Chapter 47
Chapter Forty-Seven
Ophelia
“I’m disappointed in how long it took you.” Kakias’s voice was chilled, slithering over the marble floors of the Rapture Chamber and up my body.
She’d pulled the Revered’s chair—my chair—to the open wall, facing the drop over the mountains. The queen didn’t even deign to look at me. She only watched the city below, her tainted troops ravaging ours.
The Rapture Chamber—the one place where you could see all of Damenal, spread out before you like a map teeming with life.
“I’d have been here sooner, but your lackey deterred me.” I clenched my bloodied hands around Starfire and Angelborn, forcing my body to retain its calm, and wandered to the pillared wall.
The sight below tightened my chest. As a girl, Damenal had been a glorious playground, a future just out of reach. Lately, it had become winding pathways of hope, promises for glory once lost. Tonight, as I looked down upon my home, lives slipped away, blood blotting out those dreams.
From here, the sound of the battle was dim, but the dull hum of roars and groans—of encroaching death—remained.
Smoke spiraled away into the night-dark sky, grays tarnished in the burning light of the moon and stars.
It thinned where it skimmed the tops of buildings.
Fewer explosions were detonating, providing a clearer sight into the carnage below.
Each death prickled my skin like a fine blade. I breathed in those losses.
Then, exhaled them, and turned to face Kakias.
The queen’s sharp-toothed smile sent me back to the night, months ago, when everything I thought I knew had been turned upside down.
Except here, poised to destroy everyone I loved, with moonlight gilding her profile, she was more fearsome than I could have imagined.
Those soulless eyes turned on me, and they threatened to swallow me whole.
“And where is Aird?”
“I killed him.”
“Pity,” she deadpanned.
“Don’t hide your devastation on my account.”
“When will you learn, Ophelia?” Kakias drummed her knife-sharp nails on the arm of my chair, each tap burrowing into my mind. “Sacrifices are vital.”
“No,” I spat. “I won’t sacrifice anything else to you.”
A smile. “We’ll see.”
“This ends here, Kakias. With you and me—no more loss of life.” I pointed to the city below. “Call off your legions and face me like a true warrior.”
“Where would the fun be in that? I’m winning.
” The queen stood from my chair, circling until she was in front of me.
That power—that unnatural, stirring, pool-granted magic—wrapped itself around my bones.
My breathing shallowed. “Perhaps if you hadn’t stolen my last toy, I’d be more open to negotiating. ”
I swallowed my outrage at her referring to Tol as her toy, focusing on fighting the dark power trying to steal my autonomy. Tol’s life had never belonged to her—
I couldn’t think about him now. Couldn’t lose focus.
It took everything in me not to explode on the queen as she had on our city. Instead, I pulled the Revered mask I’d come to know intimately into place, sliding it between her influence and my resolve.
“Oh, corrupt queen,” I scoffed, trying to move. Her power locked my muscles. “Do you truly expect me to believe my cooperation would have deterred you? Your hands are bathed in the blood of centuries of sins.”
She narrowed her eyes at my choice of words. At the smug smile on my face.
Then, she returned it—hers full of secrets and twisted truths.
Regardless of whether I’d rescued Tol or not, Kakias would have blown up the mountains. This was her game.
“You’re correct about one thing, vicious child.
This ends tonight.” She took a step back, her train shuffling behind her, swallowing the light.
Long and skin-tight, the dress was an insulting confirmation that she never intended to partake in the fight below.
“When the sun rises, there will be nothing left of you to love.”
We stared at each other. Two warriors. Two queens. Two hearts staked on revenge.
From behind her back, Kakias removed a dagger, the fine blade catching the moonlight. Her power still held my bones, circled me like a python’s mighty body.
It slipped along my spine, slithering around my shoulders and down my arms.
And then, it encircled my wrist. Pulled it out and flipped my hand palm up, open to the ceiling.
The rest of my body became free, but that power remained concentrated on my hand, warping and prying with an aching pressure.
My lip curled, fingers flexing around Starfire. Kakias balanced her dagger against the pad of her finger, smile growing as she pushed her blade in. I gasped as something sharp pinched my own and—
A warmth gathered in my hand. Blood.
I hissed as it flowed faster.
When Kakias pierced her own flesh, it drew my blood. How in the realm of the fucking Angels had she done that?
I masked the shock chilling my blood, spewing, “Clever.”
“Only the beginning.”
My blood dripped to the floor, more than I’d expected from the small slice.
Around my neck, the emblem of the spear flared with a burst of heat, but I didn’t yell out against it. The fire melded into my chest, soothing instead of searing. Bolstering instead of scarring.
“What’s the purpose of it? Why do you need this power?” I asked as the warmth faded into my skin, making the second pulse pound faster through my body.
Then, that power, too, crawled along my veins, toward the hand Kakias’s magic held. Like fingers prying open a fist, it picked through the darkness until it released me, and I smiled.
The queen glared.
“Next?” I asked, as if I wasn’t as shocked as she was by what just happened.
But I only had half a second to consider it before Kakias raised her arm, palm open toward me.
