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

Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

Ophelia

Fae around the room gasped, boots scuffing over pristine marble floors. We all reached for our weapons, pools of Angellight coiling around my hands.

All but Rina, who glowered quietly at the male clearly targeting her, confusion and animosity in the tremor of her bottom lip.

Lancaster’s nails dug into the velvet drapery behind Ritalia’s throne as if anchoring himself there, but his lips parted on a snarl, his eyes crazed. Even his jacket sleeves hung in tatters, corded muscles standing out on his forearms beneath the split seams.

“Your Majesty?” he ground out, every bit as animalistic as legend told of these immortal graces.

“What’s happening to him?” I gasped, looking between Ritalia and Lancaster.

Mora gripped his arm, whispering something none of us could hear. Lancaster shook his head, but his gaze remained locked on Santorina. The veins in his neck strained, sweat beading on his forehead.

Rina stared back, as if frozen in wide-eyed shock. But her hand drifted toward the dagger at her thigh.

The room was otherwise suspended in silence.

“Your. Majesty,” Lancaster repeated, each word stilted, and this time, there was a battle beneath his request. “What is the order?”

A lengthy beat of contemplation followed, during which every warrior balanced on the balls of their feet. Starfire and Angelborn were desperate weights against my body, begging to be unleashed, and the tension in the air pressed down on us.

Finally, Ritalia said, “Stand down, my hunter.”

When I cut my glare to her, she was staring at my hands, where Angellight ebbed in golden tendrils. Disappointment crashed over me for exposing it, for giving this queen another fragment of control, but I reined it in and hid any reaction to my mistake.

Ritalia’s haughty smile told me she’d already known and had only wanted to see it for herself.

A muscle feathered in Lancaster’s jaw. Stress unspooled from his frame, and with one final knowing glance at Santorina, he stormed out a door behind the throne, Mora following in his wake.

Brystin snapped at a staff member with a smirk, holding his hand out for a glass of wine. “I forgot how much fun he promises when pushed.”

“All of the warrior and fae courts, vacate the room.” Ritalia’s voice was calm but authoritative, ignoring her guard’s remark. “I have something I must discuss with your Revered alone.”

“Over my Angeldamned body,” Tolek retorted beneath his breath.

“Tell me what that was,” I demanded to Ritalia, nodding at where Lancaster had stood.

“I gladly will,” Ritalia agreed to my shock, “once the others leave. We have various topics we must discuss.”

“No.” My voice rang through the room with the force of the Angels. “No one leaves until you explain that outburst. Then you and I can finish discussing why you’re here at all.”

It may have been foolish to command such a lethal queen, but she’d been toying with us all day. First making us change and wait to see her, then parading us here and picking through our appearances.

I may not have held the title of queen, but I was the Revered of the Mystique Warriors and the Chosen of the Angels. I demanded respect.

Ritalia twirled her chalice between her fingers. She almost seemed…impressed. “Very well.” Setting the silver cup on the table beside her throne, she stood. “We do have the Queen of Bounties among us, do we not?”

The chamber was silent, Ritalia’s stare locked on Santorina, whose voice was steel as she stepped up beside me. “Queen of what?”

“Enough of the riddles, Your Majesty,” I clipped, holding on to the last sliver of reverence. “Tell us what this is about.”

“What do you think the cause of the fae-human war was all those centuries ago?” Ritalia asked.

“You mean the human annihilation at the hands of your kind,” Rina corrected.

Ritalia tilted her head. “That is the story as you know it.”

“It’s no story,” Santorina said. “Fae slaughtered humans. My people had to flee Vercuella.”

“The warriors took them in,” I added.

“Fae slaughtered humans,” Ritalia repeated, grimacing. “And humans slaughtered fae.”

I blinked at her. “How is that possible? The fae?—”

“Are stronger? Faster? More cunning?” Ritalia suggested. I sneered at the queen’s words. Rina’s hands tightened on the dagger she’d removed from its sheath. “All of those things are correct of the average human.”

“And the non-average?” Tolek asked, noticing that specific word.

“The Bounties are not average humans,” Ritalia said. And again, her stare sharpened on Santorina. “The Bounties are a race of humans born with a specific instinct and ability: to kill fae. It is because of the Bounties that the war began at all. We did not want to kill innocent humans; we wanted to exterminate those who sought to kill us .”

Tolek and I exchanged a glance. In it, that one fact burned: she cannot outright lie . And, truthfully, this story was the least riddled Ritalia had ever sounded.

