Page 49 of A Chill in the Flame
“I’m ready to do something, and I’m going to need your help.”
Dwyn pouted. “Before tea?”
On an exhale, Ophir asked, “You’ve wanted me to change my sorrow into anger? I’ve succeeded. I’m furious. You’ve wanted me to manifest? I’ve now accomplished it on more than one occasion. I don’t know your motives, but if you help me with my agenda, then honestly, I don’t care. We can burn down the world together. I just need you to be with me on something first.”
“No tea then.” Dwyn’s lashes fluttered as she absorbed the information. She straightened her posture and ran her hands through her hair while considering Ophir’s words. In only a few short sentences, Ophir had made it clear that shesuspected Dwyn of ulterior motives on multiple fronts. She’d also kept her tone casual enough to convey that she was pretty damn comfortable with it.
Perhaps Dwyn could have denied it, or interrogated her to ask Ophir what she meant, but she didn’t. After the surprise passed, Dwyn nodded. “Name it.”
Ophir planted her hands on the bed where she stood and leaned forward with grave seriousness. “Help me kill the men who murdered my sister.”
A slow smile spread across her face. “I thought you’d never ask.”
“There’s one more thing,” Ophir began.
Dwyn’s body tensed in anticipatory silence.
“Who’s Tyr?”
***
Ophir chose her steps carefully in an attempt to evade Harland. The cold, stone floor leached into her bare feet as she maneuvered down the corridor in the flimsy, white material of a nightdress that scarcely grazed the tops of her thighs. She’d borrowed the indecent silky fabric from the clothes provided in Dwyn’s armoire—sleeping clothes that the siren had never touched.
She didn’t make it far.
Harland was waiting for her. Her guard was stationed at the first intersection when she rounded the corner, so no matter where she’d tried to go, he’d intercept her. He frowned at her state of undress briefly before his expression tightened. “Ophir—”
She brushed past him without turning her head. She had no patience for his opinion on her choices. “Save it.”
“Princess Ophir, stop.”
She hesitated at his use of her true title. It was too formal. Almost as if he were a proper royal guard.
“King Eero and Queen Darya have requested your company, Princess Ophir. I’m to escort you to the war room immediately. Please, get changed.” His voice was unusuallystrained as he spoke. She was unnerved by his usage of their formal names, feeling the unfamiliar language slither down her spine with an upsetting chill.
She paused mid-step on the rug that ran down the center of the corridor. She turned partway over her shoulder. “My parents?” Her back went rigid. “Do you know what this is about?”
He said nothing. She searched the curve of his hard jaw, the way his tendons seemed too tense in his neck, the way his brow faced off to the side rather than looking directly to her. Harland wasn’t meeting her gaze. His face appeared unnatural, as it was so rarely this uneasy.
His silence drove her to an uncomfortable edge. She turned on the corridor’s carpet runner to look at him. She didn’t care how thin or short her silky nightdress might be. He’d seen her in far more revealing states of undress as the one who’d run into her room as she’d burned her bed to ashes and embers night after night.
“Harland? Do you know why?”
She could have been mistaken, but there was something pained about the way he nearly flinched at her question. “Please, dress and let’s go.”
She tried to prod him for more, but he shut his eyes as if to conceal whatever it was that his gaze might communicate. Nerves made it nearly impossible to perform grooming tasks as she left Harland in the hall for the few moments it took her to run a brush through her hair and find a dress. Ophir’s bruises were almost invisible now, particularly as she’d dusted a bit of coverage on her eyes and cheekbones to help blend the evidence of her brush with death. She wore a crimson dress in Farehold colors for the late fall day. It was long enough to conceal her bandages and any other visible wounds quite well. Her pulse became painful as she stepped into her clothes. Her hands trembled as she attempted to weave her loose, gold-brown strands into a single braid.
She emerged from her room but didn’t step a foot beyondthe doorway. “Please, tell me.”
He shook his head once. It was a single denial through the sideways motion of his chin to tell her that no, he could not say what needed to be said.
She knew in that moment that nothing good awaited her.
Ophir resisted the urge to plead with him and instead lifted her chin and straightened her shoulders. They walked forward like an executioner and his charge making their way to the gallows. There was pain on his face as he walked her down the beige corridor, nearly silent as their feet padded against the red runner that lined the hall. The castle normally hummed with Farehold’s reds and golds, from the neutrals of its stones to the crimson of its curtains and carpets to the very color of the eyes of Eero and his youngest daughter. Today, the attendants moved like sodden corpses—little more than neutral stones come to life, the browns and beiges of their linens breaking the scarlet of the fabrics that accented the castle.
This was not the first time she’d been to the war room. It was, however, the first time she’d been summoned without notice.
Harland’s silence exacerbated her anxiety thousand fold If only he would look at her. If he would turn his stupid head and just meet her desperation. But he gave her nothing. Maybe they knew each other too well. Surely, he’d break if he looked at her, and they both knew it.