With a twist of her hand, I was flying back.
The Rapture Chamber was a whirl of marble and moonlight as my weapons flew from my hands, leaving me defenseless except for the dagger strapped to my thigh.
I collided with the statue of Damien, my bones cracking and breath leaving my lungs. The Angel fell with a piercing shatter, and I crumpled to the ground atop the rubble, shards digging into my skin. My tattered dress tore further.
But above it all, dread shredded my gut—harsh and undiluted.
Because no warrior should have been able to do what the queen just did.
“That’s a new trick.” I staggered to my feet, ignoring the ringing in my ears.
I shuffled forward, nearly tripping.
When I looked down, my heart stuttered. A large square marble tile had been removed from its spot in the floor, revealing a dark cavern beneath.
“The tunnels?” I breathed, eyes flashing back to the queen. “They lead here?” The maze through the mountains burrowed into the Rapture Chamber itself—and who else knew where.
That ancient network of pathways handed over the key to our home.
Damien, I cursed, frustrated.
The Angel who built this house couldn’t have revealed this little weakness? The invasion stung, even more personal now.
“That’s why Aird was here after the Rapture, isn’t it? He was searching for an entrance.” I clenched my hands at my sides, remembering the chancellor’s unsettling responses when I found him in the palace.
I’ve found what I needed.
Spirits, I’d been too caught up in Malakai and the prophecy to see the threat right before me.
“Good work, Chosen Child.” Kakias’s bloodred lips parted around razor-sharp teeth.
“Again with your false titles.” I stifled the violation, the treachery and fury, and stepped forward, feigning a limp. Angelborn only lay a few feet away.
“Have you still not figured it out?” Kakias tutted, hungry eyes flicking between me and my spear. She curled her fingers and Angelborn shot toward her, rolling to a stop at her feet. I growled when she slammed a heeled foot across the hilt. “You’re smarter than that, Ophelia.”
Kakias tilted her head, studying me—and I surveyed her in return.
The creeping silence of her movements. The swirling secrets behind her dark eyes.
The power that seemed to have multiplied in the months since I last saw her.
How she seemed to know I was chosen. What Barrett had revealed about the source of dark power in the Engrossian Territories.
The intricacies of how those pools worked, what they took…
“What did you offer them, Kakias?” I asked, voice light.
“Did my son enlighten you?” The moon cast shadows on her high cheekbones, a wide grin splitting her lips.
“We worked together.”
Those words hit her, her eyes flaring wide for a brief second. “He was always too weak for my plans, wasn’t he?”
I wasn’t sure if it was a question for me or for herself.
“Barrett is stronger than you are.” I held her gaze.
My arms fell to my side, body indulging in the magic of the mountains to heal where it had been battered.
“He saw the atrocities you were planning and sacrificed his standing—his title and birthright—to save his people from unnecessary bloodshed. That is a sacrifice you would never have made, for you are far too selfish, Kakias.”
“Don’t you dare speak to me of sacrifices.” Her voice was sharp and jagged, lips pulling back from her teeth.
“Why? You’re forcing them on my people tonight. On your own.” I thrust a hand toward the city, the movement jarring my aching body. “You may be after me, but those are not only Mystiques screaming below.”
“And yet, here we are.” She gazed wistfully over Damenal. “Things set in motion centuries ago finally falling into place.”
“All blood spilled tonight is on your hands.” I set my feet, fingers finding the cool leather at my thigh. “Except this.”
The dagger flashed from my hand, but instead of nesting in her heart where I’d aimed, it grazed her collarbone, tearing black lace and flesh. Only a thin line of crimson showed that she was even hurt.
Her expression didn’t flinch as she lifted a hand to the spot. Carefully, she caught the drop beading on her skin, lifting it to eye level.
Fear—that was what flashed behind her stare, quickly replaced by frenzy.
The blood was swallowed up by her ebony gown. She lifted an arm, hand aimed at me. Kakias squeezed her fist, and invisible fingers clenched around my throat, cutting off my airway.
I clawed at my neck, trying to tear them off, to get air back into my lungs, but nothing was there.
“Don’t fight, Ophelia.” She stalked toward me. “This—the bloodshed—it will all be over much quicker if you simply let me win. Think of all the lives you’d save with your noble sacrifice.”
She drove my back into the wall, lifting me against the cool marble and artwork. The corner of a frame dug into my spine.
“What—” I wheezed. I kicked the air fruitlessly. “What—did you—”
“That thing you think makes my son stronger than me?” She pressed closer, nearly nose to nose with me. “That thing that aches for the people dying below. That is what I traded.”
My…strength…what—I couldn’t make sense of it, not with the spots clouding my vision. The riddle she presented of her sacrifice to the pools swam through my mind.
My head was cemented against the painting. Needles drove themselves into my lungs.
Life slipped from my body, darkness begging to take me in its gentle embrace, and I forgot why I was even fighting the queen.
Chilled numbness wrapped itself around my limbs, soothing the sparking pain in my lungs and removing the needles one by one. It tempted me to succumb to the release of oblivion.
And so I did.