A Chill in the Flame (Villains #1)

One

One

Now

She’d never enjoyed being cold and would prefer not to die shivering.

Sea spray had flecked Ophir’s face for so many years. She gazed across the salty water, paying special attention to the silver moon rippling on its surface, as she wondered if there was someone on the shores of the Etal Isles staring back at her. She’d always wanted to visit the Isles. It was one of the many things she’d hoped to do. There were so many foods and drinks she’d wanted to taste. Mouths she’d wanted to kiss. Lives she’d wanted to live. They didn’t matter now.

She abandoned the shore and stepped into the blood-dark waters. The warm, night-black liquid sent her spiraling into visions of gore once more. She flinched against the onslaught of clanging metal, of lifeless eyes, of pushing and screams and the horrors that led her to this moment. Her hands were clean now, but she looked upon her thin, pale fingers in the moonlight and was only able to see the crimson-stained memories of her failure.

She wouldn’t have to withstand it much longer.

The goddess must have approved of Ophir’s plan, for no one stopped her that night. She eyed the diamond-bright stars and guessed the time at just past the four o’clock bell, which explained why Aubade was so quiet. It was too late for drunkards and too early for bakers. This was the only hour when even a princess could wander barefoot in a flimsy, cotton shift through the castle.

It was time.

Ophir waded into the waves and frowned as water saturated the dress’s thin material. The clinging fabric was unpleasant. She balled the shift in her fists and pulled it over her head to stand bare beneath the crescent moon. Her nakedness felt appropriate, as if it were the last thing to declare that she had nothing to live for, and nothing to lose.

Another step and the waves licked her calves. One more and they were at her knees. Ophir wondered how far the sand would stretch before it fell off into the ocean below. Perhaps it was an answer she should have known, but the king and queen had never allowed her to wander more than a few arms’ lengths into the sea. Fae could live splendidly long lives if they weren’t cut short by a riptide, or something as stupid as trusting a man.

Men . Ophir’s lip twitched in a thinly controlled sneer as the poisonous word touched her.

Her sister, Caris, had known how to swim but knew little of men. Ophir, on the other hand, considered herself an expert in the rougher sex, but when it came to the water, she’d managed a few basic lessons before deciding the sea was best left for merfolk and sailors. If the sisters wanted to see the ocean, they could sit on a pleasure boat with other members of high society and sip mulled wine while an aged captain told tales of the high seas. It was the safest way to dabble with either danger.

Such caution was useless to either of them now.

Caris, delicate and fair, was a flower snipped before it could fully blossom. Where Caris was soft, Ophir was rough. Where Caris was the selfless humanitarian, Ophir took life for a ride. Caris’s eyes sparkled blue like springtime rain, her cheeks bloomed rosy, her voice was a sweet song, her hair glimmered like sunlight. Ophir had inherited the hardness of her father’s crown-gilded eyes, the subdued plainness of her mother’s gold-brown hair, and a face that felt common in comparison with her sister’s angelic features.

Caris was the people’s princess. Their beacon. The hope of a kingdom.

She was Ophir’s better in every way, though she would have rebuked Ophir for thinking such.

Sorrow and rage turned sour in the pit of her belly as she pushed aside her final view of Caris—the sister who should have lived.

A piece of sea kelp brushed against Ophir’s leg, though she paid it no mind. Whether it be weeds or eels or fabled water wraiths, it didn’t matter. Warm, rhythmic saltwater swallowed her thighs, then her hips, then her navel, then her breasts. She kicked off the sandy bottom and relaxed onto her back. The steady pounding of waves against the cliffs became a dull thrum as she submerged her ears and looked up at the stars. The moon was traveling across the sky faster than she liked. In an hour or so, the castle would stir. By the time the attendants found her empty bed, it would be too late.

Ophir closed her eyes and let the current carry her. The waves’ nostalgic rocking returned her to infancy, as if in her final moments she might find comfort in her life ending just as it had begun. This was the last bassinet.

A blast of cold water enveloped her, and she knew she’d finally left the safety of the sandy bottom and drifted into open ocean. She frowned against the unpleasant chill. The waves became less like a cradle and more like an assault as they broke over her. Ophir sputtered out the water, gagging on the brine as she tried to remain on her back. Her eyes stung from the salt, but any attempt to rub them offset her balance. Another wave shoved her to the side, pushing her under the water.

“Fuck.” Ophir emerged from the black water and choked on the curse. Instinct took over as she struggled to tread the dark water, if only to keep her head above the waves.

Her panic tied itself to the cold. She didn’t want to die in discomfort. She was supposed to float off in peace.

