Page 52 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

Before I could bite out a remark, he pushed the door handle behind me open and I almost back rolled inside the room.

A rectangle half black and half white table took most of the grandiose expanse, the lilac coloured space was bright from the light filtering through the massive windows framing the walls.

Moon and Night court. And I was part of it now.

One by one, the dozen and something councillors, priests and presumably scholars, stood and bowed in holy greeting. Some young, some familiar, some odd, but there was only one face I dreaded seeing sitting on that table. Nesrin.

Kilian ghosted a hand on the small of my back, not touching me, and leaned to my ear to whisper, “I believe you and I have made Nia the same promise.”

You will not hurt her. The one I regretted every single day and the same one I knew very well I’d break. Promises were feeble things and there were so many ways around them.

Kilian directed the two of us to the head of the massive table. Once we were seated, the rest followed suit.

Memphis slithered under the table and curled in my lap.

“Gods!” someone jumped up when my morph hissed leisurely at my petting.

“You think a little bite of hers will hurt you when I sit here?” The looks they gave me were hilarious.

Memphis raised her head all offended. Little bite? The hiss echoed in my head making me chuckle.

“Is this how it begins? A threat here and a threat there till we wait for you to exterminate us?” Nesrin huffed, crossing her arms. “Have you not had your revenge? Kidnapping the council and all.”

“Nesrin,” Larg warned, and I raised a hand at the old man, stopping him.

“Let her finish, Larg.”

Nesrin’s face twisted, and I hated how much of Nia was in there too. “Let's say it was fair of you to do what you did, but what have the rest of the innocent Adriatians done to you?”

Funny, weren’t they. “I simply operate on an egalitarian basis, dearest. Discrimination is not my sort of thing.” I leaned forward and gave her a polite smile. “You pull weed by the roots. Cut it, and dozens more grow. Look at you. Already your father’s daughter. How many more weeds like you must there be, hm?”

With a sigh, I leaned back and met everyone’s stare. By everyone, I meant the only three who were actually looking at me and not at the table or a wall. “Anyone wishes to get anything off their chests? I’m quite enjoying this heart to heart.” I waited a minute and then braced myself for pain. “Well, I’ll go first to break the ice. One pretty sunny day, I will kill you all. Your mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers, your younglings, your elderly and if I am in the mood, perhaps I’ll chase you in the Otherworld, too, to make sure even your souls suffer. I like a bit of irony with my fairy tales. I won’t rise from any type of ash, but I will certainly make them. Till the glorious day when I’ve turned you and your memory to lovely dust, you all will have the honour of being in my presence.” The seal of the bargain in my hand burned, my skin felt as if it was being fried over oil when I spoke the words that broke part of the oath I’d given.

Some flinched, some gaped and every gaze in the room went to Kilian. Yet the man remained quiet, leaning back in his chair with a smirk on his face.

“No heart to heart, my queen,” Larg said with some humour. “But I do have something of interest in hand.” He unwrapped a silk black cloth and placed an emerald quartz stone on the table. Identical to the very same ones Moriko had given me, except there was another circle of much smaller runes around it.

Immediately, I grabbed it and threw it hard to the nearest wall, shattering it to pieces. My breaths were ragged and hard. My hand burned and when I peeled my glove off and there was not an inch of skin uncovered by black tattoos. Melanthe’s mint magic scent filtered the air along with something else—something older and more potent. The witch was cunning as hells. “Where did you find that?”

Larg’s stare was wide and confused. “Nesrin found it in one of her patrols this morning. Near the gates.”

I was dumbfounded at best. “And you just brought it in?”

“It is safe, Your Majesty,” a young councillor next to Nesrin said with a mordant expression like I was an idiot. “Whatever the magic was, the Highwall veil would have nullified it. Your Crafter put it back, didn’t she?”

A dark chuckle left me when my seal began cracking and tearing. “You dumb little—”

Kilian grabbed my hand to inspect the dark lines. “What is the matter, my love?”

Well, all attention snapped to him at that moment. Bet he’d called me that on purpose. Everything was a little calculated trick of his.

“That was a tracing craft. For the sceptre. Moriko met me back in Arynth and showed me similar ones she’d found. Larg,” I said, turning to the general. “How long have you had that stone beyond the wall and the alaar?” The whole purpose of the Ianuris agreement was to find a way inside Adriata—to plant trace craft and find their sceptre piece. When Moriko gave me the tracing craft stones that she’d found scattered around Numengarth, I’d suspected that Aryan had planted many around Adriata after breaching through the agreement. But when Visha repaired the Highwall veil back, their magic nullified behind the barrier. It was step one for father and Melanthe. However, if Melanthe was truly getting stronger, who would say that she wouldn’t be able to use her craft beyond the veil?”

“An hour or so,” he said with worry.

A loud boom shook the ground beneath us, and from the large windows you could see the black fire beyond the Amaris lines.

Everyone shot to their feet, unsheathing weapons and barking orders.