Page 58 of A Frozen Pyre
“Are you just going to taunt me?”
“Areyou?” Suley challenged. “Clearly I know something more you need. That was my curse, wasn’t it? That’s why everyone needed me to wallow in the noise? Nothing can be hidden from me.” She exhaled heavily, setting the cage in her hands on the floor in front of her. “If I tell you, you’ll leave? You won’t bother me again?”
“I swear it.”
“I don’t just mean now, I mean—”
“I’ll never harm you,” Dwyn promised. “Not now, not ever.”
Suley eyed her for a moment. She bent and picked up the birdcage, turning her back on Dwyn. She cooed to the blush-colored bird, speaking to it in a nonsensical language of soothing chirps while it eyed her curiously from within its gilded cage. Eventually, she said, “Tyr’s voice was the one echoing through their memories. He told the two men accompanying King Eero. I don’t know when or where or why, but he told them who you are and what you do. He told them what you did to Caris, and how you did it.”
Dwyn may as well have been made of paper. She felt so thin, so frail, so chilled against the nonexistent wind as little more than cold blood pumped through her.
“I only know this because Harland couldn’t stop thinking about you during the meeting. He hates you. He knows you’re Caris’s murderer. He knows precisely how you brainwashed a lordling, named him Berinth, and set up the beautiful, opulent trap that Ophir would be unable to resist. She’s the weak-willed princess, after all. She was the one you could bend, if only she had a wound you could exploit. So, you created that wound by killing her sister, then arrived to make it all better. Harland knows. He blames you for everything, and rightly so. As such, he knows that once you’re informed, you’ll be the single most dangerous person on the continent. It’s why no one has told Ophir. They think she’s safer in the dark. So.” Suley paused, having succeeded in removing the last of the birdcages. “Were they right? Was she safer beforeyou knew?”
Dwyn’s lip curled in disgusted snarl before her expression leveled out. Finally, she said, “Ophir knows. I used the last of my stolen powers and told her the morning of Berinth’s execution that I was responsible for his puppetry, for Caris, for everything, so the reveal couldn’t be used to turn her against me. She knows.”
Suley made a face of mild disinterest. Dwyn wasn’t sure if woman didn’t understand or simply didn’t care. She waited with gritted teeth until Zita’s advisor spoke again.
“And now, it appears, so does everyone.”
Twenty-One
For fuck’s sake. Harland jogged down the ornate runner in thecorridor to catch up to his king. Samael trailed half a corridor behind, not bothering to run. Harland’s temper curled up his spine like a snake weaving itself around a staff. He needed his king to take him seriously, but the man was impossible. Ophir was the best of them, even if Eero refused to see it.
“Your Majesty.” Harland’s voice came out tight with stress. The lack of concern in Eero’s eyes only heightened his stress. “Something is wrong. Ophir declined our invitation to meet—”
“Ophir is temperamental,” Eero said. “She always has been.”
Harland’s lips pursed. He looked over his shoulder at Samael, who eyed him with cool evaluation. He pushed, “It’s not just that. We’ve tried to make contact with Raascot, with Tarkhany, even with her Sulgrave companions—”
“Cybele has it covered,” Eero responded. The light caught against his golden eyes—as gold as the crown upon his head, as gilded as the royal irises that beamed from Ophir every time she looked at him. He’d only looked into her crown-gold eyes once in weeks, though he knew he was to blame for the shift.
Eero moved swiftly through the halls as he led them toward the meeting. Their time for recess had come and gone. Three days had passed, and only one thing remained. Three kingdoms hinged on a final decision.
“Sir, with respect, your fertilization fae does not have it under control.”
“Don’t question me, Harland. My family has used her for generations. A baby can fix any doomed marriage.”
Harland felt like choking. He hated Cybele, from her tightly curled hair and her generous frame to her false smile and unconscionable power. He hated his king for bringing her. He hated the man’s harmful, backward thoughts on the issue—though, given what he’d learned from Zita at the summit, perhaps Eero was more corrupt than he’d dared to imagine. The only blessing the All Mother had granted was in allowing the useless woman to sit in her rooms during the final summit. She’d played her role. She’d cursed Ophir. If they had her way and Ophir used the wedding rings…
Harland shook it from his mind, focusing on his king. “Dwyn poses a far greater threat than—”
“Once my insolent child has that ring on her finger, Dwyn’s hovering influence will all but vanish. She will be checked by Ceneth’s calm temperament, and he will be beholden to his bride’s kingdom. It’s a perfect solution.”
Harland reminded himself that it was a crime to tell his king that any of Ophir’s insolence was clearly inherited. He itched for Samael to arrive and use his coolheaded privilege to hold Eero accountable. In the meantime, Harland emphasized, “I’m telling you: something is wrong.”
Samael caught up with them at last. Blue, evening light lit the level-headed advisor as he fell into step with them.
The king disregarded Harland entirely. He looked instead to the even-keeled Samael. “Settle an argument: Is something wrong, or is everything going according to plan?”
Samael didn’t avert his gaze as he said, “That’s a subjective question with an equally subjective answer.”
Eero’s eyebrows lowered. “Is something wrong for my reign as king and my power in Farehold?”
Samael looked up and to the side. “Probably.”
Eero’s mouth dropped open. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
