Page 3 of A Chill in the Flame
“Goddess damn it,” she coughed as she struggled to orient herself.
There.
The castle was still almost completely dark, save for the distant twinkles of a few orange flames that marked its perimeters. She was so much farther from shore than she’d thought.
Something brushed her leg, and this time she wasn’t so sure it was kelp. An involuntary yelp tore from her belly, and the jolt required to bring her leg away from the unseen danger sent her beneath the waves once more.
No, no, no. Not like this. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
The desire to die clashed against her most primal urge: the need to survive. Instinct overpowered her as she attempted a breaststroke, but her weak arms were powerless. She whirled through her options in the blink of an eye as she put herself on her back once more and kicked toward shore but was quickly overturned by the rolling waves.
“Help,” came the weak, involuntary plea. Her nose and throat stung of salt and fish. She choked on her exhaustion as she remained pointed toward the shore, perhaps praying, perhaps calling to whatever flicker of fight rested dormant within her. “Please help me.”
She reached out, grasping for anything, but there was nothing to grab. There were no ropes, there were no rocks, there was no boat. She had chosen the time and the placespecifically so that there would be no one around to witness her final moments.
Another wave took her under, and she knew with some certainty that she would not be resurfacing. She’d gotten what she wanted the moment she’d stopped wanting it. This was it. She was a fish in a net being dragged to the bottom as she thrashed and struggled. Ophir clawed for the surface but couldn’t tell up from down. The sky was as dark as the sea below. Her lungs burned as they begged her for air that would not come. Down, down, down she went. There was no white shift dress to create an angel of her sunken form. She was no princess. She was merely a pale girl in the murky depths—another victim of the sea.
Something bit into her skin, and she knew the sharks of the deep had arrived to pull her limb from limb. Teeth and claws dragged her deeper and she cried against the final insult, which gave the sea its opening to fill her lungs.
To her utter shock, it was not the ocean floor that she hit but the water’s surface as she breached, choking and gagging all the while. She tried to call for help, to banish the shark, to dosomething,but was shocked by a woman’s voice. She struggled to see what held her in its teeth, what had dragged her by its claws, but nothing made sense.
The voice spoke through grunts as it struggled to keep them afloat. “There you go, cough it up. I need you to hang on for a little while longer, okay?”
Ophir was quite certain she was hearing things. Surely, she had died and an angel was now escorting her to the All Mother. She was disappointed to learn the afterlife stank of seaweed and shellfish. Her body spasmed with each cough and began to thrash, rejecting the water that scalded her throat.
“Oh, no you don’t,” scolded the voice. Her voice was strained as she said, “Drowners always try to take someone down with them. Either you hold still, or I bind your damn arms.”
The goddess wasn’t as friendly as Ophir had imagined she’d be.
She tried to turn her head to see the shore but instead saw the pale flesh of a woman dragging her against the riptide. The woman’s hair was as black as the sea around it, plastered to her neck, shoulders, and any other bit that Ophir couldn’t see.
“Goddess damn you, hold still. Don’t make this harder.”
She wasn’t quite sure why she obeyed, but she did. Ophir succumbed to her back as she was dragged through the sea. The temperature changed again as they drew near to shore.
“Am I alive?” came Ophir’s hoarse question.
“Afraid so,” said the voice.
The stranger dragged her fully up the beach and onto the sand. Ophir coughed up the remnants of seawater swashing in her lungs, then blinked against the sting of salt in her eyes as she looked at the woman. Tiny rocks and broken shells bit into her cheek as she lay heavy against the sand. A wave licked around the parts of her that still dangled in the ocean, salt burning the tiny cuts that covered her naked body. It was fortunate that she had no use for emotions like shame, as she didn’t possess the energy to cover her nakedness even if she’d wanted to.
Her thoughts were as heavy as a lodestone. Perhaps she was delirious, for the only thing she could think to ask was, “Are you a mermaid?”
The woman stopped wringing out her hair and laughed. “Do you see a tail?”
Ophir tried to push herself up onto her elbows but was too weak. She had been treading water for too long. It took every drop of strength before she was finally able to sit up. The stranger patted her on the back while she coughed. She struggled through the fog of exhaustion, mind sharpening just enough to attempt to demand answers.
“Mermaids are a cute fiction, aren’t they?” the woman said. “Mermaids, dragons, centaurs…such delightful nonsense.”
“Dragonsdidexist,” Ophir muttered. “They’d make a hellof a lot more sense than a strange woman swimming against the ocean’s current before the dawn’s bell.”
“Well.” The stranger clapped her hands. “I’ll be sure to speak to the All Mother about mermaids and dragons next time I speak with her. Any other complaints while you’re busy whining to the person who saved your life?”
“Who are you?” Ophir meant it to come out with authority, but no conviction remained. Her spirit was as tired as her body.
The stranger offered a smile. Even in the final moments before twilight, she could distinguish the glint of moonlight on the woman’s sharpened canines, then shot a glance to her arched ears. The stranger, like Ophir, was fae. Fae was the only similarity they shared, as the woman didn’t look like anyone Ophir had met. She didn’t possess the pale features of Farehold, nor the bronze skin and wings of the northern fae. The stranger’s foxlike eyes matched the dark ink of her hair. The woman’s attire was also unlike anything the princess had seen. Her rescuer wore something skin-slick and shimmery, almost as if she were in a dress made of water and moonlight.
“I’m Dwyn.” The woman leaned backward onto her hands as she eyed Ophir.
