Chapter 6 #2
Cyph sliced blades effortlessly through the air, asking Vale to recreate the motions.
She did so better than I’d expect of someone who claimed to have no formal training.
Cyph observed how she handled each weapon, his gaze serious, a warrior assessing a challenge.
He said something that had her bell-like laugh filtering through the arena, and he smiled back at her.
“It’s nice to see him in his element,” Malakai said, his tone dejected, as it always seemed to be these days. Or perhaps it was jealousy; I couldn’t be sure.
“He’s good at this,” I agreed. Weapons, strategies, and shrewd observation had always been Cyph’s strengths. Seeing him use the skills he honed proficiently brought a smile to my face, but knowing Malakai didn’t share that sense of belonging dimmed it. I only wished he’d allow me to help.
“Shall we?” I held my hand out to him, waiting for him to slip some reassurance back my way.
“That one’s probably too big,” Cyph said as we approached, eyeing the sword Vale lifted. They both nodded at us.
She tightened her grip. “Who’s to say what’s too big for me to handle?”
Malakai exhaled a laugh, but Cyph’s jaw hung open for a moment. “I—I wasn’t—”
“Relax, I was only teasing.” Vale set the long sword down, a satisfied smile on her face, and I decided then—I liked her. Not everyone could easily find their footing in our tight-knit group, but she held her own, with enough spirit to throw Cyph off balance.
Beyond that, the idea of befriending members of other clans was alluring.
We couldn’t share certain secrets, but there were endless histories and practices we could learn from them.
We needed alliances, yes, but did it have to end there?
Titus may have been difficult, but Vale seemed open to this arrangement.
Besides, if she could conduct sessions with the stars…well, that was an advantage I’d be foolish to waste in light of her chancellor’s reading.
“Men and their sensitivity to size,” I joked, grabbing a short sword for her instead. “I prefer these.” I gestured to Starfire at my hip. “More nimble.”
As Vale tested the sword, I surveyed her grip and stance. Both were impeccable, control evident in each swing.
“You’re a natural,” Cyph said, finally having recovered.
A faint blush colored her cheeks. “I’ve never held a sword before.”
A lie, I thought. When Malakai, Cypherion, and I exchanged a glance, it was clear they agreed. The question was, why?
“What did you spend your training years doing?” I asked. “Have you always been in Titus’s employment?”
“I spent most of my life at the Lumin Lake Temple, learning the art of reading the stars and communicating with the Angel and Celestial Goddess. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I fell into this position.”
“Can you—read as he does, then?” I fidgeted with my sword, working to keep that cool mask of Revered across my features.
Death. Darkness. Destruction. They echoed through my mind, chills peppering my skin.
“I’m practiced.” Vale ran a hand down the training leathers we’d loaned her and brushed her braid behind her shoulder. A few pieces slipped free.
“Do you think there’s any way his vision was…” Wrong, I wanted to say. But those softening olive eyes cut me off.
“I’m sorry, Ophelia.” She dropped her gaze. “I don’t know what it means, but I’m certain Titus’s vision was correct.”
As I kept myself from falling into the same pit of panic that tried to swallow me yesterday, I wondered what it could mean.
There was a rare substance in my blood—that much I knew.
There was also a vengeful queen at my back.
For a moment, I felt the chill of Kakias’s dagger pressed against my throat, the blade thin and cold.
Lethal. Sometimes, I swore the faint line it had imprinted on my skin looked back at me in the mirror, a bead of blood bubbling to the surface.
But when I blinked it was always gone—a figment of my nightmares or a premonition for my future, I wasn’t sure.
Our war with Kakias was far from over, but could that be the cause of Titus’s reading? Or was it something closer to home? Something within me?
At my back, Angelborn warmed, her pulse beating through me—a comfort and a promise.
“Did your family train at Lumin, too?” Malakai asked. In that moment, he and I were aligned. How had this seemingly ordinary girl come to the side of the leader of their clan?
“Oh, I’m afraid I don’t know my family. I haven’t seen them in nearly twenty years, since I was only four.” Though she said no more, her voice was crystal clear.
“And why is that?” Cypherion pushed gently, focusing on the sword he was polishing for her.
“That’s a very personal question.” Her brow furrowed. “Where is your family?”
“My father died many years ago.” The lie was smooth. For all we knew, his father had died. “And my mother didn’t handle it well.”
Vale’s shoulders sank. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay. You didn’t know.” Cyph extended the sword to her, pulling it back just before her fingers closed around the grip. “But it sounds like there’s more to your story.”
“Perhaps one day I’ll tell you.”
Cyph dropped his chin. “I’ll hold you to it, Starsearcher.”
Malakai and I exchanged a wide-eyed look, but before either of us could say anything, Cyph called for drills to start.
“Holy fucking Spirits,” Malakai panted as the tip of my spear landed above his heart, poised to pierce the Bind.
I smirked. “I know, I’m impressive.”
“Phel, you’ve always been talented.” He brushed his sweat-soaked hair out of his face.
The morning sun caught the drops rolling down his forehead and carving a path around his scarred torso.
Something below my stomach fluttered as one slipped down the column of his neck, over his collarbone and tattoo. “With that thing, you’re unstoppable.”
