A Chill in the Flame (Villains #1)

Forty-four

Forty-four

6:00 PM

12 hours and 45 minutes until execution

Tyr opened his eyes. He held his breath as he dared a glimpse of the woman who shared his bed. He’d been prepared to wait until the earliest hours of morning but was immensely relieved that the sun’s baking rays had joined the ocean of travel fatigue to pull Dwyn into a deep and corpse-like sleep long before the supper bell’s toll.

Dwyn’s deep slumber resembled the comfortable peace of someone who rested with a clear conscience. She’d remained above the covers, the soft cloud of her dark hair the only modicum of covering on her still-naked shape. The barest hints of crescent moonlight filtered in from the window, casting their room in deep shades of muted grays and midnight blues. While he knew it would take a lot to wake her, he still moved with painstaking slowness as he slid out of bed and tugged his shirt over his head. Grabbing his boots, he tiptoed to the door before slipping them on. The second before opening the door, he stepped into the place between things, unseen by all the world.

Dwyn would be angry when she awoke, but he didn’t imagine she’d be surprised. He didn’t love leaving Knight behind, but the horse was in a shaded shelter with plenty of food and water. It was a vast improvement over the endless stretches of sand dunes that the beast had endured. Two horses and a beautiful, sleeping monster in a woman’s body stayed behind as he set off toward the palace.

Ophir was in the royal palace, and that was all he needed to know. Dwyn had been privy to the same information he had, but she’d chosen to go to sleep. She’d always had more patience than him. Maybe she planned to let Ophir work out her rage through a sunrise execution before trying to ingratiate herself once more. Her path forward was of little concern. Maybe if he did his job well, Dwyn wouldn’t need a path forward at all.

He’d win.

If there was one thing he was good at, it was slipping into places he wasn’t meant to be.

Given that they’d taken over a home as close to the palace walls as possible, all he needed to do was walk past the guards and through the front gates to enter the palace grounds. The centurions were none the wiser, and within a matter of moments, he was in the orange-scented mist of the incense-laden palace. He’d never been anywhere with ceilings so high. While he knew he needed to focus, it was hard not to gape at the pillars, the overflowing potted vines and moon blossoms, the statues and gauzy curtains that separated parts of the enormous room to offer privacy without restricting the airflow in such a hot climate. It was a work of art. He wished he had more time to appreciate it, but he was on a mission.

This next part would be challenging. Entering the palace was easy, but finding the princess was a bit like looking for a blueberry in a barrel of poison berries. Everything looked the same and choosing wrong meant trouble. He couldn’t simply open doors and poke his head in without alerting every resident to the presence of a ghost. He scanned for clues, for something, for anything that might indicate where in the palace the bedrooms might be. The palace grounds were enormous, and he could just as easily find his way to a ballroom, any number of kitchens, the servants’ wing, or a royal menagerie before he stumbled across the princess.

He took a few more cautious steps toward the centermost area, where the pillars gave way to a large, circular garden. Fountains, lush, tropical vegetation, and an exotic bird wandered about the courtyard. His eyes snagged on an odd dip near the fountain. It appeared to be a pool of shadow, but something about it didn’t look quite right. The fae lights twinkling about the garden should have cast a dim, even lighting—there shouldn’t be consistent shadows gathered to one side. Tyr approached the shadow near the fountain, realizing with each passing step that he wasn’t seeing a shadow at all. The courtyard gave way to a sinking set of stairs.

The fountain’s burble had covered the voices initially, but as he drew closer, he could distinctly make out the sounds of conversation. Tyr wasn’t sure what he expected to find as he slipped quietly down the staircase. Perhaps a treasure trove, or a collection of art, or maybe this was where the royal tiger slept whenever it didn’t have a prisoner to devour. Instead, he stepped into what was unmistakably the dungeon, seeing none other than Ophir, her personal guard, a strange fae male, and the unmistakable face of Lord Berinth.

The gaunt, bedraggled lord was not alone.

***

7:15 PM

11 hours and 30 minutes until execution

It was hard not to smile. Tyr supposed it didn’t matter, as Ophir and her compatriots couldn’t see him, but it didn’t feel entirely wholesome to grin at the chaos unfolding in the princess’s allotted chambers. Harland, ever the white knight of the moral high ground, stood firmly in the camp of belief that the one they’d believed to be Berinth was innocent and should be spared. Ophir, true to her temper, didn’t give a fuck whether or not he’d been in his right mind—it had been this man’s hands stained with Caris’s blood, and he deserved to die. Perhaps it was the third fae making him smile. The man leaned against the wall with one shoulder, inspecting his clothes for signs of dust as if the conversation were of little interest to him. It was relatively comical when contrasted against the princess’s furious pacing and Harland’s expressive gestures.

“Isn’t your gift god-tier judgment? What do you have to say about this?” Ophir spun on the new fae.

The newcomer sighed, still dusting his clothes as if they were infinitely more interesting than the princess’s mood. Tyr studied the man for any familiar traits, but he did not look like a citizen of Farehold. Still, he spoke to Princess Ophir as if he were a natural born subject as he said, “More often than not, good judgment is realizing you don’t have enough information to make a decision.”

