Page 278 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

“It is not your fault.”

“It has always been my fault. Always.” He kissed me slowly, tasting me, savouring me. “Always. It will always be.”

“I came into that garden, not you.”

“But it is I who fell for you.”

My smile was bright and his own mimicked mine. “My silver eyed boy.”

“My little miss who has become my missus. I always hoped you remembered the moment where you became my all.”

“I remember.” I realised that the world was all too pale for all the colour I felt for this man. The world was too hollow for the way he’d stuffed my heart so tightly with emotion I didn’t even know I could feel. The world was all too dim for how bright it got when he looked at me, when he smiled at me. And the world was all too cold for how warm he felt against me, how warm he made it inside of me.

Perhaps I didn’t have to bury her. Perhaps she had buried herself underneath all that he’d gifted me. Perhaps that girl had needed to feel all and all of this. Perhaps she’d wanted it but denied herself.

His fingers were gentle on my face. “You’re gone again.”

“I’m right here.”

Chapter forty-three

Carmen

Snowlin

There was an odd calm in Myrdur after I’d claimed the bargain with my father—after I’d claimed oath on the land as mine and belonging back to Olympia. The breeze brushing past my skin was soft and sweet. It smelled of apple and rain and the softest scent of peace. The Fogling had not been seen anywhere anymore and I liked to think that their tormented souls had finally found peace and left the land for the heavens as had the spirits that used to roam the ruins.

Cai leaned down and plucked something from the ground. A tiny anemone that had sprouted on every rock, valley, and field lately. His smile was huge and ridiculous, and I could practically see the future he was dreaming of flashing on his emerald stare.

Life was beginning to grow back in old Olympia and not a foot of Isjordian soldiers had stepped ever since I’d gotten the sceptre from Valda. Had my father given up on the sceptre? Was he going to open war the good old way? He had the favour after all. It was in his blood to be war itself. But then, so was I. And this haunting silence was louder than any raging storm.

Eren stepped beside Cai and took the purple flower from him, studying the delicate thing and my friend's reaction. “You give your happiness to the strangest things there are.”

He turned to my brother, grabbed his jaw and kissed him. And silly me thought it would stop there. When he began backing him to the wall and sneaking a hand down his waist, I dashed. That was something I could have lived without seeing.

Albius stood on a broken terrace, overlooking the city. “The regret that I will carry beyond my death,” he sighed, full of anguish. “We could have stopped your father that night. We could have at least tried. But we let him march into Olympia, steal your mother and ruin one of the greatest kingdoms the realm had seen.” He turned to me, regarding me as he always did—with the greatest respect anyone had ever given me. “Fate works in strange dishonest ways. It doesn’t always favour us, but we try and make the best of it. You are the best of this rotten fate. I have faith you will make great efforts to restore some goodness in Isjord’s own fate.”

The thoughts crossing my mind right now were nothing short of violent and bloodied. No flower had ever bloomed beneath my feet. I intended to plant no garden in Isjord—not one with flowers at least. “You always thought that even though you knew my intentions to never be as such.”

“I had faith, Elding queen. I always had faith.” He smiled to himself. “I had it even after my own faith, Creda, died. My wife wanted me to live long after her. She made me make an oath that I would not follow after her. I made an oath that I would stay and see Isjord, our land, become what it always should have been—a wintery heaven.” He took my hands in his. “Do this old man a favour and let me unite with my loved one.”

“I can’t make a promise.” Not when I was planning to turn Isjord into a wintery hell.

He shook his head. “I wish for no promise, pumpkin. They always end up disappointing one or the other. But I do wish your skies would shine as they are shining now. When you find a reason to glow, you will never want to be dull.” He patted my hand and took a deep breath, overlooking the distance toward the Hollow Sea cliffs. “Your father has been quiet. It is not a good sign when he is quiet. A snake always strikes when the prey is at rest.”

“The bargain,” I said. “I will not hesitate to use it.” And I was not speaking about his allegiance in court. When I called our bargain, I’d do more damage than hurting my father. Each one that had bargained with me had signed off more than their life and loyalty. If I was going to be fire, I might as well burn my brightest.

He nodded, touching a shaky hand to his arm. “The walls would have come down one way or another. By peace or by fire, they would have all come down one day.”

And perhaps Albius had been right.

Kilian and Thora were already there when I arrived at the Highwall tower. Both of them stood next to one another, arms crossed, a glacial look in their faces as they stared down at the woman sitting before them.

My husband stirred from his frozen state and turned to round me in his arms for a brief moment before pressing a kiss to my lips. It was brief and quick, but it was all I needed—all that my soul needed to spring with life. “She showed at the gates, asking to see you. She said you two know one another.”

Know?

The woman raised her eyes at me and bowed her head. “We meet again,” she said with a soft voice. “Snowlin.”