Page 44 of A Frozen Pyre (Villains #2)

Twenty-Six

Sedit’s growl sent a jolt through Ophir.

He leaped down from the bed and ran to the door.

She sat up quickly as she scanned the room in the last gray light of day.

Orange embers cooled amid the whites and grays of the long-dead fire, telling her she’d been alone in the cabin for some time.

Nothing about her surroundings had changed.

No new food. No new logs. No sudden appearance of broad shoulders, strong hands, and crooked smiles.

A high, grating noise filled the air as Sedit ran his claws down the door.

She looked at her hound in surprise, realizing she’d never had to let him outdoors.

It hadn’t even crossed her mind that he might have to go in and out like a creature made of flesh and blood rather than nightmares and poison.

She crossed the room, issuing quiet promises to Sedit until she opened the door.

Her jaw dropped open at the kingly figure at the threshold.

“Ceneth.” She breathed his name in shock.

Dark wings blotted out the last of the pewter sky as he filled the doorway. He looked her up and down, gaze a mixture of relief and disapproval. He took a long look at Sedit, then looked calmly back at her. “Ophir,” he said. “May I?”

She opened the door with a silent nod.

He scanned the cabin and sighed. “One moment.”

Ceneth left the door open as he disappeared back outside.

She stood statue-still in the center of the cabin, Sedit at her side, as she listened to the sounds of scraping and rustling.

Moments later, Ceneth reappeared with an armful of logs.

The King of Raascot knelt before the hearth, stacking several atop the ashes and embers and setting the others to the side.

“Do you mind?” he asked.

Her swallow was audible. She wasn’t sure why she felt so nervous, but she wordlessly complied. Her flame shot to life, consuming the logs in an instant. It banished the shadows, illuminating the room.

“How did you find me?” she asked.

He made a sound that one may have described as a chuckle, but the quiet staccato held little humor.

“I was worried,” he said. “If your companion can create doors to travel across the continent, you could have gone anywhere. But I asked myself what I would have done if I was angry and frightened, and I knew the answer. I’d run.

Physically. I’d want to feel my muscles burn, to feel the rocks and soil and dry pine needles beneath my feet.

Perhaps the frost on my wings as I took to the sky, but to exhaust myself nevertheless.

I was about to give up when I spotted the chimney. ”

She looked at the now-cheery fire. “But it had died…”

“I was in the air. I spied you from some way off. Once the fire was out, you were a little harder to locate. Now…” He frowned. “I’m not going to put us in the awkward position of asking which of my subjects lives…” He watched her face before amending, “ Lived here.”

She continued to look at him with wide eyes as if she were little more than a child caught by a parent.

“Did you make this?”

She looked to her gown and was about to answer before she realized he was pointing not at her, but beside her. He was asking whether or not Sedit was her doing.

Her throat bobbed as anxiety bubbled through her. He’d witnessed her manifestation of the ag’drurath. Now, with calm resolve, he was asking if she was responsible for the needle-toothed abomination at her side.

“His name is Sedit,” she said quietly. She cleared her throat as she found her voice. “I call him… I call them vageth.”

“Them?”

“The race,” she said, dropping her eyes to the floor. She hadn’t had to explain herself like this before.

“Hmm,” he said, the sound neither rude nor curious. “And there are others, I assume? Races of creations?”

She looked into his eyes for a long time before confirming with a slow blink and dip of her chin.

“Where are the others?” Ceneth asked.

“My other beasts?”

“Your friends,” he clarified. “Where is Dwyn?”

He scanned the room as if the cabin could possibly conceal two additional fae. She supposed he didn’t know of Tyr’s gift to step into the space between things, but it didn’t matter. They were completely alone.

“Gwydir isn’t the only thing I destroyed,” she said.

A painful memory gnawed at Ophir. Cruel words rang through her just as they had when they’d been flung at her in Castle Aubade.

She’d barely survived her first attempt at manifesting a serpent in the sea cave beyond the castle walls.

When discovering her cut, bruised, and covered in sand, Tyr had asked her why she was so careless, why she insisted on posing the greatest threat to her safety, and why she’d become the person she was.

At the time, the fires of judgment and hate had burned like a furnace within her.

His rebuke had driven her into Dwyn’s arms that night.

Now here she was, months later, and she’d be lucky if even Dwyn remained at her side when this was all said and done.

