Chapter 9 #2
He extended his glass to clink against mine, and I pivoted to stand on his right side, keeping my Cursed wrist as far as possible. I may have made peace with my fate, but I did not need others concerned with it. Nor did I need to risk contaminating anyone else should I spill a drop of blood.
“Which among your guests do you believe will be the first to fall to the impurities of the evening, Alabath?” Tolek asked, wiggling his eyebrows at me as we surveyed the room.
His hair was coiffed upward, more tamed than usual, and the highlights caught the light as he tilted his head toward me.
The persistent scruff on his chin had been trimmed, but the shadows lingered, emphasizing the definition of his jaw and cheekbones.
“Ah, Vincienzo. I believe that is most likely to be ourselves,” I said, clinking my glass against his and taking a sip, batting my lashes over the rim as I did so.
Tolek’s eyes darkened, but he shook his head and shrugged, speaking stiffly, “Sometimes the most fun is found at the bottom of a glass, though my money is on Alvaron.” He tilted his head at the Master of Coin of the Mystique Council, who appeared to already be spilling hor d’oeurves down his shirtfront and laughing at himself with a glassy-eyed stare.
I laughed along with him, raking my eyes over the room for another target for our humor. It had been so long since we had had anything to celebrate. Though I felt energized at the thought, my cheer fueled by the secret on my wrist, my heart ached at the thought of who was missing.
How would this day have been spent if Malakai had not disappeared? I supposed it no longer mattered. If he were truly…I refused to think it, but if I were to die soon, perhaps we would be reunited. My heart fluttered wickedly at the idea.
“I have a gift for you,” Tolek began, but when Cyph, Rina, and Jezebel joined us, he whispered, “I’ll give it to you later.”
I frowned at him, but he only laughed.
“Not to upset you, sister, but your speech was rather…dismal.” Jezebel, resplendent in a gown of rose silk with a sheer décolletage and silver threading, crossed her arms.
“I thought it was fitting.” Cyph shrugged. His navy-blue jacket brought out the dark accents in his eyes as they crinkled with his grin.
“Thank you, Cyph. And thank you again for the present.” He had dropped off a matching set of exquisite daggers earlier, unsure how my guests would react to the gift given that I was no longer supposed to train.
They were small, lethally sharp, and fit securely to each thigh.
I should have known that our personal master of blades would have done as much.
Cypherion smiled at me, promising to show me how best to care for them.
“Useful,” Rina said, an edge of disapproval in her voice, if only for concern of us getting caught.
She had let her hair down from its usual ponytail tonight.
It fell in an intimidating curtain around her shoulders and the plum-colored gown that skimmed her figure down to the floor.
She raised a brow. To anyone else, the expression in her round eyes might have been sultry, but I read the challenge there.
I lifted my chin. “You’re jealous of my shiny new toys.”
“I had to ensure you’d like my gift as much,” Santorina said, tipping her glass toward mine.
“It’s perfect,” I told her of the perfume she had made specifically for me, laced with jasmine and citrus.
Around us, couples twirled across the floor without direction, not following a formal dance routine, but simply letting the music guide them. Operating on instinct fueled by the earth’s rhythm in our veins. Cypherion led Santorina to join while Jezebel disappeared to the buffet table.
“May I have this dance?” Tol asked, extending one hand to me and tucking the other behind his back.
My heart fluttered as I flashed him my most charming smile and assumed my most dignified tone. “Why, certainly you—”
But the words were stolen by an exigent presence that entered the room.
All eyes flocked to him. He nodded to my father but did not stop to greet him. Somehow, his light-as-air footsteps drowned out the music, echoing hollowly against the wooden floor.
An inexplicable chill seeped through my body as I took in his dark gray coat, so long it traveled well past his knees.
He must have just arrived from Damenal if he was wearing such a protective jacket.
Underneath, he wore shades of black so deep my mind could not perceive how they were real.
The air around him seemed to vibrate. Out of intimidation or force of power, I couldn’t be sure.
Tolek met my numb gaze, turning to see who had caught my eye, and his lips parted, expression freezing. With a quiet exhale, he mumbled something that sounded like “Holy hell Spirits.”
Lucidius Blastwood, the Revered Mystique Warrior, leader of our people, and Malakai’s father, stopped before us. There was something different about him—an aura I could not place.
