Page 108 of A Frozen Pyre
She saw the calamity for what it was—a sleight of hand. She walked away from the wailing sailor. She stepped over the brutalized body of the young man who’d fallen victim to Ophir’s latest monstrosity as she mounted the ladder. Dwyn would have shivered against the cold if she could feel anything at all. She scanned the horizon for any sign of the princess but saw only the husk of the man she’d eliminated as his bundle of bones and clothes was pushed along the ice by the whipping winds.
She was continuing to scan for where Ophir had gone when she saw it.
Out of nowhere, a doorway appeared. It opened, closed, and disappeared into a bout of smoke and flame as if it had never existed. Ophir had drained a man to try her hand at hypnosis. The tale of a monarch who’d died on the Frozen Straits was even more final than the false hope that she might one day return from Sulgrave. Dwyn realized in that moment that Ophir had never intended to relocate to the mountain kingdom. She didn’t want to live at Dwyn’s side at all.
The horrid, shrieking creature rammed the hull of the ship. Dwyn peered over the edge at the terrifying monster that Ophir had made merely for distraction. Unless the princess had drained a second sailor, then perhaps this beast knew a thing or two about how to help someone slip away unseen.
She blamed Tyr that Ophir had even considered stepping into the place between things.
She watched the demon ram the ship time and time again as it slashed and hacked at the wood in vain. Its tearing had no impact.
“My lady!” came the concerned voice of a sailor rushing for her. “Did you hear? The princess is dead. She—”
Dwyn grabbed the man by the neck. She dug her nails into his throat, wrapping her hand around his esophagus just to feel the thrill of his panic in his final seconds as rage pumped through her. She’d already stolen and used wind. The second power she’d taken was healing, though she may very well still need it soon if she was about to set out onto the ice.
“It’s nothing personal,” she said to the man as his blood vanished, his skin suctioning to what remained of his skeleton. “I need a few things. You and a few of your brothers are going to have to cough up the price.”
The first stolen power was that of strength. She burst through the locked cabin door as she stormed into the captain’s quarters. Just as was true of ships bound for the sea, the captain’s cabin had a large map of the continent on the table at its center. Dwyn sighed as she looked at the map. She worked her face into a dramatic display of pain and panic as she screamed for help. She cried out again and again until someone sprinted to her aid. The man threw himself at her protectively before identifying the source of her fear.
Within a moment, she’d claimed him.
She turned back to the map and used her next power.
“Show me Ophir,” she said to the map.
A large, dark blotch appeared on the elaborate parchment. To her surprise, Ophir had not gone to the Raasay Forest, or the warm coastal climates, or Tarkhany, or Sulgrave. As she looked at the dark spot on the map, she desperately wished it had been the Etal Isles.
Dwyn snarled at the map as she spun out of the cabin. A concerned, handsome face opened his mouth to intercept her, perhaps concerned for her safety as crewmembers dropped dead left and right. He’d be her final kill. She didn’t hear what he had to say before she grabbed the rope that dangled over the ledge and lowered herself to the icy ground.She only needed to get far enough away from the ship to keep the men from following. She tucked her exposed hands into her coat, praying Ophir’s demon would be too distracted by the crew to come searching for her.
Healing awaited her should she need it, but she had one more power to use.
Dwyn closed her eyes as she made good on the rumors that had circulated about her for months and became a fae who had the gift of travel as she focused on the Unclaimed Wilds.
Thirty-Nine
Three Hours Following the Wedding
Gwydir, Raascot
Sedit’s head shot up in sudden alarm. He pounced from the luxurious feather bed with feline grace as he ran for the door. With the high, alarming whine of nails on slate, he began to scratch at the door as he attempted to escape into the corridors of Castle Gwydir.
Tyr was on his feet a second later.
“I’m sure you miss her, but she’s coming right back,” he promised the vageth. His words came out in a hushed plea for the creature to be quiet. Sedit had never made a commotion like this of his own accord.
Sedit sprinted to the window and jumped up on his hind legs. He pressed his large paws into the glass as he surveyed the three-story drop below. With a huff, talons shot out from his paws as he began to bring his weight down on the windowpane. His glossy, amphibious skin matched the blue-black labradorite of the castle, making him look like a gargoyle perched at the window, carved from the stone itself, rather than a demonic dog attempting escape.
“What the hell,” Tyr gasped. “What are you doing?”
He watched in horror as the demonic hound pounded at the window, throwing his weight into it again and again. Heturned to Tyr and bared the venom-slick rows of his needlelike teeth. His eyes were solid black as they reflected sheer, feral urgency. Sedit abandoned the window and ran for the door once more, this time throwing his entire body into the barricade as if he were a battering ram.
“Is it Ophir?” Tyr asked. He knew the vageth couldn’t talk. He hadn’t particularly cared for the hound, but it had been his only connection to Ophir after Dwyn had banished him. Any wishes for vengeance or hopes of returning to Sulgrave to track down the men who deserved their long-cold revenge simmered in a distant pot in the back of his mind. He’d barely removed himself from the cabin for fifteen minutes before he’d returned in the space between things.
Heartbroken, Ophir hadn’t looked for him.
With no one to drain and no reason to believe that Tyr would remain with a princess who didn’t want him, Dwyn hadn’t posed a threat.
Sedit hadn’t been fooled for a second. He’d raised his head to look at Tyr the moment he’d slipped back into the cabin. He’d also promptly decided he didn’t care, and he had allowed Tyr to carry on in obscurity while he napped by the fire. The vageth had remained his tether to Ophir as they’d returned to the castle, his partner in avoidance as they’d glared at Dwyn from the washroom when the siren had sunk her greedy claws into the princess, and his only companion as she’d departed for Aubade.
