The Myths of Ophelia (The Curse of Ophelia #4)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Ophelia

Why was it so Angelsdamned hot?

Condensation crawled down the side of my glass, pooling on the dark wood of the seaside tavern’s bar one languid drop at a time. The heat of the Seawatchers’ Western Outposts shoved itself down my throat, despite the fact that we were only nearing the end of the first month of the year.

I supposed it rarely got as cold on the islands as it did in other territories, but this was unseasonable. And aggravating. Snow lay atop various regions of the continent—thick white blankets of it likely doused Palerman in recent weeks—but here, nothing more than a breeze wound between the columns of the tavern. I inhaled as a spray of salty ocean air flecked across my skin, tempering the roaring heat.

And I waited —a word that had become the bane of my existence.

“Sure I can’t get you anything besides water, Revered?” The friendly barkeep braced both hands on the aged wood, a towel slung across his shoulder.

“Thank you, Ivon.” I offered him a warm smile, then raised the glass. “I’m fine with this, though.”

He nodded, short dark hair bobbing over his forehead, and proceeded down the bar to his other customers. As he had every time we’d played this little game in the weeks my friends and I had been stationed in the outposts. In the weeks since the second Engrossian-Mystique war ended. Since Prince Barrett slayed his mother, Queen Kakias, and the Spirit of the Engrossian Angel Bant himself tore from her body, disappearing into the mountains.

I shook off the memories—the questions—a familiar restlessness twitching through my limbs at having to remain stagnant in these outposts.

Dormant, because the ruler of the fae, the bloodthirsty Queen Ritalia, was on her way to Gallantia, and according to her soldier, Lancaster, she wanted us pliant beneath her heel, but she did not deign to tell us precisely when she would arrive.

And I was forced to cooperate. She was a threat, and it was in the warriors’ best interest to get her here and gone as quickly as possible. And because Lancaster held a bargain over Tolek’s and my heads. If we failed to comply, we would be violating the deal and thus forfeiting our lives.

So, here we sat.

The tavern, The Sea Maiden, had become my favorite way to pass the days, and not only due to Ivon’s attentive staff or the affable crowd they drew. The polished stone pillars lining the front opened directly onto one of the outpost’s white sand beaches, soft mounds rising and dipping nearly fifty yards before melting into crystal blue ocean.

The waves were calm, peaceful, and an abundance of colorful wildlife occupied the coral reefs below no more than one hundred yards out. Ezalia Ridgebrook, the Seawatcher Chancellor, had taken us to explore them one day last week.

They were beautiful. I grew tired of it.

The waves curled lazily into the shore—my warrior hearing picking out the gentle roar over the voices in the tavern—and each sweep worked to dilute the dissatisfaction budding within me.

It was a bit like standing in the surf as it pulled away, the sand around your feet drifting, toes sinking further into the wet grains until you were certain you’d be taken with it.

I’d spent a lot of time on those shores these weeks. Spent a lot of time in the Sea Maiden, as well. Both to feed the spiraling creature inside of me that wanted out and to appear as we’d been bid.

My queen wishes your court to prepare for her arrival. And to cause no reason for delay.

Groaning internally, as I did each time Lancaster’s warning fluttered through my mind, I pushed up from my seat at the bar and strode toward the veranda. Water in hand, I leaned my shoulder against a sun-warmed stone pillar.

I highly suggest you heed her instructions. You do not want to see what ruin she may unfold if disobeyed.

Fucking fae.

Who was a foreign queen to command warriors? But Lancaster had always been a solid force. A bit tricky, a lot deadly, but never wavering.

And he had wavered that day.

When he met my friends and me as we were about to depart the mountains after the final battle, heading for Soulguider Territory in search of the next Angel emblem—when Santorina shot him daggers with her glare, hand tightening on her knife—something in the fae had waffled.

My fingers curled into my glass with the memory. Don’t shatter another glass, Ophelia, I instructed myself, but an inevitable agitation reared in my chest.

It didn’t drown out the footsteps echoing behind me, though. Nor did it mask the unfamiliar, masculine scent that joined me on the veranda.

“That drink looks awfully low.”

I turned toward the warrior leaning against the pillar opposite mine, his arms crossed and a bottle dangling between his fingers. Seawatcher, based on the coral and aqua gems adorning his ears. A symbol of rank among the ocean-farers.

Three of them lined one ear, poking out from beneath his hair, sun-bleached highlights gleaming against the dark strands falling past his shoulders. A thick beard coated his jaw, like he’d been on a ship for many days recently, and he wore a thin linen tunic instead of leathers. To accommodate the heat, if the sweat along his brow was any hint.

“I’ve been thirsty,” I said, tipping the water to my lips again.

