Page 49 of A Frozen Pyre
“I’ve failed you in so many ways, Firi. But the thing I regret most?”
Ophir looked at him with weary eyes. “Letting me out of my room the night of Berinth’s party?”
Harland sank noiselessly against the stones, echoing the motion he’d done on the wall in Aubade so many times. He’d never been one for the bench, or the chair, or the bed. A stone at his back and a smile on his face was how she knew him best. The only thing missing now was the joy. His arms rested on his knees, eyes fixed on an unseen memory as he said, “The night I came into your room and you were covered in sand and bandages and blood. You had manifested that night, Firi. And I… I regret what I said to you when you were in pain. I…the things I said…”
“You were in pain, too,” she responded. Ophir resisted the familiar, unhealed impulse to sit beside him. Muscle memory longed for her to slide into the comfortable placenear his heat, to breathe in his familiar scent, to feel safe in his company. A part of her realized that she could. They could just be Ophir and Harland again.
She leaned against the intersecting wall only three arm’s lengths from where Harland sat. Ophir lowered herself slowly until she hugged her knees, eye level with the man who’d stood beside her longer than any other. Aside from Caris, he’d been the most consistent fixture in her life. Until he wasn’t.
“I miss you,” Harland said.
The words were a jagged thorn puncturing her heart. She slowly bled into her chest as she stared at him. She could make the pain go away for them both. She could end his suffering. She could make herself feel better. She could crawl into his arms, rest her head against his chest, promise a life free from chaos, dedicate herself to calm, to rationality, to a world without monsters or flame or turmoil. But her words would be lies.
“I could move to Gwydir,” he said quietly. “I’d serve as your escort wherever you went, Firi. I’d respect any relationship you do or don’t want to have, friend or guard… I just want to be with you, whatever shape it takes. I’d rather be here as a silent sentry than not be in your life.”
“Harland…” She squeezed her knees to her chest.
“Things are different,” he agreed, keeping his voice low. “Everything is different. I know. I’m not asking for you and I to shoot the shit on the wall like we once did. I’m not asking for us to watch the sun go down over the western sea. I’m not asking for…” His words caught, the russets, emeralds, and golds of his eyes snagging on her as he stopped himself from whatever memory threatened him. She knew precisely what tempted him. She could almost feel the calluses of his hands brush against the skin of her hips, his kisses on her throat, the tug of his fist against her roots as his fingers balled in her hair. Their sex had been spectacular—and it had been a mistake. She wondered how much of its pleasure had stemmed fromhow profoundly inappropriate it had been. Would he have felt as wonderful, would she have felt as full, would she have seen the All Mother in the same explosion of tantalizing stars, if it had been a casual affair? They’d never let it happen again, so perhaps she’d never know.
Ophir extended a hand, wrapping her delicate fingers around the broad hand that had remained tucked against his knee. “I understand,” she said, voice scarcely above a whisper. “I know you miss her, but the girl you cared for doesn’t exist anymore. And I want you to be happy, Harland. I do grieve those moments. I grieve Caris. I grieve the days before I knew tragedy. I grieve a lot of things. But they’re a part of the path that forged me. Would I take her back? Absolutely. Every moment of every day, I would take her back, but it’s a bell, Harland. It’s a bell that can’t be unrung.”
His gold-brown brows furrowed. He asked, “Do you ever get sad? Over…this?”
She matched his frown, her face crestfallen as she held his gaze. “It does make me sad,” she said. “It hurts to see the ones I loved mourning the pieces of me I left behind.”
Seventeen
“Interesting.” Zita smiled.
Suley followed her queen’s gaze through the arched window into the castle’s front gardens. Zita had caught Suley riffling through the kitchen’s liquor cabinets, hoping for a way to quiet the noise. Her meeting with Dwyn had only exacerbated her state of relentless agitation. Zita had wrapped her fingers around a bottle of brandy and led them to a room off the primary dining area. She’d tipped a shot of dark, sweet liquor into each of their hot teacups. It was never too early in the day for a drink. The northern wind had picked up, rendering the evenings too cold for time outside. Besides, as Suley had pointed out, it was just as noisy in the garden as it was indoors.
Suley caught what Zita had spied between the iron lattice of the windowpanes. Past the half-naked branches, beyond the dark stone buildings, and just over the black, idle river that separated the castle from the city, a man approached on foot. No one accompanied him. While the streets were more or less vacant in the chill, she’d spent enough time in Raascot to spot the coppers and bronzes of its people. The face approaching did not quite have the colorless skin of Farehold, the rich tones of Tarkhany, nor the light browns of Raascot.
“Is that him?”
“You tell me,” Zita responded.
“You haven’t seen him either?”
Zita tilted her head. “I’m told there was a Sulgrave man spotted at the Sunrise Slaughter, but as you’ll recall, it was not I who was present.” Zita’s eyes narrowed. Suley heard the onslaught of noise as the queen saw flashes of Tempus in the orange, black, and white gown moments before the winged serpent had appeared to forever change the world.
Suley leaned her forehead against the cool glass. “He’s handsome,” she said idly.
Zita took a slow sip of the hot tea, enjoying the burn of the liquor and the warmth of the aromatic leaves. Her gaze raked over the man in the distance before returning to the wine. She blew out a puff of air before saying, “He has a stronger build than I would have expected. Most fae men are lithe for agility.”
Suley’s lower lip lifted, pouting slightly as she continued to watch him through the window. Two Raascot centurions had exited the front gates of Castle Gwydir to meet him. She watched the exchange, not caring what was spoken. She watched the Raascot fae, one winged and one without the black, crow-like feathers, as they intercepted the man. “You’d think someone who could step into the place between things would care more about being silent than having strength. I can’t fathom his incentive for all those muscles.”
Zita said, “Perhaps someone who relies on their silence for survival knows a thing or two about what it means to feel powerless.”
“It’s odd, isn’t it?”
Zita raised a brow.
“A princess of Farehold has abandoned her countrymen. Is it odd that she’s surrounded herself with people who aren’t her own? Do you think she’s defected to Sulgrave?”
“You know her thoughts,” Zita said. “You tell me.”
Suley had nothing to say. She couldn’t speak to the princess’s thoughts, or rationale, or of the company she kept.She asked, “What tale will they spin? On his arrival, that is?”
