Camulod chronicles book.., p.48
A Chill in the Flame, page 48
Also by Piper CJ
The Night and Its Moon
The Night and Its Moon
The Sun and Its Shade
The Gloom Between Stars
The Dawn and Its Light
No Other Gods
The Deer and the Dragon
Copyright © 2024 by Piper CJ
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To spaghetti—
You and time have a lot in common.
Contents
Map of Gyrradin
Listen Along with Our Villains
Pronunciation Guide
Content Warning
Prologue
Part I: Seasons of Flame & Flower
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Part II: A Death and Rebirth
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
Twenty-seven
Twenty-eight
Twenty-nine
Thirty
Thirty-one
Thirty-two
Part III: A Trail of Blood and Beasts
Thirty-three
Thirty-four
Thirty-five
Thirty-six
Thirty-seven
Part IV: The Puppet Master
Thirty-eight
Thirty-nine
Forty
Forty-one
Forty-two
Forty-three
Forty-four
Forty-five
Forty-six
Forty-seven
Forty-eight
Forty-nine
Fifty
Fifty-one
Fifty-two
Fifty-three
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Map of Gyrradin
Listen Along with Our Villains
Pronunciation Guide
Characters
Anwir—AN-weer
Berinth—BEAR-inth
Caris—CARE-iss
Ceneth—SEEN-eth
Eero—Arrow
Guryon—GER-yon
Ophir—oh-FEAR
Firi—FEAR-ee
Sedit—seh-DETT
Tyr—TEER
Places
Aubade—obeyed
Gyrradin—GEER-a-din
Gwydir—gwih-DEER
Henares—hen-AIR-ess
Midnah—MID-nuh
Raasay—ra-SAY
Raascot—RA-scott
Tarkhany—TAR-kah-nee
Yelagin—YELL-a-ghin
Content Warning
One instance of non-graphic attempted suicide.
Find the complete list of content and trigger warnings at pipercj.com.
Prologue
In the beginning, there was pain.
These had been forests once. Desolate lands that now stretched into the horizon had boasted trees and lakes and seas. The snaking sand blowing across cracked ground had been rich, healthy soil. The mountains that had long ago sheltered sheep and birds and towns had long since abandoned their snow, erupting into lands that swept the world with heat, fire, and suffering. In the cruelty of neglect, little thrived. Sulfur choked out natural-born life, with scarcely a rodent left to gnaw at the straw and weeds that clung to the hot fissures between rocks. Vegetation wilted and died.
People, whether human or fae, remained in their pockets of the dried spaces between things.
The monsters that roamed the land were born of violence, fear, and anger. Little remained of the herbivores or carnivores of lore—natural-born beasts said to have once flourished. Gentle creatures had wandered the forests and grazed on the grasses, thriving beneath the lovely warmth of the sun. Now, humans struggled to cling to life, remaining as scarcely more than slaves to the cruelest of fae who had been powerful enough to withstand the changes of the world. Perhaps the race of humans had been fortunate to be kept alive in a world that offered no reprieve, no grace, no kindness. Maybe they had not been fortunate at all.
Perchance it was surviving that was the curse.
She’d had a name once.
She’d been born of parents, as one often was. Her birth was one of fear, hunger, terror, and dread. She’d been raised as a child with the slender ears and too-large irises of the fae—eyes that squinted against the baking sands and whipping winds, eyes that saw no kindness, eyes that hadn’t known love or joy or peace. Her mother had been gaunt. Her father had been thin. Her childhood had been one of caves, hunger, hiding, terror, and suffering. She’d been born in the end of times.
She was the beginning of times.
Her first miracle was water.
The dried lips of her mother and dusty husk of a dehydrated father created a need, and her desire to see them live birthed a simple cup filled with cool, liquid life.
Their words were few.
She was their secret as much as their salvation.
Her second miracle was the shelter that protected them from the red sparks and brutalities and terrors of the world beyond. The creatures that prowled did so with cruelty and agony. The sky was a mixture of scarlet and brown. Green was a concept, not a color. Life was a stolen escape between carcasses, petrifactions, and stone. If it hadn’t been for the fairy tales from the mouths of her wilted mother or the gentle heart of her sickly father and the vibrant fantasies of a wishful child, she would have had no imagination for anything good.
In the papery breaths of tales and bedtime stories that were carried off in the winds, people whispered lore of a time before.
Whether or not they understood the circle of time, they had reached the end of their eon. It was the age of the ouroboros to bite its tale and begin its draconian circle once more.
