Chapter 52
Chapter Fifty-Two
Ophelia
Kakias’s threat hung in the air between us. Now, you die.
Her words had been calm—the power she’d adapted engulfing her until her countenance was lethal ice.
And those serenely bloodthirsty eyes had one goal: me.
The only way to ensure her immortality stuck was to eliminate the key to her unnatural existence. Because all magic had a loophole, a scale to balance, and I was hers.
Her power released its hold on me, and I staggered to my feet. Black spots were starting to cloud my vision, speckling the sides.
My body was wrung out, exhausted.
But a small, curious piece of me was in awe of the impossible ritual I’d witnessed. A queen halfway to immortality thanks to some thread of power that I hadn’t even known resided in me.
It finally made sense. Her motivation for the war—it wasn’t only to grasp the Revered’s power, though that was what she’d told Lucidius.
It was to isolate the Chosen—the blood she needed for her ritual—and steal that power for her own.
She’d oppress the entire Mystique population if that was what it took, all because she’d traded the shred of herself that would feel remorse for such a thing.
The dark power built within her, ebbing off her body like trails of ghostly shadow. The twining black tendrils reached around her like roots, reminding me of—
“You planted the Curse in the Mystiques, didn’t you?” I gasped, lungs clenching as they fought to keep sucking down air.
Kakias’s wicked smile was answer enough. There was no sorcia. The sorceresses in the Northern Isles didn’t interfere as we’d been told. That was only another one of her lies to sow discord.
“You learned how to cast it through your deals with the dark pools.”
I’d always wondered what the Engrossians had offered the impartial sorcias in order to lure them to their side, but it had been a cover for Kakias’s schemes.
“There are endless possibilities if you’re willing to sacrifice, Ophelia.” Her sneer twisted my gut.
“Was there more of a reason to it, though?” I cradled my injured arm against my chest. The warm crimson stained my dress, pooling in the crook of my elbow. “The Curse—it—”
“It was created to target Mystique blood and would not touch those who contained what I needed. When your family was never tainted, I had my suspicions.”
“But I was Cursed.” Or at least to her—and everyone around me—it looked real.
“I admit, that did give me doubts. I knew it couldn’t be my own, though.
I’d lifted it after the treaty. After Malakai handed himself over, and I knew it was you I needed.
” She crossed closer to me, tipping my chin back.
I was too weak to fight her. “And once I saw you for myself, I was certain. Those eyes of yours are rather distinct…”
“Mother!” A voice carried clear across the chamber, a shadow appearing in the doorway.
Barrett.
Chest heaving slightly as though he’d run here, the Engrossian prince strode into the room. His curls were tame, his clothes not too battle worn. Only a small cut lined his high cheekbone, already healing over.
As he approached, the rings on his fingers reflected the moonlight. His eyes, though—those were darkened aggression.
The queen stiffened as her son came closer, but she quickly fell back into her facade of disinterest. Her lip curled when she spoke. “The rat has come out of his gilded cage.”
Barrett barked a laugh. “Please, Mother. The only cage I’ve ever been kept in was the one you held the key to.” His eyes flitted over me, over the blood still trickling from my wound. Catching the heaviness of my eyelids. “Let her go.”
“Why would I do such a thing?” Her gaze shifted between us.
“Killing Ophelia will not give you what you want.” Barrett stepped closer to me. Though my heart pounded behind my ribs, there was a twinge of comfort now that I wasn’t alone. The spots in my vision expanded.
“You know nothing of what’s going on here. Killing her”—Kakias grasped my jaw—“will give me everything I have ever wanted.”
“Do you hear that battle raging down below?” He paused, the echoes trailing up to us.
“I’ve been living here for over a month now, Mother.
I’ve seen how these people respect her. How they honor her.
If you kill Ophelia Alabath, the entire Mystique population will rise up against you.
And I promise you, their vengeance will be your downfall. ”
Warmth bloomed in my chest at the certainty behind Barrett’s words. At his steadfast belief in me, his mother’s greatest enemy.
It was quickly replaced by an icy dread as Kakias’s grip tightened.
“I should have known you didn’t have what this required,” she spat at her son. “You were never strong enough to support my cause, to serve in my house.”
“Because I didn’t let you sink your claws into me as you tried to for twenty years?”
As he said it, her nails curled further into my skin, but I remained silent. It was all I could manage to stay upright at this point, my knees trembling.
