Page 64 of A Frozen Pyre
“People are dying, Ophir. Peopleyoucare about. I can’t use my powers. I can’t…”
The unfamiliar whites of Dwyn’s frantic eyes shook her awake. Until now, she’d witnessed only her father’s face as her dragon had shown her exactly what she could do. For those glorious minutes, no one else in Gwydir had existed. Blinking back into reality, she realized Dwyn was the only one who remained at her side. Tyr had run to the others. He was urgently shoveling rubble away from Ceneth while the strange woman grunted against the stones that had buried Evander. A distant part of her became aware of the sticky vermillion pool that gathered around Raascot’s advisor. A pulp-like gore had smeared itself onto several of the cracked rocks. She tried to care, but she was too detached to comprehend the ruby-red liquid and its implications.
The adrenaline of her fury seeped from her. Her crimson rage faded into the pale blue of panic as she looked at the fallen men.
“Firi! Make something!” Dwyn begged, waving a hand to the stones that crushed the monarchs around them. The dust cleared enough for her to see the large boulder that pinned Zita’s leg to the ground, her head unmoving as it rested onthe table.
Ophir shook her head blankly.
“Firi!” Dwyn shook her. “You can do it! You can make anything! All you have to do is think it! Make someone to help!”
She knew Dwyn was right. All Ophir had to do was imagine her intentions, and she could create something. She gaped at Ceneth’s unconscious form beneath the stones. She could scarcely see the crying woman beside Evander. She’d done this. She’d hurt them.
“Firi!”
“I…”
“Do something!”
Fine. She could make something to dig. She could make something strong and capable and with hands that could fling the castle’s stones from everyone around her. Ophir did her best to picture a helper, a worker, a fae who might possess the scooping hands and wide palms to free one from rock, but she saw only death. She tried to look at Dwyn and Tyr, but she knew that dead bodies remained pinned within the rubble. Her heart struggled with the pain of funerals, of loss, of Caris, of blood, of murder. She tried to tear her mind from the horrible night that had shattered her world, but trauma coursed through her as she summoned her manifestation.
She flexed her fingers and cried out in surprise at what she’d created. Even Dwyn stumbled behind her in reaction to the abomination that slouched before them in tattered, black rags. Its skeletal mouth hung loosely on its jaw. Its large eyes looked at them without comprehension. Enormous hands with palms too big for a humanoid creature hung limply at the end of its bent elbows.
She grimaced at her disgusting, broken, fucked-up manifestation. She hated it even more than her other creations. This was the best thing she could make, and it was an unholy nightmare.
“Help them,” Ophir croaked.
Tyr didn’t step away from the stones until the monstrosity approached him. Though he knew it was Ophir’s creation and tethered to her will, the terror was plain on his face. The ghoulish monster freed Ceneth and his advisor from the enormous boulders with a few strong swipes. Acidic liquid dripped from its mouth as it cocked a too-human face toward her.
She blinked at it. She’d done this. She’d killed and maimed and destroyed. She’d set a dragon into the world without the aid of a sentient rider to tame it. She’d horrified her closest friends and confidants. And this was how she’d fixed it. Through another abomination.
The freakish beast looked at her with unintelligent eyes, and she knew that she’d made something that would never know love, or peace, or life. She created only death, thirst, and destruction. Ophir swallowed as it tilted its head again, head rolling like that of an insect.
“You can go,” she said breathlessly.
The creature shrieked at her once, its noise the hellish sounds of rusted nails in tin cans, before turning toward the broken opening in the castle wall. It took off into the cobblestones and alleys of the city faster than man or fae. The monster glided into the woods as if it possessed not feet but traveled with the speed of mist and smoke.
The atrocity had shaken her to a waking state. She was too stunned by what she’d done to absorb the regret that clawed to enter the protective shield she’d formed around herself. She finally turned to appreciate the shock on her father’s face. Eero remained on his back, propped up only on his hands from where he’d scrambled backward after the ag’drurath had released him. He looked at his daughter as if he’d never seen her before in his life. Nothing but stunned fear and repulsion painted his face.
The shock that had leached into her upon seeing Ceneth and Evander evaporated. She’d done all she could do. Zita and her party were fine. Tyr and Dwyn were helping. Anew sensation filled her. It was not rage, or hate, or vitriol. Her fire died, giving way to the ruby smolder of whatever remained long after the hearth had been forgotten. She was not the campfire that warmed hunters; she was the kiln that forged the world. With a chilling calm, she knew with some certainty she was the most powerful being on the continent.
“What have you done?” Eero said, question ripe with his horror.
His words stirred the coal within her. Ophir took a few careful steps over the splintered table, picking her footing between the fallen stones and the shards of rocks and chairs that littered the space. She resisted the urge to brace herself against the cold as she stood over her father’s fallen figure. She glared at him, all respect, love, and familiarity lost to the repulsion of her anger.
“I do more than burn things to the ground,” she said. “I salt the earth when I’m done.”
Twenty-Three
The dust had settled, but the rubble remained.
The tide of chaos refused to ebb.
Harland’s forehead remained creased in worry. He closed his eyes as he began, “The healers say—”
“This isn’t about the healers,” Samael said calmly. In the days following the destruction of Castle Gwydir, it had taken every man, woman, and volunteer to piece together the castle wing from its rubble. It was three days into efforts to repair and recover before Hassain had fully healed and it was revealed that he could speak to stone. Zita had consented to his volunteering for Gwydir in spite of the Farehold presence. The party from Farehold inquired as to whether or not they should pay their respects at Evander’s funeral, but they were asked to remain in their chambers for their day. Grieving his memory was for his people and his family, they’d said.
“Did you know this would happen?” Eero asked Samael. “Is this what you were speaking about so opaquely? Is this why your sister was not in attendance?”
