Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Jezebel thought I was unaware of her following me to the tavern every night, but I always knew she was there. Be it through the faint shift of the silence, infiltrated by the most subtle of footsteps, or the scent of gardenia that clung to her skin, my keen senses didn’t miss a beat.
Still, I had to admit as I prowled down the main road of Palerman, she was stealthy.
I wasn’t sure how many nights she followed me before I took notice of her presence.
I couldn’t be sure if she was doing it to watch out for me or to train herself, but I suspected the latter.
My parents may have never intended for Jezebel to complete the Undertaking—even before its suspension—but she had had different plans.
Her featherlight footsteps echoed mine as I turned abruptly down the alley leading to the back entrance of the Cub’s Tavern. I left the door ajar for her.
The familiar room brought me comfort. The fire in the grate cast ominous shadows across the barroom’s dusty floorboards, but the darkness mirrored that within me, and I smiled at my friends as I crossed the room.
My skin still buzzed with the energy of the spear, the training session having awakened something sleeping beneath my skin.
“Good evening, Ophelia,” Tolek called from the bar, waving and flashing me a lopsided grin. I smiled back, nodding in greeting. “You appear to be in better spirits tonight than when we last saw you.”
Cypherion exchanged a weary glance with Santorina where she refilled drinks behind the bar. They constantly begged Tolek not to challenge or question my moods, but he never listened. Instead, he drew my fury onto himself whenever it peaked.
“You’re in luck, Tol. For the time being, I am.” I slid into the seat waiting for me between him and Cyph, and nodded at the other patrons along the wooden counter.
Rina placed a modest serving of my favorite rum before me, and as I raised it to my lips, I saw a golden-haired girl slide into a booth in the back corner. She truly was stealthy—and always vigilant.
Jezebel would blend easily with the young Mystiques scattered throughout the tavern tonight.
Though I preferred the evenings spent with only my closest friends, I didn’t comment.
I knew Santorina would be grateful she had more customers.
And Tolek didn’t seem to mind the men and women throwing him seductive glances that were not entirely subtle.
Even Cyph had been making hushed conversation with a beautiful girl with dark brown skin and black curls.
Angels, why did my friends have to be attractive? I would likely have one drink and leave them to their frivolity, having no interest in flirting myself.
“Let us drink to your happiness, then,” Tol sang, raising his glass.
A group of three girls beside him mimicked the motion.
I recognized them from our year of school—there were the Bristol twins, one of whom was leaning across the bar, batting her lashes at Rina from beneath fringed bangs.
I’d thought Santorina had been seeing a man whose name I couldn’t remember, but perhaps that had ended.
I could admit I’d been distracted as of late.
The third girl was a brunette whose name I also struggled to recall, though her soft features and expressive eyes were familiar.
She caught my gaze. “Hello, Ophelia,” she greeted.
Dammit, I should know her name.
“Hylia here was just taking Cypherion’s side in an argument against me,” Tolek explained, swinging his arm across the girl’s shoulders and lifting his drink. Hylia, I repeated to myself as she whispered something to Tol that made him laugh.
I pursed my lips until he stopped. “Tolek, I am certain that if there is a bet being made, Cyph has considered the outcomes thoroughly.”
“Are you taking his side, as well?” Tol’s arm left Hylia’s shoulder, palm pressing to his chest. He didn’t appear to notice the slight drop of the girl’s smile.
“She would be correct to,” Cypherion noted.
“Nonsense!” Tol yelled.
Smiling to myself as they debated, I ran my hands along the deep maroon of my gown, the color making me feel powerful.
Coupled with the easy conversation around me, for once it was hard to feel angry.
I smoothed the gold patterns shimmering in the thin top layer of the skirt.
It picked up the light in the tavern, reminding me of the shade the spear emitted when I first touched it. The thing beneath my skin shifted.
The boys and Hylia continued their banter, and I roared with laughter when I learned that the bet actually was that Tolek could not—or should not—attempt to shoot a moving target with a bow and arrow while standing atop his horse, Astania, as she galloped.
“Perhaps if the lovely Rina dares to refill my glass a few more times, I will give this challenge a valiant effort,” Tol declared.
“You barely even know how to handle the weapon,” Cyph argued. He had a point—archery was a Seawatchers’ practice.
Tolek smirked. “Oh, I can handle a weapon.”
“Damien’s balls,” Cyph muttered, rolling his eyes. “How was your day, Ophelia?” The firelight in the room darkened his auburn hair, casting shadows across his straight nose.
Do I dare share the truth? With the essence warm beneath my skin, I couldn’t keep the revelation to myself. Nor did I want to, because for once, though I held so many questions, something felt right.
“I trained with Jezebel today.” I sipped my drink, cleared my throat. “Using Malakai’s spear.”
“Malakai’s spear?” Santorina whispered. It was the first time in months—years, maybe—that my friends heard me speak his name. Not the name I used for him, but his given name. To me, he was always Augustus, but it felt too personal to voice since his disappearance.
I nodded as Rina moved down the bar to deliver a glass of whiskey.
When she returned, Tolek turned his back on Hylia and the Bristols.
My friends created a fortress around me as I dropped my voice to a whisper and explained in vague detail how I had found the spear, answering their questions without describing precisely how connected I felt to the weapon.
I needn’t cause suspicion until I knew what was going on.
My stare remained on the amber liquid swirling in my glass as they watched me, digesting all the information I had revealed and forming their own conclusions.