I looked for any hint of jealousy as he eyed Angelborn—the spear that had been his since birth but was recently passed to me when my right to Revered was exposed—but I found none. He leaned on the spear he’d borrowed from the palace’s armory, his eyes sweeping over me.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.” Now his smirk matched my own.
We were both quiet, eyes locked, arguments past trying to pry their way in.
The clashes of sparring around us bounced off the stone walls of the training arena.
My workout leathers—cut like my official garb but less ornate—were hot against my skin, though the dawn air was cool.
Or perhaps it was Malakai’s heated gaze that had my clothes feeling suddenly in the way.
I prowled forward slowly, placing a hand against his chest. And shoved him. “Back to work, warrior.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said in a low voice. Heat spread throughout my body.
I stepped back and reset my stance, tightening my grip on Angelborn.
I watched for his usual hint of reluctance.
Malakai preferred not to train with spears since he’d given his over to me, but we’d decided to work them into our routine.
It was a good challenge for him, I thought, but I didn’t miss the way he sometimes winced when handling any weapon.
“You were asleep when I returned last night,” I said as we began slashing our way around the space.
The tightening of his expression was due to more than the maneuver I made. “You got back late.”
True.
“I had work to take care of.” A beat, shadows around his eyes deepening. “Are you okay?”
Are we okay?
For a few minutes, he didn’t respond. We continued to spar, and only when I had my weapon at his ribs did he ground out, “Just tired is all.”
I froze with Angelborn against him, taking in the angular planes of his face that had turned harder each day since we reunited.
His sunken cheeks and muted green eyes. Only his skin glowed, training sessions recovering the sun-kissed tan he’d lost in the years he was captured.
But it couldn’t disguise the pain lingering within him.
“Malakai,” I whispered, voice low.
He shook his head. “You win again.”
I swallowed the sting of denial. “Are you prepared for this week?” In a few days, he and his mother would officially say goodbye to Lucidius. Twisted as their relationship became, I knew it haunted him.
Again, he shook his head.
“Talk to me.” My voice cracked. “Please.” My Bind ached for the ease of our prewar life.
But Malakai seared me with an accusatory stare and backed away.
I deserved it. I’d avoided him as much as he had me, but my heart cracked with each inch between us, rejection flooding the space.
These clipped responses were all we’d been giving each other, too busy spiraling down into our scars.
The communication between us turned stiff and guarded, nothing like what it used to be.
My mind went back to three nights ago, the eve of the Rapture, when we’d been alone in our suite.
One moment, his hands had been at my waist, his lips warm against my own.
The next, we were shouting at each other.
And another moment later, my legs were wrapped around his hips as I tore his clothes off and he buried himself inside me, my back against the wall.
We had turned into a riot of fighting and fucking, too much fire between us to handle it in any other way. The latter became my way out.
So when he backed away in the arena, I did the same, and that wall slid up between us. We began our final set of exercises in silence, aggression in every swing. For each lie, I struck. For each secret, I slashed. And for every piece I’d been broken into—I did not hold back.
So that we may always come back to each other.
Come back to me.
No more damn secrets.
We’d sworn that was it, that we were going to move forward and heal, but here he was again, shielding things from me.
And here I was—blaming him.
At some point, the rest of the arena fell away. It was only us, toiling through this dance of steel and unspoken accusations. Going blow for blow, the spear’s power pounded through my veins like the second heartbeat I’d come to know.
Malakai met my strikes and got in a few of his own despite having not completed the Undertaking. Neither of us aimed to harm. Neither relented either. The only noise was our heavy breathing and the clash of weapons.
Until a quieter, chiming sound cut through the air.
Confused, we both froze, looking around for the source.
“Did your spear just break?” my sister called. At what point she and the others had stopped training to watch our heated battle, I didn’t know.
Jezebel pointed at my feet where a small, jagged piece of gold no bigger than a coin now sat. I bent to pick it up, but when my fingers closed around the metal, it stung.
“Fuck, ouch,” I cursed, dropping it.
The tense lines in Malakai’s face smoothed as he bent, but he didn’t exclaim when he picked up the chip of metal.
“It must have gotten dislodged.” In his palm he held the small embellishment from Angelborn that normally sat below the head, inlaid with aquamarine stones outlining the mountains.
“How did that happen?” I asked, looking from the spear to his hand.
“Think of everything that weapon has been through in recent weeks,” Cypherion reasoned. “Any one of those battles could have jostled it.” The others resumed their work, ignoring Malakai and me.
I held my palm out for him to hand over the piece. When he tilted his hand so it slipped into my own, I cursed again. He gave me a questioning look.
“It wasn’t hot for you?” I queried.
Hot was an understatement. The metal was burning, a fire rivaling the Spirit Volcano pressing into my flesh.
“No, it wasn’t.” Malakai’s brows scrunched.
I tucked the scrap into the pocket of my leathers and held out my empty hand. Where it had laid, an uneven red circle was already fading. Malakai inspected my palm, his budding calluses brushing against my older ones.
I pulled my hand out of his, clenching my fingers into a fist. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”
But the echo of that burn pulsed even as the physical reminder faded into a memory.