Page 72 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

He grabbed my face with his bloodied hands, and I shivered. “It was not your mother, you little daft thing. Only an Eldmoorian whore from Ulv Islet prison who used to scam men to their deaths with this little trick of hers.”

Shifter elixir. I’d heard of those before. It masked one’s appearance to look like another. “Uncle,” I said quietly.

His mouth twisted in a sneer. “What?”

“One day—”

“One day I will have your head on a pike and play with the caterpillar that will eat out your brains,” I finished the sentence as the memory flared away, and I returned back to my body. It had stopped. The memory had stopped but the bitter taste of it made me reach a hand to my stomach as if the flesh there would be sore as it once had been.

Someone shook me. “Kid?”

Alaric’s scarred face sharpened, and he stood in front of me. “What—” A hand went to my throat. It hurt and burned as if I had been screaming.

He ran a hand through my hair and pursed his lips. “Why do you do that to poor old me, kid? Scaring me to death would not be a good idea. It would scare me to actual death.”

“What are you doing here?” I looked around to make sure I’ve not sleepwalked to Kvan, only to face him.

He stood there, arms crossed, and his brows pulled in a scowl, staring down at me with those cold eyes that made me shiver. Anger was a strange look on him, the way his face morphed into gelid sternness reminded me who I was looking at. The Obscur Asteri, not Kilian.

“Why is he here?”

Alaric turned to him. “Thank you for getting me, son.”

Confused, I rose to my knees. “Get you?”

My guardian took the lilac liquid flask Visha had given me and chucked it into the fireplace, sparks of lilac fluttering in the room. “Whatever you took alerted the bargain you made with him. He tried to wake you but couldn’t.”

A knock rasped at the door and Penelope peeked her head in before letting Visha through.

She hadn’t even properly bowed at me when Kilian said, “I will kill you, Visha Delcour. I will kill you a forever death.”

Little specks of shadows materialised in his air to form a shadowy mass around his body, and I jerked a little. When he caught that little movement, his face turned into a mirror of ice and all traces of his magic vanished in a matter of seconds.

Visha didn’t even blink at the threat. “The instructions were clear. It is not in my power to dictate how she chose to proceed.”

“It is Snow we are talking about,” Kilian growled, and the torches blew off leaving the fireplace alone to serve as a source of light. “You should have made sure she was with someone, maybe even stayed there before giving her the elixir.”

“I’m not a child, Your Majesty,” I protested, standing to my feet.

He pointed a finger in threat and all shadows in the room shivered and disappeared as if they were afraid. “You don’t even get to speak anymore, Snowlin.”

“Excuse me?”

“Heard me right, you damned brat. Scared Alaric half to death, fully scared me to mine.” He pointed that accusatory finger back at Visha. “Let her do something like that again and I swear it to you, Visha, I will deliver you to your mother in pieces.”

She winced. My Crafter winced.

Alaric stood, wiped a sleeve to his eyes and patted Kilian's arm. “You seem to be better at this telling off thing than me, son. I’ll leave it to you.”

Visha bowed and left with Alaric, yet the air felt even heavier—denser.

Kilian crossed his arms and steeled a hard glare on me. “Do you ever think about them? Alaric, Nia, Cai, your kingdom? Do you ever think of anything when you decide to be reckless?” he asked with quiet menace.

“We’d left this caring attitude back in Isjord, darling.”

“Answer me.”

“I don’t think I want to.”