A Chill in the Flame (Villains #1)

Eleven

Eleven

Now

Tyr had been given a gift. It was only right that he use it.

He’d always been good at sneaking, but it shouldn’t have been this easy. Not in a castle. If his priorities hadn’t rested elsewhere, he might have brought the egregious security flaw to someone’s attention. How old was this castle, that it contained a passageway that no one else knew about? Honestly, it wasn’t even the princess’s fault that she was coming and going at all hours of the night. Who wouldn’t use points of access when they were as easy as stepping through a mirror? It had certainly been intended as a safety measure—a method for escape if the royal family needed to steal away undetected. In a sense, she was using it for its intended purpose.

Tyr had slipped into the princess’s room as Ophir had returned from the kitchen with another bottle of wine. He’d thought she was going to take it in her bed, which had been both worrisome and understandable. He’d spent his own shares of nights in bottles of various spirits as he’d drowned his sorrow.

Her personal guard had followed her to take up post outside of her room. She’d locked the door behind her and then promptly pressed her way into the floor-length mirror. It released and gave way to a set of stairs that wound to the wine cellars beneath the castle. He never knew exactly what he was looking for when he stepped into the space between things, but that was the blessing and curse of voyeurism. Sometimes you had to be present for a long time before you learned something worth knowing.

Within a matter of minutes, she was sitting on the cliffs outside of the castle, completely unaccompanied. He was nearly impressed. The last royal hope of Farehold, and yet she could find absolute quiet and unguarded solitude whenever she wanted, even when they thought they had her under lock and key.

Surely, this was how she’d gotten Caris out of the castle.

Now it was how she got shit-faced on vintage red wines while watching the sunset in silence. He’d spent so many years in the invisible places between things that he’d long since lost the ability to feel shame for spying, but this did feel private. He got no sick pleasure out of watching the unwitting. When he courted partners or seduced lovers, it was with the full, enthusiastic desire of two or more passionate parties. Watching was for information. He’d followed Dwyn to Farehold with a purpose, and his tracking had led him to the princess.

He sat and leaned his back against the cream stones of the outer castle wall while Ophir drank straight from the bottle, watching seagulls dart beyond the cliffs. Seabirds reminded him of his post on the frozen coast, except these birds were louder and far bolder with their movements. All their screeches were so shrill, so piercing against the gentle consistency of the incoming tide. The day was extraordinarily humid, and everything tasted of fish and salt. He was envious of the green glass bottle pressed to her lips. He’d take woman or wine over the flavor of seaweed any day.

He felt…something.

He watched her take drink after drink while the orange sun flooded the horizon, filling the seascape with pastels. It lit her features, setting her profile and the locks of her hair to the same flame for which she was famous. The humidity had turned to sweat, her hair clinging to her neck and bare arms in a sticky, curled mess. He didn’t feel pity. It certainly wasn’t disapproval.

Empathy. That was the emotion.

The secondborn daughter to the Aubade throne, reckless and wild and lost, was in pain, and somehow, despite barely clinging to her will to survive, she kept putting one foot in front of the other. Some days it was by drinking berry-flavored liqueurs, and others it was by spending the day in bed. Progress was not linear. She was surviving. He understood.

Maybe that was why he didn’t feel angry when Dwyn strolled onto the cliff, despite how much he loved to hate her. Dwyn’s curtain of black hair caught in the wind, whipping around her face as the breeze swept off the ocean and rushed onto the rocks. He hadn’t heard her footsteps over the rhythmic sounds of the waves, but he wasn’t particularly surprised at her presence. She was why he was at the castle in the first place. She was playing some game with the princess that he had yet to fully understand. Both he and Dwyn stared at a lock, so to speak, and Dwyn appeared certain that Ophir held the key.

He took as many silent steps as he dared until he was within earshot. He told himself it was because it would be a useful opportunity to hear Dwyn interact. The witch didn’t know he was here, and goddess only knew what she may or may not share when she thought she and Ophir were alone. Hate Dwyn though he might, he saw how Ophir’s shoulders relaxed ever so slightly at the witch’s presence. Maybe he was angry that anyone liked Dwyn. Maybe he was jealous that it was Dwyn who spoke to the princess, Dwyn who comforted her, Dwyn who shared her bed.

He’d met the princess first in the flesh, after all, even if Dwyn had unwittingly led him to the royal siblings in the first place. He’d rescued Ophir at that party. He could be the one comforting her right now. The cliff could be silhouetted with the princess’s small frame next to his strong, broad shoulders.

But alas, this was another in a long line of ways Dwyn had bested him.

He observed the pair as Dwyn slid easily behind her, planting one hand behind Ophir’s back on the cliff so her arm supported the princess’s back. She extended her slender fingers for the bottle and they took turns swigging from the wine. Ophir rested her brown-gold locks on Dwyn’s shoulders, allowing her loose waves to cascade down the girl’s back, their strands a mix of caramel and chocolate. He listened, but they didn’t talk about spells or magic or power. They didn’t talk about kingdoms or politics or loss. They didn’t talk about anything.

They were just two people, sitting on a cliff at sunset, sharing a bottle of wine.