Chapter 15 #2
“One more piece of advice?” she whispered as we approached the now ravenous group. “Talk to them, too.” She nodded in the direction of the Engrossian heir and his consort, then shoved her empty canteen into my hands.
I grabbed the back of the Engrossian prince’s jacket and pulled him along behind me, ignoring his outburst of reluctance and the snickers of my friends.
“Couldn’t wait until I finished my meal, Revered?
” He held up the slice of bread he’d managed to grab, chains on his wrists swinging.
The firelight glinted off the manacles then caught on the first finger of his left hand, where he wore a thick silver ring with the Engrossian royal sigil.
An emerald in the crown glimmered in the light.
“We’re getting water.” I pushed empty canteens into his hands, staring at that ring for a moment. Entranced with it.
“Of course, we are.” But he followed me around the turn in the path, climbing up a sloping, grassy mountainside toward the stream we’d seen earlier. “You do see the irony of this, don’t you, Ophelia?”
“Enlighten me,” I drawled.
Barrett caught up to me, lifting his wrists and shaking them so the heavy links cracked against one another, a sharp clang in the still mountains.
“Here I am, the son of your enemy, come to help you vanquish the woman you blame for every unfortunate fate that has befallen you. And you’ve chained me. ”
I opened my mouth, but Barrett raised his brows in challenge. I waved a hand to tell him to carry on.
“Not only am I now essentially your prisoner, but I’m being held in chains from my father’s former residence.
The father I barely knew, who apparently had plans for my future—plans I was not granted a say in.
Just as he and my mother had plans for your future, and plans for my dear brother.
” His brows scrunched. “Are you seeing the irony here?”
“That you’re not much different than I?” I shrugged, crouching down where the stream flowed thickest. The prince mimicked my movements, uncapping the first canteen.
“Well, there is one stark contrast between us, Revered.”
“I suppose you’re going to enlighten me.”
“You saw to it that I would receive nothing more from my father.” It almost sounded like a threat.
“What are you saying, Your Royal Highness?” I eyed him across the water, the babbling stream filling the silence.
“Nothing.” He shook his head. “Only reminding you of what you’ve done. I don’t need that man—I never did—but it was not my choice.”
Spirits, how did he know exactly which strings to pull to unravel my facade? I scratched at the Curse’s mark to steady myself.
“I am sorry for that, Prince. I truly am. But he left me no choice.”
“I understand. Still, when I seek to assist you in dealing with my mother, you chain me as they did your beloved Malakai. There is a poetic irony in this circumstance.” He tilted his head, moonlight gilding his sharp cheekbones, sunken shadows deepening beneath them.
The purple circles framing his eyes darkened.
Barrett reached for the next bottle, his half-open shirt sliding to the side. And I nearly gasped. Above the wound Santorina had stitched up, long purple scars crossed his chest and abdomen. They were stark against his pale skin, like shadows on snow.
They were the scars of the Engrossians that were set with a secret, saltwater ointment before being allowed to heal. Keeping them from healing properly. A mark for their warriors when they came of age.
And his—this warrior prince’s—were the most brutal I’d ever seen, slashing a jagged X across his body.
When I tore my gaze away, he was watching me. “Did they hurt?” I asked.
“More than anything,” he sighed, then straightened. “But it was an honor. Or so I thought at the time. Regardless, I took the pain gladly. Much like yours, I presume.”
His eyes dropped to my midriff, then traced my wrist, where the scars of the lupine daimon’s claws slashed through my skin. But where the prince’s were dark against light, my scars were white lines against tan skin. Utter contrasts, both forged through pain.
I straightened. “These are a sign of my strength. Of what I survived.” I could practically feel the wolf’s warm breath against my body, see the ebony teeth and nails.
“As are mine.” Though not by choice. Barrett’s scars may be the opposite of my own in appearance, but they represented more similarities than I wanted to admit.
Carrying on with the rest of the canteens, trying to appear unfazed, I said, “I want you to tell me everything you know about your mother’s plan.”
“I already told you.”
“Not everything.”
Barrett flashed that crooked smirk again. “Ah, Ophelia, you are clever.” Spirits, when he ran a hand through his hair, he looked so much like Malakai, it was haunting. But that grin held a fervor Malakai lost during his imprisonment.
I returned the smirk. “I simply understand negotiating, Prince.”
“And what have you gleaned from that understanding?” Curiosity brightened his tone.
“I know you want something.” I looked over the warrior raised in an environment of malice.
“You would not have handed over your information so easily yesterday if it was all you had. You had to give us something in order to gain our trust—to keep us from enacting one sliver of the torture your mother sentenced Malakai to. But I’m willing to bet you retained another bargaining chip. ”
As he thought over my words, low coos of night-doves and howls of wild dogs drifted to us.
