Page 55 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

“Looks like she chewed you before giving you to me.” I laughed a bit as I secured the quaint thing in my corset and then shook my head to reality. I was losing my mind.

Amaris was a white and lilac blinding maze. Everything was so linear and similar. Could have sworn that even the cobbled streets were counted in a way that the rocks laid in an identical pattern all over. I might have taken a round trip and not known. By the third alley, I started noting the shops in hopes of finding a way out of the maze.

Just when I thought I might have reached my destination, shadowy forms rose from above and around me, making me halt. Clad in black leathers and armed in the stygian steel, Adriatian soldiers poured out of Amaris alleys, their faces shielded behind a mask and hood as they advanced towards me. Each pulse I counted in the air was furial—not with fear but with anger. As long as that prophecy existed, so did their monster.

“Get her,” one called loudly. “Alive or not, I don’t care.”

The exact words from that night repeating thirteen years later. And flashes of memory chose the wrong time to surface and hold the air in my lungs hostage.

Breathe.

Haziness blurred the figures ahead as I tried to focus, tried not to shiver and crumble back to the helpless eleven year old.

Breathe.

To say that I had not expected this would be a lie. But not the bravery. Thought they would find the easy route and poison me. I did, however, pity our surroundings. The houses were so white and neat to be painted red and dirty.

“Skewered?” I asked, tilting my head to the side. “Or iced?” At my words, clouds of frost spilled from my fingertips, filling the air with white fog and coldness.

Hundreds of ice shards rose from the ground at my command, but the men were quick. Jumping and running in my direction, a black blade on their hand. The look of the steel didn't bother me much anymore. What did, however, was the thought that I might be cut by it again.

They faded rapidly all around me, looking like they were multiplying by the second and attempting to keep up with the movement made me terribly dizzy.

Electricity skittered from my fingers, shooting forward, and many were caught in the blinding bolts. Fading was quick, but lightning was quicker. Immediately, the smell of burned flesh filled the air along with the side dish of screaming.

Shadows around me elongated, slithering over the ground and climbing the house walls till they rose like towering monsters of my many nightmares.

An arrow pierced the electric filled summer air. And distracted by the drown of memory, I almost let it hit me, passing close enough to graze the side of my temple.

Sweat coated my brow. More from frustration than fear. I was power. I was not afraid. Why had my breathing become ragged and my pulse mad?

Mimicking my fury, the air charged heavily and rock, grime and all sorts lifted in the air while the ground crawled with ice.

“Touch her, now!” someone shouted, and a man faded directly in front of me.

Quicker than lightning, I bolted right beside him, my dagger slashing through hard flesh and bone before the man dropped to the floor, burnt to a crisp. I lifted the arm I’d cut off from the man and chucked it to their feet. “With what hand?” I hated how my voice trembled, I hated how I had to trap a sob in my throat.

And before I could let my storm take over, before I could let my rage take flight and protect me, the blue skies suddenly dimmed, slowly coating with crawling darkness, and the men around me froze in place, some screaming and others clawing their throats unable to breathe.

Kilian came into sight, a sword in his hand, his shoulders raising at a scary slow pace that matched his hard breathing. A trail of icy black fire lit with each step he took between the crowd of men. He slashed his sword through a head. And then another and few many others along the way he made to me. The cobbled streets coated crimson, each gap forming a stream of the thick liquid.

He killed for me. He’d killed for me before, to protect his agreement. But this time, he’d done it for me. And I hated it.

The closer he came, the more I could see the man that I had not seen in Isjord. A shiver raked through me, and I faltered a step back and then another. And before I knew it, I was walking backwards and away from him.

There was a look in his face, something between torture and pain, something that had made his beautiful face twist with regret. He stopped moving and reached a hand to me in the distance, almost begging. “Love, come to me.”

Ice and lightning fluttered around me again, preparing for fight.

Breathe.

For a moment, I was almost afraid…almost. Until I felt his unusual warmth linger in the air and brushing past my skin, until his eyes flashed back to silver and the scent of lemon blossoms lingered in my air.

Night turned back to blue day, peeling my surroundings from grey darkness. And I was awake.

He dropped his sword and slowly, ever so slow, walked to me, watching my every reaction till he stood barely an arm’s length away. He towered over me, his hands ghosting over my face. He was covered in soot, blood and sweat and breathed hard. “Hurt anywhere?”

I scowled. “Are you trying to offend me?”