13. Ophelia
OPHELIA
Ophelia hates everything about the Sun Temple now.
She hates the rooftop, where she made goofy faces at her girls from across the dinner circle; she hates the Atrium, where she heard their screams echoing; she hates her bedroom, where she read what very well might be their last words to her.
She tries to be there as little as she possibly can.
And, thankfully, not being there is easier than it used to be. She has Eudoxia now: someone she loves impossibly more with every passing day. Someone to keep her company when her thoughts fall into gloomy reminiscing. Someone to care about her when no one else in the world does.
But being grateful doesn’t change that she is angry. Fuming. Murderous.
And… sad. She’s just so sad.
She shakes the tears out of her eyes before they can form and sets her face into a harsh scowl. She doesn’t drop it, even when she makes eye contact with one of the Priestesses wandering around the dark caves with her.
The four girls she’s been working with this week have all tried to smile at her, engage her in conversation, get her to act anything like she used to, but she can’t bring herself to humor them.
She doesn’t mind being in the caves though, helping to prepare for the first Trial. It’s dark and dank and musty, like it was drilled open recently, and they’re being forced to lug heavy rocks around the tunnels to ready the space, but anything is better than the Temple.
She heaves boulders out of their cart, as instructed, and places them where the Auxiliaries will be most likely to trip over them. She moves efficiently in a calm silence that the other girls clearly do not intend to match.
“The Trial is still a week away. Why are they having us do all this now?” one groans.
Another sighs. “I don’t know, but I hope one of my rocks trips up Kleitos. That shithole deserves it after kicking me out of his bed at the ass crack of dawn.”
Priestesses love to be crass when no one is watching. She almost wants to ask why they don’t have the balls to curse like that when the Mothers are around. Forms know Ophelia does.
“Ophelia, do you have anyone you want to trip?” one of the girls jokes, smiling at her with pity.
She wants to scream back. Tell her that she doesn’t need her sad looks and fake smiles. Tell her that she wants her girls back, not some Drachma Store stand-ins.
But she doesn’t. They’re trying to be nice.
So she smiles mildly and shakes her head. Even this politeness makes the conversation stop and the girls go quiet. Polite is far enough from Ophelia’s usual that, from her, it dampens the mood.
For a moment she’s disappointed in herself. This is not who she is. She used to be an invincible force, never hurt, never damaged, always bouncing back. She wants to be that for everyone again.
But it’s only a moment. Because then she remembers that she exists for no one but herself. If she’s mad, she will act mad.
When the Priestesses are called back to their Temples, her team walks home in the same blessed silence, and soon enough Ophelia is up on the roof pushing her dinner around.
Back and forth, back and forth.
The instant they’re dismissed she rushes to her room to pack some candies for Arete. Then she’s off to what’s becoming more of a home than this stuffy place ever could be.
She suffocates a little more with every breath she takes in the Temple. Dancing the dances, chanting the chants, haunted by the echo of Aika’s and Dora’s laughter for the rest of her life and every day suffocating.
One day, she’s sure, she’ll die strangled.
She and Arete make it through three chapters of a Sun Priestess children’s book and at least fifteen candies each before Eudoxia barges in and collapses on the bed.
“My attendants,” she groans, muffled into the pillow, “shower me with love and affection.”
Ophelia and Arete don’t hesitate to jump on top of her, and Ophelia tickles her mercilessly.
“Ah! This is not what I meant,” Eudoxia squirms. “No respect for your Empress!”
Arete sticks her tongue out. “Queens don’t need to respect Empresses, silly.”
“Zeno says you’re a satyr, you satyr!” Eudoxia yells.
As she watches the sisters bicker, the need to kick and scream slowly eases away to reveal the soft part of her under all the newly placed walls.
“Speaking of Zeno—” Ophelia teases, mischief dripping from her voice “—is he coming over tonight?”
“Zeno?” Eudoxia perks up from under the pillow Arete has been trying to smother her with.
Forms, Eudoxia is enamored! The urge to matchmake is simply too strong for Ophelia to fight it.
And if doing that provides a distraction from everything else in her life, well, that’s just an added bonus.
“Now that you mention him,” Eudoxia says, “he invited us over to his dorm tonight.”
“His dorm? Are you sure he wasn’t just inviting you? Maybe he wants some—” she thrusts her hips obnoxiously in Eudoxia’s direction “—time alone.”
Arete laughs maniacally, and Ophelia sits down guiltily at the reminder that a literal child is in the room with her.
“No.” Eudoxia falls back onto the bed again and rolls her eyes. “He wants both of us to come. He’s got this roommate—Alexander—and we think you’ll like each other. I don’t know if he’s your type—nor you his, honestly, because he’s pretty obsessed with someone else—but you would make good friends.”
“Good. I’m tired of people wanting anything more than that,” she replies, leaving out the fact that she hasn’t even considered the possibility of romance since losing her girls. She’s had enough of men thinking they own her. She’s had enough of people she loves leaving her.
“I want to meet Zeno’s new roommate,” Arete screams, and Eudoxia sighs like they’ve had this conversation a million times.
“Arete, you can’t. Alexander is nice, but we don’t know him well enough to introduce him to you.”
“You introduced Ophelia to me, like, five minutes after meeting her,” Arete complains.