“And why do you think that?” Barrett finally asked.
“Because it’s what I would have done.”
He considered me with those uncanny green eyes. Then, he said, “You remind me of her, you know.”
Any hint of commiseration between us turned to ice.
“What?”
Barrett laughed. “She’s not all bad. There are some qualities in my mother that are admirable.
Or they would be, if not warped as they are in her.
” I clenched my hands into fists, regretting trying to understand him.
“Ophelia, regardless of what she’s done, she’s ambitious and protective of those she does love.
It manifests in despicably twisted ways, but that much is true.
Even you would have seen it. You share that fire, even if yours is lighter—the illumination to her darkness. ”
“I am nothing like her,” I hissed.
“Fine, fine. As you say.” But that gleeful smirk did not leave his lips.
“Tell me what you know, Barrett, or those chains will never leave your wrists.” Twisting the cap back on my final canteen, I rose and picked up the bunch. Instead of heading back to the group, though, I followed the stream around the side of the hill.
“My mother was after more than conquering the Mystiques.”
“What was it?” I kept walking, ignoring the quickening of both my pulses.
“I don’t know specifics.”
“Then what help is this?” I groaned, stopping and staring up at the stars. Did my best to not throttle the prince who I thought might be trying to help.
“Because in battle, understanding your opponent’s motivations can be as pivotal as knowing their strategies. And perhaps this war doesn’t look at all how we expected.”
“What do you mean?”
“While we know the previous war was waged to put me in your seat of power”—he kept walking, leading me now—“my theory is that it was a front for secrets darker than we imagined. My mother always has ulterior motives. I don’t think she would share those with anyone. ” He stopped. “What do we have here?”
As I caught up to him, I saw it. A cave.
Plenty of caverns dug into the rocky faces of the mountain range, but when we stepped into this one, it seemed different. Like it inhaled upon our entrance, exhaled with each step, the thing alive on its own.
“It’s just a cave,” I said, ignoring the warmth beading in my necklace. “What do you mean with the theory about your mother?”
Waiting for him to speak, I dragged my hand along the cool rock. The walls didn’t move, but that sensation of expanding and contracting stayed within me.
“I’m saying she is after something else.” Barrett didn’t follow me as I walked toward the back of the cave, but I quickly realized there was no end in sight. Odd. “Before I left, I investigated her private quarters and found information on ancient Mystique lore.”
My teeth clenched, and I spun toward him. “That’s private.”
There were legends that we shared between clans, and then there were the personal ones no one divulged. The ones guarded by temple acolytes if written down at all. They stretched back to the Angels themselves.
“That’s what I thought,” Barrett agreed. I searched his moonlit face for any hint of betrayal, of misleading, of anything that might reveal this was all a plot.
There was nothing.
“So, Lucidius betrayed the Mystiques again?” I guessed.
But Barrett was watching me with a worrying crease between his brow.
“There’s more?” I asked.
“It wasn’t only lore. It was paired with a concerning amount of information about you, Ophelia. I don’t know how it ties together, but I think it’s you she wants. The last war, the coming attack, it’s all for you.”
“Me?”
Barrett nodded, and that one motion pulled the mountains out from under me.
Was it possible Kakias knew about the Angelblood? The Angelcurse? Was that why she had been after me this entire time and tried to kill me in the volcano?
All of this precious blood wasted in a worthless girl. That’s what she’d said to me.
Her blade was at my neck again, her fingers dug into my skin, and that inexplicable power of hers steeled my bones.
Looking the prince over, trying to collect my warring emotions, I asked, “Is that all?” I slipped past him, leaving the cave behind, and fought to pace my steps. But the sad smile he flashed told me he saw through the facade.
“That’s everything I know. Let me know if I can help figure it out.” He brushed a hand through his hair again, sigil ring catching the light.
“If any of this is a trap, it will be the last regret of your life.” His throat bobbed as my threat settled. “Let’s go back.”
When we returned, I watched Barrett walk to Dax, the two exchanging quiet words on the outskirts of the group.
With dread forming a vise around my stomach, I strode for my pack and pulled out the parchment and Mystique ink I’d thought to pack. It was supposed to be for emergency messages to Damenal. But this—
This was important. I couldn’t keep waiting for allies to decide they wanted me. I had enough evidence to prove that a threat was building. I needed to act.
Pressing the pen against the parchment, I watched as one bud of black crawled from the tip, staining the paper, as dark as my future was.
I think it’s you she wants.
“She can’t have me,” I growled.
I wrote the letters.