“And?” she pressed, angry. “What would you have me do?”

He looked at her with a taciturn expression. “If Berinth is killed at dawn, will Caris have been avenged?”

“Of course not!” she fumed. “If he’s a puppet, that means I have more questions than answers. Where are the puppeteers? Who do I have to blame?”

“Then,” Harland attempted to clarify, “you won’t execute him tomorrow?”

Ophir made a show of her offense. “What would make you say that? Of course, I’m going to kill him.”

“Why?” Harland’s eyes were so wild with a cocktail of disappointment, anger, and surprise that the whites of his eyes could be seen all around his irises.

She shrugged. “Catharsis.”

It was truly an effort for Tyr not to laugh. Ophir made staying hidden rather hard. He steeled himself as he listened.

“Help me out here, Samael.” Harland turned to the third man, exasperated. So, the stranger had a name after all.

The man called Samael offered a dispassionate cross of his arms, leaning against the nearby wall. “I don’t think the princess is looking for input.”

“I already like him better than you.”

Harland glared, looking between them. “But if she were ?”

Samael appeared to consider this. “Who else have you met in the palace? What else has transpired since you’ve been in Tarkhany?”

Not many, she admitted. She’d been met by guards when she’d entered the city. She’d been escorted to the dungeon when she’d first confirmed Berinth’s identity for Tarkhany’s royal authorities. She’d interacted with the servants as they’d brought her meals and helped her bathe and dress. Other than that, she’d only had a few peculiar exchanges with Zita.

The barest curiosities sparkled in Samael’s expression. “Peculiar how?”

She amended that she didn’t know whether or not the exchanges were typical for Tarkhany culture, seeming rather embarrassed as she recalled the scolding she’d received on her ignorance of the other kingdoms.

“And the prince?”

Ophir’s eyebrows bunched in a confused frown. Her eyes unfocused into the middle distance, scanning as if she were reading lines from a tome as she scanned her memories. She’d told Tyr once of an ambassador mission between their kingdoms and her playtime with a boy who’d called himself the Prince of the Desert. She used to tell him everything. That seemed like another life, now.

“No, I haven’t met a prince. The queen hasn’t mentioned one, either. The guards did mention something when I arrived about who they were bringing me to see, but they decided that Zita should be the one to receive me. I don’t know anyone else from the royal family, or if there is one at all.” Her sentence drifted away at the end, not unlike the wind taking the sand from the tops of the dunes and scattering it to the night sky.

The men didn’t need to press her further to ask if she found it unusual, because of course the answer was yes. It was hard to blame her. She’d been focused on the capture and pending execution of the man who murdered her sister. It was understandable that little else had been on her mind.

“Are you swinging the axe?” Harland asked. “Even if he wasn’t in his right mind when he committed the crime?”

Unruffled, she said, “Whether he’s mad or sane makes no difference to me. The man is stained with my sister’s blood. And, I assume you mean the metaphorical axe? Because yes, I will be the one who kills him. Tarkhany’s executioner needs no more blood on his hands. This is my fight.” She would burn him in front of all who’d gathered. It was her death to avenge.

From the placement of the mirror on the wall, Tyr could see the guard’s very transparent emotions, even though his back was to Tyr. Harland tilted his chin forward ever so slightly, meeting her gaze and hoping she heard him when he said no, it wasn’t her fight. If Berinth was little more than a puppet, he was not responsible for Caris’s death.

Ophir’s eyes bore two rebounding words: fuck you .

Tyr debated stepping into the light, mostly because he was concerned that if he waited too much longer, he’d chuckle in sheer delight of their absurdities and give himself away. Fortunately, it was decided that the men would return to their assigned rooms and Ophir would go speak with Zita. Samael had a gift for language and promised to do whatever reconnaissance he was able, and Harland more or less said he’d be brooding until dawn, should she need him.

Tyr knew she wouldn’t be pleased to see him, but the time had come.

The moment the men closed the door, he took three quick steps and put himself behind her to cover her mouth. He didn’t need her to call out in surprise when he appeared. He stepped out from the place between things in the same moment his hand clamped down on her mouth.

As anticipated, a startled cry bubbled from her throat.

Muffled by his hand, the sound was absorbed, and he turned her to look into the mirror. “It’s me,” he said, voice low. He saw her eyes meet his in the mirror and watched her shift from fear to fury. “I’m going to let go now. Don’t scream.”

The moment he removed his hand she spun on him. “Every time you—”

He put a hand to her mouth once more, then brought a single finger to his own lips, shushing her. He gestured to the door, arching a conspiratorial brow. Ophir’s face flushed with a familiar shade of pink at his nearness, which he appreciated. He kept his voice barely above a whisper. “A bird told me you might be in need of a spy.”

She shook her head in disbelief, toffee-colored curls moving about her shoulders as they spilled down her back. Her eyes were an even brighter gold than normal when she was angry, almost as if they were iron-scorched and heated in the fire until they were a blinding shade of yellow. “How is it that I can never get rid of you?”

