Page 76 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

Her eyes widened with absurdity. “No. No, the Ater monsters were somewhat human looking. Whatever that was, it wasn’t human.” Moriko ran a hand through her hair. “Did they get it? Did they get our sceptre piece?”

Lost of energy, I nodded. “Why was it at a sacred site? The Isjordian piece was at a temple.”

She rubbed a palm to her eyes. “They threw us off. We had been circling and guarding every temple in our lands. We might have been looking at this the wrong way.”

Something was wrong. My chest contracted with pain and then the bargain band I had with Kilian began burning my skin. Dashing back through the Ryuu, I reached him. The injured idiot stood on shaky legs, holding a palm over the three slashes on his chest still gushing blood.

His skin had turned an ashy white, blood pooled and dripped all around his body and fear curled every fibre of my being as I began unbuttoning his jacket and shirt to inspect the wound.

He looked at me with a goodbye in his stare. Men were so dramatic. “Enough with that.” My fingers fumbled with his clothing, trembling like the flutter of a hummingbird.

“This is a bit too public for my taste, but whatever you like,” he teased.

I scoffed in disbelief that he could actually joke around with me anymore, especially in the situation we were in. The sight of his gnarly wounds drew a loud gasp from me. I lifted a shaking palm to his upper wound and placed a light coat of hoar frost around the flesh. Barely managing to move my trembling hand down I did the same to the other wounds.

He grabbed my wrist, pulling my gaze to his worried one. “You are shaking, did you use too much of your magic?”

I had barely used a small fraction that I was still able to use from my seal, but I gave him a nod. If I told him the truth—

He wheezed, almost as if out of breath and a sob clawed up my throat at the sight of his wounds. “It is dirty now,” I rambled, and he looked at me again. “Salt, I think. It gets blood out of any cloth. I don’t know about the cuts…maybe Driada could fix it. Was it a favourite of yours?” From the way the band of black ink was throbbing in pain, I could feel life seeping from him. The frost had sealed his wound and the surrounding skin, but it would only keep him from bleeding out.

A small smile twitched on his lips. “Your nonsense is my guilty pleasure.”

Suddenly Moriko was at my side, pushing my frozen state back while she and others surrounded Kilian, putting a mix of leaves and salves over his wound.

“Moriko Uzumi, we finally meet again,” Kilian breathed.

The Autumn Queen shook her head. “Save you greetings when you’re not bleeding all over my land. Contrary to popular belief, I only feed blood to the soil of my roses.”

“Hm,” Kilian said, his eyelids fluttering open and shut from blood loss. “Might take that advice into consideration.”

The time between Kilian’s bleeding sight and now had passed with a blur, barely remembering how I got into the chamomile infused bath that the Hanaian palace servant had drawn from me. The water was more or less icy by the time I forced out of it and paddled onto the wooden floored room I was to spend my night in. Delicate paintings of cherry blossom branches stood against the teal-coloured paper walls and a fragrant sandalwood incense burned at a window corner overlooking a lily pond at the centre of the palace. Hanai was something of a dream. When the painted lanterns lit to create light that the orange-purple infused dusk stole, I decided that perhaps I was in a dream.

A soft rasp against the door drew my attention. A servant girl peaked inside, bowing gently at the waist, she gave me a smile and spoke in Kemeri, “Dinner is ready. Are you to join our queen?”

“Will she have my head if I don’t?”

She giggled behind a polite hand. “She is usually reluctant to go for such a difficult limb. Fingers are her favourite.”

Cracking a smile, I picked up a robe dress someone had left for me and pulled it on. “This is why me and Mor get along so well.”

Stepping inside the room, she reached for my damp hair and untucked them from the inside of the robe, and then grabbed the two ties that kept slipping off between my still trembling hands to tie them behind me. “He is at the dinner table—your husband,” she said with a small voice before backing out of the room.

My husband. Still alive.

Lacing my fingers to hide the shake, I headed toward the dining chambers. The palace was a maze on itself—a colourful maze of scents, art and grace.

Light chatter trickled along the corridor. His voice felt like a memory, a making of my mind. But his sight reminded me that I was not being tricked into insanity. Paler than usual but still deadly beautiful, he made my heart race all over again, as it had done so many times back in Isjord. He wore a thin white linen shirt through which I could see all the heavy bandages wrapped all over his front.

I didn’t make a sound, yet he spun to me before I’d even entered the room. He watched me all the way to my seat, his eyes never leaving mine. “It is one of many, my love. This is the last we will allow him to have.”

I blinked confused. “What?”

He raised a brow. “The sceptre piece.”

“Oh.” Clearing my throat, I sat on the low table, folding my legs to accommodate my aching bottom on the soft cushion. “Yes, he won’t be able to get the rest.”

After a reluctant nod, he dove back into conversation with the Autumn Queen and I tried to push some food down my starved body. A touch of a familiar scent pulled my attention to the centre of the dark wooden table. A small tree branch rested in a colourful vase, few white buds sprouting from it.