Page 73 of A Chill in the Flame
He reached up and took the wineglass out of her hand, draining it. “What, because you fucked her you think you’ve cemented a place with the heir of Aubade? You want to rise to power alongside the last remaining hope of Farehold? Please, you should know the difference between sex and love. She slept with her guard, didn’t she? Does she love him?”
“Are you saying she’s easy?” Dwyn’s posture tightened as if ready to spring into defense.
“I’m saying, she slept with you because she doesn’t respect you. She saw you as an opportunity for fun, or escape, or rebellion. Not because she views you as an equal.”
Dwyn’s mouth dropped open in offense. Her brows lowered. She raised her palms, hands filling with fire.
“Don’t go draining your abilities before we’ve used them on anything good just because you can’t keep your legs closed.”
She threw a punch that he caught, staring at her as she lit her fist on fire. He didn’t flinch as the flame consumed his hand, crackling with shades of white, orange, and yellow. The small home filled with the scent of roasted meat as smoke billowed from his grasp.
She cried out in pain, buckling under the dually inflicted wound as it consumed her. The sound was a high, sharp, guttural noise as if it had wrenched itself up directly from her belly. Hefelt every crackle of skin, every boil of blood, every splinter of bone that she felt, but all he had to do was remain conscious while they shared the unspeakable pain she’d intended to inflict only on him. She grunted through the pain, intensifying her flame in a final burst of energy as if she’d forgotten even for a moment that, for her, he was untouchable.
Finally, she released the call on the flame, blinking at him in shock and disgust. Her face turned a greenish shade of sick. Sweat danced on her brow as she struggled to maintain her angered expression. Her small fist remained in the blackened, cooked remains of his scorched hand, but he’d endured it all without a single reaction.
“You sick fuck!” She gagged, staggering to the side as she failed to jostle her fist loose from his grasp. “Why did you let me do that?”
He refused to break his challenging stare. “I think you underestimate your opponent, Dwyn. You want power for power’s sake? Your life, your future, your prospects, your happiness, everything is at stake for you. Me? I have nothing to lose.”
“Are you going to let go of my hand?”
“Oh, I can’t. My fingers are absolutely fused together. Make yourself useful, would you?”
She tried to jerk her fist free of his grasp. He gleaned some satisfaction from the way her expression changed when she realized he was right. He’d made a horrific, unconscionable gamble, and won. His heart was still racing against the exchange. Tyr had undergone excruciating torture without flinching to prove, what, that he wasn’t afraid of her? She called magic to her fist once more, but this time it was a healer’s touch coursing through her until his flesh was pink and healthy once more, allowing him to relax his hold and disengage.
“You’re so much more fucked up than I realized.”
He arched a brow as he emptied the bottle of wine into the glass. “And that’s why I’m going to win.”
Thirty-five
“What are they asking for?” Ceneth rubbed his temples,hunched over his war room table. The room was windowless, midnight blue with the captured refraction of labradorite on which the castle was built, as if the night sky glittered in every precious stone. If it weren’t for the oil-soaked rags and torches, the room could have been utterly black.
“Eero has been very forthcoming, Your Majesty. He’s shared that Ophir is missing of her own volition, and that they’re hoping we might provide someone with the ability to scry.”
For years, the Castle of Gwydir had been undergoing the beautification process necessary to house its impending queen. Loving touches had filled every corridor. Luxurious curtains, latticed windows, ornate carvings in the once-plain pillars of the throne room, paintings of landscapes, planting of bushes and trees and flowers throughout the castle grounds. Now the blue-black stones of Gwydir seemed hauntingly cold. All efforts for renovation had ceased with the news of her passing. Scores of decorators, gardeners, landscapers, seamstresses, upholsters, painters, and the like had lost their stations in the castle overnight. Now it was a place where a heartbroken king would sit over his map and strategize,throwing himself into how to fulfill Caris’s vision for a better world even in her absence. He rarely left his war room, save for eating and sleeping. He had little reason to carry on without her.
The king’s hands slipped into his hair. “They’d have someone with the ability to scry in Farehold if they hadn’t spent hundreds of years demonizing powers they deemed ‘dark.’”
“You know as well as I that Eero and Darya are not to blame.”
He did know that. King Eero and Queen Darya had inherited a kingdom of systemic injustice. He also knew that passivity in the face of injustice was as good as condoning its continuity, and their daughter was the first to do something about it. Caris was a revolutionary. She wanted to use her power and privilege to make a change in the world. She wanted safety, she wanted education, she wanted not just tolerance, but peace, understanding, and appreciation among the people of the continent. Her heart had been too good for this world, and the world had killed her for it.
Ophir had killed her.
“Do we want to find Ophir?” Ceneth’s voice was tired. He hadn’t slept in months. He didn’t want the younger princess in Gwydir any more than she wanted to be there.
“The plan for the alliance has been in place before Eero and Darya even had children. The fact that they had daughters was advantageous, but irrelevant to the need for the alliance. It’s what’s right for Raascot.”
“Substantially harder to birth an heir to both thrones if they’d had sons, I suppose.” He wanted to smile but didn’t have it in him. He’d loved Caris. He’d loved her more than he’d thought possible. He’d wanted to tear down the world and make it new for her. He would have ripped out the hearts of her enemies, baked her ten thousand cakes, picked her flowers every day, given her the heads of her enemies, and made the world a new, beautiful place as they ruled. Hewould have given her every piece of himself every day for the rest of his life.
But Ophir had taken the most perfect treasure in this wretched world and dragged her to a viper’s den. And now he was supposed to marry his beloved’s murderer.
“I know you don’t care for Ophir, Your Majesty, but—”
Ceneth scoffed.
“The fact remains, she is your betrothed now.”
