Page 59 of A Frozen Pyre
Samael didn’t have to shrug. The relaxing of his face did it for him. He looked between Harland and Eero before saying, “It wasn’t necessary, Your Highness. You’ve made it clear you’re not receiving external advice at this time. You’re on the path you wish to be on.”
Eero was aghast. “You know I’d hear anything you had to say, Samael. It is your goddess-granted gift. Now, tell me: What do you say about this meeting?”
Harland gaped at his peer, unsure as to how Samael maintained such calm neutrality regardless of who cried out. He never seemed perturbed. Perhaps his gift for discernment comforted him, reassuring him that either the one screaming was wrong or that there was no use in worrying.
Samael merely looked at the king before saying, “Things are not stacked in your favor, Your Majesty.”
“That’s impossible,” Eero insisted. “I brought Cybele and the gifts for the wedding for exactly this purpose! Perhaps I didn’t go into the summit with cards, but by the goddess, I’ll leave with them! Ophir will be forced to fall into line as soon as she’s wed. We have it covered. We’ve thought of every conceivable outcome and acted to preempt it.”
“If you say so,” Samael said, his tone making it clear he had no dog in the fight.
“The problem is Dwyn, isn’t it?” Harland needled.
Samael chewed on the question. “No. That said: she is a problem, and one that has not been solved, despite our king’s insistence that his ruse is foolproof.”
“Because it is!” Eero stamped his foot. “A foreign witch arrived to influence my daughter? I will simply free her from the ability to be influenced!”
Samael leveled his gaze. “Powerful men who refuse to seek outside counsel must know what’s best. Perhaps their wealth will buy their desired outcome. Or maybe it won’t. I suppose we’ll see.”
“You’re at my side to advise me,” Eero snarled.
“What advice would you take, when it contradicts your desires? I suppose it’s too late for your sycophants to be present at the meeting.”
The king jutted a threatening finger toward Samael’s throat. “Be careful if you wish to keep your head.”
“As is your right, Your Majesty.” Samael was unperturbed, to the king’s speechless displeasure.
Eero turned on his heel as he stormed into the room. Samael’s face remained impassive in the face of the king’s agitation, but Harland knew this was why Samael hadn’t said more.
Regardless of what Eero said or did from this moment on, the die was cast.
***
“I don’t have to remain visible. I’ll come unseen,” Tyr said. He appeared to be trying to look relaxed against the wall, but everything from the flex of his shoulders to the tick in his jaw revealed his agitation.
“Don’t bother,” Ophir grumbled. They were less than ten minutes away from their final summit, and she was a restless sea before the storm.
He eyed her with extreme suspicion as she tossed gown after gown onto the bed. Her fingers wrapped around a thigh-length sweater and a fur-lined pair of leather leggings. He understood the warmth they served, but he couldn’t comprehend Ophir’s fashion choices. He knew, however, the message she intended to send by forgoing pretty dresses in favor of the only pair of pants in her armoire. She snatched a suitable pair of shoes. They were not the delicate shoes for princesses, not the heels for lovely evenings, not the flats forcalm walks through the gardens, but warm, sturdy boots. She slipped into them without saying a word.
She’d silently seethed since their revelation. Whatever she was planning, he wished she’d trust him enough to let him in.
“Ophir, if this is about Cybele, we should talk.”
She stopped amid her tirade, eyes flashing. She spun on him as she said, “Cybele is a symptom, not the disease. Eero is the sickness.”
He’d never heard her refer to King Eero by his name. He wasn’t sure that he had the balls to call his parents anything other than Mother or Father. He knew enough to tell that now was not the time to comfort her. She didn’t need his head. She wasn’t interested in idle chatter or the mind-numbing games of marionettes and their puppets. She needed his heart. She was intelligent enough to understand the way of the world, and she required only his validation. He could share her fury, or he could leave.
“Do you know what you’re going to do in there?”
She finished tugging the sweater over her head. Locks of gold-brown hair sprang loose against the sweater’s neck, now coiling around her face. She glared at him. “Yes. Either he’ll admit his crimes to me or—”
“And if he does?” Tyr interrupted. “If he admits to everything? If he confesses? Will you forgive him?”
Her mouth bunched as if catching the forthcoming words like a net. She froze in place, fingers still deep in the thick sweater as she clenched them at his question.
“And what if the opposite? If he denies everything? I’m not going to tell you what to do, Princess, but for the love of the goddess, please tell me. What’s your plan?”
“They’ve bet their kingdoms on underestimating me,” she said, voice low. “My plan is to call their bluff.”