“Why wouldn’t we have known this?” Jezebel growled.

“Because, Mistress Death”—Ritalia sighed—“we did not make the truth of the Bounties known. Not with how susceptible it made us.”

And I almost asked then why she would tell us now, but it was clear Ritalia wanted something, I just hadn’t worked out what yet.

“What does this have to do with me?” Rina finally asked. Her heated stare was locked on the queen, knuckles white. “Why did you use that title for me? Why did he attack me?” She nodded once more toward where Lancaster had been standing.

“You humans are so slow,” Ritalia mumbled, and Brystin’s smile gleamed in answer. At his side, silver blades shone, etched with markings. “I scented it on you the moment you arrived, Miss Cordelian. You are the last of a great line of Bounties. A descendent from one who got away from our hunts. Their last true queen.”

The declaration sank like a rock in my chest. Santorina…a queen? Of a race of humans born to kill fae? I looked to my friend, but her expression was unreadable.

She argued, “My family is from Gallantia.”

“With how short mortal lifespans are, do you truly know the history back thousands of years?”

Rina’s gaze shuttered. “You killed the Bounties.”

“We killed all we found. Some fled, the cowards they were.” Ritalia scoffed. “Some came here. Some to the Sorcia Isles. Some established their own homesteads in other parts of the world.”

“And why did you tell Lancaster to attack her?” I asked, gaze flicking to the door he’d disappeared through.

“Lancaster was born long after the Bounty crisis, but he was bred for one thing in particular. Certainly his status as a crete is beneficial, but he was created to hunt .”

Lancaster’s snarl from minutes ago echoed through the room, my palms warming again with Angellight. I shoved it down, remaining focused on Ritalia.

“Did my hunter not seek you out as soon as he set foot on this continent?” she asked Rina. “He was bred to do such a thing. His senses set to destroy that which can kill our kind. You likely only still stand here because of those warriors around you.”

It was the last thing Santorina wanted, to be at the mercy of warriors. But as she spoke next, voice loud and true, I realized the queen was wrong. Santorina Cordelian was her own force, her own will. She wasn’t warrior; she wasn’t human. She was a bounty of power.

“Does this mean I am your natural enemy? Will my head be on the floor of this throne room?” Or will yours , she didn’t add. But every warrior shifted in anticipation of it.

Ritalia sneered. “I shall wake the hunter if you wish.”

“You wake his instincts,” I spat, my anger coiled and ready to strike, “and you say goodbye to whatever reason you wanted me here.”

My threat crept across the room like a slow frost, and Ritalia grinned in return.

“I have no problem leaving your Bounty alive so long as she stays off Vercuella.” Meaning she lost nothing in this arrangement, but she did expose a weakness. Why? “I know of the magic you seek, Revered Alabath.”

There it was.

I didn’t allow myself to blanch. “The magic?”

“That which was left behind, which was locked away but lives in your veins.”

The emblems.

Tolek nearly growled beside me, his heated stare on the door hiding Lancaster from us. He appeared ready to break it down and fight the fae for sharing our secrets, but Ritalia only laughed. “Fear not, my hunter did not break your bargain. If he had, he would be dead upon this marble floor.”

“How do you know, then?” Ophelia asked.

“I will tell you once we are alone,” Ritalia said. “Your court and mine will both leave. I am going to briefly confer with my advisors and guards, but when I return, we will both have our answers.”

“You don’t visit with her alone, Alabath,” Tolek muttered, and Malakai grunted his agreement, but I was ahead of them.

“We will keep an equal number of council,” I stated. “After all, Your Majesty, the strongest rulers know when to listen to others. Isn’t that right?”

Ritalia smiled sweetly at my challenge, but the lines around her lips were tense. “That is wise. We each may keep one.”

I nodded, eyes flashing to Ezalia beside me. As the only other clan ruler, I was prepared to give her the honor of staying, but she shook her head. With a silent but poignant flick of her brows over my shoulder, I knew what she intended.

I turned, finding Tol’s assured chocolate stare already on mine, and relief unwound within me.

“Tolek Vincienzo will act as my Second,” I declared to the queen.

“Lovely,” Ritalia sneered.

As the others left, I tried to catch Rina’s eye. Tried to tell her we’d figure this out, that this Bounty declaration meant nothing if she did not want it to. She’d been powerful enough as a human, she did not need some ancient bloodline if she wished to scorn it.

But Santorina’s stare was set on the antechamber, her emotions entirely closed off.

When the doors closed behind my friends with a bang, I felt further from her than ever.