Page 32 of A Chill in the Flame
That’s what they’d called him.
It was harder to criticize a man for caring for strays and mending broken wings if he could slit your throat in the night or bring you down before you could blink.
Tyr had been raised in the church but had left his parents behind in their blind worship after his second decade of life. He had never been interested in the trades. He hadn’t wanted to be a tailor or guard or butcher. His fists needed more. The scales demanded balance if he were to possess a bleeding heart. He craved the symmetry that only battle would bring to his life.
The All Mother seemed like a creature of love and benevolence, but she also provided opportunities for expressions of righteous violence. Though his parents had encouraged him to use his strength and skills in service of the cloth and become a Red, he’d scarcely finished initiation as the sword arm of the church before he’d realized his abilities would be just as villainous in the hands of a religious leader who led without checks and balances as he might from any dictator. The All Mother may or may not have been real—at least,magic, good, and evil certainly seemed real—but the church’s teachings had been so filtered through the agendas of man and fae that the cold had been the lens he needed to examine his skepticism.
He’d considered it. His parents had wanted him to devote himself to the church.
Consideration had been a luxury afforded him before Svea.
He’d walked straight to the church with mud on his hands, knees, and under his fingernails from her burial. He’d banged on the door until someone had answered. They’d taken him in and set him to training. Soon, he’d have access to the groundwater of magic that allowed the faithful to call on borrowed abilities. The strongest Reds were godlike with their manipulation of the elements and forces. He’d never let himself be weak again. He’d never let any pain come to someone or something he loved, because he could do little more than slip into the unseen space between things.
Tyr had taken the oath for the Reds, but he’d made little effort to conceal his beliefs, or lack thereof. No one would speak to him about his blasphemous theories, though he knew he couldn’t be alone in his theological questioning. What if the All Mother had been a deified fae? What if she’d possessed an omnipotence they were failing to understand, worshipping rather than truly studying? If the strongest among them could call to any ability they wanted, what made them think that godhood wasn’t something that could be achieved?
They didn’t like the nature of his questions.
He was meant to be dedicated for service, not for gain.
Tyr’s void of faith had taken root as something different—rather than an absence, he felt a craving. There was knowledge. There was potential. There was…something. They’d trained him, but his overseers had made no attempt to conceal their concerns. Perhaps not all fae were meant to access the groundwater. At least, not in the name of the All Mother.
He’d still been a Red when he’d met Dwyn, though he hadn’t known her name or how the wicked witch of the sea would change the course of his life. Presently, they were both under the roof of Castle Aubade. Part of him would love to just kill her and get it over with, even if he couldn’t. It would solve so many problems if he snapped her neck and sent her to whatever twisted afterlife she would surely belong in. Instead, he was resigned to observe. He was forced to watch, hoping she’d slip up, hoping she’d reveal an inkling or glimpse into her abilities. She’d already achieved far more than he and the others hoped possible for themselves. It was challenging to fathom how much more someone like her might achieve with her sights set on the southern princess. If she made a move on Ophir, he’d have to intervene, even if it meant losing his shot at the sort of power only the Reds and one blasted siren possessed.
Now that this witch he’d hunted for nearly fifty years was with the princess…maybe she was right. Maybe there was more than one way to secure a royal heart.
***
The first time he’d locked eyes with the witch was seared into his brain.
Sulgrave was situated in the northernmost mountains of the continent. Its seven territories, ruled by Comtes, sprawled among the mountains, ending at the Frozen Straits. The Reds hadn’t liked him, and he understood why. His demand for knowledge had become a thirst. They didn’t need him anywhere near the important stations of the church. It was perhaps the politest way the organization could more or less excommunicate him without dishonoring his family.
His parents were pious people, after all. They didn’t deserve the shame a heretic would bring to their good standing in the church.
Scarcely in his twenties and low ranking among the Reds, he’d been given the least desirable outpost along thewestern shores where the mountains fell into the frozen sea. An arctic village of fewer than three hundred of Sulgrave’s heartiest civilians lived near the sea as the last frontier for the kingdom. The shores weren’t protected by the same seasonal enchantments that guarded their kingdom. While mild weather graced Sulgrave’s residents in the seven territories, a never-ending winter swept the western shores and outlying regions of the northernmost mountain lands. There was a small building that served as the village’s church and as well as the rationale for his presence, but the villagers more or less ignored Tyr, and he kept to himself as much as he could.
He hated every goddess-damned minute.
Tyr had served the sword arm of the All Mother for fewer than five years when he’d come across a damsel in distress, or so he’d thought. He wasn’t sure what had possessed him to ever see himself as altruistic, save for the lens society has cast on a man of the cloth. As he looked back on the event now, it would be the first and last time he assumed the victim and the aggressor based on gender alone.
Screams had come from beyond the icy shores.
He’d been certain he’d heard wind playing tricks on him. A sound came again across the ice, and he began to fear that perhaps a villager had fallen into the ice. He’d never been so cold, nor had his faith ever been more fragile. Every moment since his arrival at his post had weakened his resolve. The sun rose and fell for months. In the summer, it stayed with him from morning throughout the night, glowing red even in the midnight hours. He was now in the perpetual twilight before the village plummeted into months-long winter. The sky was a cold gradient of lavenders and indigos, speckled with stars and the silver crescent of the moon. He wrapped the furs of the aboriou hide around him more tightly and ran into the whipping winds in search of the voice’s owner.
The wind chafed his skin and froze his joints as he scanned. He could see nothing from the outpost that had barely beenenough for one man and his cot, and he began to climb a snowbank to look down onto the sea.
The sound came again, cutting across the glasslike shards of ice of Sulgrave’s frozen shores. A woman was calling for help. He knew he wasn’t imagining it. Tyr scrambled out of the cumbersome bundles of fur and ran for the shores in his leathers.
He stopped as soon as he saw her.
Her arms were bare. He could see the skin of her neck, of her upper chest, of her fingers without the warmth of cloak or gloves. Her bare feet walked along black sand, moving between broken chunks of glacial melt. She was in a strange, glossy dress that seemed to be made of oil and starlight.
He should have run to her, but everything within him screamed of danger.
He wasn’t the only one to respond to her screams. A man was running to her from the village. His arms appeared to be thick with warmed bundles of cloaks and blankets for the near-naked shipwrecked woman.
Tyr knew he needed to stop the man. He called to him and began running. He angled his body for the villager, putting one foot in front of the other as the icy wind froze his fingers and reddened his nose. He’d run with a tenacity that hadn’t compelled his muscles for months. Tyr’s hand gripped his weapon, his teeth gritting against the frozen winds as he barreled toward them. The villager paid him no mind, eyes fixed solely on the woman. Her cries for help had stopped as the villager reached her.
Tyr skidded to a halt as the two touched.
