Page 35 of A Chill in the Flame
The Blood Pact stayed the course. Their hunt to circumvent the consequences of stolen powers consumed them as it had for hundreds of years prior. Tyr’s contribution remained his singular obsession: finding Dwyn, and learning how she’d not only found that which evaded the rest but had already put it to use. She was to be brought to Anwir and reunited with the clan she’d abandoned. The woman on the run was educated, slick, and clever. She had long ago learned to operate in the oily gray waters of the unimpeachable. Her advancements in power were about to meet their natural end in Sulgrave.
“You think you’ll get her to talk?” Anwir asked before Tyr set forth.
“I think I’ve spent enough time in old libraries and ruins. And while I appreciate the Pact’s dedication, I don’t have the stomach for gouging beating hearts from innocents.”
Anwir chuckled. “Show me one truly innocent man and I’ll show you the All Mother’s tits.”
Tyr’s lips twitched in response. “Is that what you’re hiding under that tunic?”
The leader’s smile faded. “I wonder…” He shook his head, brushing off the thought.
“Are we still thinking of tits?”
The smile returned, but his eyes did not match. “In a way. It’s about Dwyn. She’s not just running. She’s…hunting. She’s on a mission of sorts, and I can’t help but wonder what she knows if she learned all we set out to learn, yet did not stop.”
Tyr rolled the idea around in his head. “What more is there? If she can draw from the groundwater without harming herself, she’s already the most powerful fae alive.”
“Perhaps…” Anwir’s thoughts trailed. “There may be one stronger, still.”
Tyr lifted a brow. Suddenly, he understood the connection. “You don’t think…”
“If you find her, you won’t just be learning how to master blood magic. You may be on a mission to capture the next would-be goddess.”
The words echoed through the hollowness of his chest. They rang clear and cold as he traversed the mountains, searched the valleys, met with scryers, interrogated outlaws, and hunted in the space between things.
Learn from a fae. Stop a god.
By the time he’d realized why she’d left the mountains, it had been too late.
The continent’s royal blood lived in Farehold. Aubade was where he needed to go.
***
Perhaps he’d defected, just as Dwyn had. What else prevented him from dragging Dwyn by her hair to confront the Blood Pact once he’d found her skulking about Castle Aubade? The answer didn’t elude him. He’d been after her long before he’d met the others. She knew things he didn’t. If Dwyn wanted a princess, then he’d been focused on a minnow while neglecting a shark in the water.
The truth was, he had no allegiance to Anwir.
Tyr didn’t care about the Blood Pact, their cause, or their leader.
His mission for vengeance belonged to Svea, and her alone.
Arriving in Farehold had quickly alerted to him as to how many were closing in on the princesses and the keys they held in unlocking magical advancement. His dry mouthhadn’t been the only one in need of quenching. Thirst for knowledge had leached throughout the continent. Dwyn may have led him to the lower continent, but she wasn’t alone in her hunt. The princesses were a dark beacon for the ill will of dark magics. They set off a chilling light without ever knowing or understanding the critical role they might hold for everyone in Gyrradin.
The stakes heightened as time marched on.
Berinth hadn’t resurfaced since Caris’s death, but he may very well pose a greater threat to the future of man and fae than any other witch or crime syndicate or church combined.
No one who knew Tyr would consider him good. He inspired neither confidence nor fear. He was that which disappeared between the shadows. He was his own.
The race to godhood would have only one winner.
Eighteen
Now
Some things happen slowly.
Dwyn had once heard that one could boil a frog if the water began at a comfortable temperature. The creature wouldn’t understand its fatal flaw until it was too late. The successful erosion of kingdoms happened gradually, void of fanfare, without detection.
