Page 47 of A Frozen Pyre (Villains #2)

Twenty-Eight

Zita ran a finger along the brown remnants of what had surely been a magnificent flower in its time.

Leaves and blossoms fell at will in the temperate south, a place that knew no seasons.

Trees shed the yellows, reds, and withered pieces that no longer served them in favor of fresh, bright sprigs.

A bush would blossom in shades of pinks or purples beside the deeply green foliage of a plant that had shed its flowers months prior.

The plants listened to the soil, to the water, to the wind, rather than a chill in the air or the threat of snow.

Nothing was the same in Raascot.

She’d enjoyed her strolls in the garden, despite the layers of frost and naked foliage.

She appreciated the unencumbered view of jagged, snowcapped peaks.

Though she loved her palace, the baking heat, the tall palms, the vibrant red dunes, the rainbow flutter of parrots, the diamond-studded nights, and the aquamarine of cloudless daytime throughout Tarkhany, there was a peerless beauty to the lavender mountains that surrounded Gwydir.

She’d ventured outside once per day to lose herself in the misty mountains, in the inky, churning river that surrounded the castle, in the blue-black stones so unlike the creams and custards that made up her city.

The unpleasant cawing of a crow drew her attention.

A second dark bird joined it in the bare branches, then a third.

She shivered against her fur, pulling it closer as her hand dropped from the flower.

Her skin had heated the remnants of hoarfrost that clung to its dried, long-dead petals.

Though it had been centuries, she remembered the blossoms wilting and dying along the coast. The changing leaves along the shore had signaled to her family that it was time to leave the summer castle overlooking the western sea and return to their winter home.

Seasons were a distant memory now.

Before she could stop herself, she saw the happy faces of children playing on the beach.

Her husband scooped them into his arms, kicking up seafoam as he chased them.

In the vision, she clapped her hands, smiling and laughing as he hoisted one over his shoulder and caught the other around the waist. His faeling children were fast, but even a human could catch them when they were small.

He grinned at her from where he stood, pants cuffed above his calves yet still soaked to the britches with sea spray.

Her sons shrieked with the high, unbridled joy known only by happy families who hadn’t experienced loss, or betrayal, or pain.

She closed her eyes against the memory. Six hundred years had not been long enough. She doubted that she’d feel any different after six hundred more.

“Queen Zita?”

Zita straightened. She cleared her throat, realizing emotion had caught in it like a bit of dry bread.

She inhaled the chilly air, allowing it to burn her lungs as she found the serene smile that had been her companion for so long.

Her lips were already turned up with gentle amusement by the time she turned to see the golden eyes of Farehold’s only princess.

“I was wondering when you might come to see me, dear. You’ve been back for days.”

Ophir tucked her hands beneath a lush gray-and-white fur. Someone had told her it had belonged to a coyote, but Zita couldn’t recall the exotic northern creatures from her tomes.

Finally, the princess said, “I wasn’t sure what to say. When Ceneth told me that you were willing to claim the vageth was from Tarkhany…” Her words drifted off.

“Vageth? That’s your hound, then?”

Ophir bit her lip. “He’s called Sedit.”

Zita’s gaze shifted away from the princess, over the young woman’s shoulders and toward the castle beyond. It was rare to catch the princess without a friend or guard. Someone was always loitering nearby.

Zita set her jaw as she asked coolly, “And your unseen companion? Will he be joining us on this stroll?”

Before Ophir could respond, Zita knew the answer.

She saw the wound on Ophir’s face as clear as a written word.

It was the look she’d seen in the mirror in the years following her husband’s death.

It was the pain that had plagued her when her half-fae sons and their wives had passed without heirs, leaving her alone once more.

It was the injury in Tempus’s eyes when she’d told him she’d never love him.

No, Tyr was not there. Whatever had happened between them, he was no longer beside her.

“I see” was all Zita said.

Ophir took a tentative step closer as she asked, “Ceneth said you’d like to be present for the wedding?”

“I would,” Zita said.

“May I ask why?”

Zita lifted her eyebrows at that. She studied Ophir more intently this time.

