Page 114 of A Frozen Pyre
Harland nodded. “That’s Tyr. He’s a…friend.” Harland wasn’t sure if he liked the word in his mouth, but it was the only one that rang true. He looked over his shoulder as his eyes adjusted from the brilliant red and yellow firelight to the dark of the night. He’d heard that humans often took several minutes to see when light and dark changed quickly, but then again, humans had always been the goddess’s most pitiful creations on so many accounts. It was by the starlight that poked between the canopy that Harland discerned the hound’s glistening hide. Though it hadn’t fully relaxed, it no longer looked feral.
Harland wasn’t sure what tone to strike on an occasion such as this. He swallowed as he asked, “Ophir’s…dog. Did you give it a name?”
“She did,” Tyr said. “Sedit. And I’ve been following him from Gwydir. I believe she’s calling to him. Of course, I have no way of proving that, but…”
Harland nodded slowly. He wanted to feel bewildered, but it was hard to believe that anything could shock him. Wherever Ophir went, demons and destruction seemed to follow, and neither Tyr nor Dwyn was ever far behind. Even in the rugged northern wilderness to which no kingdom had laid its mark, despite the trees the size of castle towers and the presence of hellhounds, Harland couldn’t bring himself to respond with the appropriate level of surprise. He’d primed himself to ask another question when Caleb groaned.
“Hush,” Harland said as he rested a comforting arm on the man’s good shoulder. “You were brave. The tonic will begin working any second. You should already be feeling a bit better.”
“If you say so, sir,” Caleb said. The younger fae gritted his teeth and scooted backward against the pain, shoving his backinto the tentpole with more force.
Even in the starlight, Harland made out the clammy glisten of sweat on his forehead. “Do you? Has your pain lessened, that is?”
“I hate to sound like a coward,” the first mate said between ragged breaths, “but I’m feeling markedly worse, sir.”
Sedit barked once and took one step back, then another.
Tyr looked at them with wide eyes. In a hurried voice, he said, “He’s leaving. I have to keep following him or I’ll lose the trail to Ophir. I’ll leave markings as I go so you can find us. Wait thirty minutes before you light another fire. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you shortly. And Harland?”
Harland nodded through the urgency. “Yes?”
“You know how we hate Dwyn?”
“Deeply.”
“She’s so much worse than we even imagined.”
Rather than run toward Sedit, Tyr took off in the direction from which they’d come. A moment later, the muscled shape of a dark horse cut across camp as he chased Sedit across the mountain.
Harland kept Caleb distracted with sordid tales of how he’d gotten the job as Ophir’s personal guard, skipping over the more personal bits and relying heavily on humorous elements that might make the first mate laugh. He had to dig the firepit out of the snow before he could begin the process of lighting a new flame on fresh wood.
He wished he had Ophir’s gift for flame, but they’d brought flint and a small bottle of alcohol meant for dousing rather than lighting. It took a few tries, but before long, he’d fostered the kindling until the logs had caught fire. He nurtured it into a small blaze before he turned to check on Caleb. His smile faltered the moment he rotated.
“Caleb?”
Harland’s hand flew to the man’s neck. There was still a pulse, but it was erratic, almost as if the man had ingested poison. Harland grabbed the satchel and dug for the remainingtonics. They only had one remaining, but clearly the injuries were far more serious than he’d estimated. Even still, the first mate was fae. Two tonics even on a major artery should have sufficed. And yet…
Harland uncorked the final bottle and tilted back Caleb’s head. He dribbled a little into the fae’s mouth and waited for the man to swallow. He did, which Harland took as encouragement.
“Hang in there,” he said. He sniffed the tonic to ensure it smelled every bit as medicinal as the ones he’d used in the castle. Some horrible part of him wondered if the ship had been stocked with fraudulent bottles to save on costs, or if the men had been swindled when they’d purchased supplies. He hadn’t thought to consider the efficacy of the tonics before deploying them the first time.
He stuck his tongue to the edge of the bottle and waited for the familiar tang, and he was satisfied when it came. Even if the first two had been water, a single tonic should work, when ingested; it would merely take longer.
“Sir, I don’t think I’m getting better,” Caleb said, voice weak.
“Perhaps the first bottles were spoiled. But this one is every bit the real thing. You might have an uncomfortable night, but the fire is going, we have food, we have water, we have shelter, and we’ll give you the time you need to heal. Here.” Harland continued to hold Caleb’s head as the fae consumed the last of the liquid. “Just rest tight.”
“You know,” Caleb said, voice trembling, “I’ve never been anywhere. My village was only a short journey from the border, and they knew of my gift for navigation. It wasn’t enough to qualify me for the job, to be honest, but since we were a landlocked ship rather than a seafaring one, the captain was a bit different. This trip to the Frozen Straits, the chance to see Sulgrave…and then when you asked me to come with you to the Unclaimed Wilds. Sir, it was a dream come true. Overnight, I went from a boy who’d never ventured beyondhis village to a voyager.”
Harland smiled. “Then you’d better survive to go back to tell the village that you sailed the Straits and pursued a princess across the Wilds, don’t you think?”
Caleb coughed. “What’s Aubade like? The castle, I mean?”
Harland’s heart twisted painfully. Of course, now was not the time to talk about oceans of blood, of screams, of fallen bodies. It was not the time to inform him that his king was dead and that there was no monarchy in Farehold. It wasn’t even the time for him to think of how empty and homeless he’d felt when the person who’d tethered him to Aubade had left. So instead, he spoke of the sea, of walls the color of custard, of large, white birds that fished with their gullets, of tall trees, and hard brown fruits full of sweet water. He watched Caleb’s face as he discussed crossing the desert with Samael and seeing the Tarkhany Palace. He spoke of dragons as tall and wide as buildings with cries that could be heard for miles around. He told Caleb of the glow of the northern lights that had been caught within the very crystal stones of Castle Gwydir, of the river so dark it could have been made of the gloom between stars, of a people with the black, glistening wings of angels.
He watched Caleb relax in his arms as he realized the tonics were not working. Whatever had happened in the man’s fight with the hellhound, Ophir had created a demon that would win its battles in one form or another. Though her dog was bounding through the forest, the gored man he’d left behind had not been spared.
So, Harland spoke of love.
