Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
I reached Sapphire as the predator released a roar that rolled along my bones, closer this time.
Jezebel threw me my pack and weapons as I pulled our horses’ tethers loose and swung myself onto Sapphire’s back. She didn’t need my hurried instructions to take off down the wide path between the trees, away from the approaching beast. I’d never seen my horse scared until now.
Four sets of hooves followed, but they were quickly drowned out by the thundering steps of our attacker barreling through branches.
“What is it?” I called over my shoulder, my hair whipping my face.
“I don’t know,” Cypherion answered, picking up speed. His wide eyes caught the slivers of moonlight that poked through the branches, and there was true fear there.
Another roar pierced the night, and Sapphire sped up. It was cutting a path through the trees, parallel to the trail, gaining on us quickly. Too quickly.
Patches of moonlight reflected off a body that was scaled in places and fur-covered in others.
My stomach clenched.
A slitted yellow eye met mine as it turned toward us, charging through the trees. My fingers itched to grab my sword. Why were we fleeing when we could be fighting?
“Are those—” Tolek began, but his words were drowned out when the beast cut into our path.
It flared its gigantic set of wings. Covered in scales as dark as a moonless night and as sharp as knives, they blocked the entire path.
With a hide of the deepest black and a mane of thin silver hair that glowed against the night, its body looked almost horse-like.
But the armor of scales protecting its legs—legs that ended in claws, not hooves—and the spiked tail thrashing about behind it were of some other origin.
It towered over our mares on four legs, but it was breathtakingly large when it reared up on its hind legs. Wings flapping, it swiped out a claw. Sapphire pivoted, barely avoiding it, but a scream behind me chilled my blood.
Jezebel.
I yanked on Sapphire’s reins to turn her and pulled my sword from its sheath. The creature was towering over my sister, her form so small on the leaf-strewn floor. Elektra danced on the outskirts of our circle, throwing her head back with a desperate whinny as she fought to rescue her rider.
With a bloody gash streaming from her shoulder, Jezebel raised a dagger and stabbed at the beast’s leg, rolling away as it swung out. Its claws scraped her chest. When she pushed herself to a crouch, I saw the anger twisting her face.
The beast swung one wing across the space, knocking my sister to the ground again, and I screamed. It turned that slitted yellow eye back to Sapphire and me, and I swore it sparked with familiarity.
Without hesitation, we charged at each other.
Warrior and horse against unknown beast. It was a clash of metal against scales as I fought to land a blow with Starfire.
The way the creature moved—with cunning and fluidity—spoke of a power so old I didn’t recognize it, but my bones and blood could feel it.
In my periphery, I could see Cypherion and Tolek trying to strike the beast’s defenseless sides, but the spikes in its tail swung lethal blows between them.
It snapped its jaws at me. I twisted, narrowly avoiding teeth as sharp as daggers. Its putrid breath skimmed across my face, hot and musty, like it had been sleeping for centuries. It was practically on top of us, raising a leg, claws shining in the moonlight.
I needed to get off of Sapphire. To send her running.
With a quick blow, I swiped Starfire between us, forcing the creature back a step.
I jumped, landing in a crouch, and was raising my sword when the beast released an agonized howl.
I chanced a look at its backside to see Jezebel had risen and brought her sword through the end of that spiked tail, severing the tip.
As I was about to take my chance, drive my sword into the beast that had tried to kill my sister with every ounce of weakened power I had in me, it flapped its wings. I staggered back from the wind it created.
Then, it took off through the trees with one last glance back at Jezebel. She narrowed her gaze at it, and it did the same, but there was no threat in the stare.
As it rounded the bend in the path back toward our initial camp, Jezebel collapsed.
“Jezzie!” I screamed, running to her side, but Santorina was already there, assessing her wounds and pulling water from her pack.
“She’s okay,” Rina assured me. “Look, the bleeding has already stopped. I think she just needs this.” She removed a vial of salts from her bag, unstopped it, and waved it beneath my sister’s nose.
My heart pounded in my ears until Jezebel’s eyes slowly opened.
