A Chill in the Flame (Villains #1)

Twenty-two

Twenty-two

Ophir had been awake for the better part of an hour before Dwyn poked her head up from the sheets. She rubbed her eyes, stretching as she searched the room for the princess. Ophir sat at the writing desk, leg bouncing as she stared at the same boring tome Dwyn had been reading the night prior. The princess’s jittering muscles stilled the moment Dwyn caught her eye.

“Come back to bed.” Dwyn yawned.

“I’m ready to do something, and I’m going to need your help.”

Dwyn pouted. “Before tea?”

On an exhale, Ophir asked, “You’ve wanted me to change my sorrow into anger? I’ve succeeded. I’m furious. You’ve wanted me to manifest? I’ve now accomplished it on more than one occasion. I don’t know your motives, but if you help me with my agenda, then honestly, I don’t care. We can burn down the world together. I just need you to be with me on something first.”

“No tea then.” Dwyn’s lashes fluttered as she absorbed the information. She straightened her posture and ran her hands through her hair while considering Ophir’s words. In only a few short sentences, Ophir had made it clear that she suspected Dwyn of ulterior motives on multiple fronts. She’d also kept her tone casual enough to convey that she was pretty damn comfortable with it.

Perhaps Dwyn could have denied it, or interrogated her to ask Ophir what she meant, but she didn’t. After the surprise passed, Dwyn nodded. “Name it.”

Ophir planted her hands on the bed where she stood and leaned forward with grave seriousness. “Help me kill the men who murdered my sister.”

A slow smile spread across her face. “I thought you’d never ask.”

“There’s one more thing,” Ophir began.

Dwyn’s body tensed in anticipatory silence.

“Who’s Tyr?”

***

Ophir chose her steps carefully in an attempt to evade Harland. The cold, stone floor leached into her bare feet as she maneuvered down the corridor in the flimsy, white material of a nightdress that scarcely grazed the tops of her thighs. She’d borrowed the indecent silky fabric from the clothes provided in Dwyn’s armoire—sleeping clothes that the siren had never touched.

She didn’t make it far.

Harland was waiting for her. Her guard was stationed at the first intersection when she rounded the corner, so no matter where she’d tried to go, he’d intercept her. He frowned at her state of undress briefly before his expression tightened. “Ophir—”

She brushed past him without turning her head. She had no patience for his opinion on her choices. “Save it.”

“Princess Ophir, stop.”

She hesitated at his use of her true title. It was too formal. Almost as if he were a proper royal guard.

“King Eero and Queen Darya have requested your company, Princess Ophir. I’m to escort you to the war room immediately. Please, get changed.” His voice was unusually strained as he spoke. She was unnerved by his usage of their formal names, feeling the unfamiliar language slither down her spine with an upsetting chill.

She paused mid-step on the rug that ran down the center of the corridor. She turned partway over her shoulder. “My parents?” Her back went rigid. “Do you know what this is about?”

He said nothing. She searched the curve of his hard jaw, the way his tendons seemed too tense in his neck, the way his brow faced off to the side rather than looking directly to her. Harland wasn’t meeting her gaze. His face appeared unnatural, as it was so rarely this uneasy.

His silence drove her to an uncomfortable edge. She turned on the corridor’s carpet runner to look at him. She didn’t care how thin or short her silky nightdress might be. He’d seen her in far more revealing states of undress as the one who’d run into her room as she’d burned her bed to ashes and embers night after night.

“Harland? Do you know why?”

She could have been mistaken, but there was something pained about the way he nearly flinched at her question. “Please, dress and let’s go.”

She tried to prod him for more, but he shut his eyes as if to conceal whatever it was that his gaze might communicate. Nerves made it nearly impossible to perform grooming tasks as she left Harland in the hall for the few moments it took her to run a brush through her hair and find a dress. Ophir’s bruises were almost invisible now, particularly as she’d dusted a bit of coverage on her eyes and cheekbones to help blend the evidence of her brush with death. She wore a crimson dress in Farehold colors for the late fall day. It was long enough to conceal her bandages and any other visible wounds quite well. Her pulse became painful as she stepped into her clothes. Her hands trembled as she attempted to weave her loose, gold-brown strands into a single braid.

She emerged from her room but didn’t step a foot beyond the doorway. “Please, tell me.”

He shook his head once. It was a single denial through the sideways motion of his chin to tell her that no, he could not say what needed to be said.

She knew in that moment that nothing good awaited her.

Ophir resisted the urge to plead with him and instead lifted her chin and straightened her shoulders. They walked forward like an executioner and his charge making their way to the gallows. There was pain on his face as he walked her down the beige corridor, nearly silent as their feet padded against the red runner that lined the hall. The castle normally hummed with Farehold’s reds and golds, from the neutrals of its stones to the crimson of its curtains and carpets to the very color of the eyes of Eero and his youngest daughter. Today, the attendants moved like sodden corpses—little more than neutral stones come to life, the browns and beiges of their linens breaking the scarlet of the fabrics that accented the castle.

This was not the first time she’d been to the war room. It was, however, the first time she’d been summoned without notice.

