Page 31 of A Frozen Pyre (Villains #2)

Eighteen

A mourning dove cooed gently beyond Ophir’s window.

Her eyes remained closed, hand reaching to pull herself closer to Dwyn.

She wanted to tuck their curves together until they melted back into the sweetest part of sleep—the moments after waking up when one realized that no responsibility in the world was more important than rest. Her fingers met empty air.

Ophir’s lips puckered, her forehead creased, and her eyebrows bunched long before she allowed her lashes to flutter open.

She saw only the nearly imperceptible shades of black, gray, and pewter as shadows and gloom intersected.

The sheets were rumpled and turned down as if Dwyn had slipped silently from the bed in the night.

She sat up, listening to the mourning dove’s gentle cooing.

She frowned at the world that existed beyond the drawn curtains.

It seemed too cold for doves, though perhaps she didn’t know much of where the little birds came and went.

It wasn’t even winter, and she was already colder in Gwydir than she’d ever been in decades of life in Aubade.

Ophir rolled over in bed, turning to the empty space where she’d hoped Tyr’s indentation might be.

No. Now that they knew of his presence, they’d set him up with his own room.

Tyr could have still stepped into the space between things and slept beside her, yet he’d kept his distance since his formal arrival.

Though that had happened intermittently throughout their time in Gwydir, she’d usually assumed he’d gotten stuck in another room while in the place between things, and she’d left him to live his unseen missions in peace.

He was good at what he did, and she knew he’d be back.

Now that he was in his corporeal form, would he be with her as often?

Ophir rubbed her arms, though she wasn’t truly cold.

The castle had been etched with engravings to capture and circulate the heat from the fireplaces that warmed their rooms even when the logs weren’t burning.

This cold was of an existential nature. Her chest squeezed as she thought of how Harland had sat on the floor and told he’d move to Gwydir, he’d be there for her, that he just wanted to be in her life.

She could have accepted his offer. She could have awoken with the knowledge that he was probably outside her door as her ever-present centurion.

She could have called out to him, certain he’d enter.

Knowing she’d been right to turn him away didn’t make it any less painful.

Ophir slid out from between the sheets and pulled back the curtains.

The sky was still a gentle shade of mauve, which was a color she never got to see when Dwyn was in her bed.

She would have been well on her way to three more hours of sleep if she hadn’t awoken to loneliness.

Instead, she pressed her fingers against the glass to feel the late-autumn chill, watching the last of the leaves as they broke free from their prisons and whipped to the gray-brown grass.

A few orange and red leaves landed in the large, dark river that separated the castle from the city beyond.

She watched the specks of color disappear as the river snaked around a corner, content to journey from the snowmelt of the northern mountains until it emptied itself in the western sea.

She idly wondered how many logs, leaves, stones, and trinkets from Raascot she’d seen washed up on the shores of Aubade’s cliffs.

She kept the curtains open as she dressed.

It was the last day of their recess before the summit would resume, and no one expected her.

There would be no servants to help her interlace a bodice or attendants to pin and braid her hair.

Instead, she selected a simple shift with a fur shawl for the winter chill.

She bundled up for comfort over fashion, but she couldn’t help but feel like a true northerner as she spied herself in the mirror.

There was something wild and fierce about the fur and the way the cold light caught on her hair.

She stared into the mirror, her thoughts drifting to what Zita had implied regarding her ancestors.

Perhaps they had been meant for the arctic chill of the mountains.

Maybe the intricately carved pillars, the northern pay of long-forgotten trade routes that had fallen to disuse, and the blue-black stones and snow had all belonged to distant pieces of her heritage. Perhaps she’d never know.

Ophir wasn’t sure what to do with herself.

She paced her room for a few minutes, brushed her hair, braided it, tore the braid out, and braided it once more.

She moved restlessly about the room until she decided she’d lose her mind if she stayed within its walls while both Dwyn and Tyr were unaccounted for.

She wasn’t sure why she moved so quietly.

She was meant to be Raascot’s queen. She shouldn’t have felt the need to ease the door closed so no one heard the latch click behind her.

She shouldn’t have tiptoed down the runners that lined the corridors.

She shouldn’t have held her breath around every corner.

Some part of her knew that she’d never be comfortable here, irrespective of the circumstances.

