A Chill in the Flame (Villains #1)

Sixteen

Sixteen

Then

Sensitive.

That’s what they’d called him.

It was harder to criticize a man for caring for strays and mending broken wings if he could slit your throat in the night or bring you down before you could blink.

Tyr had been raised in the church but had left his parents behind in their blind worship after his second decade of life. He had never been interested in the trades. He hadn’t wanted to be a tailor or guard or butcher. His fists needed more. The scales demanded balance if he were to possess a bleeding heart. He craved the symmetry that only battle would bring to his life.

The All Mother seemed like a creature of love and benevolence, but she also provided opportunities for expressions of righteous violence. Though his parents had encouraged him to use his strength and skills in service of the cloth and become a Red, he’d scarcely finished initiation as the sword arm of the church before he’d realized his abilities would be just as villainous in the hands of a religious leader who led without checks and balances as he might from any dictator. The All Mother may or may not have been real—at least, magic, good, and evil certainly seemed real—but the church’s teachings had been so filtered through the agendas of man and fae that the cold had been the lens he needed to examine his skepticism.

He’d considered it. His parents had wanted him to devote himself to the church.

Consideration had been a luxury afforded him before Svea.

He’d walked straight to the church with mud on his hands, knees, and under his fingernails from her burial. He’d banged on the door until someone had answered. They’d taken him in and set him to training. Soon, he’d have access to the groundwater of magic that allowed the faithful to call on borrowed abilities. The strongest Reds were godlike with their manipulation of the elements and forces. He’d never let himself be weak again. He’d never let any pain come to someone or something he loved, because he could do little more than slip into the unseen space between things.

Tyr had taken the oath for the Reds, but he’d made little effort to conceal his beliefs, or lack thereof. No one would speak to him about his blasphemous theories, though he knew he couldn’t be alone in his theological questioning. What if the All Mother had been a deified fae? What if she’d possessed an omnipotence they were failing to understand, worshipping rather than truly studying? If the strongest among them could call to any ability they wanted, what made them think that godhood wasn’t something that could be achieved?

They didn’t like the nature of his questions.

He was meant to be dedicated for service, not for gain.

Tyr’s void of faith had taken root as something different—rather than an absence, he felt a craving. There was knowledge. There was potential. There was…something. They’d trained him, but his overseers had made no attempt to conceal their concerns. Perhaps not all fae were meant to access the groundwater. At least, not in the name of the All Mother.

He’d still been a Red when he’d met Dwyn, though he hadn’t known her name or how the wicked witch of the sea would change the course of his life. Presently, they were both under the roof of Castle Aubade. Part of him would love to just kill her and get it over with, even if he couldn’t. It would solve so many problems if he snapped her neck and sent her to whatever twisted afterlife she would surely belong in. Instead, he was resigned to observe. He was forced to watch, hoping she’d slip up, hoping she’d reveal an inkling or glimpse into her abilities. She’d already achieved far more than he and the others hoped possible for themselves. It was challenging to fathom how much more someone like her might achieve with her sights set on the southern princess. If she made a move on Ophir, he’d have to intervene, even if it meant losing his shot at the sort of power only the Reds and one blasted siren possessed.

Now that this witch he’d hunted for nearly fifty years was with the princess…maybe she was right. Maybe there was more than one way to secure a royal heart.

***

The first time he’d locked eyes with the witch was seared into his brain.

Sulgrave was situated in the northernmost mountains of the continent. Its seven territories, ruled by Comtes, sprawled among the mountains, ending at the Frozen Straits. The Reds hadn’t liked him, and he understood why. His demand for knowledge had become a thirst. They didn’t need him anywhere near the important stations of the church. It was perhaps the politest way the organization could more or less excommunicate him without dishonoring his family.

His parents were pious people, after all. They didn’t deserve the shame a heretic would bring to their good standing in the church.

Scarcely in his twenties and low ranking among the Reds, he’d been given the least desirable outpost along the western shores where the mountains fell into the frozen sea. An arctic village of fewer than three hundred of Sulgrave’s heartiest civilians lived near the sea as the last frontier for the kingdom. The shores weren’t protected by the same seasonal enchantments that guarded their kingdom. While mild weather graced Sulgrave’s residents in the seven territories, a never-ending winter swept the western shores and outlying regions of the northernmost mountain lands. There was a small building that served as the village’s church and as well as the rationale for his presence, but the villagers more or less ignored Tyr, and he kept to himself as much as he could.

He hated every goddess-damned minute.

Tyr had served the sword arm of the All Mother for fewer than five years when he’d come across a damsel in distress, or so he’d thought. He wasn’t sure what had possessed him to ever see himself as altruistic, save for the lens society has cast on a man of the cloth. As he looked back on the event now, it would be the first and last time he assumed the victim and the aggressor based on gender alone.

Screams had come from beyond the icy shores.

He’d been certain he’d heard wind playing tricks on him. A sound came again across the ice, and he began to fear that perhaps a villager had fallen into the ice. He’d never been so cold, nor had his faith ever been more fragile. Every moment since his arrival at his post had weakened his resolve. The sun rose and fell for months. In the summer, it stayed with him from morning throughout the night, glowing red even in the midnight hours. He was now in the perpetual twilight before the village plummeted into months-long winter. The sky was a cold gradient of lavenders and indigos, speckled with stars and the silver crescent of the moon. He wrapped the furs of the aboriou hide around him more tightly and ran into the whipping winds in search of the voice’s owner.

The wind chafed his skin and froze his joints as he scanned. He could see nothing from the outpost that had barely been enough for one man and his cot, and he began to climb a snowbank to look down onto the sea.