“Thank the fucking Angels,” I breathed, crushing her to me, then pulling back to inspect her face. She blinked rapidly, scanning our surroundings.
“Let me clean your wound,” Santorina muttered, and I let my sister go, not taking my eyes from her.
I was grateful for the instruction of Santorina’s mother, who spent time studying in a Bodymelders encampment before her marriage, learning their medicinal practice and training with their healers. I thanked her Spirit for teaching her daughter how to care for wounds.
“I’m fine, I’m fine.” Jezebel swatted us away.
“Don’t be ridiculous—”
“I mean it.” She flashed us the cut on her shoulder that was already healing thanks to her warrior blood and shoved herself to her feet. “Let’s just get out of here before that thing returns. Or its pack shows up.”
She marched away from us to where Elektra pounded her hooves in the dirt. I watched her go, unease creeping through my stomach at her unusual avoidance.
“What do you think it was?” Rina asked.
Cypherion shook his head, wiping sweat from his face. “I’ve never seen a thing like it.”
“It felt ancient,” I said, remembering its stare and the way it felt familiar. “Powerful.”
“Well, whatever it is, let’s leave before it returns. We’ll never find out if we’re dead.” Tolek didn’t take his eyes off the path when he spoke, but once Cyph and Rina turned away, he put a hand on my shoulder. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
I looked him over, ensuring he was in one piece before I answered. “I’m fine. No more midnight swordfights, though.”
He smirked as we turned toward our horses. “That’s for the best. I’ll find another way to win against you.”
Once we were marching to a new camp, senses alert after the attack, I looked at my sister from the corner of my eye.
Her tawny eyes were bright in the darkness, wariness and confusion still stuttering behind them.
She was shaking, but something else swam to the surface of her gaze: a burning desire that I wasn’t sure even she understood.
By the time the others settled down to sleep, dawn was quickly approaching. Too anxious to rest, I volunteered to keep watch. I had a feeling no one would find peace, though. I couldn’t get the vision of the winged beast from my mind.
And its claws—as sharp and deadly as both its dagger-like teeth and the look in its eye. A shiver went down my spine as I imagined its gaze traipsing over me again. Whatever it had been, it was cruel and ancient.
I inhaled, flooding my lungs with much-needed crisp air, and wrapped my fingers around the pin my grandmother had given me. Its presence calmed me, guided me.
When my lungs felt full to the point of bursting, I slowly released the breath through my lips, a nearly silent hiss following the motion. Then, I repeated the pattern five more times, trying to release the image of that beast and my sister beneath it with each breath.
I reached a hand up, toying with the leaves on the hanging branches that draped to my chin.
They were unique, the color of fresh apples.
Vibrant and unmarred, as so much of the nature in our lands was.
It was ironic that the people could suffer so severely, but magic kept the world pristine.
I guess in people, the power only healed our external injuries.
It left those on our hearts and souls to bruise.
Even then, there were some things that magic couldn’t heal. I ran my thumb across my wrist, thinking of one.
The green-gray pattern continued to grow slowly. In the heart of the Curse, the spot where I could feel it burrowing deepest into my blood, the veins darkened to an onyx. That root crawled deeper within me, making itself at home beneath my skin.
As I sat there, looking intently at my wrist, I felt one of the Curse’s extremities wrap itself around a vein, claiming me. My stomach rolled with nausea, and I braced my forehead against my knees.
You will not take me, yet. I repeated the affirmation to myself, thinking of Damien’s prophecy. I had a job to do before I could die, and after tonight, that task felt so much harder.
Footsteps sounded behind me, muffled by the soft grass.
“Santorina,” I muttered, straightening my spine and pulling the leather of my sleeve down, pretending the pain on my wrist wasn’t excruciating.
Rina folded her legs beneath her in the grass next to me. “How did you know it was me?”
“Louder footsteps,” I answered without looking at her. No warrior blood.
“Right” was all she said.
“Thanks for helping her,” I whispered, looking over my shoulder to where Jezebel lay curled in the grass, Tolek and Cypherion on either side of her. We left our sleeping mats when we fled the beast, but they had given her the one blanket that made it out of the camp with us.
