Chapter 45
Chapter Forty-Five
Ophelia
Smoke stung my eyes as I charged through the streets, ash clinging to my skin along with the gore that sprayed through the air.
The death-and-iron scent of the battle was gut-churning, but I sank into the mind of a predator and blocked out the screams, the echoes of clashing blades.
It was only me, my weapons, and the dark-armored enemies charging through my home. Begging to fall at my hands.
I lost track of the lives I took as we fought down a street packed with looming apartment buildings and innocent lives, my fury a storm unleashed.
One for every tear I would shed over my father.
One for every scar they put on Malakai’s skin.
One for every breath they silenced from my people.
The streets were overwhelmed, bodies falling as quickly as the ash coating them. The Engrossians—and likely Mindshapers if Aird’s agreement stood—moved as swiftly and quietly as I remembered, some unknown magic masking any clinks of armor.
Tolek and I fought back-to-back. Starfire met the blade of a long, jagged knife. Shoving the Mindshaper back, I brought my short sword up, swiping cleanly through his leathers from hip to neck.
I spun to meet the next opponent, but amid the shouts, a gravelly voice stood out. “Behave, girl.” A slap of flesh on flesh sounded.
A child’s scream followed.
Gritting my teeth, I ducked my attacker’s blade and ran down the nearest alley. I was vaguely aware of Tol taking out that warrior behind me. Following me, he guarded the entrance.
My eyes locked on the tear-streaked face of the young girl. On the hand locked around her throat, pinning her to the wall.
The Engrossian didn’t even hear me approach. Didn’t have time to fight back as my spear shot through his neck.
Crimson arced through the air with his tumble sideways, his body falling with a thud. The girl nearly collapsed with him—from relief or terror, I wasn’t sure.
“It’s okay,” I soothed, bending down to her level. My blood-streaked and tattered appearance was likely no comfort, but I placed a hand on her trembling shoulder regardless.
Her arms wrapped around her small body, holding her up—she couldn’t have been more than ten.
When she finally looked at me, recognition dawned in her round green eyes.
“He can’t hurt you now,” I muttered. Tentatively, I tucked a piece of hair that had pulled free from her braid behind her ear, fingers grazing the bright red spot on her cheek where the Engrossian had hit her. “What’s your name?”
“Anabeth—Anni,” she whimpered.
“Do you live nearby, Anni?”
Tol’s sword rang loudly behind me, but I couldn’t pull my attention away from this child. The way she stubbornly set her jaw and lifted her chin reminded me so much of my sister.
“Just there.” She pointed to a tall, narrow building at the dead end of the alley.
“I only—I left my training sword outside. I thought I should get it. To protect my little brother and sister.” The apology in her round cheeks—the way her small lips trembled despite her forced confidence—twisted my gut.
She may resemble Jezzie’s courage, but that protective gleam in her eye was one I knew well.
“That’s okay, you didn’t do anything wrong. You’re so strong to defend your family. But you have to protect yourself, too, okay?”
Her lips twitched upward, cheeks flushing. “My mom and dad said they’d be back soon.”
“They will, I’m sure.” The uncertain words tasted like tar. “But grab your sword and stay inside. Promise me?”
“I promise, Revered.”
I watched until she disappeared through the dark doorway, a small wreath of daisies swinging as it closed.
The moment the lock slid home, the roars of battle crashed back down on me.
Forcing myself to tear my gaze away from the apartment and the vulnerable children inside, I gritted my teeth and ran back toward Tol. There would be more children like Anni at risk if we didn’t win.
Adrenaline kept my body moving quickly through the crowded cobblestone streets, coming closer to Angentia Plaza. My weapons sang as they clashed with opponents’, each strike I landed adding to the two mounting pulses in my blood.
We wove between dueling warriors, the Mystiques recognizable in their finery.
On both sides, fighters fell. Scarlet painted the stones, glass shattering in windows and bodies crashing to the brick.
We’d been so focused on the troops they were moving, we’d left Damenal as our last resort. But as I watched a Mystique at least two centuries old take a knife through his chest, I wasn’t sure we’d made the right choice.
I should have foreseen this. Guilt weighed heavily on my shoulders as I swung my sword into the arm of an Engrossian.
His ax fell from his hand, and I swiped my blade across his throat, relishing the way his screams were silenced by my steel.
I didn’t stop to watch him die, instead slipping my spear between the metal plates of another’s armor and hearing him collapse beside his comrade as I moved on.
With each kill, the pressure in my chest tightened.
It was clear even from this one small spot of the battle that they outnumbered us. Each warrior Tol and I took out was quickly replaced by another, with soulless eyes and swirling armor.
Swinging beneath the outstretched blade of an Engrossian with a grunt, I grabbed her long braid and tugged her to the ground. My spear was in her throat before she could scream.
The blood that burst from her reminded me of Kakias’s red lips. I wished it was the queen squirming beneath my weapon, now. I imagined her face on the warrior.
“Very smooth, Alabath,” Tol called as I swung Angelborn onto my back.
Shaking the vision of the queen’s face from my mind, I whirled to see him ram his dagger into the thigh of an opponent, then sweep his sword upward to finish the job.
“Speak for yourself,” I panted.
He smiled at me, wide and brilliant beneath the blood and dirt. With his shirt torn, chest heaving from the thrill and panic of battle, a victorious grin split his lips—
A second deafening rumble shook my bones.
Tol’s hand pressed against my chest, shoving me backward. Out of the way of the explosion.
Dust and debris engulfed me. The roar of glass shattering and brick tumbling was deafening.
And then, only silence filled my head. Because—
“Tol!” I coughed over the smoke.
