Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Ophelia
“A dead end?” I asked dully as we reached a wall. Sunlight filtered between cracks in the thick white stones.
We’d been wandering these tunnels for days now, and Sapphire had taken the lead.
A piece of me trusted she knew where she was going.
If I’d counted correctly, the Daminius festivities began tonight with the Sunquist Ball at the Revered’s Palace.
And tomorrow, after the holiday, my time to persuade the delegates of my aptitude was up. Failure slackened my frame.
“Wait,” Tol whispered. “Do you hear that?”
He held his ear to the wall, and I mimicked him. A dull hum of activity slithered through the cracks; voices chatting merrily and grunting, as if lifting and moving supplies.
“What is—”
My words were drowned by the cracking of the wall in front of Tol, debris raining down at our feet. He held up a gray brick, a smile on his face—the wall hadn’t cracked at all. Tol had pulled a loose stone from it.
I didn’t know how, but my warrior horse had gotten us where we needed to be. We followed Sapphire through, the rest of the wall remaining stable, and exited onto a street in the Merchant Quarter of Damenal.
Home.
I hadn’t realized how much the Revered’s Palace had become a comfort to me. Walking through the arched doorway and hearing our boots echo against the marble floors wrapped a warm embrace of safety around my bones.
Relieved tears stung my eyes. I looked down at my feet as I wiped them away, the mud caked on my boots standing out against the pristine white speckled tiled and inlaid gold embellishments lining the foyer.
We’d made it.
Tolek was back and safe by my side where he belonged.
I barely had time to take a grateful inhale before a parade of footsteps pounded down the staircase. My head snapped up, a smile breaking across my cheeks. Our friends and the delegates surrounded Tolek and me, the relief I’d felt radiating off all of them, too.
But there was something else in their eyes—something sharp enough to puncture the bubble of safety that secured me moments ago.
They looked between each other, all daring someone else to speak first.
“We need to talk,” Malakai finally said, eyes barely leaving mine. His assessing gaze sent me fidgeting, remembering the way I’d yelled at him over his decision not to rescue Tol.
I started to ask what was wrong, but before the words left my mouth, someone grabbed Malakai’s shoulder and pushed him aside in a flash of long, dark curls and shining leathers.
“Lyria?” Tolek barely had time to ask before the eldest Vincienzo pulled her arm back and landed a punch to her brother’s gut.
“That’s for abandoning me in Palerman,” she hissed as he doubled over. Before Tol could even stand fully upright, she raised her hand again and brought an open-palmed slap across his cheek. “And that is for getting yourself kidnapped.”
Tolek rubbed a hand across his jaw, the other still holding his gut, and a piece of me wanted to laugh at the scene. His expression frozen in shock, both at seeing his sister and at being hit—twice.
“Good to see you’ve returned in one piece, brother.” Lyria’s dark brown eyes shone, and it was concern forming those tears, hidden beneath wrath.
“Not that I’m not thrilled to be assaulted, sister”—he worked his jaw back and forth, blinking away the pain—“but what in the Spirit-guarded hell are you doing here?”
“My little brother disappears—with my horse I might add.” Santorina winced at that, having used Lyria’s mare to get to the mountains.
“Then, he never tells the family he’s okay, until I receive a letter from Malakai saying he’s been taken.
Forgive me for rushing to the mountains to see how I may help. ”
I looked to Malakai where he stood behind Lyria, eyes downcast. He’d written to her; the realization soothed some of the agitation that had risen upon seeing him.
He hadn’t given up entirely when I’d left.
No, Malakai had found a shred of forgiveness within himself, a lingering bead of hope that inspired action.
“You didn’t tell her you were leaving?” I whispered to Tol.
“I left a note,” he muttered.
“Ah, yes, the note. Ria, Going on a journey. Mother and Father don’t need to know. Not sure when I’ll be back. TV.” Lyria tried and failed to mask the hurt in her voice when she added, “Thanks for the information.”
“Are Mother and Father here?” Tol asked, spine stiff. I couldn’t tell if he’d seen his mistake with his sister or not; he was guarding his emotions.
Lyria crossed her arms. “No.”
Tol’s shoulders drooped, but he continued to run a hand along his jaw, showing no other sign of disappointment. “Thank you for coming,” he whispered.