Barrett needed this. To confront her for the invisible chains she’d put around his wrists all his life and the future she tried to force him into. Tried to wring the good from his heart.
“No,” the queen hissed at her heir. “Because you speak of things like respect. You never learned that in our position, we don’t need such a thing.
Power was born in us, strengthened through the deals I made.
It belongs to us. Yet you were born without the ability to remove your emotions from our goals. ”
“Your goals. Not mine. You speak of sacrifice as if it’s a solution to all of fate’s challenges.” He sighed, reaching out slowly to grip his mother’s wrist. “No one else has to die.”
His fingers and jaw tightened, throat bobbing as he swallowed. Nerves slipped through his tense body.
But Kakias had frozen, seeming to actually listen to her son’s words. The son who had come after the child she lost savagely. Though her soul had already been given to darkness, maybe she could find a sliver that retained compassion.
Barrett’s other hand twitched, and for the first time, I noticed the sword at his hip.
Sword. Not an ax.
A Mystique sword, set with aquamarine stones that shimmered in the moonlight. Kakias’s eyes flicked to it, her sharp teeth bared, and any hint of softness left her.
“Not everyone gets to live,” she snarled.
“Where does this end, then?” Barrett’s voice was soft.
“With her death, and my eternal existence.”
Her words hit Barrett like a storm, and I realized he hadn’t seen the ritual. Hadn’t known precisely how far his mother dove into this ambition, this fear.
“What have you done?” the heir gasped, voice dripping with disgust. He shoved her wrist as if it burned him and stepped back, wrapping a hand around my waist and tugging me against him gently. Every facet of his body, from his hard stare to his hasty retreat, screamed with loathing.
But Kakias jerked me back toward her. My trembling knees gave out, and I crashed to the marble.
“I won’t lose anything else.” For a moment, she truly seemed a woman with an aching hole in her heart. It was the only sign that a sliver of humanity still existed within her. A desperate, small piece, barely acknowledged, but a piece all the same.
One my death would wipe from her, sealing her immortal fate.
As if hearing that thought, Kakias tugged me upward, her blade balanced below my chin.
The gash in my arm throbbed as I thrashed my weak limbs. Blood painted the marble, and I clutched it tighter to my chest.
That red warmth seeped over my skin, though, coating the emblem hanging from my necklace.
And a flare of golden light burst forth. Hot and burning and tinged with ancient power.
The queen shouted as it singed her, shielding her eyes and pushing me away. Two strong arms wrapped around me. Barrett tugged me toward the door, toward safety.
The blinding light continued to pour from my necklace—warm and protecting. Burning Kakias, but not me.
No, this blast soothed, its energy familiar and comforting. Emboldening.
It filled the room. I’d only ever experienced one presence like it. Ancient and all-encompassing, it pushed Barrett and I backward.
Sheltering me, he slid an arm around my waist. I latched on to his wrist, and when the blood from my arm fell freely onto his hand—onto his sigil ring—the power of the rays doubled, shooting out between the pillars and clearing the smoke.
Kakias screamed again.
Then, she was gone. Tumbling over the edge of the marble floor, tilting toward the mountains below, tendrils of ghostly shadows fluttering in her wake.
When the light finally faded, Barrett and I rushed to the ledge.
There was no body. The queen had vanished.
My knees gave out, the ground hard beneath them as I crashed to it.
“What the hell was that?” Barrett asked, kneeling next to me. He picked up my arm, looking over the wound without touching it. The world was becoming fuzzy, but the concern and hurt were clear in the prince’s voice.
“I—I don’t…” My voice trailed off, the words tasting funny on my tongue. I had a theory, but the details were slipping away as my vision narrowed.
Barrett dragged me into his arms and stood, striding for the door.
I shuddered into the warmth. In the gaps between my heavy breaths, clashes of battle echoed up to us. Those were my people down there—dying for me.
My father, the council…their deaths all stained my hands. I couldn’t let anyone else suffer a fate meant for me.
Looking over Barrett’s shoulder through heavy lids, my eyes fell on the burnt ring of oil from Kakias’s ritual as it glowed—a physical confirmation of the impossible that had occurred tonight. A mortal warrior becoming immortal and disappearing into thin air.
I didn’t know what it meant for the rest of us, but the chill lingering in my bones promised darkness.