Page 62 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

“One moment,” I said to Nia and then chased my brother down the tower exit.

I didn’t move for a second, standing at the top of the staircase, watching my brother slowly make his way to the stables. Grim shadows of pain, exhaust and distress weighting over his shoulders. He had been hiding them from me after all. And I’d been an even bigger idiot to not have not worried enough to figure out why.

He struggled to untie the reins from the hitching post, and I faded to his side, undoing them for him. “Forgive me, brother.”

With a shaking hand he reached and grabbed the reins from me. “I am not your fault, Kil. Only my own.”

I clasped his shoulder and turned him to me, his expression was hooded with sleeplessness. “Tell me how to help.”

He shook his head and plastered a grin that did not match all the sombre state of his stare that usually was as vibrant as early autumn. “Keep financing that room I use in Meadow Inn and lovely Selia’s services on me, and you can still hold that best brother trophy I made you out of father’s pens when I was six.”

“Sleep at home, Mal.”

“I’d rather not,” he said, patting my shoulder and mounting his horse.

“Driada needs you.”

“Never been needed much before, and she has you.”

“You are her son.”

“You’ve been that to her more than I have ever.” With that, he rode away.

Nia’s steps trickled down the stairs. “Is something the matter?”

“I don’t know, Nia. I don’t think I know.”

Taren was gloomier than usual. Something sinister lingered in the air. Thunder outside almost seemed to touch land. Lightning blared so close it might as well have hit the castle.

I halted when my foot touched a thick splatter of blood on the ground. A trail of the crimson fluid started from one end of the corridor to the other, streaming over the black and white marble floor.

“Is it her?” I asked Nia who seemed equally as stunned as I.

She looked out one of the glassless round windows. “Yes. She’s been in a mood for a couple of days now. She won’t speak to anyone except Cai when they’ve gone for a run through Soren Forest.”

Since the day of the attack on Amaris, to be exact. She was back to running again. Back to seeing her nightmares come alive.

Nia jerkily glimpsed around the corridors—afraid. Afraid of Snow.

The torches flared and put off, enshrouding the area in some darkness. A scratching sound came in our direction. Like the tip of a blade brushing against the glassy wall of the castle. Time coated in an odd eeriness and cold. Our breaths misting in the air.

“Come now, little mouse,” Snow’s light voice crooned, coming in our direction.

Lightning hit the ground close to us, the corridor illuminated and her shadowy form fluttered into sight. Splatters of red marred her face, the red thick liquid had coated her arms elbow deep. She dragged the tip of her dagger along the wall making that screeching sound that itched a bad part of my brain. “Mousy mouse, where are you?”

She came to a stop when she noticed us. Her head cocked to the side, studying Nia and I. I almost didn’t recognise her. No, I almost didn’t recognise that stare. Cold. Dull. Dead. “Have you seen a little rat come this way by any chance?”

When we didn’t answer, she moved again, still tracing the tip of her dagger along the wall. This time she hummed something. Something familiar. “Little mouse can’t escape me,” she sing-songed loudly and it echoed along the corridor. “Little mouse should come out. Little mice should behave. Little mice shouldn’t run away.”

Nia stepped forward and then retracted back a step again, almost cautiously. “Snow, leave it. I will send a guard to chase whoever you are looking for.”

Snow gave her a menacing grin. “I let her out.” Her cackle reverberated along the tall corridors when she took in our stunned reactions. “Never played hide and seek before?”

“Enough,” I ordered, and Snow stopped.

Slowly, she turned to me, glaring at me through a hooded dull stare. “I haven’t had enough.” Faster than I could catch it, she shot a hand forward, a bolt of lightning flashed out of her and landed behind me. The packed magic was so controlled and precise it almost stunned me. “There you are.”

My aunt stood at the far end of the corridor, covered in blood and grime, limbs shaking with fear and eyes wide, half wild and mad.