Page 283 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

“Village boy,” I said, giving him a saccharine smile.

He lifted both hands as if in surrender and laughed. “Got me there.”

I tilted my head to the side and gave him a version of my own amusement. “Perhaps Vas is more familiar to you? I am very accommodating, do let me know what you wish to be called.” It annoyed me how long I’d taken to piece this one out.

His smile died down and he put his hands in his pockets as though we were completely at his mercy and it amused him. “What gave me away?”

“You stink like a fisherman. I suppose old smells are hard to get rid of.”

“I was no fisherman,” he snarled.

Indeed, pride was so easy to injure. Men held onto it like those three hairs on their chin that refused to grow into a beard but were insistent that it would someday grow into one. “No matter what beast you slayed, Vas, fish is fish. And no one is held on a pedestal for taking out creatures in their own home just because you want to trample all over it.” My gaze dropped all over him. “Whatever did she see in you?”

He tensed.

“I suppose pity is a primal instinct for the heavenly.” Twas not for me, but then, was I truly of heavens? “Like nursing a street dog.”

Demir’s face twisted. “Aurora is fire, she knows no pity, but she does have a heart for all.”

“Was, knew and did. Past tense.”

“She is alive.”

“Not really.”

“We know you have the three sceptre pieces,” Melanthe said without missing a beat.

I linked my hands behind me. “Pray tell, what sceptre pieces?” Of course they knew.

“You're not all that funny,” Melanthe sneered, wearing a gloriously pleased grin.

“You’re the biggest joke in this realm, how could I ever match up to you?” My eyes dropped to her swollen stomach. “Stepmother.”

Demir giggled and tapped his nose with a finger. “Come on, Princess, the scent of your magic was everywhere in Isjord. The same scent I felt in Hanai. Why do you think I took you to the Islines for? We were struggling with that one for a year and you got it for us in a day.”

What?

The tower grew cold, air frosting around us and whatever dead lingered in the air, screeched and ran out of it.

For us.

No…no, I hadn't walked myself back into my father’s trap.

He tilted his head back, all too calm and in control—control that was slipping through my fingers despite how long I’d spent with Kilian training it. “When I proposed to Silas that we let you collect the piece for us, he was hesitant, but he had not seen your power the way that I had. And besides,” he said, his attention going behind me, “you were not alone. We’d heard from our…resources that you were working with the Night King. The two most powerful magical beings in this realm, the lone Obscur and the last Elding, searching for the sceptre piece side by side could never fail.” He let out a sigh and clicked his fingers. “The Myrdur attacks, the soldier you caught presumably told you about Valda Acme as I’d instructed him? I sent the whole lot for bait and you really took it. But then, you were desperate for answers.”

I bristled.

Why was the grip slipping from my hands?

If father had wanted me to get the sceptre…that meant he had leverage against me.

“I was punished, you see.” He startled me with a dark laugh. “Some called me blessed when Fader cursed me with immortality. Cursed me to live as long as them, to never die, to never love, to see the only one I ever loved chained and tortured.”

“For your own lies and selfishness.”

“We were in love,” he growled like this was all my fault somehow.

I rolled my eyes. “For a day.”