“She’s going to be okay.”
“I know.” And I did—but I couldn’t forget the fact that there was a moment when I thought she might not be.
I didn’t voice the guilt that ate at me every time that image flashed to my mind.
It had only been one Spirit-forsaken day on this journey, and already I felt like I was unraveling. I groaned, burying my face in my hands.
“You cannot blame yourself.”
“I can.”
“No, Ophelia, you can’t.” She pulled my hands from my eyes, forcing me to meet her stare. “Whatever that thing was, it attacked Jezebel because that’s in its nature. It could have been any of us.”
My hands shook at the thought of any of them suffering. Spirits, this is why I didn’t want anyone to come with me on this trek. If anything happened to one of them—
My breath lodged in my throat, and I couldn’t answer Rina. Instead, I stared at the stars.
She folded her hand around my own. “I’m sorry for earlier.” My eyes snapped up to hers. “With the rum,” she clarified.
I exhaled. That argument felt like it had passed days ago; it seemed so small in comparison to what we’d just survived. “Truthfully, I’d forgotten about it.” The weakness came roaring back to me, and I once again wondered how I ended up here. “I was not expecting those words, though.”
She cracked a smile, white teeth bright against olive skin. “I mean them.”
“Thank you,” I whispered, returning her smile, the muscles in my cheeks loosening.
Tension lifted from her eyes. “Don’t misunderstand my apology, though. I’m sorry for how I broached it, but I am worried about you.”
“You need not be.” The lie fled easily from my lips.
“But I am.”
Our gazes locked, and we were evenly matched. Two storms of gritty determination and bold emotions, my twin force driving me to be my best.
“Rina,” I exhaled, conceding slightly to her.
“Nothing can happen to you, Ophelia.” She squeezed my hand.
“I’ve lost too many. You’re the closest family I have left.
” Santorina was a master at forcing me to face harsh truths, but for her to let down her own guard…
for her to express this level of vulnerability meant something deeper than I could name.
Guilt twisted through me, knowing I wouldn’t be around much longer.
“You have them.” I inclined my head toward our sleeping friends.
Rina smiled. “They’re family, too. But it’s different with you.” Because I’d been there when she was told her parents had died. The moment she’d officially thought herself alone in the world. And I’d held her together.
“What are you afraid of?” I asked, gently squeezing her hand in return, and she knew I didn’t mean the winged beast or the Undertaking.
“I am afraid of how many bottles I have emptied into your glass in recent months. I am afraid of the darkness I see lurking in your eyes until the first sip passes your lips each night. I am afraid of the fact that it is each night.”
Her dark eyes shone with such honesty that I felt I owed her the same. I filled my lungs with air and released it slowly. “When I drink…it relieves the pain. It comforts me through blurry oblivion, but also with distraction.”
Rina put her arm around me and hugged me to her. I surrendered into the embrace. “I know it makes you forget your grief,” she whispered, her cheek against my head. “But there are other options for comfort and distraction. Allow us to help.”
“That’s not my strength.”
“We all suffer weaknesses. You’re fierce in most other aspects.”
I rested my head on her shoulder, wrapping my arms around myself.
My heart thudded slightly at her words. Maybe there were other methods to achieve the warmth I sought in the bottom of a bottle.
Though I wanted nothing more than to douse tonight’s events in the blinding liquor, I did not want to lean on that crutch any longer, weaken my body when I needed to fight.
“We dump the canteen in the morning,” I said.
Rina nodded against my head.
We looked at the lightening sky, navy fading to pale violet as the stars slowly faded. All seven of the Angel constellations were still visible and the six gods with them. “Tell me about the constellations, again,” Rina murmured.
With the dawn air cushioning my voice and our three friends sleeping soundly behind us, I whispered the legends of warrior clans and mythical beings to my incredibly human friend.
In the morning, we poured out the liquor.
I watched the warm amber that had become my lifeline seep into the dark soil beneath a cypher tree.
I turned my back on it.