Page 30 of A Chill in the Flame
“I’ve told you everything.”
“You haven’t,” he insisted. There was a stress and comfort coupled in his two words. Though she didn’t like what hewas saying, he was right. She hadn’t. Some scabs were too painful to reopen. His expression softened as he said, “Please, Ophir.”
“Why?” She croaked the word.
“Because: it could be nothing. Or, it could be everything.”
Seconds ticked into a minute, but his gaze did not falter.
“She was nearly naked when I found her. Her dress was still on, but it had been shredded down the middle. The stranger kept shouting for me to stop and not to touch her before he carried me out. Maybe he didn’t want me to feel what it was like to truly feel horror. They’d cut open her belly.”
“Just her belly?”
Ophir came sharply into her body, veins flooding with something cold and angry all at once. “What do you mean, ‘Just her belly’? Is that not enough?”
He reached out a comforting hand and she slapped it away. He struggled to look patient. “Please, I know it’s hard, but try to remember. What else did you see in the room? Was it just men and a bed and your sister?”
He had used that word again—just. As if those three things weren’t the single most horrifying combination in the goddess’s lighted kingdom. She used to find him so comforting. He’d been a friend to her. A source of companionship. A safety net. What was he now?
“Just?”
“Firi—”
“Stop.” Anger surged through her, and it comforted her. Fury was a beautiful emotion compared to the shock and horror that had consumed her. “What do you want from me? I don’t have the energy to play whatever game this is.”
He tightened his grip on her hand. “Think, Ophir. Was there anything else? Bowls? Books? Daggers? Metals? Was she missing any of her organs? Was she still wearing her…underthings?”
A high ringing sound filled her ears. She’d heard thesound before in the moments before she’d been sick. It filled her now as a new and terrible nausea gripped her, raking through her body. She ran to the bathing room to grip the edges of the chamber pot, releasing whatever remnants of acid and liquid had remained in her stomach. She would not be answering any more questions. Not now, or ever again.
“Go fuck yourself,” she snarled.
Harland would have his answers eventually. While the casket had been closed, it had been passed along from the medical examiner that she’d been missing her liver. There was no relief, no victory, no goodness in the world when a parent learned their child had died. The only small kindness was the knowledge that she had not been deflowered, though there was far more to sexual assault than the overly simplistic terms that they were disgustingly distilling the word into. Everyone had believed that Caris had been dragged into the room to be violated by the men in attendance who had been all too thrilled to get their evil, perverse hands on a princess.
Only a few people did not seem comforted by this information. For some sick, unknowable reason, Harland had seemed further disquieted at the knowledge that she’d died with her maidenhood intact. Perhaps crimes of a deviant sexual nature were easier to accept and understand than whatever unholy horrors had been attempted in the room that night.
The knowledge that they’d taken only her liver had bothered him deeply—he’d said as much. He didn’t understand why they’d chosen that piece of the princess, except that perhaps their process had been interrupted before they could access more. When Ophir had screamed at him and told him that she’d shove a fireball down his throat if he ever spoke of her sister like that again, he’d gone fully silent on the topic.
Harland would mention nothing more of his suspicions.
Ophir dropped into a living comatose state. Whatever pieces of her that were still capable of feeling were surprisedevery day that the sun continued to rise and birds continued to sing. Beautiful blue skies mocked her. The happy faces of laughing children were an affront too grotesque to face, so she refrained from leaving the castle. She would spend autumn, winter, and spring in her room, draining the winery of its reds and whites regardless of their year or finery. She didn’t want music. She didn’t want companionship. She didn’t want anything except for Caris to be alive. She wanted to be gone in her sister’s place.
Fifteen
“Your plan is shit, Dwyn. You’ll just, what, be silent until theend of time so I can learn nothing more from you?”
Tyr had haunted her room for days. He knew that she wanted to salvage whatever remained of Harland’s good graces, but the guard needed her to be forthcoming, and that was a risk she was unwilling to take while Tyr haunted her doorstep. So, Harland would interrogate her, she’d remain silent, save for her unhelpful shrugs and apologetic expressions, and the dance would go on.
Alone once more, she said to Tyr, “My plan is to let you starve to death. You’ll need to leave eventually for food. You know what I had for dinner? The princess and I ate the loveliest hot breads with roasted garlic, fresh butter, and melted cheese—”
He relaxed against the wall. “I know what you’re doing, and it won’t work. I can wait.”
She arched a brow. “So can I. I’ve lived a very long life, dog. Ophir isn’t going anywhere, and neither am I. But you certainly can. You could leave for Sulgrave today and be back in your bed with your precious clan by the end of the month.”
“It’s an awfully long trip to have ventured to the southern kingdoms for nothing.”
“And why did you come? Loyalty? Maybe you’re more of a dog than I realized. Anwir really knows how to recruit his men.”
He bristled at the mention of the clan leader. “You know nothing of why I’m here.”
