Page 53 of A Frozen Pyre (Villains #2)

Thirty-One

“How do you choose someone?” Ophir whispered.

She trusted Dwyn, but she couldn’t articulate why.

The woman was funny, and beautiful, and spectacular in bed.

She’d been loyal, supportive, and had helped her through her darkest times.

But even as she led Ophir through the streets of Gwydir, Ophir knew she was following a killer.

Ophir swallowed the thought, remembering the blood on her hands.

Her first intended kill had been Guryon, the merchant, but she’d slaughtered three farmers in cold blood in the days before his righteous execution.

She’d killed intentionally, and she’d killed on accident.

Whether she wanted to admit it or not, she was responsible for the deaths of hundreds in Tarkhany from the morning of Berinth’s death.

Her ag’druraths had killed before and would kill again.

As she watched Dwyn bob between streets, she idly wondered who had the higher body count.

“At this point?” Dwyn stopped between buildings. She wasn’t being overly sneaky, but given that neither of them was a resident of Raascot, they did their best to keep to side streets. “I’ve lost my goodwill for people—humans and fae alike.”

“What do you mean?” Ophir whispered, hurried and anxious.

Dwyn didn’t look at her as she answered.

Her exhalation was a short huff as she continued scanning the streets.

“I mean,” she began, eyes still screwed to the distance, “think of the last time you saw a sweet old man drinking tea alone and assumed he was probably mourning his late wife. Did you feel sad for him?” Dwyn stopped to look over her shoulder.

Ophir’s brows furrowed.

Dwyn remained nonchalant. “I don’t. No one is without sin. If I see an elderly man alone, I assume he beat his wife to death or hurts children, and I carry on with what needs to be done.”

The air left Ophir’s lungs. She felt like she’d been punched in the gut as she stared at the back of Dwyn’s head. Her speechlessness drew the siren’s attention.

“What?” Dwyn demanded. She straightened her posture and abandoned her search to face Ophir. “Look me in the eye and name all of the truly good people you know. Name every person who hasn’t done something terrible.”

Ophir stammered. Her mind went right to her family, then flitted away from her father, knowing he deserved whatever fate came to him, and from her mother for her complacency in everything she enabled by perpetuating his reign.

She thought of Harland, but her nose curled against his judgment, his cruelty, his failure to understand her when she needed him most. She thought of Tyr, and pain pierced her.

“My sister is good,” she said. “Was good,” she corrected, hating herself for it.

“Yes, and your sister died for her goodness.” And though Dwyn was typically cavalier, she softened her words and face alike as she spoke. She rested her hand on Ophir’s shoulder. “Anyone else?”

Ophir chewed on her lip. “I believe Ceneth is genuinely good.”

“Excellent,” she said. “Then they were a match made in heaven. You’ve met hundreds, perhaps thousands in your life? And you’ve named two. I’m not good, nor will I pretend to be. I would bet that anyone you spot has lied or stolen or betrayed or stepped on a puppy’s tail.”

“On accident.”

“On purpose!”

And though the intent had been to joke, and while they smiled in the alley’s shadow, Dwyn’s point rang true.

Perhaps no one was truly good. And while it was immeasurably disturbing to see every sweet elderly gentleman and imagine that he’d done unspeakable things to a child, Ophir understood that Dwyn had recontextualized empathy for the sake of practicality.

Caris had been good.

She’d been perfect, and kind, and empathetic, and had devoted her life to others. She would have made change for the continent, not just for her people, but for everyone. She’d been loving to those who deserved it, and even to those who didn’t. And she’d still died.

Ophir would never be the selfless humanitarian who united the continent.

She would never be her sister.

She’d wrestled with the thought for ages, suffocated by the perfect shadow Caris casted.

But Dwyn’s reaction following the events of the summit had been correct. Ophir shouldn’t run into the forest and disappear into oblivion. She had no business living among the rabbits and deer and pines when she could still make a profound and lasting impact.

Her imprint on the world would be something Caris would have never achieved.

Her legacy would be destruction.

“Him,” Ophir said, using only her chin to motion to a fae who may have been in his twenties or two hundreds, for all one might judge the life of the fae.

“He has wings,” Dwyn said, frowning.

“Does that make him a better person?”

Dwyn grunted. “It just means your first target is a shark instead of a guppy, should he want to fight or flee. Not that I don’t think you can withstand the challenge. Are you ready?”