Harland’s silence exacerbated her anxiety thousand fold If only he would look at her. If he would turn his stupid head and just meet her desperation. But he gave her nothing. Maybe they knew each other too well. Surely, he’d break if he looked at her, and they both knew it.

They mounted the several flights of stairs in the winding tower that led to the space typically reserved for generals, diplomats, and meetings. Harland’s eyes touched hers briefly, his hazel gaze pained as he grazed over her golden, pleading questions. He opened the door for her once they reached the top of the tower, but he did not enter. He bowed to the king and queen and took his post outside to wait, closing the door behind him.

Ophir hesitated at the entry. The war room was in the backmost circular tower on one of the castle’s four posts. It curved with the same yellow-brown stones and cream mortar that filled the rest of the castle. They were toward the top of the tower so that the sun could fill the space with warm, cheery light without anyone worrying about their maps or plans being seen or intercepted by prying eyes.

“Mother, Father.” She nodded at them, dread swelling as she spied the worry on her mother’s face. “What is this about?”

“Sit, love,” the queen motioned. Her face was controlled in a way that served to deepen her anxiety.

Caris and Queen Darya could have been sisters, they looked so alike. Ophir saw Caris’s face in every line and curve of her mother’s features, from the scoop of her nose to the arch of her brow. Even Darya’s voice was too familiar. Their resemblance was another in a long line of piercing wounds that reminded Ophir as to why she spent so little time with the queen.

She needed more distance than even the walls’ corners and tilts and floors of the castle could offer. No stones would be thick enough for the separation required from her pain. The ageless fae exchanged looks and waited for their daughter to take the chair across from them. The map of the continent stretched between them. Something continued to stick in her throat as she eyed her parents.

The queen had the same wet-earth smell that had been Caris’s signature perfume. Between her blue eyes, the scent of rain, and her cascading, golden hair, Ophir could scarcely stand to be around her mother. Her voice was gentle as she broke the uncomfortable silence. “There’s no easy way to say what must be said. We understand that this will be difficult to hear.”

Ophir wanted to feel something else, but only one emotion came to her forefront. Anxiety burned from her stomach to her throat. “Please, just tell me what’s happening.”

Her father’s face was stern. The golden burn of his irises was as royal as the crown on his head. She’d received her honey eyes from him, and in this moment, they were not kind. He did his best to sound emotionless as he delivered cold, impassive news to his daughter.

“The marriage union between Farehold and Raascot must continue as planned. Caris was promised to Ceneth at birth for the good of the continent. The intent to bring our two sovereign kingdoms together has not changed. In three months, you’ll be wed and relocated to Gwydir, where you’ll be expected to produce heirs who will rule a single, unified kingdom.”

No.

There was a strange, spinning sensation. She was quite certain she’d hallucinated, or misheard, or dreamed the words that had come out of this cold, dispassionate man.

Ophir’s mouth hung open, tongue paper-dry. She wasn’t sure if she had blinked a single time as the king had spoken. “I’m not seventy-five.”

A ceaseless onslaught of horrors assaulted her, and of all the injustices, this was the only thing she could think to say.

“Caris was,” her father said, no emotion in his tone. He amended, “Would have been, I mean. The marriage was set for this year. It is time.”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. He spoke like a man discussing the inevitability of taxes. This was not a father who loved his children. This was no man at all.

Her mother attempted to soothe her. “A true utopia is at stake, Ophir. Ceneth and Caris have spent decades in phase one of their plan, but it’s all meaningless if we don’t reach the second stage. Separation was a temporary relief from immediate violence or threat to the fae’s survival. The separation of humans and fae—the discrimination of powers—will make matters worse if things don’t move forward. Plans for a borderless kingdom have been in the works since before either of you was born. In the event of…” Her words drifted off. She couldn’t bring herself to reference Caris’s death. “We waited for as long as we could before telling you. But now that you seem to be getting better…”

Unity could not be chopped in one fell swoop of an axe. The trunk of this complicated tree was thick. The cuts required to fell preconceived notions and rebuild the continent would be no small task. Caris had known this, and her passion overrode any fear of the challenge. Ophir saw it, and…

“I can’t marry Ceneth,” she said. She tried to swallow again past the knot that continued rising in her throat but found she could not push down the hardened lump of emotion. She remained perfectly still, perfectly calm, though she’d nearly ceased breathing. A monotonous, high-pitched ringing began to sound in the space between her ears as a headache born of oxygen deprivation sang its painful song. She inhaled slowly through her nose, but the ringing did not go away.

“Duty calls to you, Ophir,” her father said coolly.

The queen’s face rearranged in a complicated stitch of downward motions as she absorbed her daughter, from the shock of her face to the rigidity of her posture. She attempted levity despite her frown, but it did not reach her blue eyes. They were the same bright blue that her eldest princess had inherited. “A winter wedding will be lovely. We’ll decorate the castle with Yule trees and fill the halls with fae lights. We can serve whatever you want at the banquet. You used to love those cranberry tarts, didn’t you? Cranberry is so festive around the winter holidays. We’ll get a lovely stag. We can serve mugs of warm liqueur and lovely little Yule garnishes for every guest. Wouldn’t that be nice? I think it could look rather charming. Oh and the pine—of course we’ll cut fresh pine. It’ll smell divine. We’ll have Ceneth bring it down with him from the northern kingdom. The whole hall will be filled with the scent of pine.”