He smiled. “To your credit, you do try. Don’t think I’ve forgiven you. Crossing the desert was astoundingly unpleasant, and I plan to hold it against you forever.”

She peeked over his shoulder. “Is Dwyn with you?”

“In Tarkhany, yes. At the palace? No. She doesn’t know I’m here. She also claims I’m particularly hard to shake.”

“Has anyone compared you to a venereal disease? If not, allow me to be the first.”

He pursed his lips for the third time that night to keep himself from smiling. Maybe it was a laugh threatening to bubble over due to being reunited after she’d put an entire desert between them, or just a general glee at her temper, but he found her endlessly amusing.

“How did you cross the desert?”

His amusement faded. “With substantial difficulty, a touch of heat stroke, and what Dwyn swears are third-degree burns.”

“I assume she used a healer’s magic, since you’re not horribly disfigured from your skin melting off under the sun?”

“You assume correctly. And am I hearing things, or are you calling me handsome?”

“You’re hearing things. And yes,” she sighed, losing much of her steam. “I’d love if you could spy for me, but you don’t speak the language. There is so much I need to uncover, and next to no time to learn it. I don’t think Zita will expect me to stay once Berinth is killed, but if he’s little more than a puppet, then there’s a reason he came back to Tarkhany. It’s safe to assume his puppet master is here.”

He frowned. “Yes, my inability to speak the local language has been a recurrent theme regarding my lack of usefulness.”

He’d scarcely finished his sentence when Ophir’s face lit. It hadn’t been the candle of an idea but the bonfire sort of light that erupted when brilliance struck. Her hand flew to the side of her face, creeping up to where her hair hid her ears. She winced as if pained with the somewhat indelicate action of whatever she was doing, but moments later, she procured a metallic ear cuff. She extended it to him, and he took it.

“I made it!” she said proudly.

He rolled it over between his fingers, examining the rather ornate look of the metallic shape. It arched and pointed as if to follow the elfin points of the fae ear, surrounding it perfectly. “And it’s beautiful, Firi, but I fail to see—”

She tried to hit him, but he caught her wrist with his free hand before she made contact. She shook like she would have if she’d received a chill down the spine, as if her body couldn’t physically contain her burst of rage. She suppressed it into silence. “It’s a translator, smart ass. I made it on my first night and I haven’t taken it off. It doesn’t work both ways, so I haven’t been able to speak to anyone, but I can hear what they’re saying no matter what language they’re speaking. Perfect for a ghost. Go ahead, put it on. Let me see how it looks when you disappear.”

He continued speaking while he fitted it to his ear. “I was with you in the dungeon toward the end. I’d only just arrived to hear what the newest member of your party was saying. It seemed like a far-fetched conclusion. I’d sooner believe Berinth was lying.”

Tyr turned his head to the left and right, then shook it like a dog, intent on ensuring it wouldn’t fall off. Satisfied that it was securely attached, he turned his inquisitive gaze to Ophir.

Ophir chewed the inside of her cheek. “It’s his thing—Samael’s, that is. I don’t know if it’s his power or just a knack, but he’s in possession of the sort of gut instincts that saved the kingdom. My father has never told us the whole story, but he was convinced enough by the man’s gift that he appointed him as our spymaster.”

Tyr considered this information. “Perhaps the spymaster should be the one with the translator.”

She made a face. “Perhaps the spymaster should be the one with the gift for invisibility. Now, let me see it.”

He obliged, taking a step into the space between things. Ophir’s face changed the moment he disappeared, searching the air for any hint, any trace of him.

“I think if I look hard enough, I can see evidence of your eyes,” she said finally.

He stepped back into the light. “Yes, it’s the one thing I can’t fully conceal. It’s never caused me any trouble. If someone catches a pair of eyes out of their peripherals, they usually convince themselves their vision is playing tricks on them. We tell ourselves little lies all the time to downplay our intuition when the truth would be too terrible. It helps keep us sane.”

“I feel like there’s a lesson in there somewhere.”

He nodded. “There is, but few learn it. Your spymaster, Samael, may possess the gift of intuition or judgment or spectacular hunches or whatever it is you believe him to have, but it’s ignoring our own that gets us killed. Trust it.” He extended the tips of his fingers, grazing her abdomen.

She gave him a shove toward the door. “Well, right now my gut is telling me that you have the chance to be useful. Please, go do that.”

“Fine,” he said, disappearing once more. Her hands remained pressed to his chest, eyebrows shooting up when she could no longer see him. “But when I return victorious, I expect a reward.”

Ophir remained in stunned silence as he brushed his lips over hers. A hand went to her lower back, the other cupping the back of her neck. His fingers flexed the moment she relaxed into the kiss, melting into him. In his arms was the single most precious thing in all the kingdoms. Princess Ophir, the only living heir to the southern throne, the final hope of Farehold, a motherfucking manifester.

“I hate you, you know,” she murmured.

“I don’t think you do,” he replied. She didn’t open her eyes until he broke the kiss. The last thing he saw as he stepped from the room was her searching the air for a trace of phantom eyes.