“She’s out,” Ophir clarified. Probably finding a woodsman to drain , she thought. “I am sorry, Ceneth. You didn’t deserve what happened in your castle.”

He shrugged, but she could see the insincerity in the gesture.

She’d killed one of his men and she knew it.

Though she’d grown a little too comfortable with the loss of innocent life since meeting Dwyn, she didn’t expect others to feel the same.

Raascot had paid the price for her vendetta against her father.

“The castle has been repaired,” he said. At the surprise in Ophir’s quiet murmur, he added, “Zita’s man can speak to stone. He was exceptionally useful before he…volunteered for another project.”

Ophir wondered briefly at his pause before asking, “Is Zita still in Gwydir?”

Ceneth didn’t relax his posture. Shoulders back, hand on the hilt of his weapon, he appraised her slowly.

Finally, he closed his eyes once in acknowledgment.

“She’s chosen to remain in Raascot until our wedding.

Everyone in the Tarkhany party is welcome in my home.

The queen wishes to be in attendance. One of your men—Harland—has also opted to stay behind, though the rest of your party has departed southward.

There are preparations to be made before the ceremony, after all. ”

He said the last words with venom, but the acid was not directed at her.

Ophir looked at Ceneth with new eyes. She drank in his deeply bronzed skin, the inky shimmer of his wings, his sharp gaze, and the hard cut of his jaw as if seeing him for the first time.

She’d known for years that Ceneth was a good man.

She’d known since her arrival in Raascot that not only was he a decent person who’d loved Caris deeply, but that he was one of her few allies in Gyrradin.

As she looked upon him now, she considered what he must be thinking.

He hadn’t flinched at the sight of her, though she’d abandoned the ruined sweater and fur-lined leggings in favor of the dark, gauzy dress of her own manifestation.

It rustled around her ankles like smoke, adhering to the fashions of no earthly kingdom.

He hadn’t approached with judgment, despite her responsibility for his friend and advisor.

He’d found her alone, without the escort of armies or guards, despite knowing she was capable of immeasurable destruction.

He didn’t like her, but perhaps he didn’t have to.

“Why would you want to move forward with the wedding?” Ophir asked. She wasn’t just asking why he’d want to bind himself to a creature of unspeakable nightmares. Through its actions and subterfuge, Farehold had revealed itself to be no ally to Raascot.

“I suspect we have a common enemy,” Ceneth said.

She raised a single brow ever so slightly. This was true, but it was daring of him to say so. His single sentence acknowledged that he saw Eero as a foe. Simultaneously, it asked if she was ready to turn her back on her family.

“I was never the daughter they wanted,” Ophir said. “But at least I was that—a daughter. I’d always thought so, anyway. Until Cybele and her rings.”

The briefest evidence of anger flashed across Ceneth’s face. His eyes tightened as he adjusted his grip on his weapon. He wasn’t positioning himself to strike. It was almost as if he clutched it for security against the demons in his mind rather than the ones at Ophir’s fingertips.

“Her rings are meant to fuse us, Ceneth. You’re not a person to them. Neither am I.”

It was Ceneth who said, “Farehold doesn’t want a union. They want to conquer.”

Ophir knew it was true. If her parents had truly desired a treaty with Raascot, they would have trusted him to keep his word.

He’d never shown any indication of backing out of this proposed union, even after Caris’s death.

And while her father claimed that taking territory was a sin of their ancestors for which they couldn’t be held responsible, he’d positioned history to repeat itself.

Once Ceneth and Ophir had fused, Eero would have a winged puppet on the northern throne.

She doubted that Eero knew he was evil. In fact, she was quite certain that he believed he was doing the good and right thing. Somehow, that only made it worse.

“We’ll insist upon other rings, obviously,” Ophir said.

Ceneth rubbed his chin. “Strategy would caution us about making brash requests in the light of day. We may need to conceal our next steps to come out with our minds and wills intact. Farehold is a powerful enemy.”

“So, what, we make peace with them?” Ophir guffawed.

“Of course not,” Ceneth said. “But it behooves us to withhold just how much disdain we have for them. I’ll have decoys made in their place. Ruby on gold for your ring, and sapphire on silver for mine? Is that right?”

“White diamonds on either side of the ruby, and black diamonds on either side of the sapphire. Yes. Can you have something made on such short notice?”