Beyond the gold-brown hair, several shades darker than that of the late sister whose portrait haunted Ceneth’s halls, past the spray of sun-kissed freckles, deeper than the slopes and curves and ethereal beauty so boring and typical to the fae, she searched for something more.

The coronas encircling Ophir’s eyes shone with an emotion as bright as the flame the princess so famously summoned.

“Do you know the opposite of love?” Zita asked.

Ophir blinked. Her pink lips parted, baffled. The early-winter wind rustled her hair, stirring the loose leaves across the courtyard before she attempted an answer. “Hate?”

Zita made an appreciative sound. “Mmm, people think so, yes. But alas, hate and love are two sides of the same coin. They’re both passion, possession, and obsession. Do me the honor of writing this down, dear. Return to your room, pen my wisdom, and carry my words into the ages.”

Ophir did nothing to hide her puzzlement. “And what wisdom is that?”

“Indifference,” Zita said, “is love’s true opposite.

As I look at you now, I’m wondering if you meant what you said.

You called a dragon, and the world heard your anger.

You burned a bridge, and we watched it go up in flames.

But my, what a speech, Princess Ophir. You looked at your father and said something so exquisite that I had to taste it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for three days straight. Did you mean it?”

Ophir looked around as if hoping someone else might jump in to her defense.

“Will you salt the earth, Princess?”

“You’re asking what I feel toward my father.”

The wind bit her ears and chilled her nose. Her eyes watered against the cold, but she did not look away. She watched the cogs within the princess’s mind turn like the mechanisms of a clock. The final bits of metal interlocked. Ophir’s shoulders relaxed. Her face softened into cool resolution.

Ophir held her gaze as she said, “Good plans aren’t born of hate. True change is rarely made from brash action. Kingdoms don’t fall from spiteful princesses holding a grudge. You asked me to do something, and that’s why you wish to attend the wedding.”

Her small smile was both genuine and endlessly sad. “And tell me, dear, what would you do?”

“I can call another dragon, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Zita chafed her hands against her arms. She gestured for Ophir to follow her and led them farther from the castle.

Words such as these didn’t need prying eyes or listening ears.

The movement might warm their blood, and the closer they drew to the river, the less chance they’d have of being overheard.

“Your spirit is in the right place, dear, but I didn’t ask what you could do. I’m perfectly aware that you manifest. I was in the room, if you’ll recall. Tell me, what would you do?”

They kept pace as they reached the bank of the river.

Their feet crunched over the frosted grass as they left the path and created tracks in the bits of white that clung to the beige ground.

Ophir’s response had the slow, calm resonance of someone sharing impersonal facts as she said, “I’m apathetic, but not in the way one might assume.

I don’t care what happens to Farehold. I don’t care if it falls to ruin.

I don’t care if Aubade is laid to rubble and Eero’s and Darya’s names are lost to the wind.

I don’t care if a fae never sits on the southern throne again. ”

“Well,” Zita said, voice level, “that is a lot of not caring.”

They continued their walk, their conversation accompanied by the steady gurgle of water against the riverbank.

Zita looked across the water to where a couple caught her eye.

The woman had the large wings of a crow suited to the body of a fae.

She was too far away to discern if the man was human or not, but he would never know flight.

They stopped to watch Ophir and Zita, too, the pale face of the southwestern shores and the deep skin of the desert so different from the citizens of Raascot.

He must be human, then, to marvel at faces unlike his own.

Only Raascot’s humans would have had lifespans short enough to not remember a time when they’d occupied the southern kingdom.

She looked away from the couple as the princess spoke again.

“What I do want…” Ophir’s hand escaped her furs as she reached for Zita.

Her fingers settled lightly on the thick velvet sleeve of Zita’s cloak.

“Is an end to their reign. I want them gone. Not out of spite. Not because I’m mad that I was wronged.

It’s his ignorance that has forfeited his claim to the throne.

My father is too blind to realize he’s every bit as bad as his father and grandfather before him.

He was confronted, he was offered a chance, and he chose to exploit me, to betray Ceneth, to deny your claim to your lands, and if he’s allowed to remain in the castle, that’s his legacy. ”