Page 116 of A Frozen Pyre
She could stop at any time. She was somewhere unknown. She hadn’t seen trees like this in Raascot, though she supposed she hadn’t made it far beyond the grounds of Castle Gwydir. She knew nothing like this existed in Farehold or Tarkhany. There was a chance she’d ended up in Sulgrave, but she’d been led to believe that, aside from the sheer cliffs, Sulgrave was rather densely populated.
No, unless she’d been taken to another continent entirely, this had to be the Unclaimed Wilds.
Maybe she would be the one to claim them.
She walked and walked and walked until she reached a large clearing. The trees stood as sentinels around her, guarding the open space. The moon had a clear view of the earth at long last, and she soaked in its silver light as it bathed her in freedom. Ophir spun slowly in the large, circular opening and flushed with emotion. Tears threatened to spill over.
No, it wasn’t home yet.
It was an empty, forested snowscape. Sedit wasn’t here, but if she called to him, she felt in her bones that he would come. And she could make whatever she needed. She couldmake a shelter. Or a home. Or a mansion. Or a castle. She could make friends, or animals, or anything she needed. The Unclaimed Wilds were hers now. If she was to be the goddess, then surely she needed a place and people to rule.
This would be it.
This would be hers.
And so, she got to work. She split her focus so that her fire warmed her and illuminated the world that was hers for the taking. Perhaps she wouldn’t get it right at first. There would be flaws, and setbacks, and crumbling shacks built on broken foundations, but she would have time. Tonight, she needed a bed, four walls, a roof, and a fire. Tomorrow, she would begin her empire.
She was nearly too excited to sleep. Whatever part of her that had been rooted in fear had finally snapped when she’d looked into the eyes of her final creation and understood what she’d failed to grasp for so long.
It was her.
And so was the ramshackle house, and the compass that had fixated on time, and the horrendous fae that had embodied fear and terror and pain.
They were her.
And perhaps if she knew why she’d made everything bad, then maybe, just maybe, she could start to learn how to make something good.
She’d barely gotten any sleep before she awoke and got to work. And though in theory she should have been able to picture Castle Ophir and have it manifested into existence, every attempt at a building returned shattered and cracked and unsteady. Surely, there was something at the heart of her issues with manifestation. Surely, if she could only piece together what it was that made every house she built unstable, she could yank it up from the roots like a weed and tend to her heart’s garden.
The moment she caught a flash of dark hair and the furious, pale face of the one she’d left behind, the dreams of her kingdom fell to pieces.
Ophir could have done anything. She could have raised an army of rabid, undead bears. She could have conjured a battalion of skyborne fae with gnashing teeth and swords for arms. She could have called the earth and manifested walls around the clearing to fence her in. But she didn’t.
Instead, she turned and ran.
“Firi, stop!” Dwyn’s voice was fury and plea. The command was desperate.
And that desperate note struck a chord. It dissolved her excitement and returned her to that place on the cliffs following Caris’s death where she’d been so empty, so broken. Maybe Dwyn took her back to that time and place. Maybe she empathized with what Dwyn must be feeling in this time of loss and couldn’t bring herself to force Dwyn through a living death.
Ophir took a few steadying breaths as she turned to face the lithe shape among the woods. Dwyn’s lovely form looked so small among the red giants. She was little more than a speck beside the mountains who’d dreamed of being trees and grown lush, green coniferous leaves to block out the sun. Her hair caught in a gust and whipped to the side, casting a striking figure as she balled her fists in anger.
Even from across the glen, Ophir could see Dwyn’s pain.
Ophir winced at the look in her eye. She didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to face it. She wished Dwyn had stayed on the ship, that she’d gone home to Sulgrave, that she’d taken the goddess-damned hint and gone on to live her life. She knew it had been a fool’s hope. Dwyn’s tenacity towered above her other qualities. She was both fearless and peerless as she forced her way forward, plucking everything she wanted from the world. And while Ophir admired the quality in someone else, it was not something she wanted in her life.
“Why would you leave me?” came Dwyn’s broken question. It caught on the wind, joining the snow and the rustling of branches.
Ophir closed her eyes slowly. When she reopened them, Dwyn had taken several steps closer. “You want something I can’t give you,” she said.
Dwyn was aghast. “That’s not true. There’s nothing you can’t do.”
Ophir made a small silencing gesture. She didn’t miss the steps Dwyn took to close the gap between them, but if they were alone in the Unclaimed Wilds, perhaps it was time for Ophir to meet her reckoning. “I mean,” Ophir clarified, voice barely more than a whisper, “you want more than I’ll ever be willing to give you. You want a real kingdom. You want rulership and power and conquering. You want things that I’ll never want.”
“Then… What do you want? You’re a goddess, Firi. Speak it and make it so.”
Ophir looked at where her feet broke through the crust of the snow. “I want Caris back.”
Dwyn shook her head, choking on a sound that was halfway between laugh and sob. Her face twisted in panic and pity as she said, “You just don’t see it like I see it. What you did in Aubade… You changed history. You steered the course of a kingdom. You overthrew a dynasty. When you want to make change, you fuckingmakeit.”
