Page 237 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

Distracted by my anger, Mal lowered his mouth to my mooncake and took one massive bite. “Testing for poison,” he said, chewing. “No poison.”

My mooncake remained a crescent moon. “I will kill you.”

“Sure,” he said, throwing an arm over my shoulder. “Let me know when, I’ll wash my hair first.”

I took a bite of my crescent cake. “Fear me, Mal.”

He fashioned a bow. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

People ushered in the streets, peeking their heads from all over to take a glance at me. I waited for the panic to strike, for my vision to blur with shadows, but neither came. I breathed out a long exhale, looking around the little glassy shops filled with all sorts of colourful tokens and trinkets. Moons, stars—so many of them.

Torches lit all around, casting the light that sunset was robbing. It gave the city a haze that made it look entirely too dream-like.

“They never light the torches.”

My attention swivelled to him.

He pointed his head to the elderly climbing ladders to the tall torches. “They are lighting them for you, so you can see.”

For me?

Stopping before a little shop painted violet and white, Mal waved to a short, stubbly old man who sauntered to us. “Prince Malik.” He eyed me and then bowed. “My queen. How are you finding our little city?”

Were Adriatians trying to make small talk with me? “Not little by any means.” My feet were aching. The fool hadn’t warned me how steep the streets were. I rarely walked anywhere.

“I suppose when you never leave it, it does become little.”

My eyes fell to the little artisanal hair clips made of sparkling little yellow gems and copper metal that were laid all over the shop and his working space.

He lifted a thin clip dangling with copper chains that had little crescent moons and yellow stones at the bottom. “Women and a few men who have taste wear them on the summer equinox, the day our moon is the brightest and closest to our realm—Dolunay. Our goddess removed her own clip and gifted it to a little girl during the first Dolunay. My ancestors have been making these ever since for people to exchange them with their loved ones.”

My smile died a little. Summer equinox. Would we still be at these odds till then? Would Adriata be my ally till then? Or would my revenge have resumed by that time?

“A gift for you, for your first Dolunay in Adriata, to exchange it with your loved one. It is nothing of much worth but please accept it,” he said, reaching for my hand and handing me the clip.

I took off one of my earrings. “I keep no coin with me.”

The man looked offended. “It was a gift, my queen.”

“Thank you, Pietro,” Mal said, taking the clip and sticking it in my hair. “This is my mother’s favourite shop. You’ll give her a bad face with the merchant.”

“Why don’t they hate me, Mal?” The question was out before I could stop it. “They either hide it well or are terrified of me. But his heartbeat was calm and he didn’t have that look on his face. The same one…the same one from back then.”

He stopped fiddling with the clip. “The issue with my people is that the minority spewed hate but the majority never attempted to squash it. Their biggest fault and guilt they bear is that they never did anything. Not hating you, Snow.”

“Pietro, I am taking three others. Put them on my brother’s tab,” Mal called to the shop owner, picking three more clips. He lifted the delicate things before my face. “Would little Skygard, Nia and mother like these?”

After finishing the rest of my dessert, we walked the shores of Sidra, my feet meeting sand for the first time and it amazed me. So warm, so friable, so satisfying. Why were people buried in rocks and soil when this existed?

Mal put his massive naked foot on mine, stopping me from digging my toes in sand again. “You can only do it enough hundreds of times and it will still feel the same.” He looked ahead at the fading sunset and stars glazing the russet sky all over. “We should have brought Thora, it rained when we went to Lyra.”

“She trusts you,” I said, squinting toward the apricot sunset.

“I trust her.”

I blinked. “Why?”

“I don’t know why or how or when it became so but it is so. I told her my darkest secret and she told me about hers. After that it became addicting, and I told her all of them. Thora Isa Skygard owns every and each of my darkest secrets. If someone can bring me down, it would be her.”