Page 79 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

I want to want death today a little less than yesterday and a lot more than tomorrow. And I can’t do that knowing the harbinger of my pain lives like they’ve never done me any harm. “My justice.”

Moriko didn’t say anything. I didn’t know if she understood me or not, but she didn’t criticise or question my reasons.

“I like her,” she said quietly. “More than like her.”

“You better. If you show her heart break, Mor, I will hunt you down and show you all the inner parts of yourself you’ve never seen. You would be surprised to see how tiny your kidneys are.”

“The warning. She said you would issue me one.” She turned to me. “You reckon we are moving too quickly? Nia says so.”

Took me a moment to blink the stagger off. “Are you asking me for advice? On your relationship? With the one I consider closer than a sister?”

“No one would answer me. Servants were too afraid, and my council laughed. Women usually occupied my bed, not my heart. This is an odd place for me to be in.”

“Good night, Mor.”

Her distressed sighs made me giggle.

The room was dark when I pushed myself inside. I was as blind as a mole-rat in it. “I can’t see,” I whispered.

Suddenly the room seemed to illuminate, not from light but from lack of darkness. Kilian pushed his battered body up and pointed to the other side of the bed. “Come here.”

Shedding the robe, I climbed on my side of the bed, but instead of laying back down, he wrapped a hand around my waist and pulled me onto his embrace.

I froze, my whole body seizing as his hot flesh met my cold one. “What are you doing?”

His face dropped to the crook of my neck and I erupted in shivers at the feel of his hot breath fanning my skin. My heart was drumming against my chest bone so hard it was making me dizzy. “Sleep.”

“Let go of me and perhaps I will.”

“No.”

I spun round fast. “No?”

He winced and groaned from the friction of my body over his wounds.

I shot up. “Oh, gods. I’m—” Sorry.

His hand went to cover my mouth. “Don’t.” After a moment, he stretched fully onto his back. “Come here.”

Did the Hanaian healers drug him that much? “No.”

He cocked a brow up at me and blinked drowsily at me. “No?”

“No, Henrik.”

A bright, tired smile crossed his stark face. Gods, I wanted to eat him alive. “Henrik? No one calls me that but a few old bags from the council.”

I laid back down. “It’s the name you signed my mother’s death with.” Henrik Castemont II, King of Adriata. How many times I played that name in my head over and over, memorising every turn of his pen on the paper.

His face dropped, and he blinked at the ceiling languidly. “Yes. Yes, it is.”

“What are you not telling me?” I asked, reaching close to him, my face hovering over his, my hair spilling over his shoulder. The way he looked at me had my mouth go dry.

He entwined a hand through my hair and cupped the back of my neck, drawing circles with his thumb over my skin. I didn't move. I don’t know why I didn’t move. “That I love you. I love you, Snowlin Castemont.”

Seven sweet, hot hells, the way my heart chased to catch its pulse. What was he doing to me? “Skygard. Snowlin Skygard”

“Castemont. That is our surname.” He leaned a bit closer and whispered as if someone was listening. “It’s in the marriage certificate. I have it on my shelf. Snowlin Castemont.”