Page 70 of A Frozen Pyre (Villains #2)

Forty-Two

Fifteen Minutes Before Escaping to the Unclaimed Wilds

“What the fuck are you?”

Ophir panted within the belly of the ship moments before it was scheduled to set sail. Dwyn was still off on her fool’s errand fetching food, which meant she only had a few moments to do what needed to be done.

The companion she’d manifested to help her escape had not been what she’d envisioned when hoping to create something that would help her harness Tyr’s ability to step into the place between things.

She gaped in horror at the monstrosity within the ship’s walls, and it stared right back at her, jaw hanging loosely on its hinges as if the bolts in its joints required tightening.

She supposed she’d been trying to create something to help her fight, to help her flee, and to help her hide.

And her mind had come up with…this.

“How the hell are you supposed to help me become unseen?” Ophir asked.

Part of her was astounded at how calm her voice sounded.

She was inches from a creature so terrifying it belonged in the pits of hell or the furthest corners of nightmares, and yet she trusted that it would not hurt her.

The things she made were hers to command.

For once, she saw it for what it was: a manifestation.

Not just of her will or her want but her subconsciousness brought into the world in a true and tangible way.

It was dark, and broken, and twisted, because it reflected its maker.

The warped, man-like beast lifted a talon and drew a cut on its grayish-white skin.

The blood that dribbled from it was nothing short of abhorrent.

It was the same thick, tar-like liquid she’d seen in her other creatures, the same darkness that puddled in her own veins.

Except she was the monarch to a kingdom, one with pink cheeks and golden eyes and who people often said smelled and tasted of sunlight.

At least her creations didn’t pretend to be something they weren’t.

She didn’t flinch from the beast as it brought its broken skin to her own and pressed itself upon her. When it pulled away, she saw…nothing.

She blinked at the open space in her forearm, then back up at the beast. She nearly choked on her question. “That’s how you help me with the place between things?”

It was not an intelligent creature and had nothing to say.

Ophir’s eyes darted about the room until they landed on a blanket draped over the barrels of foodstuff to keep dust and elements from spoiling the vegetables. She yanked the blanket clean from where it had rested and spread it on the ground. “Okay,” she said to the monster, “open up.”

While she remained wholly visible, save for the voided splotch on her arm, her blanket was saturated in the dark goo that disappeared on impact until there was nothing left.

She asked the beast to create a distraction so she might escape, and it did exactly that.

Draining a crewmember so that she could convince the nearest man that she’d died on the ice was a bit of a rushed afterthought.

It certainly wouldn’t convince Dwyn, but it would at least create the cover story she needed for the kingdom.

And if she worked quickly, she’d be in the farthest reaches of the continent before Dwyn even realized she was gone.

The bubbling of screams, shouts, and grieving seemed like evidence that her plan was working.

She made it down and off the ship without being detected.

The ship was in total upheaval as her beast ran amok.

She nearly slipped on the ice as she stretched her hand out for the creation of a door.

She wasn’t sure where she wanted to go, except that she asked the door to take her somewhere no one would find her.

When it went up in flames, she discarded the horrendous, sulfuric blanket and stumbled forward in the dark and the snow.

She summoned a ball of flame to act as her own personal sun as it cast daylight over the forest of giants.

The shadows it created were nearly as ominous as the indescribably large trees themselves.

Each step into the snow was new and bizarre and terrifying, yet exhilarating and freeing at the same time.

She wasn’t sure why she continued walking.

She could stop at any time. She was somewhere unknown.

She hadn’t seen trees like this in Raascot, though she supposed she hadn’t made it far beyond the grounds of Castle Gwydir.

She knew nothing like this existed in Farehold or Tarkhany.

There was a chance she’d ended up in Sulgrave, but she’d been led to believe that, aside from the sheer cliffs, Sulgrave was rather densely populated.

No, unless she’d been taken to another continent entirely, this had to be the Unclaimed Wilds.

Maybe she would be the one to claim them.

She walked and walked and walked until she reached a large clearing.

The trees stood as sentinels around her, guarding the open space.

