Page 21 of A Frozen Pyre (Villains #2)

Thirteen

Ophir turned from the room into the hall.

She didn’t know where to start looking for the siren, as they’d spent nearly their entire stay in bed.

An orange glow refracted off the sparkling labradorite of the castle, drawing her attention to her hands.

They’d lit in her anger, causing the gemstone bricks to glitter.

She struggled to calm herself, forcing the flame to evaporate from her fingertips.

The reds and yellows disappeared, leaving her alone in the dark hall.

She strained for any sign of the siren but could hear nothing beyond the commotion of the rightfully anxious servants in the kitchen.

“Goddess fucking dammit, Dwyn, where are you?”

“Princess!” Ophir turned to see an attendant jog up the corridor. “Your Highness—Majesty—um, what do we call you? Shit. Princess Ophir: Please return to your chambers until Raascot’s military can secure the castle. We’re concerned for your safety and we—whoa, hang on!”

Ophir jostled past the attendant without addressing them.

“Princess Ophir, I’m so sorry, I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist—”

Ophir rose to her full height before turning. “Then do it. Insist it.”

The attendant’s jaw opened a click.

Balls of flame encompassed Ophir’s hands as she said, “Tell me that a servant can protect me better than I can. Can you reduce an enemy to ash in an instant?”

She extinguished her flame at the answering gulp. “Return to whoever issued your command and tell them I insisted upon defending myself. You are in no trouble. Go.”

A moment later, she was left to contemplate just how much damage Dwyn’s rampage had done. Not only were six innocent lives lost, but if all foreign ambassadors had been subject to the same attempted quarantine she’d just received, the whole endeavor had to be at risk.

“You ruined the attempt at a conclave, then disappeared? Where the fuck did you go?”

She asked herself what Dwyn would tell her to do if she were here, and suddenly, she had the answer. Dwyn would tell her to make something. She hadn’t been particularly skillful at the art of creation, but so far, they’d all worked…more or less.

Ophir cupped her hands on top of one another and whispered into the small space between her thumbs, “Show me where I need to go.”

She focused on a hummingbird, wanting something quick and lithe to guide her to her destination.

She opened her hands and yelped at the strange, fluttering moth that emerged.

The sound of its rapidly beating wings was little more than the high-pitched buzz of a hornet.

Where she’d expected a beak, a mosquito-like straw with a sharp needlepoint glistened.

It looked at her with a honeycomb of glistening eyes, beating its wings expectantly in the middle of the hall.

Ophir shuddered as she looked at it.

“Don’t hurt anyone in the castle,” she said. It darted in a contained space, up, down, left, right, too agitated to stay still.

“Well? What are you waiting for? Take me where I need to go!”

The moth darted down the hall so fast that it had rounded the corner before Ophir had even started moving.

“Slow down!” she panted.

The moth stopped in the middle of the hall once more.

It darted from one corner of the corridor to the other in a dramatic display of discontent.

Ophir flashed her annoyance at the moth before it darted down the hall again.

This time, it stopped every twenty feet or so until Ophir jogged to catch up.

When it reached the door to the garden, it began bopping against the wood as if it were a common insect hitting a fae light in the dead of night.

Ophir opened the door for the moth, and it shot into the garden.

She’d chased it through the bushes and around the benches, statue, and a fountain that had been drained for the season when she heard a yelp.

Ophir skidded around a bush to see a rather androgynous fae in the fur of an elaborate leopard hat cry out in fear.

Her moth landed on the individual just in time for her to see it plunge its long, needlelike mouth into the person’s jugular.

They tore at their neck, swatting and scratching at the monstrosity while it sucked.

“Stop!” Ophir yelled at the moth. “Leave them alone!”

The stranger succeeded in grabbing the moth, yanking it from their neck in their panic.

The moth plopped to the ground, black goo oozing from its mangled form. The moment Ophir saw its white tendrils, she knew she needed to draw the stranger’s attention away before they noticed. She rushed up to them with wide, fearful eyes.

“Holy shit!” she gasped, grabbing them as she spun them away from where the crumbled moth knitted itself together on the ground. Her only course around her demons was to play dumb, so she kept up the act as she said, “What the hell was that? Are you okay?”

Their palm had been pressed into their neck. They pulled it away to reveal a fresh crimson smudge of blood. They frowned at the princess. “I just need to get inside to get a bandage. Are you seeking asylum from the murders?”

