One truth—I would tell her this one truth. “Would you like to hear how I killed my father?”

She frowned and took the smallest step closer to me. My chest tightened when she didn’t back away from me as she always did. “How?”

So I told her what no one else knew. The one secret I’d carried alone. “When I was a boy, I told him that I liked someone. Perhaps more than just liked. We’d spoken once and only had stolen faraway glances at her, but I told him that I could see a future with her, grow old and never be bored. Old, yes, because the girl was human. At least so I thought then. I would have given up my eternity for her. And I would have not regretted it. Father cried that day. The first time I’d seen him cry. First time he’d been happy for me. He fell sick the next day and died a week later. Heartbreak—I reminded him of his own heartbreak because I wanted to be with that girl. If I had not said anything—” I shook my head and she stepped closer, her other hand holding onto my jacket as if she needed to steady herself. “If I had not wanted you so madly, this would have never happened. That night would have never happened. You would have been happy.” I rested my forehead on hers and finally breathed the words out, “I am sorry. I am so sorry, Snow.”

She was struggling to breathe. “This can’t be real. It cannot be. It cannot. Tell me it wasn’t you. Tell me it is not real. Tell me that fate isn’t truly that twisted.”

“I don’t wish to lie about this.”

She stared at me. She stared at my eyes for a long time. “How did I forget? I always hated the stormy skies, and the dull grey of winter. But then somehow they became my favourite thing. How could one like the colour grey? It is such an odd colour to like.”

This was madness. Utter madness. “You are making me entirely too happy right now.”

Stunned—she was beyond stunned. Something else lingered behind those twin suns—something grave. “Were you really going to marry me?”

I nodded. “Father already knew and approved of it. He had already sent word to Silas and were going to meet to discuss the possibility of a union. He died shortly after.”

“And the agreement with my father? Did it have to do something with this?”

“No, I was going to come to you at your pace. I was going to find you someday because I’d sworn it to you whether you wanted to marry me or kill me, it didn’t matter. The agreement just sped up that process.”

She shook her head. “Why keep this from me?”

I ran my knuckles over her cheek. “I didn’t. I wrote it all to you. After Nia told me you chose to throw the letters away I figured it was a truth better left untold. And you’d long forgotten me.”

She raised a hand to my face, tracing a delicate finger over my eye and her expression cracked. It would never change our fates. Nothing would. I knew her so well. I knew her mind better than I knew her heart. And I meant one thing in her grand scheme of things—a means of retaliation. She needed it. And I would give it to her.

“Are we still stealing time?”

“Always, my love,” I said, kissing both her eyes and she breathed out a sigh. “But I am a better thief now. If I am stealing, I better do it well.” My attention went behind me, where Thora was standing at the door, waiting for her sister whom she hadn’t seen in thirteen years. “Stay in Taren tonight. With your sister.”

She nodded. “Alright.”

Chapter thirty

Caelifer

Snowlin

Eren still had an indecipherable look on his face after Kilian left. Thora too. Both looked confused.

But I was more confused. Them being here. What Kilian had told me. This felt a lot like one of those messes my brain made up when I wanted the world to disappear and reinvented it myself.

My head hurt—it hurt terribly as I tried to recall that memory that Kilian had kept for fifteen years. How had I forgotten?

“Someone say something,” Thora whispered carefully, looking between Eren and I.

It was Eren who leaned forward. “So, Kilian—”

I rolled my eyes and my brother howled with laughter, gales of laughter. Till he ran a hand over his eyes, mouth quivering as he said, “Thought I’d never see you roll your eyes at me again.”