A Chill in the Flame (Villains #1)

Seventeen

Seventeen

Tyr didn’t discover the Blood Pact. They had found him.

As it turned out, he was not the first outcast to abandon the church. Exiled from society, they were the men and women who lived in the shadows. They were the Reds, the assassins, the guards who’d deserted their posts and forsaken their titles, banded together with a new solemnity more serious than death.

Tyr had waited in the ruins of a temple to the old gods until after nightfall before he’d shifted into his resting state of visibility. He’d been squinting over the muddled words of an old text that had said the same three things he’d already come to learn in his research. What he knew was this: most powers had the ability to give. The world was given light, energy, water, air, wind, luck, love, joy, and all manner of skills through the lighted expressions of magic. Feared powers like consorting with the dead, speaking mind to mind, infiltrating one’s willpower threatened the world. Rarely, someone was born with an ability to take. Succubi, incubi, and any cursed with death’s touch had to be exceedingly careful in learning how to control their inherent skills.

Then there was the third kind of power.

It was the acquisition of powers that didn’t belong to you. Certain practitioners operated beyond the church and its boundaries. These fae, so the rumors went, had found ways to tap into magics that were not theirs to possess. They, like the church and its Reds, believed magic to be a singular unit—often called “groundwater” by magical zealots for the way it flowed and filled the earth—and fae manifestations of magic were merely the freshwater springs for that water. They believed that if all magic was sourced from the same place, then everyone should be able to access all abilities. The death toll grew as those who sought to expand their powers quickly learned a difficult truth: powers that did not belong to you drained you of your life. One could not access strange or unnatural magics without sacrificing themselves. In some ways, the consequence of stolen power was its own method of policing crimes against magic. Attempting magical theft was an errand in assured suicide. Anyone pursuing perversions of magic would perish at the hand of their own greed.

“It’d be a lot easier to read that particular piece of literature if you used a light, boy.”

Tyr jolted, dropping the book. He reached for his sword only to realize how many had crept into the rubble around him while he’d stared at the words.

“Who are you?” He flexed, prepared for battle. He may no longer be a Red, but he was well trained.

The man smiled. “We’re more interested in who you are. Perhaps if you let us know why you’ve spent the last several months researching blood magic, we might see if we can help one another.”

“I’m a…” Tyr eyed the group and knew he would not fight his way out of here. They weren’t dressed like thugs—this wasn’t the thieves who mugged or the robbers who loitered along the roads for those weak in guard or spirit. They were lithe, armed, and would have been rather intimidating to a man with any normal sense for fear. They didn’t seem like they had ill intentions. They watched him curiously as he assessed the group. “I was a Red.”

A woman spoke up. “So were half of us.”

He breathed out slowly. “I was a Red because I need access to something. For…personal reasons.”

The leader made an understanding face. “Revenge drives more of us than you’d think, kid.”

As an orange flame illuminated the broken, fallen stones and the people around him, Tyr identified the face that held the torch. He’d seen the face before in the sketches and drawings of wanted men. Anwir had been excommunicated from the church more than six hundred years prior. Tyr recognized him from the bounty on his head and the blasphemies he was said to have spread. He hadn’t known the man still lived, let alone that he’d remained in Sulgrave. This man had spent centuries in the darkest corners building his empire of shadow and ruin.

“Blood magic?” Tyr asked. His voice sounded so hollow as it bounced off of the crumbling rocks. He did his best to count the party before him, but knew he was terribly outnumbered. How many had left the church and fled the law only to have found one another?

Anwir strode toward him. His voice remained cool as he plucked the book from Tyr’s hands. “There’s no use playing coy. We’ve been following you for some time. Besides, this book won’t teach you anything that we can’t tell you firsthand.”

“ Mysteries of the Heart ?” the woman asked, guessing the title.

Anwir grunted his confirmation. “Reds borrow against their blood,” he said to Tyr. “Half of them die in the process. Legend has it that some fae can use stolen powers without risking their lives for new abilities.”

“They use someone else’s heart,” Tyr finished for him. “That’s about as far as I made it in the book.”

“Then you’ve made it far enough,” Anwir replied. “We’ve spilled enough blood to learn what not to do.”

“You’ve done what?” Tyr worked to control his expression.

“He’s saying: a few corpses are missing an organ or two,” the woman said. “We’ve taken them from the dead. We’ve cut them out of the guilty and innocent alike. We’ve even stuck our hands into still-beating chests. None of it works.”

“Well, someone’s figured it out,” Tyr muttered.

Anwir’s fingers tightened against the book. “What makes you say that?”

Tyr opted for the truth. He couldn’t explain why, except that some secrets felt better when they weren’t clutched to one’s chest. He offered honesty, or a version of it. He didn’t speak of Svea or her death. Instead, he told them he’d been posted on the western banks when he’d witnessed a fae take a life and then walk into the arctic waters. He’d been pursuing understanding of the incident ever since.