“Ophelia is different.”
“So, what? I have to sit here all alone when you’re having fun with Zeno and what’s-his-face? That’s not fair,” Arete says, and her cheeks burn red with anger.
Ophelia has witnessed quite a few fights between the sisters, but recently tensions have been escalating more quickly.
“Ophelia, would you like me to come?” Arete asks, and her sweetness is honey coating barbed wire. Eudoxia scoffs angrily.
“Honey, you know it’s not my decision,” Ophelia says, “and it’s not your sister’s either. This is a tough situation and everyone is doing the best they can.”
“So you’re just going to take her side,” Arete says with a scowl, her voice wobbling. “What about me? Why does no one care about me?”
When actual tears start streaming down Arete’s cheeks, Ophelia is tempted to just give in and let her come. Watching Arete cry is like watching a kicked puppy whining on the streets.
Eudoxia is not similarly affected. “I do this because I care about you!” she yells.
“No, you don’t. You hate me. And I hate you!”
“Maybe I do. But I’m your sister and I’m responsible for you.”
“You’re not my sister. I don’t want you to be. You’re awful and I hate you. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you! I hope you just die.”
“Arete—” Ophelia starts, but Eudoxia interrupts her, her features settled into calm anger.
“You can say what you want, but if I did leave you’d be sent right back home. Back to him. And, look, if you’re so desperate for me to just die, maybe you should leave yourself. There’s an exit door to the ocean on the bottom floor; feel free to take it.”
Arete’s eyes widen in fear, and Eudoxia’s face drops in regret.
Closing her eyes, Eudoxia whispers, “We’re going, Arete. Don’t stay up too late.”
Eudoxia leaves the room, and Ophelia kisses Arete’s forehead as she follows her out.
“Him?” Ophelia asks Eudoxia once they close the door behind them.
“Our stepfather. He’s why I brought her with me when I came here. It’s complicated,” Eudoxia explains. Ophelia doesn’t ask her to elaborate. If Eudoxia needed to, she would.
“I’m sorry we keep doing this. I’m just always messing up with her and I don’t know how to fix it and she never listens and…”
Eudoxia trails off and takes a few deep breaths, then scrubs at her face.
Ophelia tugs her into a hug.
“You’re not messing it up,” she says. “Empresses don’t mess things up.”
Eudoxia laughs weakly and pulls back. “Right.”
“Do you still want to go to Zeno’s? Or you and I could take a walk instead.”
“No, let’s go. Seeing him always makes me feel better,” Eudoxia responds, then she winces at her choice of words.
“Oh, I’m sure it does,” Ophelia says with a cheeky wink as they cross the hall.
They come to a stop at Zeno’s door, and Eudoxia goes straight for the handle, not even bothering to knock. But before she can turn it, the door flies open, and Zeno barges through, almost crashing into them both.
“Xos! I was about to come get you. I thought maybe you weren’t coming.” Oh, he likes Eudoxia soooo much. The fact that neither of them has noticed how mutual their feelings are is a real testament to the power of denial.
“I’m here,” Eudoxia stutters.
“Yeah, you are,” Zeno says.
They stand close, staring at each other for a good ten seconds, and Ophelia has never felt so much like a third wheel.
“Yes, and I am also here,” a voice mocks from inside the room. It breaks Eudoxia and Zeno out of their trance, and they laugh awkwardly at each other.
When the three of them step into the room, she locates the joker.
A tan boy with dark, tousled hair is hanging upside down on his bed and smiling at her.
She’s never seen someone with eyes like his before.
Blue in the center fading into light green, and ringed by blue again on the outside.
Both eyes have freckles of hazel in them, different on each.
The colors make a striking contrast with his skin.
Eudoxia was right; he’s not her type. But she’s almost jealous of whoever he is chasing after because why can’t she be so lucky?
He tumbles off the bed into a pile of clothes and books strewn across his side of the floor, and sticks out his hand.
“I’m Alexander.”
“I figured,” she teases.
Instead of quipping back like she expects, Alexander’s grin gives way to something more… calculating, and his entire energy shifts.
“Something wrong?” she asks, because his stare isn’t flirtatious. It’s assessing.
“Nothing. You just… look like someone I know.”
“I do?” She doesn’t get that a lot.
“Well, you don’t look like him, I guess. In fact, you couldn’t look less like him. But something about you just reminds me of him.”
He pauses, then says, “But, whatever. It doesn’t matter,” and his smile is right back on, and any trace of intensity is completely gone. “It’s nice to meet you. Zeno talks about you all the time; I think he’s scared Xos likes you more than him.”
Right, Eudoxos. She can’t slip up with that.
Ophelia rolls her eyes. “I don’t think that’s possible.”
Alexander jumps back onto his bed like a contained ball of frantic energy. “So, you’ve noticed it too?”
She gestures over to their friends, talking softly in the corner of the room. “As if it’s not obvious.”
Alexander’s eyes fill with mischief. “Oh, I think you and I are going to get along, Miss Ophelia. It seems we share a mission.”
She jumps onto his bed, comfortable with him already. She loves the company of fellow troublemakers. “Mission: Get-Those-Weirdos-to-Make-Out-Right-Now?”
“I couldn’t have said it better myself.”