Ophir grabbed her arm. Dwyn looked at her bicep and the fingers digging into it, then up at Ophir. Her dark brows curled up in the center, almost as if she’d sucked on a sour lemon.

“I don’t want to learn to drain,” Ophir said.

Dwyn’s face puckered into deeper confusion.

“I don’t,” she repeated. “I want to understand it. This is who you are, right? I want to know you, and what you do, and how you do it. But it’s not a skill I want or need.

And if anyone discovers your wake of husks and asks for an explanation, I’ll reaffirm what I’ve always believed to be true.

You’re a creature of the sea and the siren of fairy tales. ”

The muscles in Dwyn’s face softened, concerned wrinkles disappearing. When Ophir released her bicep, Dwyn nodded slowly in agreement.

“I’ve told you of Sulgrave’s Reds who run the church with a legion of unfamiliar gifts, blood magic, and borrowed powers.”

Ophir listened. Yes, she’d heard it all.

“I took a gamble when I left the Pact. It was replicable enough that I was able to teach Tyr. And even if you don’t want to learn, I’ll teach you now. First, you do as the Reds do, and you borrow against your blood.”

“But that’s what kills you.”

Dwyn flashed her teeth in a smile. “Precisely. You’re not just going to do it; you’re going to do it twice.”

“I’m not going to do it any times,” Ophir corrected.

Dwyn crossed her arms. She eyed Ophir and said, “I disagree. I think it’s only ethical that you do it once, to that winged man there—the one you selected. His life is in your hands. Put yourself in my shoes.”

“I’ve never borrowed any second ability,” Ophir said. “I can’t.”

Dwyn laughed loudly enough that it drew eyes from a mother and her child passing by.

She covered her mouth. “Firi, you’re a manifester.

You draw on the hearts of your kingdom. You don’t just borrow on blood or second abilities; you borrow on every ability.

If you want to summon wind, it will be so. ”

The cold winter air burned Ophir’s tongue before she realized her mouth had dropped open.

“Listen,” Dwyn continued. “The secret is hidden in plain sight. You simply borrow twice. First, you call to the wind. Leverage the gift against your own blood.”

“But—”

“Then,” Dwyn continued testily, “you borrow against your blood a second time. Exchange the poisoned, sickly blood in your body for theirs.”

Ophir buckled against the statement. She looked up over Dwyn’s shoulders at the thin, frosty snowflakes that began to fall.

It was cold enough that they wouldn’t melt on impact.

Each speck of white cast a dramatic droplet against the midnight-blue and black stones that must have been birthed from the nearby mountains, as every shop and home and bridge sang the hues and crystalline stars within.

She hadn’t considered how Raascot’s wings shone with the same oil-slick radiance of the city’s labradorite.

Perhaps the north had not been historically theirs, but if there was indeed a goddess, she’d married the dark-winged fae with this city.

It was a marriage that was set to swiftly end for one ill-fated citizen.

“You’ve drained without knowing how you were going to use it,” Ophir said.

Dwyn cocked a brow. “So I’d have you think. It certainly makes me seem more mysterious and dangerous when you have no clue what I’m going to do next. But no. I go into each kill with intent, even if I have to sit on that intention and wait until the time is right.”

Dwyn concentrated on their task. “Your blood is twice poisoned. The first is for wind; the second is for the swap. But by the time both poisons take effect, it will all be in their veins, pumping through their heart, sapping them of their life. It’s why they perish on contact.

In the moment of the switch, you’ve amplified everything you wish to give and take.

A single stolen power would make someone sick.

If they’re extremely practiced and skilled, as the Reds were, they may be able to withstand recovery from a secondary or tertiary power.

Some devotees were fabled to call on a fourth before they fell to their religious cause.

But these people aren’t Reds. They haven’t trained or exercised or created fortitudes within themselves.

Two unfamiliar powers at once will kill them almost instantly.

If they’re human, it’s surefire. If they’re fae, it may be a bit slower.

Then again, if they’re fae, I often take a little extra, just to be sure. ”

Ophir saw her own golden curls before she realized she was shaking her head. She felt so disconnected from her body while Dwyn spoke. It felt like a wicked fairy story.

A moment later, Dwyn flattened her palm against her lower back. “Go,” she said. “First wind, then exchange. Think wind in your first heartbeat; think of the trade with the second beat.”

“What if I fuck it up?”