“How do you feel about that?” Cyph broke the silence first, though I knew his actual question was, Have you accepted Malakai’s fate?
I took another sip to calm the nerves fluttering through my stomach.
“It felt right. My body reacted to having that spear in my hands like nothing I’ve ever felt.
” I recalled the way I had struck with such ease, driving away my hatred of spearwork one slice at a time.
The weapon was no Starfire. It was something…
different. Unspeakable. The power that flowed through my veins, stemming from where I held the weapon and shooting throughout my body, was an unleashing of something long dormant.
I locked eyes with each of my friends in turn as I braced myself for their reaction to my next claim. “It’s Malakai’s by right, though. I will only keep it until I can return it to him.”
The lighthearted spirit of the night dissolved in an instant. The collective breath had been knocked out of them, the progress they thought I’d made slipping through their fingers.
But what they called progress, I called surrender. I was not made to surrender.
“How will you return it to him?” Rina asked carefully, twisting her long black ponytail between her slender fingers. She was proceeding with caution after the last time we spoke, but her eyes narrowed at me.
Another sip of rum. “When he returns to me.” The tethers of promise that lived within my Bind burned ferociously.
“Ophelia—” Cypherion began.
My glare silenced him. “I have told you this many times before. He will return to me,” I said calmly but through gritted teeth, the ice seeping from my voice and into the air around us. All hint of joy I had gathered today went with it.
“It’s been two years, Ophelia,” Rina stated. There was a softness in her features that resembled pity.
I shook my head, throwing back the rest of my rum and shooting to my feet. “You may have all given up on him, but I will not.”
My stool clattered to the ground as I stormed out of the Cub’s Tavern, leaving every ounce of burning bliss simmering into ash in my place. The buzz of energy that had awakened within me shook, cascading through my blood as I stalked up the staircase and through the deserted alley.
I didn’t know where I was going. Surely, I did not want to return home.
Once on the main street, I stopped walking and leaned against the window of an empty alehouse. The glass was cool against the back of my neck, calming the emotion that welled up in my chest and clawed into the back of my throat.
It was my own fault for expecting any other result from telling them of the spear.
They all surrendered so easily. I didn’t know why that fact caused me to implode when I had known it for two years now, but something felt different tonight.
My emotions had been thrown about so wildly today—from my mother to the spear—and this was the final straw.
Hearing them say once again that Malakai was not returning felt like a shard of ice slicing through my heart.
Cold and sharp and damaging beyond repair.
Turning my face to the stars, I listened for the footsteps that I knew would follow me. One set, as there always was. The only one who dared confront me in these moments.
Citrus and a note of something spicier drifted around me as he stopped. He leaned against the glass beside me, shifting his gaze to the sky, as well. In this moment of silent camaraderie, I was relieved Tol had sought me out. Though I did not act like it, I needed his presence.
Tol was silent, waiting for me to speak or not speak. Giving me the strength of silence and the power to break it. He always knew what I needed, even when I did not.
“I miss him,” I whispered after many long moments of silence. My eyes did not stray from the sky, but I couldn’t bring myself to look for that one star that shone brighter than all the rest.
Tol deflated a bit at my words. “We all do, Ophelia.” It was a simple sentence, but it cracked something in my icy heart.
“You don’t always act like it.” My voice was not harsh. I felt defeated.
“Just because I hide my pain doesn’t mean I feel it any less than you do. Just because I have accepted his absence doesn’t mean I am happy for it.” A rare hint of sadness cracked his voice—the raw edge of mourning.
I turned my attention from the moon, an orb of bright light against the pitch black of the night, to Tol. That’s what Tol was for me—a beacon of pure hope, guiding me through life’s darkest moments.
The crack in my heart widened. I took a breath, holding Tol’s eyes as I said, “I feel as if a piece of me will always be missing while he’s gone. It’s that lost piece that keeps me from believing what you all believe.” I’d not dared divulge those words to anyone.
“You don’t need to believe what we do, but I know that Malakai wouldn’t want you traveling through life with this darkness in your heart.” Tol’s words were gentle, and as he spoke, his voice worked its way into that cracked space in my heart, forging it back together.
“How do you know that?” I faced him, leaning one shoulder against the window. With my pinkie, I drew a star in the dust coating the glass, watching how it caught the light.
Tolek faced me, eyes on the dirt now covering my finger. “You are brighter than this, Ophelia. Meant to be a shining star among us. But since he left, your light has dimmed.”
My eyes stung, and the back of my throat tightened. I bit my lips to fight what was inevitable.
Tol stepped closer, lifting my chin so I was forced to look into his eyes. Swirls of sorrowful deep brown and hints of amber longing stared back at me from behind the hair drooping forward across his brow. It had been rumpled, likely from his own hand, and the highlights caught the moonlight.
“My heart broke the day Malakai left,” he whispered. “But it has continued to break every day since, seeing what his absence has done to you.”
Tears rolled down my cheeks. Tears I had fought for over two years, not allowing myself the weakness of crying for the man I loved or the life that had been taken from me.
Tolek tugged me to his chest, one hand coming up to cradle the back of my head as a sob worked its way up my throat.
His citrus and spice scent enveloped me, and I breathed it in greedily, needing to calm the roaring in my ears.
I fisted my hands against the thin black linen of his shirt, my tears staining him as he breathed a soothing whisper against my hair.
Under the cover of night, with Tol siphoning off my pain and shielding me from the world, I leaned into his embrace and surrendered.