Chapter 52
DIEM
For two days, Ophiucae walked by my cell to and from the library, the book on the heartstone always in his hands, and not once did he so much as glance my way.
If he was hoping to unsettle me, it was pathetically effective.
I recited my mother’s story of her time on the island to remind myself what he was capable of doing, even to those he loved.
He was far too dangerous to trust—not with the heartstone, not with Emarion, and not with me.
It did not stop my chest from squeezing each time he passed me by without a word.
I was not the only person in Sophos wrestling with conflicting feelings. Ophiucae had healed the mortals from the poisoned ale, leaving them begrudgingly grateful. When he ordered them to gather their weapons and prepare to leave for Umbros, even Vance gave a deferential nod.
“Are you coming with us?” Vance asked him.
“No. I’ll do my part from here.”
He nodded toward the Descended they’d captured in Meros. “What about them?”
“Until you prove to me that you can do something other than run away or get them killed, they stay with me.”
Vance’s lips formed a thin, hard line.
“Is there something you’d like to say?” Ophiucae’s smile spread wide at his silence. “Very well. Take your men and go.”
“One last question,” Vance gritted out. “Where’d you send our messenger hawk?”
Ophiucae arched a brow. “If I want to send a message, I don’t need a bird to do it.”
Vance frowned. “It left when we got back from Meros. None of my men know where it went.”
“Perhaps it was sent by whoever warned Fortos you were coming, or whoever told the Merosians to poison their ale.”
“Can’t you use that mind magic of yours to figure it out?” Vance grumbled.
“I’ve grown tired of giving help without getting something in return.” Ophiucae’s eyes slid to me for a brief moment, sending my heart pounding, then returned to Vance. “You’re dismissed.”
Vance stalked toward the Ring Road, muttering colorful words beneath his breath and clenching his good hand around the handle of his blade. Ophiucae watched, stone-faced and still, until the men were gone, then he set off toward the grasslands.
“Why are you really staying here?” I yelled out.
“Don’t provoke him,” Doriel hissed.
I waved them off, raising my voice even louder. “Is it because you’re afraid to fight?”
Ophiucae ignored me, silently walking away.
I walked to the bars. “You’re too powerful to be such a coward.”
Ophiucae stopped.
My pulse raced. It was a calculated risk. If he was distracted, the shield he’d draped over Vance and his men might falter, which could give whoever they came across a fighting chance to get away.
“Why are we in Sophos at all?” I demanded.
“The people here were weak,” he called out. “I barely had to lift a finger to conquer the realm.” He looked over his shoulder, throwing a cruel smile at Doriel. “It was so easy.”
“I didn’t take you for a man who prefers easy,” I said tartly. “Is that the real reason you came here, or did you know how much the library means to me, so you took it to hurt me?”
“Hurt you?” He whipped around and stormed toward me, looking more enraged than when I’d called him a coward.
He slammed against the other side of the bars and jabbed a finger at Doriel, snarling.
“Did they not conspire with the Meros King to trap you on the island? Was the Ignios King not the one who put a blade in your chest? I punished all three of them for their crimes.”
I gripped the bars to steady myself on weakening knees.
My advisors had spent many late nights trying to guess where Ophiucae might attack next, debating which realms might offer him the most strategic position or the most useful resources to plunder.
We’d even considered whether his targets might be motivated by revenge against whichever of his siblings had wronged him most.
We had not considered his vengeance might not be for himself.
“You did it for me,” I breathed in grisly understanding. Generations lost, realms decimated to cinders, all in a twisted gesture of loyalty. “Call your men back from Umbros. I don’t want this.”
“I have my reasons for taking Umbros, even if you do not.” He held up the book on the heartstone. “And what better place than Sophos to put my research to the test?”
He walked away again, and my panic soared. He was already powerful enough to shield from miles away and take the minds of a realm. What more could he use the heartstone to do?
“Let me come with you,” I called out. “I want to see how it’s done.”
He rumbled a laugh. “So you can use it against me?”
“Not the heartstone,” I added quickly. “I want to see your—our magic. Show me how it works. You’re the only one who can.”
He turned his head halfway to me, seeming to consider my request.
“Diem, what are you planning?” Doriel murmured.
In truth, I hadn’t thought past getting him to say yes. I only knew that if I didn’t do something, I might not be able to live with myself for what he did next.
“If you want me to join you, it requires trust from us both,” I called out.