The sound came again, cutting across the glasslike shards of ice of Sulgrave’s frozen shores. A woman was calling for help. He knew he wasn’t imagining it. Tyr scrambled out of the cumbersome bundles of fur and ran for the shores in his leathers.

He stopped as soon as he saw her.

Her arms were bare. He could see the skin of her neck, of her upper chest, of her fingers without the warmth of cloak or gloves. Her bare feet walked along black sand, moving between broken chunks of glacial melt. She was in a strange, glossy dress that seemed to be made of oil and starlight.

He should have run to her, but everything within him screamed of danger.

He wasn’t the only one to respond to her screams. A man was running to her from the village. His arms appeared to be thick with warmed bundles of cloaks and blankets for the near-naked shipwrecked woman.

Tyr knew he needed to stop the man. He called to him and began running. He angled his body for the villager, putting one foot in front of the other as the icy wind froze his fingers and reddened his nose. He’d run with a tenacity that hadn’t compelled his muscles for months. Tyr’s hand gripped his weapon, his teeth gritting against the frozen winds as he barreled toward them. The villager paid him no mind, eyes fixed solely on the woman. Her cries for help had stopped as the villager reached her.

Tyr skidded to a halt as the two touched.

The woman was close enough that he could see the shape of her eyes, the rouge of her cheeks, the cloud of her hair, and count the fingers that gripped the villager.

She’d been holding the man in an embrace until he fell limply before her. The man who’d come for her had withered, now mummified against the shards of ice and chilled seawater that lapped against her bare feet.

She looked up over the villager’s body as it floated weightlessly against the lapping waves. Her gaze touched Tyr’s.

By the time his wide eyes had absorbed the vision before him, her black hair had whipped around her in a cloud so beautiful and horrific that she may have been one of the terrible old gods made flesh.

He hadn’t advanced. He hadn’t raised his sword.

They did not look away from one another. His lips were still parted in a gasp. Her dark, glossy dress whipped around her in the winds, though her skin seemed unaffected by the sub-zero temperatures. She moved her head curiously. She wasn’t looking at him with predatory hunger, nor with fear. She was merely interested in the man who’d sprinted for the black sand beaches only to skid to a halt so far from where she stood. The woman held such a casual interest, he could see the glimmer from where he stood.

It was the sort of moment that one might excuse as a dream.

With an uncaring coolness, the young woman turned and walked into the frigid sea waters. Her head disappeared beneath the waves as if she’d never existed. If it weren’t for the floating body of the hollow man who bobbed and lapped against each cresting wave, he could have convinced himself that it had been a hallucination. Instead, Tyr knelt next to the wilted man and knew he’d come across a truly dark terror. This was the day Tyr became singularly possessed with the sort of dark magic that would scream for a man’s help only to suck her rescuer of its life force.

He’d heard of the succubae who could kill men, though even women cursed with such a power couldn’t do so with simply a kiss or touch as the witch on the shores had done. He knew of fae who could call to water. A common, helpful gift was the ability to warm oneself. He hadn’t actually met anyone who could breathe water, though the stories of merfolk had filtered through the centuries. What powers was this fae collecting that had allowed her to accumulate more than what came naturally?

He and his fellow Sulgrave fae had grown up around whispers of blood magic, though talk of such things had been forbidden. Access to unnatural powers was a mission in suicide, as it drew on one’s own life force to call to abilities that did not belong to you. The Reds who had served for decades were trained in the ability to access the groundwater of magic that flowed through life, but each time they did, their own blood cooled and struggled within them.

Many Reds died attempting to learn to call new powers.

But this… what if someone else could die in your stead? What if you could use the blood of another for your borrowed ability?

***

Finding her the first time had been an accident.

Locating her a second time would be an exercise in obsessive intention.

Tyr left the seaside Sulgrave outpost that day and had never returned. He would never again affiliate with the Reds or the missions of the All Mother, whether or not such a goddess existed. Abandonment wasn’t only immoral by religious standards and shameful within the community, it was illegal by the church and the laws of the Comtes alike. One did not simply abandon the Reds and live to tell the tale. If he was caught, he’d end up locked in an elaborately enchanted jail cell with no hope of redemption, if they chose to keep him alive at all.

Prayers had won him nothing.

Devotion was little more than a candle, and the All Mother would have needed the true power of a bonfire to convince him to stay.

Tyr was alone, but not without resources. He’d been trained as an assassin. He had been given the honor of serving as the All Mother’s sword and then taken his skills, knowledge, and power and spit in the face of their organization.

None of it mattered until they paid. None of it meant anything until he saw them burn with the cuts, the flame, the shadow, the torture that they’d shown Svea. If he couldn’t so much as conjure three moments of a secondary power without falling to his deathbed, what was the point? Why had he learned? Why had he joined? He’d find no justice with them, and he knew it.

The church and its frivolous dispatches. The laws and its meaningless words. The outposts, the structure, the blind devotion were all useless in a world where ruthless fae could grow their powers in the villainous shadows without the chains of supervision.

But where was one to start?

He used his gift to step into the space between things, disappearing in plain sight as he shifted into libraries, learned the lores of peasants, and studied the ancient tomes buried in pagan sites. Locating the beautiful, demonic creature a second time had been the result of years of skill, education, planning, entrapment, and cultivation. The stranger he’d seen on the waves was as slick as oil and as evasive as shadow, but he knew what he’d seen. He knew she’d taken more than what the goddess had given.

Knowledge was supposed to be a blessing.

The thirst for knowledge that didn’t belong to you was an all-consuming curse.