Page 23 of A Chill in the Flame
They both knew exactly what would have happened if he had remained in Farehold.
Ophir took the final drink of wine and set it down beside her. Three-quarters of a bottle had been almost enough to give her a small, pleasant buzz, but it hadn’t quite done the trick. She leaned against the wall as she continued to gaze out at the horizon.
“Once Caris leaves for Gwydir, do you know what you’ll do?”
She shrugged. “I suppose I’ll do what I’ve always done: whatever the hell I want.”
Ceneth remained at the castle for a full week, and it was both too much, and never enough time. Caris had been as doting and lovelorn as any bride-to-be, but he’d matched her energy with equal ferocity. Ophir had never seen anyonelook at a woman the way the winged northern king gazed at her sister. There was no doubt in Ophir’s mind that he’d drain the seas for her, lasso the moon, and level kingdoms if she asked. He was a man whose soul had been fully given to his betrothed. They deserved each other, in every sense of the word.
Ophir absently wondered if their offspring would be born with or without wings. She tried to picture Caris’s blond hair and blue eyes on bronze skin and set against the black feathers of a Raascot fae.
Ophir politely interacted with Ceneth at the dinner tables and whenever their paths crossed in the hall. She held no animosity toward the dark king, but she also didn’t feel particularly inclined to get to know him. He’d always been abundantly civil with Ophir, but never more than that. The king gave her a proper, courteous kiss on the cheek as he parted. He held Caris for a long, beautiful stretch before he and his men returned to the north.
Ophir touched Caris’s back as she stood at the gate, waving at the figures who disappeared into the distance. “You won’t always have to say goodbye.”
“I know.” Caris wiped at a single, silvery tear.
“Fuck tradition,” Ophir said. “Move up the wedding. Unless, of course, you think you’ll have a change of heart before your seventy-fifth birthday?”
“Don’t even joke about that. He’s so wonderful. He’s everything, Firi.”
Ophir hated the pain on her sister’s face. “But you’re in love.”
Caris shook her head, curls swishing around her shoulders as she did so. “You shouldn’t rush something that’s meant to last forever. Besides, there’s more work to be done for us both. The people trust us as leaders of the separate kingdoms. We’d undermine our progress if we rushed the unification of the continent. It’ll be worth the wait.”
And that was only one of the millions of reasons thatCaris was the better person in every sense of the word. She was decent, selfless, and trusting to a fault. Ophir didn’t know it then, but she understood now.
Caris’s goodness would be her downfall.
Eleven
Now
Tyr had been given a gift. It was only right that he use it.
He’d always been good at sneaking, but it shouldn’t have been this easy. Not in a castle. If his priorities hadn’t rested elsewhere, he might have brought the egregious security flaw to someone’s attention. How old was this castle, that it contained a passageway that no one else knew about? Honestly, it wasn’t even the princess’s fault that she was coming and going at all hours of the night. Who wouldn’t use points of access when they were as easy as stepping through a mirror? It had certainly been intended as a safety measure—a method for escape if the royal family needed to steal away undetected. In a sense, she was using it for its intended purpose.
Tyr had slipped into the princess’s room as Ophir had returned from the kitchen with another bottle of wine. He’d thought she was going to take it in her bed, which had been both worrisome and understandable. He’d spent his own shares of nights in bottles of various spirits as he’d drowned his sorrow.
Her personal guard had followed her to take up post outside of her room. She’d locked the door behind her and then promptly pressed her way into the floor-length mirror.It released and gave way to a set of stairs that wound to the wine cellars beneath the castle. He never knew exactly what he was looking for when he stepped into the space between things, but that was the blessing and curse of voyeurism. Sometimes you had to be present for a long time before you learned something worth knowing.
Within a matter of minutes, she was sitting on the cliffs outside of the castle, completely unaccompanied. He was nearly impressed. The last royal hope of Farehold, and yet she could find absolute quiet and unguarded solitude whenever she wanted, even when they thought they had her under lock and key.
Surely, this was how she’d gotten Caris out of the castle.
Now it was how she got shit-faced on vintage red wines while watching the sunset in silence. He’d spent so many years in the invisible places between things that he’d long since lost the ability to feel shame for spying, but this did feel private. He got no sick pleasure out of watching the unwitting. When he courted partners or seduced lovers, it was with the full, enthusiastic desire of two or more passionate parties. Watching was for information. He’d followed Dwyn to Farehold with a purpose, and his tracking had led him to the princess.
He sat and leaned his back against the cream stones of the outer castle wall while Ophir drank straight from the bottle, watching seagulls dart beyond the cliffs. Seabirds reminded him of his post on the frozen coast, except these birds were louder and far bolder with their movements. All their screeches were so shrill, so piercing against the gentle consistency of the incoming tide. The day was extraordinarily humid, and everything tasted of fish and salt. He was envious of the green glass bottle pressed to her lips. He’d take woman or wine over the flavor of seaweed any day.
He felt…something.
He watched her take drink after drink while the orange sun flooded the horizon, filling the seascape with pastels. Itlit her features, setting her profile and the locks of her hair to the same flame for which she was famous. The humidity had turned to sweat, her hair clinging to her neck and bare arms in a sticky, curled mess. He didn’t feel pity. It certainly wasn’t disapproval.
Empathy. That was the emotion.
The secondborn daughter to the Aubade throne, reckless and wild and lost, was in pain, and somehow, despite barely clinging to her will to survive, she kept putting one foot in front of the other. Some days it was by drinking berry-flavored liqueurs, and others it was by spending the day in bed. Progress was not linear. She was surviving. He understood.
Maybe that was why he didn’t feel angry when Dwyn strolled onto the cliff, despite how much he loved to hate her. Dwyn’s curtain of black hair caught in the wind, whipping around her face as the breeze swept off the ocean and rushed onto the rocks. He hadn’t heard her footsteps over the rhythmic sounds of the waves, but he wasn’t particularly surprised at her presence. She was why he was at the castle in the first place. She was playing some game with the princess that he had yet to fully understand. Both he and Dwyn stared at a lock, so to speak, and Dwyn appeared certain that Ophir held the key.