“Of course.” Lyria’s voice softened, so unlike her previous fire. Her eyes were mirrors of Tol’s—deep, imploring, a wealth of emotion she didn’t want seen. But it could barely be hidden as she hugged him to her, and I recognized that desperation to protect your younger siblings.
It seemed Tol did have a family member looking out for him after all.
The Vincienzo heir stepped back and looked between her brother and me, one corner of her lips quirking in a smirk that matched his.
“I hear tonight will be the largest Daminius celebration in years. I couldn’t let you all have fun without me.
” With the same ease her younger brother had perfected at a young age, Lyria flicked her hair over her shoulder and winked at me.
I grinned in return. “Welcome to Damenal.”
I’d always admired Lyria—had been jealous of her when she rode off to join the war. As she stood back and whispered to a platinum-haired woman I didn’t recognize, I was grateful to have another fierce female warrior among us.
“Reunions aside,” my own sister said, wrapping her arm around my waist and dropping her head on my shoulder.
“We need to get ready for the Sunquist Ball, but there are some things that must be addressed first.” Jezebel turned to face me, expression somewhere between heartbroken and horrified. “A lot has happened.”
My brows pulled together as I surveyed the room. They all wore indeterminable expressions, the initial elation from our return wearing off.
“What’s happened?” I removed my arm from around Jez and stood up straighter. Had there been an attack? Spirits, if I was galivanting around the continent and Mystiques had suffered for it—
“We figured everything out while you were gone,” Malakai said, teeth clenched.
“You’ve kept a number of secrets, sister,” Jezebel scolded. There was none of her usual humor in her voice.
“What are you talking about?” I’d kept secrets, yes, but how was that important right now?
Malakai looked ready to snap, but Cyph placed a hand on his shoulder. Malakai took a breath. “The Angelcurse and Kakias’s motivations. We know it all.”
“What the fuck is an Angelcurse?” Tolek asked, but no one answered him.
I couldn’t.
I was too busy falling into the pit opening up beneath my feet, breath escaping my lungs as I finally put names to the expressions of everyone before me: anger, betrayal, fear. Even Cypherion looked concerned with a tinge of disappointment.
“You found the Angelcurse?” I directed it at Rina. She nodded. It was what I’d hoped in asking her about curses. That she’d find out about the one from Damien’s prophecy so we could discuss it. But I’d hoped she’d have come to me. Fate truly was playing with our timing. “And you told everyone?”
“Ophelia, I didn’t have a choice.” She placed a heavy book on the side table, worn leather creaking as she rifled through the pages to read a passage, ending with, “There is no cure but blood for seraphs kissed by the Angels. Death is the ultimate sacrifice.”
It didn’t take long for me to piece together what they had. Suddenly, I was back on that balcony with Damien, the morning after Malakai and I had been reunited and Lucidius killed. You were never at risk of suffering from that curse, he’d said.
The former case on a Mystique Warrior hundreds of years ago—Annellius.
A task by the Angels—what killed my ancestor.
Unite them. But…Death is the ultimate sacrifice.
No cure.
No cure.
No cure.
Fucking Angels. I’d known I’d follow Annellius’s fate if I failed, but what was success? Death? Was that the sacrifice the Angelcurse demanded?
A hand snaked around my shoulders, squeezing once and snapping me out of my spiral. Tol looked down at me, concern creasing his brow.
“Someone explain to me what the fuck is going on here,” he demanded.
“What we know,” Cyph began, “is that the Alabath line has Angelblood. It’s dormant in Jezebel, but active in Ophelia.
The active blood signals this Angelcurse, which is very vague in every mention of it Santorina has been able to find, but seemingly lethal, and explains why the Angel has appeared to Ophelia on multiple occasions. ”
“What does that mean?” Tol’s voice rose. “She’s cursed again? Is this why Kakias is after her? Is she—” His sentence trailed off, his arms tightening around me.
“We don’t know yet,” Santorina attempted to soothe him.
“No.” Tol shook his head, looking down at me with frantic eyes that caused my heartbeat to falter. “No, we’ll fix this. I’ll figure something out. I won’t let it take you.”
“There’s more she isn’t telling us.” Malakai’s eyes were narrowed at me, at the horror I’d failed to mask as I’d worked it all out. A beat pressed against my Bind, but I didn’t know what it meant.
Tolek’s eyes dropped at the realization that I’d kept more secrets.
I supposed now that they figured out about the Angelcurse on their own, I could tell them.