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

Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen

Ophelia

“He’s eaten six apples in three minutes!”

I gaped at Jezebel as she held yet another ruby red fruit out to Zanox, which the khrysaor hastily chomped down—core and all.

“He takes after his mother,” my sister cooed, scratching the beast beneath the chin. He nudged her palm, sniffing for more snacks.

Dynaxtar drank lazily from the stream running through the ring of sky-reaching trees and draping vines. Critters jumped about in the high, woven canopy, but fronds cover the path, keeping this tiny clearing isolated from those on foot.

“Shouldn’t we find something more substantial to feed them?” I asked as I ran my hand through Sapphire’s mane and she released a low whinny. “You know, they’re rather large. Surely they can’t survive on fruit alone.”

The emergence of Sapphire as a pegasus altered more than her appearance. She was ravenous most days. As the thought trickled through my head, my hand stilled on my horse, and she huffed in complaint.

Well, revealing she’s secretly a mythological creature didn’t change her attitude .

“They can fend for themselves,” Jezebel answered, tugging me from the thought. “They are rather large, you know.”

I rolled my eyes. “You are observant. Come on, we should get back so you and Erista can finish packing and head out.”

We’d docked a few hours ago, and while the others got settled for our one-night stay at the inn, Jezebel and I set out to find Sapphire and the khrysaor hidden in this jungle-shrouded clearing. They were incredibly smart, so when we told them the town Ezalia had arranged for us to stay in, the creatures knew to find shelter and await our boat.

Zanox and Dynaxtar would get to fly again tonight, and hopefully I could get Sapphire to stretch her wings if we found somewhere private enough.

We took our time doting on the three animals until their coats shone and their supply of apples ran low. Malakai said he’d grab more at the market tonight before we waded deeper into Starsearcher Territory.

As we left, I pressed one last kiss to my pegasus’ nose. Then, we ensured the fronds covered the gaps between the towering trunks and set back down the short walk to the inn. Trees stretched to the sky, the branches high and sweeping, not a maze around the paths as many cypher forests were.

“It’s so dark,” Jez complained. “Why didn’t we bring a lantern?”

“Here,” I said, calling up a strand of Angellight. The gold flared to life, and the magic spiraled up above us. But instead of hovering, it cracked and sparked like a wild creature.

“Why is it doing that?” Jezebel asked. In the shimmering light, her tawny eyes were wide, recollections of our recent flight in the outposts and our colliding magic flashing between us.

“I don’t know,” I gritted out as the light tugged at me from within, pulling up toward something I couldn’t see. “Keep walking.”

I didn’t tell her that it felt wrong. That I couldn’t tell what Angel emblem I was siphoning light from or that it seemed to be searching for something. My breath quickened as we picked up our pace, and I fought to hold control on that malicious strand of magic—it pulled and pulled, stretching?—

“Ophelia!” Jez shrieked at the same moment the golden tendril of light whipped into one of the towering trees.

It collided with the canopy with a riotous boom, a squawk ringing through the leaves, and a sensation like a thousand burnings wings fluttered through my body.

“Pull it back!” Jez screamed, gripping my hand.

“ I’m trying! ” I coiled that burst of gold light that felt so different than my Angel emblem threads back into the vacant heart of my Spirit, wrestled it until it was buried deep down. Until finally, Jez and I were left standing in the still, darkened jungle, nothing but our panting breaths filling the air.

I squeezed my sister’s clammy hand as our hearts calmed. She startled at the touch, saying, “That was?—”

But I never heard what she thought it was, because her words were drowned out by crying squawks.

And in the highest canopy of the jungle, a fire flared to life. It roared up in the branches, spreading out like a pair of wide wings. Then?—

No .

It wasn’t like a pair of wings. It was a pair of wings. A large bird of flaming feathers and tails swooped down, igniting the jungle with its fiery light and heading straight for Jezebel and me.

We dove to opposite sides of the path, the bird cleaving down the middle. I rolled along the dirt, jumping to my feet and pulling Starfire from my hip.

“What is that thing?” Jezebel asked, pulling her sword as well.

I didn’t answer—not because I didn’t know, but because I did not understand how my suspicion could be correct. And right at that moment, the bird of fire charged again, carving a figure eight through the sky and turning back toward me.

I swung Starfire, but the bird coasted on the wind, my blade only sliding through its feathers like they were no more than trails of embers. Its deadly talons swiped low, and as the creature turned around me, it dragged one of those three-inch nails across my shoulder.

“Holy Angels!” I swore at the sting, flooding the injury with Angellight to try to staunch the flow of blood.

“Are you okay?” Jezebel called. She backed toward a tree, the bird circling.

I pressed a hand to my wound. “Fine. But Starfire isn’t doing anything against it.”

“We might need something else!” Jezebel called as she plunged her own sword toward the beast, and it coasted back up on a wind.

“Like what?”

But the air shifted, the vines on the path ahead swaying. And then, Lancaster and Mora shot into view.

