Page 53 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

“Sit,” Kilian ordered calmly, and everyone quieted down, returning to their seats as if chaos wasn't ensuing outside. “Sound the emergency bells, my people will know to retreat inside their homes. Whoever is hovering about, hold them.” He turned to his brother. “Send out the whole Eldritch unit to read for the intruders. We will search the city. Larg, Triad, both of you mark and guard every temple in Amaris. If anyone reaches even a mile close, signal and do not hold back. This is an order of first kill.”

The Adriatian council faded out one after the other and Kilian stood, unbuttoning his jacket and folding it neatly on the chair before he offered me a hand. “I’ll take you to Taren.”

“The hells you are. I’m staying.”

He raised a brow and dropped his attention to my dress before nodding. “If that is what you wish.”

He faded the two of us right in the middle of a narrow street filled with blazing white painted houses and dressed in all sorts of climbing colourful plants.

Grabbing my hand, he laced our fingers together. “Don’t let go of me for any reason.”

“Scared your rotten ilk will trip and stab themselves on my dagger?” I asked as he stirred us into the maze-like streets of Amaris.

“You’ll get lost, dahaara.”

We pushed through a panicked crowd of people rushing opposite us and away from a blast. Some sort of fiery orb shot from the sky in our direction and crawling shadows shot out of Kilian, causing the orb to crash against it and splinter in the sky.

From the corner of my eye, I caught a second one aiming for us, and I shot my hands up, forming a layer of ice over all of us, shielding all of the people underneath it.

Everyone stopped in their tracks, looking at me like I was something in a museum. The idiots. “Go, run!”

Hesitantly, all of them backed away and cleared the area of the attack that had charred black on all corners.

Kilian lowered to the ground, picking up some of the soot between his fingers, his brows pinching. “Craft.”

There were several other booms scattered around the city and two more just near us. Grand grey mushrooms of smoke soared from behind lines of buildings. This was either a distraction or whoever had organised this attack didn’t exactly know what they were searching for.

I bent down and tore the sides of my dress. “Go to the other, I’ll go to this one.”

“No.”

“Yes,” I said, backing away.

Very reluctantly, he jogged away from me and toward the blast of black smoke gushing in the separate direction I was going.

Chaos poured from where the blast had occurred, the whole air was grey with soot and smoke while the fire burned a three-floor white building. Bodies ran in clusters, attempting to escape, and dead soldiers littered the stony grounds. An old woman clutched a small child in her arms, stumbling and falling from the bodies brushing past her. Feet crushed her bony hands while she tried to shield the little girl, and I shot toward her.

Grabbing the little girl from her arms into mine, I held out my hand to her. “Come on.”

Pushing the two safely under a stall table hidden in an alleyway, I bent down to them and said, “Don’t make a sound.”

The older woman nodded, clutching the little child in her arms.

Rushing back to the location of the attack, I searched all the alleys close by till an enormous mauve building rose into sight. There were Darsan inscriptions on the entrance alcove, none I could understand, but from what I could tell, it looked like a city hall or a library.

There were signs of struggle outside, several dead Adriatian soldiers laid over the small steps leading inside of it.

Unsheathing my daggers, I climbed up past them and entered what seemed to be a library. The air was sizzling with something so vile it had the hair on my neck raise from alert. A sort of magic that Crafters usually emitted—it was like the rattle of a snake before they bit you, a warning. Something else was strange, too. The tall shelves ahead were all made of a deep grey almost black metal and all the books were all encased inside fitted boxes of the same metal, and chained to the shelves, all locked. Not only with latches, but with magic as well. I could practically feel the thin layer of craft over them touch my fingertips.

There were no windows and no torches, and it didn’t take me long to trip over something and fall to the ground. That something was soft, half warm and wet. A dead body. Lovely. My fingers grazed the wound and I stilled. Several deep dents were on his flesh. Fangs?

Electricity skittered from my hand in an attempt to illuminate my surroundings and I caught a shadow moving to my left between the book space. There was no time for me to chase after it as a three feet tall, massive dog-like creature with sharp canines skidded into sight, growling and barking before launching in the air towards me. A damned Canes. When it reached close to me, I had to blink another take. Its fur had an odd red sheen and the usually black signature eyes all Canes had were red and rabid.

Thankfully, the shelf corridors were wide enough for me to spin in place to avoid the blow, and the thing landed where I previously stood.

It turned to me again, launching in the air, and I ran and slid on my knees under it, embedding a sharp shard of ice in its stomach. The beast landed on the floor, whimpering and writhing till it died. A second one jumped over the tall shelves aiming for me, freezing in the air at my command and landing on the tiled floor with a loud thud.

The floor beneath me had splintered. “That’s a waste of pretty tiles.”