Page 67 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

Olympia was dark at night, darker than Adriata. The blue light torches did nothing to illuminate the room, only vacuumed the place deeper in that enshrouding darkness. And I wondered if she hated that? If it bothered her. If she’d ever been afraid in her own home—all because of the dark I’d shown her.

Her eyes drooped, full of sleep. When her soft sleepy sighs filled the empty silence, I stood and kneeled before her, picking her body in my arms and fading us to Adriata. Once I'd made her comfortable on our bed, I went to take a bath. The cold water soothed all aches of my muscles, and the creeping dark around me soothed parts of my mind. The quieter, the emptier, the more alone I was, the calmer my magic became. If I felt too strongly it became hard to control. A beast that fed from the strength of my emotions. I’d learnt to tame them by feeling less or not at all.

I had only dried off and pulled my trousers on when cries filtered into the bathing chambers. I’d never ran faster before.

Snow had buried her head in the pillows, her body convulsing and shaking, her hands gripping and tearing the sheets as she struggled in her dreams. Her sobs tore me. Her pleas ripped me apart. Her tears—gods, her tears.

The whole air charged with electricity. The more she struggled in her nightmares, the more build-up of magic solidified—till it became skitters of lightning.

I picked her in my lap, swaying the two of us. My skin burned and tore from the touch of her magic, but I held her tight against me. “Hey, I am here. I am here.”

“It burns,” she whispered through sobs. “It burns so much.” She reached a hand to her back, digging her nails hard on the skin, over her many scars. “Please, please stop.”

I blew cold air over her back and smoothed a palm over her scars, and soon she calmed in my hold. “It won’t burn anymore. I’ve got you. It won’t burn anymore.”

Her fingers clung to my shirt tightly, slowly her cries died off and she hiccupped and sniffled as I ran my fingers through her face. “Shh. I’m here.” Slowly, her magic quelled and I rested my forehead on hers. She was so near me yet so far. “You’re breaking my heart, love of mine.”

Was this how it always was for her when she shut her eyes? Was this why she never slept? Why she refused to shut her eyes when she laid next to me?

“I am sorry, I am so sorry,” I murmured, hugging her tight to me as I laid us both back down on the bed. “I am so sorry.”

She was in my arms again when there was all reason for her not to be.

Chapter ten

Inimicus

Snowlin

The yawn almost tore my jaw. Surprisingly, I felt well rested and relaxed. For a moment I almost rejoiced. Till it clicked that I had fallen asleep and not woken from nightmares all night. What in the hells? In Adriata at that. Right next to my living nightmare.

Sun. Blue skies. Shit. I‘d slept through dawn.

The bed next to me was empty and I still wore the dress from yesterday, but all the jewellery was gone and piled on the bed side table. When did I take those off?

Quickly, I shovelled them up and headed for the doors.

“Don’t leave,” Kilian said. Sat back on his table, he flipped through a pile ton of documents in deep concentration. His hair was wet and the shirt he wore clung to his muscled body. “There is something I need to discuss with you first.”

“Discuss it then,” I said, facing the windows attempting to clasp my necklaces back on with the help of the faint reflection.

He stood and reached close behind me, taking the clasps from my hands, my fingers brushing his for a moment—only a small and simple moment but my chest swelled painfully from the hard breath I took. Gently, he lifted my hair, piling the stands over my shoulder before fixing the necklace to sit straight on me. I bit on my lip to trap a gasp when he ran his fingers down the nape of my neck, ever so softly. The only man who touched me like he could break me. Perhaps he knew that.

“How did I take them off?”

“I took them off, you fell asleep with them on,” he said, trailing a sole finger down my exposed spine and I breathed out a long sigh just to free my chest from the suffocation of what was bubbling inside of me.

I’d missed it. I’d missed that touch. Maybe…maybe if I shut my eyes, I wouldn’t feel betrayal against all I believed in. My voice was airy as I asked, “Why did you not wake me?”

I felt him take a step closer to me, his warm breath touched my temple and I shivered. “Why would I wake you? You were sleeping so peacefully.” He rested his forehead on the side of my head, trailing a hand up my arm to warm the shivers inching over my skin.

For a second, only for a split second, he was the guard in Isjord. Not the man who had taken everything away from me.

“Open your eyes, Snow.”

And when I did, reality crashed over me and I flinched hard.

He moved away from me and my body gradually grew cold again. “Visha came to see me a couple of days ago and she agreed to what I proposed. I’ve gathered a team to search for your siblings,” he said. “They will need to meet up with Visha and decide with you how they will collect your siblings’ essence to place the trace craft.”