Page 235 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

“What on the crown’s rubies are you?”

Thora caught his ankle and pulled him from the seat, dragging him all over the floor as we walked back to the main deck.

Kilian raised an amused brow at me and I only shrugged.

With one swiping motion, I parted the Breshall prince’s hand lined with dozens of glittering and colourful diamond rings.

The man screeched like an alarmed cockatoo who’d forgotten to coo at dawn.

“Shhh, sir,” Thora said, looking around the other ships, at the sailors gathering to see what was happening. “Men are so sensitive.”

Kilian chuckled at my sister and grabbed the rest of the prince, fading back to Olympia.

“Ready?” I asked, extending a hand forward to Thora.

She nodded, crouching down to the ground and resting her palms on the wooden floor. “Ready.”

At both our command, the water surrounding the ships froze. Magic poured in gales from us. Massive, sharp stalactite shards of ice surged from water and pierced each ship, destroying men and wood.

The wind howled and turned frosted—soon, snow began pouring from the skies.

By the time Thora and I had channelled not a scratch of our magic, a graveyard of frost floated in the lost middle of the northern waters. Sails creaked from the wind of the Hollow Sea, the only sound around us. Even the life below us had disappeared.

Kilian faded back with someone—someone who had worked for me for years long now and a good friend of Alaric’s. An unblessed spy of mine that had kept a good eye on the Vrammetheni continent for years.

“Vidarr,” I said, throwing him the prince’s hand. “You know what to do.”

His teeth lined with gold gleamed. “Yes, my queen.”

Kilian’s attention had focused behind me on the wreckage we’d caused and the lives we’d taken. Even if he couldn’t see the bodies buried under frost, I was sure he could feel them. Every muscle on his body tensed. “There is something travelling with them,” he said, pulling all of us close.

Something bumped hard below deck and the wreckage shook, causing water to break and the ship to quickly turn to the side. Kilian grabbed Vidarr, my sister, and then me before fading us on top of another close-by ship.

Something tore from the rubble. Something green and large. Something resembling the beast from Hanai, but not quite so. It looked too human, its figure was of a man, his face was of…nothing I could describe properly—if a cobra and a wolf had a child and made it green and scaly and breathing out a strange green mist.

The thing went on its fours, his chest rumbling like two marbles hitting each other each time he breathed.

“Father had offered them beasts,” I said, coming to realisation and unsheathing my sword. “Hells. He was going to trade beasts for the metal.”

The creature’s head snapped to me. In one swift move, it leaped in the air and over to us, a deep rattle vibrating in the air and piercing our eardrums.

Kilian grabbed and faded us on top of another wreckage. We’d barely settled on our footing when the thing appeared before us again, running on its fours quicker than any animal I’d ever seen.

Thora’s hands shot forward, sharp stalactites raising dozens from underneath, piercing the creature over and over. But the thing broke its body out of the ice, digging its teeth on its own limbs and tearing them apart till he was free again. Bloodied and half torn, the creature heaved green froth and mist as all lost limbs began growing back.

Seven hells. This thing, too?

Kilian’s darkness began pooling around us and shooting toward it. “No,” I said, grabbing his arm and his magic doused, disappearing in thin air. “Not turning it to charcoal. I want to see something. Pierce it with your steel. Go for its head.”

My sister’s eyes bulged as she tried to manoeuvre her magic to keep the thing from nearing us. “What, why?”

Kilian already knew what I wanted to see and faded beside it, his metal cutting though the beast’s head. Like I’d predicted—green flesh began crawling like worms and slowly mended itself till its head formed again.

Kilian faded back to my side. “This isn’t good.”

“My turn.” I bolted right beside it, impaling its arm. A moment. Two. And the thing roared, clutching its arm that gushed blood like a stream. Spinning my steel around, I dug the blade through its heart and the green thing dropped to the wooden ground—dead. Its flesh began turning ashen and flaking. And soon, the creature’s body was gone like dust in the wind.

We’d all struck still.