A Chill in the Flame (Villains #1)

Thirty-eight

Thirty-eight

It was hot.

It was so fucking hot.

Goddess, she’d never been this hot in her life.

Ophir sucked in a scalding breath, coughing and choking on the dry air. She squinted at the taunting, yellow ball of light and cursed it from the bottom of her heart. It was meant to be the middle of autumn, not the torment of high summer. The princess had long since shed her extra layers, scattering clothes and coverups and bits of cloth about the meandering southbound paths, then regretted it, wishing she’d kept her shawl to keep the scorching rays off her baking skin.

She was going to die. She knew it. Her skin would be fried before the sun set. She’d be able to eat her fully cooked arm for dinner under the sizzling heat of the sun. The moment Ophir realized she had to cross the desert, she’d been categorically unwilling to remain on the sand. The baking rays reflected off the dunes as if they were glass, intensifying the blistering heat from all angles. How many words were there for hot? It was scalding, blazing, sweltering, feverish, broiling, fiery, goddess fucking miserable.

Sedit whimpered.

“I know, boy,” she said, “I don’t want to be here either. But this stupid compass insists he’s…” She looked from the pocket watch to the rolling dunes beyond. “Honestly, I have no idea. This goddess-damned thing is probably broken. There’s no reason for him to have fled to Tarkhany. Why would he seek asylum in a country where he’d stand out as the only fae paler than the sand?”

Sedit’s bony, lizard-like tail wagged from side to side as if he was just happy to be included.

“Does he have some safe house in the dunes? Could it be a trap? What if he…” She stopped herself from saying it was crazy, as she reminded herself that she was talking to a demon hound she’d created.

He looked at her with his too-many eyes. They glimmered with the suffering pout of any pet who’d been denied a treat. As she stared into her beloved hound’s face, something within her began to shift. She had made this vile, wonderful, utterly unique, terrifying thing. Sedit was born of her whims and raw power. She was not the same woman she’d been the last time she’d encountered the man.

“You’re right, boy,” she said with a nod. “There’s nothing he can throw at me that I can’t handle.”

She would have remained roasting in her self-congratulatory thoughts, had Sedit not begun flinching as each step forced him to place his paws on the blistering sand. She loved her vageth far too much to let him suffer. “I’ll fix this,” she promised.

So, she tried.

It was hard not to feel like her craft grew markedly worse with each and every monster.

“It’s okay, boy,” she said unconvincingly. Ophir reached forward to stroke the mane of her latest creation. She’d attempted to make a horse for her and Sedit alike. They needed to get their feet off the sand and cross the unforgiving wastelands far more quickly than she and her hound could on their own. But the moment she brought the cursed horse into the world, she knew she’d never be able to take it on a main road. Not only did the steed look like the decaying remains of a reanimated stallion, but reptilian scales clung to the knobby bumps of its ribs and spine, ending in a serpent’s tail. Disappointment settled in her stomach like stones, but Sedit didn’t mind the horse.

“You’re not much of a looker, are you?” she asked the undead horse. Her face fell as the creature carried her forward, and she couldn’t help but wonder why all of her creatures were born into the world with goddess-awful needles for teeth.

Sedit was born to be her protector, so the vageth’s mouthful of prickly, venomous thorns was both blessing and marvel. Her first creation, the snake, was also intended to have fangs, so its horrid, pointed teeth hadn’t been a surprise. This was her first attempt to make a gentle, grazing creature, and she’d failed miserably. She winced when the horse pulled back its lips to reveal rows upon rows of glistening, ivory weapons, as though she was looking at the bone-white jaws that sailors hung on their mantles from predators of the deep. She reached a hand for its nose, touching the scales below its sunken eyes, and decided she loved it.

It hadn’t been what she’d intended, but perhaps it was what she needed. A docile steed would not serve her.

“You knew what I needed for you before I did, didn’t you.” She softened, patting her new horse with all the tenderness she could muster. Well, “horse” wasn’t quite right, but it was certainly horse-adjacent. She would prefer to find a way to create things that didn’t smell quite so bad, but maybe that was part of it. The creations birthed from her subconscious created a protective barrier for all the senses. Terrifying to look at, horrible to breathe in, and deadly to touch. She wouldn’t dare try to eat one of them but was confident that they’d be poisonous in one’s belly.

After bringing her mount into the world, Ophir created a saddle, which also didn’t turn out quite like it was supposed to. She wasn’t confident enough in her riding or in the comfort of the steed’s bony spine to want to ride it bareback. She took the horse all the way from her escape beyond Henares to the desert’s edge, where she realized her plan would have to change. She couldn’t stay on the horse, nor did she want Sedit to burn his paws.

She slapped the corpse-like rump and set it free into the wild as she looked at her hound. “What can I possibly make that would get me across the Tarkhany Desert?”