The moon had a clear view of the earth at long last, and she soaked in its silver light as it bathed her in freedom.

Ophir spun slowly in the large, circular opening and flushed with emotion. Tears threatened to spill over.

No, it wasn’t home yet.

It was an empty, forested snowscape. Sedit wasn’t here, but if she called to him, she felt in her bones that he would come.

And she could make whatever she needed. She could make a shelter.

Or a home. Or a mansion. Or a castle. She could make friends, or animals, or anything she needed.

The Unclaimed Wilds were hers now. If she was to be the goddess, then surely she needed a place and people to rule.

This would be it.

This would be hers.

And so, she got to work. She split her focus so that her fire warmed her and illuminated the world that was hers for the taking.

Perhaps she wouldn’t get it right at first. There would be flaws, and setbacks, and crumbling shacks built on broken foundations, but she would have time.

Tonight, she needed a bed, four walls, a roof, and a fire. Tomorrow, she would begin her empire.

She was nearly too excited to sleep. Whatever part of her that had been rooted in fear had finally snapped when she’d looked into the eyes of her final creation and understood what she’d failed to grasp for so long.

It was her.

And so was the ramshackle house, and the compass that had fixated on time, and the horrendous fae that had embodied fear and terror and pain.

They were her.

And perhaps if she knew why she’d made everything bad, then maybe, just maybe, she could start to learn how to make something good.

She’d barely gotten any sleep before she awoke and got to work.

And though in theory she should have been able to picture Castle Ophir and have it manifested into existence, every attempt at a building returned shattered and cracked and unsteady.

Surely, there was something at the heart of her issues with manifestation.

Surely, if she could only piece together what it was that made every house she built unstable, she could yank it up from the roots like a weed and tend to her heart’s garden.

The moment she caught a flash of dark hair and the furious, pale face of the one she’d left behind, the dreams of her kingdom fell to pieces.

Ophir could have done anything. She could have raised an army of rabid, undead bears. She could have conjured a battalion of skyborne fae with gnashing teeth and swords for arms. She could have called the earth and manifested walls around the clearing to fence her in. But she didn’t.

Instead, she turned and ran.

“Firi, stop!” Dwyn’s voice was fury and plea. The command was desperate.

And that desperate note struck a chord. It dissolved her excitement and returned her to that place on the cliffs following Caris’s death where she’d been so empty, so broken.

Maybe Dwyn took her back to that time and place.

Maybe she empathized with what Dwyn must be feeling in this time of loss and couldn’t bring herself to force Dwyn through a living death.

Ophir took a few steadying breaths as she turned to face the lithe shape among the woods.

Dwyn’s lovely form looked so small among the red giants.

She was little more than a speck beside the mountains who’d dreamed of being trees and grown lush, green coniferous leaves to block out the sun.

Her hair caught in a gust and whipped to the side, casting a striking figure as she balled her fists in anger.

Even from across the glen, Ophir could see Dwyn’s pain.

Ophir winced at the look in her eye. She didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to face it.

She wished Dwyn had stayed on the ship, that she’d gone home to Sulgrave, that she’d taken the goddess-damned hint and gone on to live her life.

She knew it had been a fool’s hope. Dwyn’s tenacity towered above her other qualities.

She was both fearless and peerless as she forced her way forward, plucking everything she wanted from the world.

And while Ophir admired the quality in someone else, it was not something she wanted in her life.

“Why would you leave me?” came Dwyn’s broken question. It caught on the wind, joining the snow and the rustling of branches.

Ophir closed her eyes slowly. When she reopened them, Dwyn had taken several steps closer. “You want something I can’t give you,” she said.

Dwyn was aghast. “That’s not true. There’s nothing you can’t do.”

Ophir made a small silencing gesture. She didn’t miss the steps Dwyn took to close the gap between them, but if they were alone in the Unclaimed Wilds, perhaps it was time for Ophir to meet her reckoning.

“I mean,” Ophir clarified, voice barely more than a whisper, “you want more than I’ll ever be willing to give you.

You want a real kingdom. You want rulership and power and conquering. You want things that I’ll never want.”