At last he relented, striding back to the cell with a hard, inscrutable look. I hurried out the door the moment he unlocked it and kept distance between us, hands clasped at my waist, eyes cast demurely low—the picture of submission.
He eyed me as we walked toward the grasslands. “Do you fear me, daughter?”
“Yes,” I admitted.
He let out a hum, and I wondered if that pleased or upset him. “Yet you wish to come with me. Alone. Unarmed.”
Extremely unarmed. No weapon, no magic. I couldn’t even lie without his detection.
“My fear isn’t for myself,” I said. “If you wanted me dead, I would be.”
That earned another quiet hum.
“Do you fear me?” I asked.
“You’re brave, indeed,” he said dryly. “A perilous trait. Nothing is more deadly than courage.”
I pretended not to notice the warning underlying his words. “You claimed I was almost as powerful as you. Does that mean you can teach me to do the things you’ve done?”
“Difficult, without your magic.”
“You can bring it back. Fortos magic can heal flameroot.”
His head snapped to me with a suspicious glare. He took my hand, and I sucked in a breath at the sudden surge of his magic through my blood. It felt just like him: icy, determined, ruthless. And gods, its strength . . . I felt pitifully frail inside its grip, a glass bird in an iron fist.
And yet it wasn’t strong enough. Despite the pummeling of his magic, the flameroot’s muffling barrier didn’t budge.
He knelt and pressed his hand to the soil, and his well of power went from vast to infinite.
It felt like all the energy in all the world, every force of nature and every living thing, flowed through his body and into mine.
It focused into a sizzling beam to burn the flameroot from my blood—but the flameroot was stronger.
Not even a whisper of my godhood escaped its grasp.
His magic built inside me with nowhere to go. My vision blurred, my blood turning molten. My skin felt seconds away from splitting open.
Ophiucae released me with deep, heaving breaths, sweat beading at his temples. “If that was a ploy to drain me . . .”
I collapsed and pressed my scalding-hot cheek to the cool grass. “It wasn’t. In Fortos, I thought . . .”
I held my tongue. I didn’t think I’d healed the flameroot from the Descended I’d freed from the Fortos prison—I knew. Perhaps there was some other force at work that day. It wouldn’t be the first time the gods interfered in my life without explanation.
Or perhaps there was at least one thing my magic could do that his could not.
Ophiucae walked on, and by the time I managed to recover, he lay on his back atop a hill, skin aglow with light. When I approached, his gryvern swung close and snapped its jaws. Even without Faunos magic, I understood: Ophiucae might trust me, but Xipherus did not.
I crouched beside my sire. Though his eyes were closed, his face was furrowed with effort. Sorrow’s Edge lay against his hip, and with his palms pressed to the soil, the book on the heartstone sat on its own beside him—both objects free for the taking.
His gryvern let out a snarl.
“Xipherus seems to think you’re up to something,” Ophiucae said, eyes still closed.
I glanced at the beast as it circled overhead. “He’d kill me if I tried anything. I’d really prefer to live.”
It was the truest answer I could afford to give—heartbreakingly true. So true that Ophiucae did not stir, and his gryvern angled away.
“You’re pulling from the Forging magic, aren’t you?” I asked.
He nodded. “I can’t believe I almost refused when my siblings asked to bind our magic to the land. I was afraid it would make us weaker.”
“Why did you agree?”
“My siblings never let me absorb their magic, and they ordered their brat spawn to do the same. I hadn’t felt my godhood for years. They offered to replenish it if I went along with the Forging.” His expression turned wistful. “I would have agreed to anything, just to feel magic in my veins again.”
The chasm in my chest opened wider, yearning for something to fill it.
Despite how much I had wanted to be rid of my magic after the slaughter at Mort-Feu Pass, I’d started to miss its presence—not just for the strength it gave me, but for how complete it made me feel.
Wielding a sword in one hand and magic in the other, I felt like the truest version of myself: the mortal warrior my father raised me to be, and the Descended Queen I had become.
Maybe that was why I’d lost myself on the island. Without magic, I’d been stripped of half my soul. Without Luther, I was missing half my heart. I wouldn’t feel whole until I got them both back.
“My realm was not always barren,” he said suddenly, interrupting my thoughts. “Those forests used to be green year-round. The most beautiful trees you ever laid eyes on.” His features pinched. “It was the only place on this miserable continent I ever liked.”
“When you showed me the children, I saw a tree in the forest regaining its color.”