She’d walked beyond the sheltered walls of their created sanctuary with the confidence of someone with nothing to lose. Where her feet were meant to land on death, she summoned life. She dreamed of the broadleaf plants and their shade, of fruit-bearing trees, and of grass underfoot that she’d only heard of in her parents’ stories. They said that long ago, life had grown upward, reaching toward the sun, and she made it so once more. Her journey found her with rivers to cool her feet, lakes in which she could swim, waterfalls and seas. Her walk resulted in the companionship of the once-fictional beasts like the gentle deer, the clever fox, and the noble falcon.
Her parents had clung to the barest edges of life long enough to see her walk among the gift of creation. Their wonder. Their salvation. She was not the first of her kind, but she was among the rarest. The mother and father who had brought her into this world could not walk with her on her journey. She was meant to traverse this path alone.
When she grew lonely, she did not return to the ramshackle prison of a shelter she’d built for herself, nor did she clutch the memories of her parents. She built for herself a manor, then a city, then an empire.
When she grew lonely, she dreamed of the long-forgotten race of mortals and brought forth a human. The man walked with her as her partner and companion as she spread greenery and life across the earth, lifting her hands and smiling as she spoke into existence a new and beautiful world.
In her time with the man who loved her, held her, and stood beside her, she’d forgotten why the fae and humans struggled to join one another. She clutched the hands and held the face of the man she’d created, and her heart was full. She felt comfort. She felt happiness. She felt selflessness and motivation and comfort until the day his face began to etch with the treacherous lines of age, his hair began to gray, and his body began to fail. She felt herself crack as the one she’d loved and had made from the very air withered to become one with the dust.
He was not the first death she’d experienced, but he would be the last.
When he grew old, she created for herself a companion who would not break her heart with time. A fae woman was made from thought and light, breathed into existence. This new fae was her equal in many ways. She shared the physical characteristics of the woman herself, though the woman on her journey had not wanted to create a copy, so she’d invented a beautiful, different breed of fae—one with wings she needed to set herself free. She had called to the magic of the world and asked it to manifest as it saw fit. This woman could come and go as a dove to the sky. The fae was the bird, and she was the tree.
In the beginning, there was pain.
In the middle, there was life.
In the end, there was forgetfulness.
The circle could not be broken. It was a serpent destined to swallow itself once more. This was the curse of time and the world upon it. They would forget the pain, the snake, the tail. Those who walked the earth would forget how time and fate were destined to ebb and flow like the tides of the seas. They would lie in the sun and eat nice things and sleep with lovers and bear children and convince themselves that the world had always been this way and would be this way forever.
She’d had a name once.
Now, some called her the All Mother. Some felt her a deity; others weren’t convinced she’d existed at all. She had been fae, though many had called her a goddess. What was a goddess, after all, if not one who could create and destroy. Her immortality allowed her eternity, and her manifestation had allotted her a life not limited to the physicality of her flesh and granted her the ability to spread throughout the forest—a network of trees as prolific and beautiful as the charged sparks in the brain.
Manifestation was the rarest gift. It was the power of the old gods.
Those who manifested possessed creation itself in their very fingertips, and with that ability came an immortality beyond the simplistic understanding of an undying life.
Manifestation could be beautiful, incredible, powerful, and good.
Manifestation could be destructive, wicked, and terrible.
Manifesters were the end of the world.
Manifesters were its beginning.
Part I
Seasons of Flame & Flower
One
Now
She’d never enjoyed being cold and would prefer not to die shivering.
Sea spray had flecked Ophir’s face for so many years. She gazed across the salty water, paying special attention to the silver moon rippling on its surface, as she wondered if there was someone on the shores of the Etal Isles staring back at her. She’d always wanted to visit the Isles. It was one of the many things she’d hoped to do. There were so many foods and drinks she’d wanted to taste. Mouths she’d wanted to kiss. Lives she’d wanted to live. They didn’t matter now.
She abandoned the shore and stepped into the blood-dark waters. The warm, night-black liquid sent her spiraling into visions of gore once more. She flinched against the onslaught of clanging metal, of lifeless eyes, of pushing and screams and the horrors that led her to this moment. Her hands were clean now, but she looked upon her thin, pale fingers in the moonlight and was only able to see the crimson-stained memories of her failure.
She wouldn’t have to withstand it much longer.