Another briny wave attacked her eyes, ears, nose, and throat. It was a struggle to find her way to the surface as her hands and legs fought to call upon the muscle memory required of treading water, creating tired circles with her arms and legs.

“Goddess damn it,” she coughed as she struggled to orient herself.

There .

The castle was still almost completely dark, save for the distant twinkles of a few orange flames that marked its perimeters. She was so much farther from shore than she’d thought.

Something brushed her leg, and this time she wasn’t so sure it was kelp. An involuntary yelp tore from her belly, and the jolt required to bring her leg away from the unseen danger sent her beneath the waves once more.

No, no, no. Not like this. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

The desire to die clashed against her most primal urge: the need to survive. Instinct overpowered her as she attempted a breaststroke, but her weak arms were powerless. She whirled through her options in the blink of an eye as she put herself on her back once more and kicked toward shore but was quickly overturned by the rolling waves.

“Help,” came the weak, involuntary plea. Her nose and throat stung of salt and fish. She choked on her exhaustion as she remained pointed toward the shore, perhaps praying, perhaps calling to whatever flicker of fight rested dormant within her. “Please help me.”

She reached out, grasping for anything, but there was nothing to grab. There were no ropes, there were no rocks, there was no boat. She had chosen the time and the place specifically so that there would be no one around to witness her final moments.

Another wave took her under, and she knew with some certainty that she would not be resurfacing. She’d gotten what she wanted the moment she’d stopped wanting it. This was it. She was a fish in a net being dragged to the bottom as she thrashed and struggled. Ophir clawed for the surface but couldn’t tell up from down. The sky was as dark as the sea below. Her lungs burned as they begged her for air that would not come. Down, down, down she went. There was no white shift dress to create an angel of her sunken form. She was no princess. She was merely a pale girl in the murky depths—another victim of the sea.

Something bit into her skin, and she knew the sharks of the deep had arrived to pull her limb from limb. Teeth and claws dragged her deeper and she cried against the final insult, which gave the sea its opening to fill her lungs.

To her utter shock, it was not the ocean floor that she hit but the water’s surface as she breached, choking and gagging all the while. She tried to call for help, to banish the shark, to do something, but was shocked by a woman’s voice. She struggled to see what held her in its teeth, what had dragged her by its claws, but nothing made sense.

The voice spoke through grunts as it struggled to keep them afloat. “There you go, cough it up. I need you to hang on for a little while longer, okay?”

Ophir was quite certain she was hearing things. Surely, she had died and an angel was now escorting her to the All Mother. She was disappointed to learn the afterlife stank of seaweed and shellfish. Her body spasmed with each cough and began to thrash, rejecting the water that scalded her throat.

“Oh, no you don’t,” scolded the voice. Her voice was strained as she said, “Drowners always try to take someone down with them. Either you hold still, or I bind your damn arms.”

The goddess wasn’t as friendly as Ophir had imagined she’d be.

She tried to turn her head to see the shore but instead saw the pale flesh of a woman dragging her against the riptide. The woman’s hair was as black as the sea around it, plastered to her neck, shoulders, and any other bit that Ophir couldn’t see.

“Goddess damn you, hold still. Don’t make this harder.”

She wasn’t quite sure why she obeyed, but she did. Ophir succumbed to her back as she was dragged through the sea. The temperature changed again as they drew near to shore.

“Am I alive?” came Ophir’s hoarse question.

“Afraid so,” said the voice.

The stranger dragged her fully up the beach and onto the sand. Ophir coughed up the remnants of seawater swashing in her lungs, then blinked against the sting of salt in her eyes as she looked at the woman. Tiny rocks and broken shells bit into her cheek as she lay heavy against the sand. A wave licked around the parts of her that still dangled in the ocean, salt burning the tiny cuts that covered her naked body. It was fortunate that she had no use for emotions like shame, as she didn’t possess the energy to cover her nakedness even if she’d wanted to.

Her thoughts were as heavy as a lodestone. Perhaps she was delirious, for the only thing she could think to ask was, “Are you a mermaid?”

The woman stopped wringing out her hair and laughed. “Do you see a tail?”

Ophir tried to push herself up onto her elbows but was too weak. She had been treading water for too long. It took every drop of strength before she was finally able to sit up. The stranger patted her on the back while she coughed. She struggled through the fog of exhaustion, mind sharpening just enough to attempt to demand answers.

“Mermaids are a cute fiction, aren’t they?” the woman said. “Mermaids, dragons, centaurs…such delightful nonsense.”

“Dragons did exist,” Ophir muttered. “They’d make a hell of a lot more sense than a strange woman swimming against the ocean’s current before the dawn’s bell.”

