Page 45 of A Chill in the Flame
“Shut the fuck up, phantom.”
“You’re also exceedingly foul-mouthed.”
“And you’re a stalker who specializes in voyeurism. You can’t be seen? That’s your power?”
He stepped out from thin air and shrugged, still shirtless. “Sorry about the shirt. You’re in enough trouble as it is without him worrying about you having men in your room. I thought I was doing you a favor by staying hidden. Well,” he amended, “I was doing us both a favor.”
She looked to her feet. “Harland is not going to get me in trouble.”
Tyr shrugged. “Maybe that used to be true, but he might be inclined to start reporting your misgivings if he thinks it’ll help keep you safe. Maybe you could use a little bit of a spanking.”
“You’re crude.”
“I am. I think our demons would dance well together.”
Her face had reacted in notable surprise before she’d had time to conceal her expression.
They heard footsteps in the hall, and Tyr took a backward step into the unknowable space between things, vanishing once more. She kept her eyes narrowed at the empty place where he doubtlessly stood as Harland returned with clean bandages and several more glass bottles. She continued to stare at the blank corner, wondering if there would be any sign, any ripple, any disturbance in the air to give him away. There was nothing.
Harland ordered her to sit on the bed, and she obliged.
“I should be calling a healer for this. I should call your lady in waiting.”
“But you won’t.”
Harland stilled his hands against where they wrappedher wound. His gaze met hers, but his hazel eyes were tight and colored with pain. He sighed as she winced against the bandage. “I know. That’s why I’m here doing this myself, isn’t it? As if a guard is qualified…” His words trailed off as he forced her leg up to get the bandage around her thigh more fully. Their relationship had abandoned the appropriate boundaries of guard and royal charge long ago. “As soon as I tell someone, they’ll report it. And maybe they should, for goddess’s sake. When will you stop? When will it be enough for you?”
Ophir’s frown came from somewhere deep within herself. She propped herself up on her elbow to look at him. Her soul itself turned the corners of her mouth downward. She didn’t know why she was so broken. She didn’t know why she couldn’t be more like Caris.
With a quiet voice, she opted for honesty. “I went to see if I could do it again.”
His fingers stilled against her, hands resting on either side of her leg. Harland’s eyes were as tense as the flexed muscles in his jaw. “You didn’t.”
She quietly said, “I succeeded.”
He swallowed, frozen to his place on the bed. Harland closed his eyes slowly and brought a hand to his temple, rubbing it against the early signs of what might have been a headache. He leaned away from the princess. “That’s what I wanted to talk about. The serpent. This gift…” He was clearly struggling for his words as he leaned his weight away from the bed, standing fully on his feet. “Dwyn shouldn’t have known you might have the potential to manifest. There’s no reason she should have believed any such thing about you. She came out of nowhere on the night of your sister’s death and suddenly she’s eliciting one of the most dangerous magics of the old gods from you? Firi, I…” His voice disconnected as his eyes unfocused.
“Is she…”
“She’s still in the castle. Your parents have never questionedher presence. I didn’t either, and it was foolish of us. After she arrived, you seemed to calm down. Her friendship appeared to be helping, and we were too happy to question it. Ever since you stopped burning down chambers and began sleeping through the night… You’re eating again, Firi. You looked relatively healthy before you got your ass kicked tonight by whoever or whatever did this to you—”
“This would be the handiwork of the high tide.”
He dismissed her statement. “Dwyn seems like a nice enough girl. She’s strange, she’s foreign, she’s violent and odd, but nice enough. I don’t know shit about Sulgrave, but I also don’t care who she is or where she’s from. Whether Dwyn was born in Aubade or Yelagin or Raascot or Tarkhany, I think she’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. My gut is telling me you shouldn’t trust her.”
Ophir met his eyes with gravity. She leaned forward and touched his hands. “The damage is already done. What more could she possibly do?”
“Look at yourself.”
Ophir studied his hazel eyes for sincerity. She got up from where she’d been sitting and stood in front of the full-length mirror on the wall. The ornate, floral gilding that framed the mirror created a portrait-like effect, but the sight within it was anything but lovely. Purple bruises and rust-colored scrapes covered the half-drowned girl who stared back at her.
“Give the tonics a chance to work,” she muttered.
Harland sighed at the young woman in the mirror. Posture heavy with disappointment, he moved to depart. With his back to her, he offered low parting words. “You’ve never shown particularly good judgment, Firi. It would be great for everyone if you would start.”
At least when Dwyn had slapped her, the evidence had been physical. This was much, much worse.
He closed the door behind him, leaving his words to course through her like a poison.