She’d been punched in the gut by invisible hands. “You think…you think I’m worried about what food will be served? You want…pine? You want to talk to me about decorations?”

“Ophir,” came her father’s exasperation. “This is not a matter for discussion. It’s my own fault for allowing so much time to pass on Caris’s shoulders. We did not prepare you. You were not groomed to take over, and I rest that blame on my shoulders. The fact remains: being born into the monarchy comes with certain obligations. Ceneth is a good man—”

“Does he know about this?” Ophir’s question sounded strangled. She wasn’t totally convinced hands weren’t gripping her throat as she spit out her words. “He was in love with Caris. He truly loved her. He tolerated me. Is Raascot’s king aware that you’re planning to swap us out as if he won’t notice?” Every word came out higher and angrier than the one before. She braced her hands against the table, barely clutching sanity.

Darya attempted to reach across the table to comfort her daughter, but Ophir jerked her hands away as if her mother were no more than the very snake she’d summoned.

“Yes, he knows. A love match would have been fortuitous, but, you have to understand, love matches are rare.” She tried to soften her expression. “A political arrangement was inevitable. Ceneth did ask if you’d like to see him to speak about anything before the wedding. I told him I’d send a raven with your response.”

If she didn’t find a way to choke down the knot in her throat, she was pretty sure she was going to throw it up. Her stomach churned violently as she picked through the words. “To be clear—you are asking if I want to talk to Ceneth or if I just want to wait until we’re at the end of the aisle and he’s lifting my veil before I see him? You’re asking if I want to meet the man who’s in love with my dead sister before we’re wed?” She looked between her parents. “This is absurd. You see how insane this is, don’t you?”

“Please try to be reasonable,” Darya sighed.

Her mouth opened and closed wordlessly like a fish lofted above the water. “I can’t. I won’t.”

The king slammed his fist and the women closed their eyes tightly against the sudden impact, resisting the painful urge to flinch. Eero rarely showed outbursts of emotions. He was a stoic man, making his anger all the more violent in the wake of their pain. Ophir’s lips tightened into a hard line.

The king’s voice held no kindness as he spoke a cold truth. “You can and you will, Ophir. Your days of parading around the city are over. It is time for you to live up to your responsibilities. Your sister took up the burden for the kingdom, but she isn’t here any longer. If you can’t agree to it willingly, I’ll see to it that Harland has your rooms closely guarded if you pose any risk of leaving the castle. I’ll have fifty men stationed outside of your chambers if that’s what it takes to keep you in line.”

She searched him for any trace of leniency, of compassion. She stared at the anger etched into her father’s face, allowing his resolve to chip at hers like a pickax over ice. “So that’s that, then. There’s nothing more to say.”

She searched his face for a sign of hope, of benevolence, of grace, but found none. The man nodded once in confirmation and relaxed the fist that had been flexed against the table until his palm was flattened. He leaned back ever so slightly into his chair as he waited for any further reaction to come from his child.

The pause stretched into a pregnant silence. The room began to ring with the same high, dizzying sound that only occurred between one’s ears. Ophir fell into a deathly calm, folding her hands in her lap as she looked from one parent to the other.

“Fine.”

The monarchs sat rigidly as they eyed her.

“I understand,” she continued, voice as blank as her expression.

They watched her, tensed with suspicion.

“I’ll stay in my rooms.”

“You’re…you’re okay, with everything?” Her mother’s blue eyes clouded with worry. They looked too much like Caris’s, save for the gentle concern her sister’s would have shown. Ophir couldn’t meet the intricate shades of robin’s egg, deep sea, sky, and gems she saw when she looked at Darya. She hated her mother’s eyes.

“No.” Ophir’s answer was honest enough to assure them she was not intentionally deceitful. “Of course I’m not okay with it. But I’m the heir to Farehold. Raascot is our ally. I don’t have to be okay with it to understand the law of the land—the obligations of Gyrradin.”

Her mother inhaled sharply through her nose. Something about the way Ophir had cooled so quickly unnerved her. “I know this isn’t easy, sweet girl. I’m so sorry to have to tell you in this way. Will you tell us if there’s anything you need? Let us know if there’s something that will make this transition easier?”

“Yes, I’ll do that.”

She wasn’t surprised at their shared apprehension. They’d undoubtedly expected her to put up more of a fight.

“I’ll keep Dwyn with me as a handmaid—for the nightmares. The fire…her water…”

Eero and Darya nodded with clear discomfort. Whether Ophir lived in Aubade or Gwydir, her flame would pose a threat to any who dared lie beside her. No answer aside from a water-summoner had presented itself.

“Are you okay?” her mother asked again, ocean eyes prodding.

“Not even a little bit,” she answered honestly. The pregnant pause filled the room before she spoke again. “I haven’t been okay since Caris died. Why should it be any different now?”