Page 22 of A Chill in the Flame
He made an exaggerated smacking sound as he drank his whiskey. “Shouldn’t you be in the dining room right now with your parents, sister, and future brother-in-law? The food smelled great.” He returned the alcohol, and she proceeded to take three deep swallows before wiping the purple droplets from the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand.
“The hero and heroine will do just fine without me. Their mission to save the world doesn’t need a distraction.” She continued to gaze at the horizon, refusing to fully engage in his attempts to chastise her. “Are you asking because if I’m there eating, you’d get to eat, too?”
“You caught me.”
She smiled humorlessly. “Go, Harland. Fix yourself a plate. Snag me a roll. For now, I find it’s quicker to get drunk on an empty stomach, and they certainly don’t need my help with that task.”
Harland’s brows met in the middle. “It’s important—what they’re doing. That doesn’t make your life any less valuable.”
Her attempt to smile fell flat.
“You know,” Harland mused as if to himself, “your eyes are usually so golden it looks like you wear your crown around your pupils. Not today though.”
“Because the glitter fades when I’m hungry?” she asked, taking another drink.
“They give you away,” he said. “They’re ochre when you’re sad. The light doesn’t reach them.”
She shifted uncomfortably and Harland took the hint, dropping the topic. She wished she’d brought a cloak or blanket with her onto the wall, as the late hour was beginning to blow a chilling wind off the sea. A large, wooden ship was docking in the ports after returning from what had presumably been a trip to one of their distant trade partners. She focused on the little dots of men who worked like a colony of ants to unload their cargo from the vessel onto the pier.
Besides, Harland was wrong. Her life was not important. Every dotted sailor she watched served a purpose in his chain of command, helping keep the ship together. One would tie the masts, the other would steer, one would keep lookout, and all would participate. They had more purpose than she did. Caris had taken enough purpose for the both of them. Ophir didn’t resent her sister in the slightest. She admiredCaris not only for her wit and wisdom but for the unwavering confidence she had in an optimistic future.
The firstborn heir to the Farehold throne cast a very long shadow behind the brightness of her success. Ophir had no interest in competing with her elder sister’s shine.
“My family is alive because of them, you know.” Harland extended a hand for another drink of the wine.
She raised a brow curiously, encouraging him to go on as she passed him the merlot.
“Do you know what I do?”
“Yes. You harass my sense of privacy by following me all over the castle.”
He chuckled with a friendly, throaty sound. If he was going to stare too deeply into her eyes, she might as well return the favor. It was easy to do with Harland. She inhaled his honest, freshly cut grass fae scent, savoring the inborn perfume. His eyes were a pretty, complex shade of hazel as they twinkled in the afternoon sun. The greens, browns, and golds etched through his irises were a map of the world. He took another drink and then gave it a swirl, realizing they were making it through the alcohol more quickly than the princess may have intended.
“Watch.” He flexed his fist and punched into the wall of the outlook, directly into the stone. It crumbled and shuddered against the impact, leaving his hand intact.
“Show-off,” she muttered, but the demonstration succeeded in eliciting a smile. “That’s quite the neat trick. Is that how you got the job? You’re terribly strong?”
“It is,” he admitted, brandishing his knuckles to show that his skin had not broken from the impact. “But my mother and brother weren’t so lucky with their abilities. My mother can commune with the dead, and my brother can speak mind to mind.”
Harland didn’t need to go on. She understood what he meant. People did what they did best: hated what they did not understand. The powers had long since been informallyseparated into abilities of light and dark. While those born with light gifts were often celebrated as blessings from the goddess, it wasn’t uncommon for families, men, children, women, and strangers to turn up dead after their darker gifts had been revealed.
In the right setting, his mother may have been honored for her ability to commune with the afterlife. Those who could enter your very mind and thoughts, however, were never known for anything other than nightmares made flesh.
Changing the continent’s dangerous misconceptions was the dream that Caris and Ceneth shared. While Caris had expressed a longing to be married from the moment she met Raascot’s noble ruler, she adhered to the long-standing tradition of waiting until the age of seventy-five, building decades of goodwill with her people so they would trust her vision when they unified their kingdoms and ruled as one.
Through their combined efforts and relations across the continent, Caris and Ceneth had crafted a pipeline from Farehold to Raascot so that fae with darker powers might escape persecution and seek refuge. Raascot was an asylum for anyone who’d been branded “dark fae.”
Humans or those called the “light fae” who were disquieted by the influx of dark fae in the north were invited to relocate to the southern kingdom. Farehold took on the population growth steadily, overseeing their movements and resettlements as people migrated across the borders.
Removing fae from immediate threat of death and danger was only step one of their plan. While vital in protecting against the urgent realities of violence, dividing the groups had the potential to breed further distrust and make matters worse unless the second stage of their vision was carefully implemented.
Separating the problems from their prejudices had already begun to show its fruitfulness in the years since the underground pipeline had been instated. After the immigrants had settled from one kingdom into the next and roots hadbeen planted, Caris’s marriage would unite two kingdoms into one. As long as they could remove the vulnerable populations from immediate fear of harm or persecution, they’d continue down their path before education and unity could be disseminated through the joined continent. Once unification had been achieved, they’d work to cultivate healthy relationships between fae and humans of all gifts and abilities.
The plan would not be achieved overnight, but it was a beautiful vision for how a future without violence and misunderstanding of power might look.
“Your brother is okay?” Ophir asked. They never spoke of Harland’s family. In fact, aside from his age, his name, his title, and the amount of frustration she engendered in him, he generally avoided talking about himself at all.
Harland confirmed with a tilt of his head. “They’re in Raascot, living just outside of Gwydir. He’s going through formal training to learn how his abilities can be used for good, as much a part of their military as I am this one. If he had stayed in Farehold…”
