Chapter 52 #2
He nodded again. “With no one of my line to walk its soil, the land withered. It’s healing, now that you and I have returned.” His fingers curled, clawing into the ground. “Another blight on this world we must put to an end.”
I pulled my knees to my chest and looked out over the grasslands. “Will the same thing happen here if Doriel dies?”
“Do not fret. I will not let what happened to my realm happen to any other.”
“But if Vance kills all the Descended, how—”
I stopped.
The children.
Was that the real reason Ophiucae had saved them—to keep the Forging magic strong so he could draw from it forever?
And if the children grew into adults that refused to bow to the man who’d killed their families . . . what would he do with them then?
My eyes shot to Sorrow’s Edge. In the sky, Xipherus gave a low, rumbling growl. Ophiucae’s hand parted from the soil and curled around the golden handle.
“How quick you are to think the worst of me,” he murmured. My heart stirred at the softness of his voice—wounded, perhaps even sad.
He slowly sat up. His other palm left the soil, and the glow of his skin began to fade.
For a moment, he looked at me but did not speak, searching my face for an answer I dearly wanted to give, if I only knew the question.
Then his thoughts drifted with his gaze—perhaps to everything and everyone that had left him with scars even centuries couldn’t heal.
It was strange to see someone so fearsome still so visibly haunted by his past. It made him seem more man than god—more father than foe. It made him vulnerable. Relatable. It made his evil deeds easier to forget.
It made him harder to kill.
I pressed my lips tight and sat with him in the silence. I kept him company, as my Prince had done for me, vowing to not let this broken person I cared for endure their troubles alone.
His stare fell to the island. “Will you ever go back?” he asked.
I imagined stepping on those shores again and shuddered. Ophiucae made a curt noise of agreement.
Forging Day was one week away. If I didn’t return to the island to shed my blood on the heartstone, the Forging spell’s magic would decay.
Would it truly be a loss if the borders finally crumbled?
If everyone, mortal and Descended, could travel freely through the realms and settle in a place that made them happy, instead of being chained to a homeland they never chose?
Ophiucae reached into his pocket and pulled out a golden disc, flicking it open with his thumb. I stilled in recognition of the Meros compass—and its quivering red arrow, pointed right at me. I shifted ever so slightly, and my heart began to pound as the arrow followed my movement.
You cannot trust him, wiser voices warned inside my head. That compass was made with Kindred magic. What if he’s manipulating it to trick you?
But what if he wasn’t?
Then it’s pointing to the Crowns you wear or some power you have that he desires for himself. If you’re what his heart wants, it’s not out of love.
. . . But what if it was?
I could no longer pretend that my hope to change Ophiucae was only about preventing my death. I didn’t just want to live, I wanted a life with him in it. I wanted us both to be cured of the shadows that plagued us, and I wanted us to be more than the enemies that fate had forced us to be.
“Tell me about Andrei,” he said abruptly.
I blinked a few times, surprised to find tears at the corners of my eyes. “What?”
“Tell me about him.” I flinched at the clash of metal as he snapped the compass shut. “I want to know more about the man who took my place.”
The descriptions of Andrei that came most easily were the labels bestowed on him by others: Legendary war hero. First mortal Commander in Emarion Army history. Advisor to three different Crowns.
Then there were the less flattering labels: Traitor to his kind. Descended puppet.
But none of those things described who he was to me.
“He taught me how to fight,” I said. “How to defend myself, but also how to protect others. How to turn my weaknesses into strengths. How to survive.”
I lay back, stretching out on the grass, and pressed my palms to the soil the way I’d seen Ophiucae do. Though the power running through it was as inaccessible to me as my magic, there was a different connection I sought.
“He didn’t know about you,” I said. “Mother never told him. To him, it didn’t matter. He said we were family, blood ties or not.”
The air felt loaded, as if we both had more to say that we didn’t yet trust the other to hear.