Page 11 of A Chill in the Flame
At its center, she found her sister.
Five
Now
“You’re dreaming.” Strong hands shook her as she screamed. Her throat was raw, ravaged from her nightmare. She continued to wail, barbed wire tearing from her stomach through her mouth as she cried.
Her body tipped as someone pulled her into a sitting position and crushed her into what was meant to be a comforting hug.
“Don’t touch me!” Ophir pushed backward. She struggled to open her eyes through the sting of tears only to see Harland. She gagged, choking on the lingering scent of roses, only to realize she was smelling smoke. It had been a memory. A nightmare.
The horror of reality crashed into the present moment. Harland’s hands were red and swollen with blisters and pain. Her nightdress had singed, falling to ashes as fire had claimed her in her sleep, swallowing her whole in its angry, orange flame. She commanded the fire and it vanished, but that did nothing for the destruction it caused in her sleep. He’d reached through the fires night after night to shake her from her horrors, freeing her from the unspeakable memories that broiled her from the inside out.
“Your mother is here to see you, Princess,” Harland said, teeth clenched against the pain.
Ophir winced at the sight of his blisters. “Harland, I…”
She wanted to apologize. Not just for his hands, or for yet another pile of ashes in a long line of ruined royal furniture, but for everything. For Caris. For being the reason Aubade wept. For the fundamental brokenness within her. The one thing she didn’t want was to be left alone with her mother.
“You have nothing to apologize for.” She didn’t notice the attendants cowering at the doorway until he beckoned them in. One woman threw a robe around her shoulders while others began to sweep the sooty evidence of her night terrors. The attendants were a flurry of hairbrushes, perfumes, healing tonics, dressing gowns, and every such power necessary to make the room acceptable for the queen.
Ophir rarely met with the king and queen. Their titles as mother and father were secondary to their roles as monarchs to the land. Farehold was their firstborn child.
As children, the girls had taken at least one meal per day with their parents in the formal dining hall. Her mother had loved to play with them in the garden, and her father had enjoyed attempting—and failing—to teach his daughters archery and horseback riding. As the years had gone on, their visits had become more infrequent. The king and queen had a kingdom to attend to, and duties on which to focus. They’d join their daughters for meals several times per week as the years stretched on, but Ophir had rarely darkened the doorway of the war room. She’d made herself intentionally scarce in all matters of politics and diplomacy, and they’d allowed her to distance herself from the responsibilities of monarchy.
She’d stood dutifully beside her parents at Caris’s funeral, but there had been no bittersweet embraces, no comfort, no kindness. They’d have to be fools not to know that Ophir was responsible for Caris’s death. She couldn’t bring herself to ask.
“Can you stay?” Ophir whispered to Harland.
His shoulders slumped. “I’ll be right outside.”
Harland ushered the attendants out the moment Queen Darya entered, closing the door behind her.
Ophir looked around uncertainly for somewhere for her mother to sit. The woman’s expression was strained but not unkind as she perched on the edge of the ruined mattress. She patted the unburned patch of cloth beside her. She took Ophir’s hands in her own as soon as her daughter took a seat.
“I like what you’ve done with the place,” the queen said quietly. Her eyes were glassy with the threat of tears. The corner of her lips twitched in the barest of smiles.
“I’m redecorating,” Ophir replied, matching the weak attempt at humor.
“Ophir…” The queen closed her eyes. A single tear spilled over her cheek as she did so. The queen tightened her grasp on her daughter’s hands. “Your father and I fear we’re losing you, too.”
Ophir’s throat constricted as she watched her mother’s face. They knew of Caris, yes, and of Ophir’s nightmares, but she wouldn’t have chosen these words if Harland had informed his king and queen about her night at sea or the long-gone wet stranger in her room.
Good. They had enough on their plates without adding that burden.
“I don’t know how to stop picturing it,” Ophir replied at last. “She’s there, even when I sleep.”
“It’s breaking me to know I’ve lost one child while the other was returned to me broken. We need you to be strong, Ophir. Your title comes with privileges, and with responsibilities. Your sorrow is not yours alone. You carry all of Farehold with you, and the people need to see your chin held high. If it helps, there are tonics for your suffering,” said the queen. Her eyes fluttered open. Her tears found their stride as she looked into her daughter’s eyes. “I’ll send for a healer who can help you with a dreamless sleep.”
Ophir wanted to say that a healer might treat a symptom but would do nothing for the problem. She didn’t want ahealer. She wanted to be held. To be heard. To share tears, rather than hear from the servants’ whispers that the queen had been crying herself to sleep night after night. She opened her mouth to explain herself, but nothing came out. Instead, she stared at the woman who was more queen than mother and who would visit, as was proper, but who so rarely gave Ophir the maternal love she craved.
“Give your burdens to the All Mother,” the queen said. “I’ll pray with you. Close your eyes.”
So, Queen Darya led them in an empty prayer. It was a petition to protect the kingdom, to heal Ophir, and to guard Caris’s soul in the afterlife. When the queen left, Ophir felt emptier and more alone than if her mother hadn’t visited at all.
Three weeks had passed since the kingdom mourned the loss of their beloved princess. Three weeks had crawled on its hands and knees over glass. Four times throughout that bitter month, Queen Darya had made Ophir think that perhaps the woman knew how to be a mother, after all. Four miserable, aching nights, she had let herself into Ophir’s room at night when her sobs were too loud for the castle to bear and touched her hair until she fell asleep. Three weeks were marked by ruined bedsheets, by burning furniture, and by a sleep-deprived Harland bursting through the room and battling the fire to get to her. The night guard who typically relieved him during sleeping hours had been chased away by Harland’s unwillingness to leave her to face her demons alone.
Ophir found no peace in sleep. Visions of the tragedy raged behind her closed lids when she was awake, and she relived their savagery in her dreams.