Sedit’s pitiful whine pierced the desert air.

“Trust me, I’m as hot as you are. A horse won’t serve us across an ocean on fire. If only we could fly…” Her eyes stayed fixed on Sedit and his pathetic state before they dragged over the horizon, then up into the aquamarine of the cloudless sky. “Why couldn’t we fly?” she asked the dog.

He tilted his head, his numerous insect-like eyes sparkling up at her.

“Don’t worry, Sedit. I’d make something big enough for both of us. It would have to be something that could cover ground quickly, and suit two riders. A very large bird, don’t you think? Or a horse with wings! But a bigger horse, one where you could sit with me. A…”

Sedit whined again, and she created bowls of water for each of them. He didn’t drink from his obsidian basin but dipped his amphibious paws into the bowl. She winced apologetically as the sizzling sound of steam wafted up from where his feet met the water. A string of apologies and curses wove together as she created a blanket for Sedit to get safely off the sand, as well as a canvas to protect his skin from burning. She didn’t know much about her sweet, strange dog, but at present, Sedit was her only friend in the world.

“Okay, hands.” Ophir wiggled her fingers expectantly. “Let’s make something with wings.”

She had an idea in mind, though the fictional beast only existed in the distant reaches of nursery rhymes and children’s stories. She meditated on the infantile fantasy of a creature made by mothers and nannies and storytellers to tantalize little ones into falling asleep. Ophir knew exactly what she needed.

Focusing her intention, the princess cast her palms before her and birthed a dragon.

***

Ophir was lucky it was night. Not only could she spot the glow of the Tarkhany capital from the air, but the dark, enormous shape of her quadrupedal winged beast would be little more than a smudge against the black sky—a peculiar place in the dark where the stars seemed to blot out of focus.

She touched down outside of Midnah but found it difficult to part with her winged serpent, neck and tail nearly twice as long as its spindly torso. It was her favorite thing she’d ever made—save for Sedit, of course. She frowned at it from her place on the sand, eyeing its wormlike neck, the rows of endless teeth, the enormity of its wings. “I don’t know that I can just set you free, my friend.” Her frown deepened. “You’re too frightening for the world, and far too powerful for its citizens. I crave violence as much as the next, but I want to be the one who doles out the justice. I can’t have you eating my enemies before I find them.”

It looked down at her curiously, head twisting like a semi-intelligent lizard, tasting the air as she spoke. It used one of its terrible talons to scratch at the sand dunes as if to respond, kicking up a tiny cloud of dust in the chill of the desert night. This poor dumb beast would know only hunger and the gnashing of teeth. It would have no herd, no nest, none of its kind, no one in the world to love or find or stay with.

It belonged nowhere.

Maybe it didn’t know better. Perhaps it couldn’t hold the capacity for sorrow. Or a third possibility: she was projecting her loss and loneliness onto the gargantuan, winged serpent before her.

She sighed at the monster knowing that, like her vageth, it would offer patience and curiosity only for her. The world would be its orchard as it plucked its fruits from the ground in the form of humans and animals, wicked and innocent alike. The bird-snake monstrosity was not something made for mercy. Yet, she didn’t want to kill it. It was the best thing she’d made.

“I have an idea, friend. I don’t know if it will work, as things never seem to turn out the way I want them to, but let’s give it a shot, shall we?”

Its serpentine neck coiled unnaturally to look at her from different angles, trying to understand her words, though it lacked comprehension of language. It was trying, the poor thing. Her eyes raked over it from head to tail, examining the taut skin of its bat wings, its talons the size of axes, its needle teeth. The monster with the gift for flight was bigger than a house and had the serpentine length of trees stacked one on top of the other. She was quite sure that nothing so enormous had ever existed on the continent—until now, that is.

The corner of her mouth tugged up in a smile as she admired her creation once more. She might have gone on smiling had the answering silence not tugged her face downward. Dwyn would have been proud, too. Joy lost some of its sparkle when she had no one to share it with. The creature deflated at her sorrow, chuffing as it nuzzled her.

Ophir leaned into its snout, patting the stretch of black skin between its eyes. “You need someone who can keep you under control. Someone with wings, in case you get away. Someone who can tell you what is and is not good to eat. I can’t have you vanquishing my enemies for me. Not yet, at least. Not until they know exactly why they’re dying.”

I’m a manifester, for fuck’s sake. I made this fairy book thing, didn’t I? I brought a fiction into the world. Why can’t I make a fae? Something smart, something good?

She pictured a friend—something that could speak, something that could fly, something that could rein in the monster when it needed control. She closed her eyes and pictured a winged fae, something powerful, something resilient, something that could soar through the sky, two unique and perfect bats in the world that she had created all by herself. Ophir dropped her hands to her sides as she let her intention fill her, visualizing an intelligent creature, picturing a face, a torso, arms, legs, hands, feet, and wings. She lifted her hands and pushed her intention into the world, opening her eyes to see what she’d made.