Whether she was here as a guest or had ruled as queen for fifty years, Castle Gwydir was not her home.

Nor was Castle Aubade. Nor the Tarkhany Palace.

She squeezed her lids shut, willing moisture to soothe her dry eyes and hoping it might smooth out the wrinkles in her nerves.

She wasn’t sure where she was going, but her feet carried her forward, out of the castle and into the garden.

She caught the remnants of a discolored smudge on the courtyard stones before she understood where her feet were taking her.

She’d only been to their room once before, but it was a straight shot from the garden.

Ophir followed the urge until she’d reached the medium’s door.

She lifted her knuckles to knock but paused at the disruption of a gravelly voice that wafted through the door. Her breath caught in her throat when a feminine voice brighter than spring blossoms answered in soothing, windswept tones.

“The darkness is clearer every day.”

Caris. Caris was speaking.

Ophir was going to be sick. She felt like emptying the previous night’s dinner onto the carpet. She forgot how to breathe. Her eyes dried out once more, not from the cold, arid temperature but from utter shock. Her sister was in there. Her sister was…

She had seen Caris in this medium’s room as well.

Caris was dead.

As if in answer, Ceneth said, “I’m doing everything you told me to do.

You want me to marry your sister? I’m marrying her.

You see a future of wings and dreams, and that just sounds like sadness and memories, Caris.

You keep asking me to do this without you, and I can’t.

Have I made it darker by visiting you? Is this my fault? ”

Ophir rested her cheek gently against the cool wood of the door as she listened on bated breath for her sister’s response.

“I will tell you then what I told you once, twice, always. I said not to visit me.”

“I can’t let you go,” he said, voice scarcely loud enough to seep between the fibers of the wood.

“I’ve known,” she said, her answer just as quiet.

Ophir strained, fingers digging into the wood as she fought the urge to burst through the door.

“Everything has fallen apart, Caris. Not only is the continent falling to pieces between Raascot and Farehold, but Tarkhany is now in play. Queen Zita has shown cards I didn’t even realize might be on the table.

Does she mean to go to war for ancestral lands?

My forefathers were wronged by Eero’s forefathers a millennia before they stole the seat at Castle Aubade.

Zita was a fool for trusting them after seeing what they’d done to my people. ”

“You are not from the mountains, but here you thrive. You have retaken your homelands, though you are not alive to see the southern throne.”

Ceneth’s growl betrayed his frustration. “What does that mean ? Do I go to war? Are you telling me that I win the war trying to retake Farehold but die in the battle?”

Ophir held her breath. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Was Ceneth truly planning open war with her father?

Sorrow dripped like dewdrops as Caris replied, “This is not a war of swords and champions. It’s one of dreams and—”

“Wings. So I’ve heard.” After a pregnant pause, he said, “Tarkhany’s involvement is not something I considered.

It’s not something I prepared for. Yet, she brings up the past and future with so much implication…

We’ve barely evacuated our people from Farehold.

I can’t imagine standing against our lost land now.

What does she want from me? What’s the right move? ”

“I was not your advisor,” Caris said.

“You mean, you’re not my advisor.”

“I won’t be, I am not, though perhaps, in a different life, in a life where I was beside you…”

“You are beside me,” he said.

“No. There was no future where I sat beside you now, while you face my father, the Queen of Tarkhany, your bride, the darkness. Can you see the tapestry? It’s murky.

I see the tangled spool. In some places, it’s neatly wrapped, and when I tug, I see where it leads.

And then it catches, Ceneth. It snags. My eyes followed the loop.

I saw the snarl. I will only see the knot. Will you understand?”

“What does this have to do with Ophir? Our wedding—I don’t want it.

I have no desire to marry your sister. I don’t want anyone other than you.

You know I’ll be kind to her,” he promised.

“You know I’ll be fair and just and treat her as though she were my sister.

But I can’t imagine how my life and hers intersect, Caris.

Please, tell me. Please, tell me what to do.

What does she have to do with any of this? ”

Ophir’s heart thundered.

Silence stretched between the three of them. Within the room, all was quiet. In the hall, nothing stirred. Ophir did not dare to breathe, lest anyone catch her presence. She pressed her ear against the wood even harder, hoping against all hopes that she wouldn’t miss her sister’s words.

“Ophir is the end of the world. She is its beginning.”