The goddess must have approved of Ophir’s plan, for no one stopped her that night. She eyed the diamond-bright stars and guessed the time at just past the four o’clock bell, which explained why Aubade was so quiet. It was too late for drunkards and too early for bakers. This was the only hour when even a princess could wander barefoot in a flimsy, cotton shift through the castle.
It was time.
Ophir waded into the waves and frowned as water saturated the dress’s thin material. The clinging fabric was unpleasant. She balled the shift in her fists and pulled it over her head to stand bare beneath the crescent moon. Her nakedness felt appropriate, as if it were the last thing to declare that she had nothing to live for, and nothing to lose.
Another step and the waves licked her calves. One more and they were at her knees. Ophir wondered how far the sand would stretch before it fell off into the ocean below. Perhaps it was an answer she should have known, but the king and queen had never allowed her to wander more than a few arms’ lengths into the sea. Fae could live splendidly long lives if they weren’t cut short by a riptide, or something as stupid as trusting a man.
Men. Ophir’s lip twitched in a thinly controlled sneer as the poisonous word touched her.
Her sister, Caris, had known how to swim but knew little of men. Ophir, on the other hand, considered herself an expert in the rougher sex, but when it came to the water, she’d managed a few basic lessons before deciding the sea was best left for merfolk and sailors. If the sisters wanted to see the ocean, they could sit on a pleasure boat with other members of high society and sip mulled wine while an aged captain told tales of the high seas. It was the safest way to dabble with either danger.
Such caution was useless to either of them now.
Caris, delicate and fair, was a flower snipped before it could fully blossom. Where Caris was soft, Ophir was rough. Where Caris was the selfless humanitarian, Ophir took life for a ride. Caris’s eyes sparkled blue like springtime rain, her cheeks bloomed rosy, her voice was a sweet song, her hair glimmered like sunlight. Ophir had inherited the hardness of her father’s crown-gilded eyes, the subdued plainness of her mother’s gold-brown hair, and a face that felt common in comparison with her sister’s angelic features.
Caris was the people’s princess. Their beacon. The hope of a kingdom.
She was Ophir’s better in every way, though she would have rebuked Ophir for thinking such.
Sorrow and rage turned sour in the pit of her belly as she pushed aside her final view of Caris—the sister who should have lived.
A piece of sea kelp brushed against Ophir’s leg, though she paid it no mind. Whether it be weeds or eels or fabled water wraiths, it didn’t matter. Warm, rhythmic saltwater swallowed her thighs, then her hips, then her navel, then her breasts. She kicked off the sandy bottom and relaxed onto her back. The steady pounding of waves against the cliffs became a dull thrum as she submerged her ears and looked up at the stars. The moon was traveling across the sky faster than she liked. In an hour or so, the castle would stir. By the time the attendants found her empty bed, it would be too late.
Ophir closed her eyes and let the current carry her. The waves’ nostalgic rocking returned her to infancy, as if in her final moments she might find comfort in her life ending just as it had begun. This was the last bassinet.
A blast of cold water enveloped her, and she knew she’d finally left the safety of the sandy bottom and drifted into open ocean. She frowned against the unpleasant chill. The waves became less like a cradle and more like an assault as they broke over her. Ophir sputtered out the water, gagging on the brine as she tried to remain on her back. Her eyes stung from the salt, but any attempt to rub them offset her balance. Another wave shoved her to the side, pushing her under the water.
“Fuck.” Ophir emerged from the black water and choked on the curse. Instinct took over as she struggled to tread the dark water, if only to keep her head above the waves.
Her panic tied itself to the cold. She didn’t want to die in discomfort. She was supposed to float off in peace.
Another briny wave attacked her eyes, ears, nose, and throat. It was a struggle to find her way to the surface as her hands and legs fought to call upon the muscle memory required of treading water, creating tired circles with her arms and legs.
“Goddess damn it,” she coughed as she struggled to orient herself.
There.
The castle was still almost completely dark, save for the distant twinkles of a few orange flames that marked its perimeters. She was so much farther from shore than she’d thought.
Something brushed her leg, and this time she wasn’t so sure it was kelp. An involuntary yelp tore from her belly, and the jolt required to bring her leg away from the unseen danger sent her beneath the waves once more.
No, no, no. Not like this. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
The desire to die clashed against her most primal urge: the need to survive. Instinct overpowered her as she attempted a breaststroke, but her weak arms were powerless. She whirled through her options in the blink of an eye as she put herself on her back once more and kicked toward shore but was quickly overturned by the rolling waves.