His authority chilled me—every spot save for the tainted web on my wrist, but something cold and furious curled within me. Based on the way he tensed beside me, Tolek was experiencing the same rage, but his features remained calm.
“Ophelia,” Lucidius greeted me, and his authority saturated that one word, seeping into the air around us.
“Happy birthday.” He extended his palm, and I placed my hand in his, the contact turning my fingers icy.
He raised our hands in a silent salute before speaking words I was unprepared to hear.
“I wish my son could be beside you on this of all nights. He is certainly missing out, wherever he may be.” His eyes gleamed in an unsettling way.
Not mourning or misery, but disappointment in his heir and a swirling depth I didn’t recognize.
Though Malakai’s strong jaw, dark hair, and green irises so looked like his father, they could not be more different.
I took a deep breath and pulled my hand back from his, ensuring that my sleeve had not rolled up. I nodded gracefully at him, fluttering my dark eyelashes in an innocent impression. “Thank you, sir. You know I miss him dearly, but I do hope we will be reunited soon.”
Lucidius’s jaw tensed as he raised his hands before him, shrugging slightly. “As do we all. Though I fear that time has come and gone.”
“That may be your fear.” My patience was wearing thin, but I kept my voice light, pretending we weren’t discussing the possibility of his own son’s death and his hopelessness at his survival. “But I do not share it. Malakai is the strongest warrior among our generation.”
A disturbing smile spread across his face, eyes darkening beneath hooded brows. “Ah, how I wish I could carry the hope of the young once again.”
“I wish for your sake that you could, as well, sir.” My words were becoming bitter. “He and I will see each other again, soon.” The finality in my voice implied the end of the conversation.
“Mm-hmm,” Lucidius hummed. He bowed to me slightly, clasping his hands behind his back before nodding in Tol’s direction. “Vincienzo” was his only acknowledgment of his son’s friend before he left us.
When he was out of earshot, Tol leaned closer to me and whispered, his breath hot against my neck, “I know that we’re supposed to honor him, but that man makes my blood boil.”
I turned my face toward Tol’s so that our cheeks were an inch apart. Though still reeling from the encounter with Lucidius, I whispered, “I hear wine cools boiling blood nicely.” I pulled back to flash him a mischievous smile.
Hours later, long after the clock had struck midnight and my birthday had officially passed, the grand room was emptying.
My head spun from the bottles of sparkling wine Tolek and I had stolen from the kitchen, racing to see who could finish theirs first. The bubbles had coated the evening with an intoxicating, golden hue.
For the first time in years, I felt gleeful, and I was certain it was not strictly due to the alcohol.
In another life, tonight would have been a dream.
I would have worn my official Mystique Warrior leathers and held the evening in Damenal.
I would have danced with Malakai, possibly Tolek and Cypherion, too, reveled with Rina and Jezebel, and fallen into my bed with my partner at the end of the night, questioning my luck in this life.
Instead, I was facing a cursed fate, but accepting that path had relieved my shoulders of the weight of life, and I was able to enjoy myself. I would find peace in another life, and potentially rejoin Malakai if he had truly fallen to the fate others believed. The thought sent my heart swelling.
The air buzzed with a heavy feeling of expectation.
Though I didn’t know what caused it, my stomach fluttered nervously, like it knew a secret I was not aware of.
I bounced around the grand room on the balls of my feet, floating from that unnamed sensation, until the clock chimed three in the morning.
I kissed my family good night and stumbled into my darkened bedroom.
“Ouch,” I muttered, clumsy fingers scratching my skin as I tore off my corset.
When the dress pooled around my knees, I stepped out of it, kicked off my heels, and crawled into bed in only my undergarments. The sheets felt cool against my body, especially the burning spot on my wrist. I was grateful to the alcohol for dulling that pain.
It could have been my drunken mind, but the air seemed different tonight.
Delicate. Like the atmosphere was a precious realm of glass, waiting for someone to come along and gently send it shattering to the ground.
A cool night breeze fluttered across my flushed cheeks, lulling the thoughts from my mind.
But I had barely reached the shallows of sleep when a blinding light flashed through my room. I scrambled to my feet atop my mattress in search of a weapon that wasn’t there.
I squinted through the golden light that poured into every corner of the previously dark room, disoriented but prepared to fight.
The rays resembled physical sunlight, but brighter.
Inhuman and unnatural, yet the purest substance in existence.
Through the burning beams I saw a figure that brought me to my knees.
An Angel.