She was glad for the excuse to keep moving. “No, no, I don’t need safekeeping. In fact, I might be able to help keep you safe, if that’s your fear. My name is Ophir.”

“I know who you are, Princess. As does anyone who spies you. There aren’t many of your color north of the border.” After a pause, the stranger said, “Are you sure you’re meant to be out of your chambers after a killing spree within these walls? A murderer is loose in Castle Gwydir.”

Ophir worked to control her tone before saying, “I’m perfectly safe. But you? Why are you allowed to roam free when the grounds are on lockdown?”

“Not a very effective lockdown, is it?” they replied. “Not when each fae knows best for their gifts and their fate. Militant law is less effective in a kingdom where autonomy is respected.”

Such a strange comment. Ophir hardly understood if it was a compliment or condemnation of Raascot’s means of rule.

Ophir helped them to their room while they made idle, uncomfortable chatter. She offered a few more bewildered proclamations over the strange insect, a flimsy attempt to compliment Gwydir, and a disconnected ramble about the terrible events regarding the servants.

“Are you an attendant?” she asked.

“No,” they said, “I’m the court-appointed medium.

” They released a long, slow exhale as they reached their door, dragging their eyes appraisingly up and down Ophir’s form.

They swept an arm into the open doorway and ushered Ophir toward a round table stationed in the middle of their room.

“If I had to guess, I’d say that’s why you’ve truly been brought to me.

So tell me, Princess Ophir, would you like to see your sister? ”

***

The second hand of a clock ticked, ticked, ticked, until the seconds slowed.

Time bent. The clock sped up, then slowed down, then, if Ophir wasn’t mistaken, began to tick backward. She opened her mouth to ask the medium what was happening, but the person in the yellow scarf had vanished.

Her need for dark hair and mint and to locate the siren’s bloody wrath dissipated.

The moment the smell of cherry blossoms and petrichor washed through the room, her nerves, her sickness, her uncertainty and panic and chaos all faded away.

She blinked as two beautiful blue eyes stared back at her.

“Firi,” Caris said quietly.

Ophir gasped on her sob, though no tears fell. She tightened her hold on the soft, angelic hands that gripped her own.

“Is it really you?” Ophir asked.

Caris frowned, golden brows meeting in the middle as she asked, “Who else would I be?”

Ophir’s chest heaved as she swallowed her next sob.

“Caris, are you okay? Are you safe? I’m so sorry.

I’m so sorry about the party—” Her voice broke as the tears began to fall.

They hit the table with the volume of rainwater, each salted splash shattering into a million smaller pieces.

Ophir wanted to wipe her face but knew she couldn’t break her connection.

“I never should have brought you to the party. It’s my fault. I’m so sorry—”

“I always was there,” Caris said softly. “I will be there forever. I am always meant to be there. It is the only thing that could have happened. The only thing that will.”

Ophir’s toffee strands of hair swished around her shoulders as she shook.

“You are a beautiful bride,” Caris said.

Ophir pulled a ragged breath through gritted teeth as she said, “I don’t want to marry him. He’s your fiancé. The two of you… That was real love. He’s still so deeply in love with you.”

“You always will,” Caris said. “You already have. Your wedding is at sunset…was at sunset…will be in Aubade, near the cliffs.” Her lower lip quivered slightly as she looked to the side. “It’s important. It’s terrible. It’s perfect. It’s a nightmare. It needs to happen. It always has.”

“Why are you talking like that? What are you saying?”

Caris tilted her head, golden curls tumbling softly over her shoulder.

Ophir realized that Caris was in the same lovely pink dress that she’d worn on the night of the party.

She scanned Ophir, then the ghost of a smile danced on her eyes as she said, “A marriage to Ceneth will have been your only path forward. Only one sister could wed Raascot’s king.

It will be the sister who needs it more.

He was so beautiful. He is so kind. He will make a splendid husband to his bride. ”

Ophir could scarcely see Caris’s blurry shape through the wall of tears that refused to clear from her vision. “He will never love me,” she said. “We will never be good spouses to one another.”

“No, no,” Caris responded airily, “not to you—to his wife. Move forward, Firi. Take each step forward until you reach the woods. He is happy. Almost. I would miss him, if I could.”

Her smile faltered. A sharp intake of air broke Ophir’s sadness.