“Let me buy you your next.”

I gave him half a smile. “Thank you for offering, but that won’t be necessary.”

“Come on.” The man pushed off the pillar and stepped closer to me. Not close enough that I was threatened, but enough that I placed my glass on the table beside me and dropped my hands to my sides. Easy and relaxed, but within reach of my dagger. “Have one drink with me. My next patrol leaves tomorrow.” His eyes crawled over my face. “And with the way you were watching the water just now, it’s clear you have a lot of stories crowding that pretty mind.”

In another situation, the invitation might have been light-hearted, warriors exchanging tales of travels over a drink. But he kept coming closer, until we were toe to toe, and his eyes fell to my breasts, to the way the binding of my leathers was tied so tightly, they pushed up with every inhale.

My pretty mind clearly wasn’t what he wanted.

“I have many stories,” I said, voice even.

“I have hours to listen. All night, in fact.” No comment about the fact that I was clearly not a Seawatcher. No acknowledgment that he knew who I was—what title I held—which despite his invasive behavior, was a bit of a reprieve.

Shame for him I wasn’t interested.

“I suggest finding someone who has hours to spare with you, then.” Waste your efforts elsewhere .

He leaned closer, bracing a hand on the pillar above my head, and my back stiffened. Spirits, he smelled like a damp ship cabin baking in the cloying heat.

“I’m fine here.” His other hand tucked an errant wave behind my ear, grazing my collarbone as it dropped.

And my patience snapped entirely, fingers curling around the hilt of my dagger.

“I suggest you remove your hands if you value them,” a voice as familiar as my own sliced the air, low and lethal, and my heart fluttered like an Angel’s wings. “Or that pretty little dagger at her thigh will be in your throat.”

I hid my smirk, raising my brows at the man before me. He didn’t back down, but his eyes flashed to my weapon—the only one on me, since I was meant to be acting docile—then dragged appreciatively up my body.

“Oh, now don’t do that,” Tolek tutted, his boots echoing from the wooden interior of the tavern to the stone porch, stopping feet away. “Now I’ll have to join the reparations, and I just finished cleaning my weapons.”

The Seawatcher’s eyes flitted between us.

“Appears you have a choice,” I whispered, inclining my head.

“He’s not my type,” he snapped.

“That wasn’t the offer,” I nearly growled, and Tolek chuckled. But despite the amusement, when I flicked my gaze to him, his stance was all defense. Claiming. Though we both knew I was more than capable of handling this, it sent those wings in my chest fluttering again.

With a disgruntled exhale, the Seawatcher pushed off the pillar, his musty scent falling away as he took slow steps backward toward the tavern entrance. The voices inside remained steady, no one noticing the threats we exchanged.

“The pissing contest isn’t necessary,” he said. “I was only offering a drink and some fun.”

“ After she declined.” Tolek’s voice was still calm, but his brows rose with the obvious misstep.

“And there’s no contest,” I added, flashing a devilish smirk at the warrior. He waved us away and turned to disappear among the patrons, off to find a more willing participant for his fun .

“Well, that was entertaining,” Tolek said, stepping into the Seawatcher’s place before me, one hand braced against the pillar as that man’s had been, the other cupping my cheek.

He dipped his head, brushing his lips against my own, and the need for him snapped like a whip inside of me. I tangled a hand in his hair, the other wrapping around his back to pull him closer. Even through his leathers I could feel him harden, his length straining against the barrier as his tongue grazed mine and a moan slipped up my throat.

It took every ounce of Spiritsdamned self-control in my body to not wrap my legs around his hips and grind against him right here, pressed to this pillar, in full display of The Sea Maiden’s patrons. My back arched at the thought.

As if sensing my desperation—and lack of logical decision making—Tolek pulled back, placing one more kiss to my forehead.

“Hi.” He smirked, gaze traveling over my face. “I don’t like when they do that,” he added as our breathing evened out.

“Oh, but it’s so fun when you threaten them.”

How many times had something similar occurred since we’d been stationed here? I’d been behaving as demanded—awaiting Queen Ritalia’s arrival as an oh-so-patient warrior and wasting away the afternoons where anyone she sent to tail me could see. How many times had I begun a friendly conversation with other patrons only for it to end with them presuming more than I let on?

It had become a game of sorts between Tolek and me, lobbying this jealousy we each harbored and using it to spur on our own fire. The challenge soothed the riling energy within me, the agitation at being commanded to wait for the queen abating if only for a few moments.

“It wasn’t fun the day I nearly made good on one of those threats,” he reminded me. His hair drooped over his forehead, and I absently brushed it back.

“That man was handsy. He would have deserved to lose a finger.”

“More than that,” Tolek mumbled. “And that woman who draped herself all over me in the gambling hall two weeks ago?”

