Page 99 of A Chill in the Flame
“In Tarkhany, yes. At the palace? No. She doesn’t know I’m here. She also claims I’m particularly hard to shake.”
“Has anyone compared you to a venereal disease? If not, allow me to be the first.”
He pursed his lips for the third time that night to keep himself from smiling. Maybe it was a laugh threatening to bubble over due to being reunited after she’d put an entire desert between them, or just a general glee at her temper, but he found her endlessly amusing.
“How did you cross the desert?”
His amusement faded. “With substantial difficulty, a touch of heat stroke, and what Dwyn swears are third-degree burns.”
“I assume she used a healer’s magic, since you’re not horribly disfigured from your skin melting off under the sun?”
“You assume correctly. And am I hearing things, or are you calling me handsome?”
“You’re hearing things. And yes,” she sighed, losing much of her steam. “I’d love if you could spy for me, but you don’t speak the language. There is so much I need to uncover, and next to no time to learn it. I don’t think Zita will expect me to stay once Berinth is killed, but if he’s little more than a puppet, then there’s a reason he came back to Tarkhany. It’s safe to assume his puppet master is here.”
He frowned. “Yes, my inability to speak the local language has been a recurrent theme regarding my lack of usefulness.”
He’d scarcely finished his sentence when Ophir’s face lit. It hadn’t been the candle of an idea but the bonfire sort of light that erupted when brilliance struck. Her hand flew to the side of her face, creeping up to where her hair hid her ears. She winced as if pained with the somewhat indelicate action of whatever she was doing, but moments later, she procured a metallic ear cuff. She extended it to him, and he took it.
“I made it!” she said proudly.
He rolled it over between his fingers, examining the rather ornate look of the metallic shape. It arched and pointed as if to follow the elfin points of the fae ear, surrounding it perfectly. “And it’s beautiful, Firi, but I fail to see—”
She tried to hit him, but he caught her wrist with his free hand before she made contact. She shook like she would have if she’d received a chill down the spine, as if her body couldn’t physically contain her burst of rage. She suppressed it into silence. “It’s a translator, smart ass. I made it on my first night and I haven’t taken it off. It doesn’t work bothways, so I haven’t been able to speak to anyone, but I can hear what they’re saying no matter what language they’re speaking. Perfect for a ghost. Go ahead, put it on. Let me see how it looks when you disappear.”
He continued speaking while he fitted it to his ear. “I was with you in the dungeon toward the end. I’d only just arrived to hear what the newest member of your party was saying. It seemed like a far-fetched conclusion. I’d sooner believe Berinth was lying.”
Tyr turned his head to the left and right, then shook it like a dog, intent on ensuring it wouldn’t fall off. Satisfied that it was securely attached, he turned his inquisitive gaze to Ophir.
Ophir chewed the inside of her cheek. “It’s his thing—Samael’s, that is. I don’t know if it’s his power or just a knack, but he’s in possession of the sort of gut instincts that saved the kingdom. My father has never told us the whole story, but he was convinced enough by the man’s gift that he appointed him as our spymaster.”
Tyr considered this information. “Perhaps the spymaster should be the one with the translator.”
She made a face. “Perhaps the spymaster should be the one with the gift for invisibility. Now, let me see it.”
He obliged, taking a step into the space between things. Ophir’s face changed the moment he disappeared, searching the air for any hint, any trace of him.
“I think if I look hard enough, I can see evidence of your eyes,” she said finally.
He stepped back into the light. “Yes, it’s the one thing I can’t fully conceal. It’s never caused me any trouble. If someone catches a pair of eyes out of their peripherals, they usually convince themselves their vision is playing tricks on them. We tell ourselves little lies all the time to downplay our intuition when the truth would be too terrible. It helps keep us sane.”
“I feel like there’s a lesson in there somewhere.”
He nodded. “There is, but few learn it. Your spymaster,Samael, may possess the gift of intuition or judgment or spectacular hunches or whatever it is you believe him to have, but it’s ignoring our own that gets us killed. Trust it.” He extended the tips of his fingers, grazing her abdomen.
She gave him a shove toward the door. “Well, right now my gut is telling me that you have the chance to be useful. Please, go do that.”
“Fine,” he said, disappearing once more. Her hands remained pressed to his chest, eyebrows shooting up when she could no longer see him. “But when I return victorious, I expect a reward.”
Ophir remained in stunned silence as he brushed his lips over hers. A hand went to her lower back, the other cupping the back of her neck. His fingers flexed the moment she relaxed into the kiss, melting into him. In his arms was the single most precious thing in all the kingdoms. Princess Ophir, the only living heir to the southern throne, the final hope of Farehold, a motherfucking manifester.
“I hate you, you know,” she murmured.
“I don’t think you do,” he replied. She didn’t open her eyes until he broke the kiss. The last thing he saw as he stepped from the room was her searching the air for a trace of phantom eyes.
Forty-five
7:30 PM