Mutters rippled through the group. Anwir asked, “What did she look like?”

The others muttered among one another briefly, knowing precisely of whom he spoke. That was the night Tyr learned her name.

Dwyn had traveled with the Blood Pact for a time but had quickly set out on her own. She was uncovering terrible truths and unlocking coveted powers more quickly than any of them had ever hoped to achieve. She’d left in the night, evading the Comtes, the church, the law, and the Blood Pact at once. She’d learned how to convert life into power, using the conduits of other souls so that her own blood remained unharmed.

It turned out they did want the same thing, though perhaps not for the same reasons.

Anwir wanted to wield blood magic without hurting himself, unlike the Reds, who sacrificed their lives for the sake of borrowed powers. Dwyn was the answer.

Joining the band of heretics had been more solemn and painful than his dedications to the church.

Tyr was branded with dark, elaborate ink—marked to set himself apart from society. His tattoo bound him to the Blood Pact as he renounced the church and the laws of Sulgrave. He belonged to the shadows. He belonged to strength. He belonged to power. They were not the Reds who found themselves guided by the will of the All Mother. They were not the morally pure who had candles lit in their honor or were met with the smiles and gentle blessings of the goddess. They were nothing like the white knights or proud guards.

They were the dark things seeking answers to questions that one shouldn’t ask.

Tyr belonged to the space between things.

The Blood Pact stayed the course. Their hunt to circumvent the consequences of stolen powers consumed them as it had for hundreds of years prior. Tyr’s contribution remained his singular obsession: finding Dwyn, and learning how she’d not only found that which evaded the rest but had already put it to use. She was to be brought to Anwir and reunited with the clan she’d abandoned. The woman on the run was educated, slick, and clever. She had long ago learned to operate in the oily gray waters of the unimpeachable. Her advancements in power were about to meet their natural end in Sulgrave.

“You think you’ll get her to talk?” Anwir asked before Tyr set forth.

“I think I’ve spent enough time in old libraries and ruins. And while I appreciate the Pact’s dedication, I don’t have the stomach for gouging beating hearts from innocents.”

Anwir chuckled. “Show me one truly innocent man and I’ll show you the All Mother’s tits.”

Tyr’s lips twitched in response. “Is that what you’re hiding under that tunic?”

The leader’s smile faded. “I wonder…” He shook his head, brushing off the thought.

“Are we still thinking of tits?”

The smile returned, but his eyes did not match. “In a way. It’s about Dwyn. She’s not just running. She’s…hunting. She’s on a mission of sorts, and I can’t help but wonder what she knows if she learned all we set out to learn, yet did not stop.”

Tyr rolled the idea around in his head. “What more is there? If she can draw from the groundwater without harming herself, she’s already the most powerful fae alive.”

“Perhaps…” Anwir’s thoughts trailed. “There may be one stronger, still.”

Tyr lifted a brow. Suddenly, he understood the connection. “You don’t think…”

“If you find her, you won’t just be learning how to master blood magic. You may be on a mission to capture the next would-be goddess.”

The words echoed through the hollowness of his chest. They rang clear and cold as he traversed the mountains, searched the valleys, met with scryers, interrogated outlaws, and hunted in the space between things.

Learn from a fae. Stop a god.

By the time he’d realized why she’d left the mountains, it had been too late.

The continent’s royal blood lived in Farehold. Aubade was where he needed to go.

***

Perhaps he’d defected, just as Dwyn had. What else prevented him from dragging Dwyn by her hair to confront the Blood Pact once he’d found her skulking about Castle Aubade? The answer didn’t elude him. He’d been after her long before he’d met the others. She knew things he didn’t. If Dwyn wanted a princess, then he’d been focused on a minnow while neglecting a shark in the water.

The truth was, he had no allegiance to Anwir.

Tyr didn’t care about the Blood Pact, their cause, or their leader.

His mission for vengeance belonged to Svea, and her alone.

Arriving in Farehold had quickly alerted to him as to how many were closing in on the princesses and the keys they held in unlocking magical advancement. His dry mouth hadn’t been the only one in need of quenching. Thirst for knowledge had leached throughout the continent. Dwyn may have led him to the lower continent, but she wasn’t alone in her hunt. The princesses were a dark beacon for the ill will of dark magics. They set off a chilling light without ever knowing or understanding the critical role they might hold for everyone in Gyrradin.

The stakes heightened as time marched on.

Berinth hadn’t resurfaced since Caris’s death, but he may very well pose a greater threat to the future of man and fae than any other witch or crime syndicate or church combined.

No one who knew Tyr would consider him good. He inspired neither confidence nor fear. He was that which disappeared between the shadows. He was his own.

The race to godhood would have only one winner.