Page 84 of A Frozen Pyre
It was an idea that stopped her mid-stride, not her name on Tempus’s lips. She slowly lowered her heel to the ground and turned to regard the man wearing Suley’s face.
“Tempus,” she said. His throat bobbed as he swallowed, desperate for forgiveness, for acceptance, for any reason she might allow him to stay. She scanned him slowly, from the curls of Suley’s dark hair to the ink on her temple. She took a step closer to scan Suley’s skin and found what she was looking for. Tiny, perfect holes for jewels had shifted to him as he’d taken her form. The only thing he lacked was her earthly possessions. “Remarkable,” she breathed. He’d taken the shapes of so many animals. He’d even attempted a tree once, though he had just ended up as a rather odd long-necked bird. Not only had she never wanted him to take the shape of a person, but she’d outright forbidden it on the day he’d suggested he could let her see her late husband again through him.
“I may have a task for you,” she said.
“Anything,” he said, Suley’s wide, dark eyes eager as he scanned Zita’s face. “I’ll do anything to redeem myself inyour eyes.”
“Pack what remains of Suley’s things. You and I have a wedding to attend.”
Part IV
Cords and Shears
Twenty-Nine
Dwyn tasted the copper tang of blood before she realizedshe’d been gnawing on her lip since Ophir had left. She went to the washbasin and spat out the ruddy evidence of her worry, washing her mouth with a cup of water. She began to pace the room, filled with unfamiliar anxiety.
Sedit made a low, grumbling noise, as if asking her to give it a rest and stop bothering him.
She shot the hound a glare, and he buried his snout beneath reptilian paws, resuming his nap.
Uncertainty of this magnitude hadn’t found her in decades.
She flexed and released her fingers time and time again as she worked to calm herself. Ophir believed that Tyr had left. Ophir was back in Gwydir. Ophir was going to marry Ceneth. Everything was back on track. There was nothing to fret about. And yet…
Her yelp of pain cut through the room as a white-hot starburst of injury filled her eyes. She’d rammed her shin into the cedar chest at the end of the bed. Dwyn cried out in fury at the stupid piece of furniture, kicking it at exactly the wrong angle. The edge of the chest caught her toe and sent her a nauseating second wave of pain. She crumpled onto thefloor as anger spilled out, cursing as steam rolled off her. She wrapped her fingers around her injured toes and cursed again while waiting for the shooting pain to subside. She moved her hand away, expecting to see a broken toe and exposed bone, but everything was perfectly normal, if a tad pink. The aching spot on her shin would surely bruise, but it didn’t look nearly as bad as it felt.
“Fuck!” She bared her teeth as if the injury was an enemy she could chase away. She was certain there were healing tonics in the washroom, but she’d have to get up from wallowing on the floor if she wanted to heal her bitten lip, her swollen toe, or the steadily swelling goose egg on her shin. It was a rather frivolous use of tonic, but she didn’t care. She’d use it for something as mild as the annoying voice of a table guest if it alleviated even a moment of suffering.
She rolled to her side and caught her reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirror framed with opulent fleur-de-lis. Her memory cut to a banquet, a lovely dress, the moans and gasps and smiles of a flawless princess.
Tyr had been wrong about her.
She did love Ophir, perhaps more than any of them could ever understand. It was precisely why she’d told the truth. It was also why she’d needed to massage the message so that its revelation would no longer carry a sting. She was unwilling to lose her, whether to the stupid dog and his white-knight act or even to the consequences of her own actions. Yes, she’d been responsible for Caris’s death. But that was before she’d spent months at Ophir’s side. It was before her heart had squeezed when Ophir smiled, before she’d seen the power in her eyes and anger in her veins. It was before she’d realized that ruling at Ophir’s side wasn’t just a convenient way to access the world while pissing off the Pact and withholding knowledge from their gang leader. It was something she truly wanted.
She scooted from her place on the floor and rested her back against a leg of the enormous four-post bed that she andOphir had shared since their arrival in Gwydir. It disgusted her to know that they’d rarely been alone in their bed, but she’d been willing to share, as long as it made Ophir happy. After all, the reincarnation of the All Mother should hardly be constrained by the social conventions of monogamy. She hadn’t anticipated their relationship would be cut short by Tyr being sickeningly selfish under the guise of noble truths, but if there was one thing men did, it was disappoint.
Dwyn stared at the door, begging it to open.
She wished she could speed up time, but unfortunately, it was a power that didn’t exist. She knew, for she’d tried.
She’d attempted most of them at one time or another. Small magics at first, then growing bigger and bolder as her confidence developed. By the time she was ready to go south to Farehold, there was nothing she couldn’t do. Including infiltrating a royal family and attaining godhood, should she want. And want, she did.
Sometimes people had to die for you to get what you wanted. Usually, they deserved it.
Dwyn had been sixteen the first time she’d taken a life. Never for a moment had she doubted that he’d deserved it.
She’d been making shapes in the river that cut through the mountains, carving dramatic valleys as it divided the territories on its way to the Frozen Straits. It was unusual for children to access their powers, but Dwyn had been speaking to water for years. She and her younger sister had been swimming in this very river when its strong spring current swept her sister off her feet. She’d screeched in both adrenaline and delight as she followed the instructions they’d been taught. She’d relaxed onto her back and put her feet in front of her while she bobbed down the rapids. Dwyn would have been content to jog along the banks, giggling all the while, if there hadn’t been a tree in the water.
It had happened before she’d understood what she was seeing.
Her sister’s shift had snagged on the log, and when the current pulled her beneath its waves, only a pale, thrashing arm remained to be seen. Though only seven, Dwyn had screamed and jumped into the river. She had no business fighting the current, but rage, panic, and pain had carried her forward. She fell face-first into the cold water and came up sputtering, hair plastered to her neck and shoulders. She grunted as she shoved her feet between stones, anchoring herself with every step so that she could make it to her sister without being lost to the river’s pull.
Her heart had stopped when her sister’s pale arm ceased its clawing.
She’d pushed harder, faster, carelessly splashing as she leapt for her baby sister, her family, her best friend. She’d grabbed her sister’s dress and yanked with a barbaric force she hadn’t realized she’d possessed, snapping the branch and ripping the dress at once as her sister floated into her arms.
“Wake up!” she’d screamed, looping her arm around her sibling as she braced herself for the life-threatening trip back to the shore. She just needed her sister to hang on for a little longer, but the girl wasn’t moving. Her chest neither rose nor fell. Her lips were as white as the bloodless skin of her face.