“Well.” The stranger clapped her hands. “I’ll be sure to speak to the All Mother about mermaids and dragons next time I speak with her. Any other complaints while you’re busy whining to the person who saved your life?”

“Who are you?” Ophir meant it to come out with authority, but no conviction remained. Her spirit was as tired as her body.

The stranger offered a smile. Even in the final moments before twilight, she could distinguish the glint of moonlight on the woman’s sharpened canines, then shot a glance to her arched ears. The stranger, like Ophir, was fae. Fae was the only similarity they shared, as the woman didn’t look like anyone Ophir had met. She didn’t possess the pale features of Farehold, nor the bronze skin and wings of the northern fae. The stranger’s foxlike eyes matched the dark ink of her hair. The woman’s attire was also unlike anything the princess had seen. Her rescuer wore something skin-slick and shimmery, almost as if she were in a dress made of water and moonlight.

“I’m Dwyn.” The woman leaned backward onto her hands as she eyed Ophir.

“What kind of name is that?” The princess coughed again, spitting sand and salt onto the beach.

“The kind that belongs to someone who just rescued you. What are you doing swimming naked in the middle of the night? I’ve borne witness to some terribly executed plans, but that has to be the stupidest idea I’ve ever seen. Unless, of course, you’re on some sort of suicide mission.”

Ophir looked at the waves. Her eyes unfocused as the same monstrous visions that had driven her to the sea returned. She saw her sister, the shapes of men, and the sticky pools of Caris’s spilled life. She hated herself for living in a world without her sister. She hated herself even more for being grateful her reckless attempt had failed. Seabirds’ cries signaled the first grays of dawn, jolting her back to the present.

Dwyn stiffened. “Oh, I’m sorry. I had no idea. I still wouldn’t have let you do it, but…”

Ophir narrowed her eyes, “I’m sorry—what were you doing in the ocean in the middle of the night?” She found some strength as she leveled her gaze. “There were no boats nearby. You’re asking a lot of questions for someone who doesn’t have a leg to stand on.”

Dwyn smiled. “I have two legs to stand on. Not a mermaid, remember? But unlike you, stranger, I have gifts for water.”

Ophir wanted to scowl but couldn’t quite bring herself to the expression.

“And you? Do you have a name, or should I just refer to you as the Naked Woman?”

“I’m Ophir,” she replied, throat still raw. She curled up a leg and lowered an arm to help cover her nudity. Other than the brown-gold hair that remained sea-slick against her shoulders and parts of her breasts, she remained utterly exposed.

Dwyn’s lips turned down in a frown, though her eyebrows quirked as if half of her face was amused. “That’s the name of the youngest princess.”

Ophir gave a staccato, humorless laugh.

Dwyn blinked. “You’re the youngest princess?”

Ophir’s stomach roiled. She was going to be sick. She spewed salt and bile onto the sand beside her, then wiped away the acidic spit with the back of her hand. “The only princess, now.”

Visions of the king and queen flashed before her. She heard her mother’s keening and her father’s tears. The loss of one child had shattered them. The loss of two might have finished the job. Her selfishness for robbing the kingdom of an heir was another in a long list of reasons fueling her self-loathing.

Ophir made her first weak attempt at standing. Sand clung painfully to every part of her. She fell forward on her knees and palms. Broken shells and tiny rocks bit into her flesh, each scrape and cut screaming from the salty burn of seawater. She couldn’t stay here, naked and vulnerable with some stranger. She tried again to move and failed once more.

“Say,” Dwyn chided softly. Her lower lip was in something of a pout as she eyed the princess. “Let me help you. I’ll get you back to the castle, Princess Ophir.”

She responded before thinking. “My friends call me Firi. At least, my sister did.”

Her stomach twisted again, this time with regret. What a stupid thing to say. She wasn’t sure why she’d responded at all. This stranger—Dwyn—wasn’t her friend, and she had no intentions of making any new ones. She certainly didn’t want to think of her sister.

Perhaps Dwyn understood why the statement gagged her. It didn’t take much sleuthing to piece together that Ophir had sought a watery grave over reality’s horrors.

But she’d lived, for better or for worse. As much as she hated to admit it to herself, she didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to be alive, either, but the terror she’d experienced in the final moments before Dwyn had rescued her sealed her fate. She was a survivor.

If she was going to continue to walk this cursed earth, then she didn’t want to do so under the lock and key of suspicion. She’d failed at dying—as she had with everything—and being caught would only make things infinitely worse.

“They’ll find me. I can’t explain this. No one can know. I don’t…” Ophir’s thoughts drifted hopelessly.

Dwyn’s eyes twinkled. “Then we’ll have to be sneaky, won’t we.”