I couldn’t see him. Couldn’t see—
Rubble rained where he’d stood a moment ago—where he’d stepped to push me out of the way.
Buried him.
“No, no, no.” The word left my lips, a repeated prayer. My entire body shook as I stumbled forward, falling over rock until my knees were cut.
Clawing, climbing, digging. Others joined the search, throwing aside ruins to find those buried.
My nails cracked and bled. Chest seized.
“Please, Damien, please…” I begged.
I tried to channel that place of calm Tol would instill in me, willed my body to stop shaking, but I couldn’t do it.
It was only panic and fear and emptiness without him.
He was alive. He was.
I just needed to find him, needed to see him smile and tell me my fear was unwarranted. To hear a sarcastic remark fall from his lips. To feel—
An arm wrapped around my shoulders.
A blade pressed into my throat.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” a familiar, cruel voice snarled.
“Aird,” I gasped. “No, I have to…I need to find…”
My breathing turned ragged, limbs thrashing and neck arching into the blade. The cool sting passed through my flesh, a bead of blood forming. As the chancellor of the Mindshapers dragged me roughly away from the rubble, I watched that spot I’d seen Tolek disappear.
He’s okay. I told myself. He’s alive. Half of my heart was in my throat, the other half buried beneath that rubble—please, Spirits, let him be okay.
Aird tugged me so quickly around corners that I lost track of where we went through the curtain of smoke. Lost track of where Tol had been.
He threw me up against a wall. Angelborn dug into my shoulder blades. The cool kiss of his jagged knife was still at my throat, above my emblem necklace.
That roaring silence echoed in my head. But Aird gripped my wrist, twisting until Starfire fell from my grip.
“The queen wants you,” he sneered.
The queen…Tolek…the queen.
It snapped into place in my mind, then.
Kakias was here. She’d evaded our search for weeks, only to deliver herself to our doorstep.
And I shoved aside all fear for my best friend, assured myself that there was no way he’d leave me, and looked into the steel-gray eyes of the Mindshaper chancellor.
“She had the decency to show up?” I growled.
“She does what she wants when it serves her,” he spat. His rancid breath was hot against my skin. Spirits, the smoke was preferable to this.
But I considered what he said. Kakias refused to be controlled. Refused to share her plans with those around her. She may be a corrupted, bloodthirsty ruler, but she was also cunning and meticulous.
If she was here, it meant this attack was more than an unprecedented advantage against us. She had a reason for the explosion in Damenal tonight—for her disturbing presence—and I was willing to bet it stretched further than disrupting our most sacred holiday.
I was willing to bet it ended with me.
“Where is she?” I hissed as his knife pressed deeper.
Aird’s face faltered ever so slightly, but I caught the moment of hesitation. The belief that I’d hand myself over.
A cruel smile split my lips. “I only ask so I can repay her for the surprise she’s gifted us tonight.” I blinked innocently, sarcasm thick in my voice.
With a growl, he gripped my shoulder and threw me to the ground. My head snapped back into the cobblestone, vision blurring for a moment.
“Ugh,” I groaned. “I really should have killed you.”
But my hand stretched out. Fingers grazed Starfire.
And Aird’s eyes were only on me.
“You’ll come quietly to the queen,” Aird snarled, prowling toward me. “Or this battle will end with everyone you care about suffering slow, torturous deaths.”
His eyes roamed over my body, sneering, from the neckline of my sheer gown to where the hem had ridden up my thighs, and that was when I realized—he knew who I was, my legacy, my position, yet he still saw me as nothing more than a young girl.
A toy, incapable and unworthy of power.
But I was so much more.
I’d honed my strength and agility for years; I’d studied politics and warfare to give my people the best chance at survival.
I was the damned Revered for Spirits’ sake, chosen by the Angels and confirmed in the Undertaking. Power ran through my blood just as the Angelcurse did, and the two tangled together now, dual pulses synchronizing into one as the emblem around my neck heated.
I’d bow to no one. Go forth on no one’s terms but my own.
When the first war broke out, I’d lost everything, but I’d be damned to a Spirit-guarded hell if I’d let these enemies take anything—anyone—else from me tonight.
Underestimating me was the last mistake Aird would make.
Swinging my legs, I knocked his out from underneath him. He hit the cobblestones with a rattling thud.
Then, I was on him. Short sword at his neck.
My necklace seared my skin with a heat I relished.
“Where. Is. She?” I hissed, each word punctuated.
He stared back at me with a manic gleam in his eyes. “She’s looking over us. She sees all, and she waits for you.”
I gasped. There was only one place in the city where you could see all of Damenal laid before you.
“Pleasure working with you, Chancellor.”
The Mindshaper’s blood was hot over my fingers as I sliced my sword across his neck.
I sheathed my weapons, turning back in the direction where Tolek had fallen, but I didn’t even know my way back through the debris.
And Aird’s threat rang in my ears.
Every part of me wanted to crawl through that bloodshed. To find Tol. To fight side by side with my family.
I tried to dig into the roots of the Bond on my neck, but it was impossible with the amount of warriors in the city. These tattoos weren’t meant to form a bridge like the Bind.
I had to trust that the other Mystiques would take care of Tolek.
Because the only true way to end this was with Kakias, and I was the only one who could see to her.
As long as she was alive, the people I loved weren’t safe.
I’d throw myself into the Spirit Volcano before I dragged any of my family into her vile presence.
Clamping down on the taint of fear stinging my throat, shoving aside the images of my family bloodied and dying, I turned my back on the battle and fled, off to bring a cursed end to a wicked queen.