Page 124 of A Frozen Pyre
“I can’t,” she said, shaking against the words. “She’s forbidden me from leaving.”
Tyr’s eyes flared as he absorbed the weight of her meaning. Dwyn could command her beasts and force her to stay put, all because of those stupid rings.
“Cut my finger off,” Ophir said urgently. “Cut it off! We were going to before Dwyn showed up and—”
“No,” Harland said, voice quiet but firm. He tried to right himself as he looked at Tyr, but sweat dripped down the gray skin of his face. “I’m dying,” he said.
“You’re not,” Ophir insisted. “Don’t say that.”
Harland ignored her as he held Tyr’s eyes. Tyr straightened respectfully as he nodded for Harland to go on.
“Is it true, what she said? Did you learn how to drain?”
Tyr furrowed his brow. He didn’t understand Harland’s question until Ophir’s face went white with dread and denial.“Absolutely not, Harland. No—”
Harland spoke over her, looking only at Tyr as he said, “You can get it off her. You can speak to metal.”
Tyr looked between the two of them.
“No, Harland, no, he won’t do that. He’s not going to hurt you. You’re going to be fine,” Ophir insisted. The fire flared within the hearth as if emphasizing her words, blazing with intensity and vanquishing the room’s shadows as she clutched him.
“I’m dying, Firi,” he said calmly. “This is why I’m in your life. It’s what I was meant for. Let me save you one last time.”
“Harland!” she gasped, fear and misery dripping from his name on her lips, every bit as thick and painful as the blood that splashed to the ground from his wound. She touched her forehead to his as she cried.
Harland accepted the touch for a long, stoic moment before he looked at Tyr and nodded.
“Close your eyes,” Tyr said to her. She’d seen enough. She’d suffered enough. She didn’t need another nightmare engulfing her in flames.
She shook her head in cold, cruel rejection of the truth.
“Close your eyes.” Harland echoed the command.
Her cries intensified as she bowed her head, her hold on Harland slackening. Tyr didn’t wish to prolong the moment any more than necessary. Not for Harland and not for her. He felt the hot threat of emotion on his lids as he put his hands on the sides of Harland’s face.
“Thank you,” Tyr mouthed to him. He needed Harland to feel the gratitude, not for him, not for either of them, but for Ophir.
Harland’s lids fluttered closed, and a moment later, it was over.
The wail that pierced through the evening could have been heard from miles around. Ophir immediately brought her hands to her face to muffle the cries as she dropped the dusty remnants of Harland’s body, and Tyr knew her wellenough to understand that her suffering was coming from a wound much deeper than this loss. She was grieving how everything good around her died.
Still, the sound had been too loud. Dwyn could be anywhere, and if she had heard Ophir, they might only have moments.
“Ophir—” Tyr grabbed for her hand.
She yanked away in her suffering, but he found the strength he needed as he forced her hands away from her face. “Look at me, Princess. Prove to Harland that this wasn’t for nothing, and let’s get you out of here. Give me your hand.”
“I—”
“Give it to me!” He jerked it away from her face perhaps a bit too hard, but he saw it in the shift of her posture that her acute fae ears had heard it, too. The steady thumping of feet as someone ran for them.
The chaos that erupted in the next few moments was a blur of unspeakable proportions. Tyr spoke to the metal, forcing the ring to widen until it was a loose band that could easily slip off her finger. The metal finished pulling away from her just as the cabin door burst open. He saw the golden hair as Ophir jerked toward Dwyn and felt the rush of cold water as the siren attempted to douse him in ice and snow, but by the time she screamed for Sedit, it was too late.
“Stop,” Tyr said to her in a calm, loud voice. He rose from the floor, ice-cold water dripping from his clothes.
To Dwyn’s horror, her water ceased. She flexed her fingers again and again, but nothing happened. “No,” she began to repeat over and over. “That’s the wrong ring. It’s…”
Ophir looked down at her hand and then up at Tyr to see what he’d done.