Fuck .

“What the hell are you supposed to be?” She frowned at the abomination, a familiar stench roiling off its flesh.

It hissed back at her, hunching its shoulders as it squatted, flaring its membranous wings behind it. Enormous horns twisted from its head, mirroring the spines of her black dragon. It opened its mouth to show matching teeth, truly her dragon in a near-human body. It slowly rose from the crouching position, and a spike of fire jolted through Ophir as it stared at her. It was so much bigger than she’d expected. Its gray-black flesh ripped with a warrior’s muscles. It flexed talons at her. Of course, she couldn’t make a fae. She’d been insane to try. She rolled her eyes, hands on her hips as she pondered what to do with the monstrosity.

“Youuu…” it hissed.

She took a half step back, fingers flying to her heart. It picked up with an intensity she hadn’t felt in weeks—her first true jolt of fear since abandoning her companions. She swallowed against the lump of fear in her throat. “You speak! You do speak!” The breath left her lungs as she looked around the empty expanse of the desert. There was no one to see her hound, her winged serpent, or the demonic, male human shape she’d crafted.

“I can’t believe I did it,” she breathed again, pride and terror coursing through her in equal portions. The confused spike of anxiety and satisfaction tingled in her fingertips like cold water.

The creature took a step toward her.

“Stop,” she commanded breathlessly, and it listened.

She knew she shouldn’t be afraid. Every creation had heeded her will with blind obedience, but she’d never created something with the intent of it talking, thinking, or making decisions. She swallowed again, feeling her mouth go dry. It was as if the dust of the entire desert coated her tongue and throat, making swallowing impossible. It was as though she’d swallowed chalk.

“You’re in Tarkhany,” she said carefully. “Can you say Tarkhany?”

The fae-beast hissed again, testing the word slowly as it stretched the vowels, elongating the final sound. She shuddered against the chill of its word but rallied herself for bravery.

“Good, good. Look at this. Look what I’ve made.” She gestured at her serpent, urging the abomination to drink in its features, to acquaint itself with the winged snake on the sand. “This is why you’re here. This creation needs someone to keep an eye on him. You will be his master. It will answer to none but you and me, do you understand?”

The new demon did not move toward her, but it dipped its head in a similar curiosity, not knowing why it had been brought into the world, understanding little of the earth or its purpose. All it knew was that it existed, and it listened to Ophir.

“Yesss,” it responded, hunching its shoulders once more. She noticed a smoke-like quality begin to spill from the demon as it spoke, as if each word created tendrils of mist that crawled into the world.

“I need you to keep it out of sight. You should do your best to remain hidden, too. Don’t bring it into cities or villages, okay? Especially not in full daylight. The forests, the wilds, the desert, the sea are all fine, but I can’t let people know about my creature. Not this one. It would give too much away. Can you do that?”

Yes, it confirmed. It could.

“One more thing?” She arched a brow at the human-adjacent monstrosity. It opened its mouth, smoky tendrils of sulfur and rancid meat emanating from its depths. It looked at her with its terrible, sunken eyes. “You have one other purpose, and I don’t care what you have to do to accomplish it. Use your gift for speech to spread a message. Tell Berinth, wherever he is, that I’ve already killed his cohort, and I’m coming for him next. I believe he’s in hiding now, so you may have to wait until he’s in public. I don’t just want him afraid: I want to bury him. When the moment is right, spread the message so that everyone, everywhere, can know exactly how evil he is. He’s a murderer, but he deserves more than murder. Revenge needs to be so much more thorough to be meaningful.” Ophir realized she was monologuing to an abomination that could barely string a sentence together. She shook her head, cutting herself off. She returned her eyes to the black, beady eyes of the monster and emphasized her final point. “I want him afraid—I want this monster terrified . Do whatever it takes to scare the ones who did this to my sister. They should never know peace again. It’s what they deserve.”

It was a half-truth. She’d killed one pathetic human outside of Henares, after all. But the fearmongering she might achieve with the help of her slippery-tongued creation would make her vengeance so much sweeter. Make him tremble. Give him nightmares. Make him wet his britches at the sight of her monstrosity and the carrion of its smoke-like words.

She smiled to herself as she turned toward its new beast.

It flapped its wings once, then twice as it tested its gift for flight. With a beckon, the winged serpent reared up onto its two hind legs, long black tail twisting on the sand behind it. It began to flap its wings, joining the demon as it became airborne, bound for anywhere that it might stay hidden from prying eyes.

She watched them go before turning her eyes to the glowing lights of Midnah.