“I only threatened to cut off her hair.” I shrugged. “Jezebel taught me how. It wouldn’t have been that hideous.” Unless I intended it to .

He heard the words I didn’t say, and a laugh burst from him. “You’re ruthless when defending what’s yours, Alabath.”

Mine . As it did every time he said it, warmth spread through my chest.

Tolek Vincienzo was mine, and I was his. Infinitely. No matter what the Angels planned—what threats the fae queen brought down on us—that would always hold true.

So much had been uncertain these past months, but his steady presence settled a nerve. Still, the reminder of the queen had my teeth grinding.

“What’s wrong?” Tolek asked, swinging an arm around my shoulder and tucking me into his side to face the sea.

I dropped my voice. “What do you think happened with Bant’s Spirit?”

Tolek blew out a breath. “Can’t be sure about that one, Alabath.”

I toyed with the shard of my spear, Angelborn, hanging around my neck. The emblem of the Mystique Angel, Damien, containing a fossilized piece of his power. “It—he—disappeared into the mountains after leaving Kakias’s body.” I’d been rehashing the phenomenon ever since Barrett and I watched it happen—since the day he drove a dagger into the queen’s heart and the Spirit of the Engrossian Angel that had been shed into her emerged—and we had yet to figure out what it meant.

Because we were stagnant .

I closed my hand around my necklace. “We still have two more to find.” The Soulguider and Starsearcher tokens were out there somewhere. “And yet, here we sit.”

“Here we sit,” Tolek repeated, but he said it with an ease I didn’t feel.

“If we have to wait, I want to feel like I’m doing something at least.”

Tolek looked down at me and whispered, “We are, Alabath.”

He wasn’t entirely wrong. But restlessness buzzed beneath my skin.

“More than searching books and maps every night in the cottage. More than silently testing the Angellight I control. Even if I’m familiar with it, I haven’t learned why I can manipulate it or what it’s capable of.”

Because Angellight was a substance of pure power known only to belong to the seven Prime Warriors when they ascended many millennia ago.

And now, it ran through my veins, too. Five distinguishable threads, one for each Angel emblem I found and bled on, all tangling together into a golden luminescence I was able to wield.

Tolek was contemplative as I went on, “Barrett is in Engrossian Territory, attempting to repair his tumultuous clan and earn his title again with significant pushback—Malakai with him. Cypherion and Vale are still off trying to solve the problems with her magic. And I’m”—I shook my head, facing the lazy tide and trying to be as calm as it was—“waiting.”

“Sometimes, knowing when not to act is as wise as knowing when to,” Tolek assured, placing a kiss to my temple. “We’ll find answers to all of it. We just have a new challenge to work around. Wouldn’t life be so boring otherwise?”

I laughed reluctantly. How did he see situations in such hopeful light, even when life had not always been kind to him?

Tol’s voice was melancholic when he added, “Hopefully we’ll resolve this business with the fae quickly and resume our lives.”

“I have a feeling Queen Ritalia doesn’t do anything quickly.” When one lived as long as she had, days flashed by like minutes.

Tolek exhaled. “No, but it’s smart to keep her as unaware of your power as long as possible.”

“Lancaster and Mora saw it.” The two fae—siblings, we found out during the final battle—saw me use Angellight against Kakias and fall into that realm where I manipulated the light to destroy the queen’s power. “They would have told her everything. Been sworn to.”

“Only what they saw,” Tolek said. “Not how it felt to you or how you’ve gotten to know it recently, practicing in secret these weeks. For whatever reason, Ritalia thinks she has command over us— your court .” I screwed up my face at the fae term for our councils and clans, and Tolek laughed. “Whether we like it or not, it’s best for us to play along right now.”

I sighed and met his eyes. We’d had this conversation many times, and always came to the same conclusions. “We get her here and out as quickly as possible. We do nothing to upset the balance of the bargain we struck with Lancaster, and we find whatever information they’re willing to impart about the gods.” Information we needed, given that it appeared the gods were tied to this mess with the emblems somehow. With our theory that Annellius, the first chosen, had hidden the shards of Angel power before his death, we needed every morsel of help we could find. Worry gnawed at me at the possibilities. “Then, we return to our Angel tasks and trials.”

“That’s my girl.” Tol tilted my chin up to kiss me. Then, he added, “Looks like clouds are moving in.”

Though it was early still, the sun was beginning to set—a blessing of the short winter days, given that we were primarily working by night—and thick gray plumes were rolling across the sky. Perhaps this heat wave would crack soon.

Tolek added, “I’d originally been coming here to tell you the girls returned.” I looked up at him, the amber specks in his chocolate eyes flaming. “How do you feel about a flight?”