“Aoiflyn’s tits!” the male swore at the same time his sister burst, “What fun!”

“Where did you two come from?” I gasped over the pain in my shoulder as the fae sprang into motion.

“We heard you scream from the inn,” Mora explained.

I never thought I’d say it, but thank the Angels for that damn fae hearing.

Jezebel cried out, thrusting her sword again as the bird dove for her. Its sharpened beak snapped wide, clamping down on the blade. With a ragged shake of its head, the bird tossed my sister aside.

“Jez!” I screamed, running for her and keeping pressure on my shoulder. The wound tore further, and blood slipped between my fingers.

I ducked beneath those talons as the bird swooped low again. Lancaster reached out, and where I expected him to summon a weapon using that creation power, he instead grabbed?—

A long chain connected to stone shackles.

Because stone could not burn.

I scrambled to where Jez was hunched over her knees on the ground. “What do you intend to do with those, fae?” I called. “The beast has no wrists!”

“No!” Lancaster growled as he swung the chain. “But it has a neck.”

Mora snapped her fingers and a second bird sprang to life up in the branches. The original beast released another cry, this one filled with longing as it chased its twin up in the canopy. Fuck, we couldn’t fight two. We could barely fight one.

I turned my attention on Jezebel, helping her sit up and lean against a tree. “What hurts?”

“Didn’t catch myself right when I fell.” My sister winced. “Something snapped.”

I smoothed her sweaty hair down, kissing her head. “Get in the tree line.”

Then, I was standing, pulling Starfire again and racing back toward the fight.

“Why the fuck are there two now?” I seethed, skidding to a halt next to Mora.

The female answered, “That’s my doing.”

I whipped my head from her to the second bird above. Mora squinted at it, resting docilely in the tree. “You’re distracting it,” I gasped, and Mora shrugged like it was effortless to glamour some small forest creature into a second massive, flaming bird.

Once again, I wouldn’t admit I was impressed with fae magic.

“What’s your plan?” I asked, deferring to the fae though it was against my better judgment.

“We need to get it low enough to touch,” Lancaster said, and fire reflected in his dark eyes. “I’m trying to drag it down here but it’s repelling my magic. And we don’t have as much control on Gallantia as we do on Vercuella.”

I shuddered to think this was the less controlled version of Lancaster’s magic.

A high whinny pierced the air, and Sapphire came roaring through the trees, white wings flaring gold in the light of the flame. Zanox and Dynaxtar galloped along the path, corralling the rest of us as if in protection. The former quickly broke off into the jungle in the direction of my sister.

The khrysaor were too large to fly between the trees, but Sapphire, with her smaller wingspan, was a match for the bird of flame. She soared above it, driving it down toward Lancaster’s waiting stone shackles.

It wasn’t daring to fly low enough, though. My hand flexed around Starfire, but she was useless against the bird. If I got too close for too long, the heat might melt her blade, and my heart clenched at only the consideration of losing my sword.

But the shard of Angelborn at my neck burned. My weapons were not the only tool at my disposal.

It was reckless. I didn’t know why the magic had reacted so wildly tonight—if it had alerted the bird of our presence or why—but I had to try.

“Sapphire!” I whistled, and my pegasus swooped toward me.

She barely even stopped as I leaped, landing on her back. The wound in my shoulder tore deeper, but I let it bleed. Sapphire wove in and out of the trees to get us nearer to our prey.

“All right, Angels, let’s see what we’ve got.” And carefully, one by one, I called up the five strands of Angellight within me, making certain of to whom each belonged. I looped them together, willing them to unspool into one unbreakable sheet, and circled the bird, forcing it closer to the ground.

I was careful with the magic, not using too much. Not touching the heart where that unnamed source seemed to come from earlier. I didn’t want it sparking and rioting—didn’t want to know what resided in there at all.

But this felt different than that uncontrollable force. The light I wielded now was the soothing magic, cascading through the air like a waterfall of gold, like the most natural thing on Ambrisk. I fed it steadily, warily, and let the power expel into the night.

“More, Mystique!” Lancaster roared after a few minutes.

“I can’t give more,” I hissed, sweat pouring down my skin. The slice to my shoulder stung, but I couldn’t stop to heal it now. “I can only control so much.”

The male gaped up at me. “What do you mean you can’t control your fucking magic?”

“I haven’t been alive and learning it for centuries like some of us ,” I spat, but I tried to feed more Angellight into the air. Since I was holding back to avoid that untamed heart, it wasn’t as potent as usual, but a thin sheen formed around the path, like a bubble containing all the magical beasts within, warrior and fae alike.

It sealed across the jungle path, and together with my pegasus, we forced the phoenix down, down, down. A stray whip of magic tore off from the rest, wild and untethered. It lashed Mora’s glamour as it fell, and the false beast stuttered out, a midnight dove once more.

“ What? ” Mora swore, but I had no answer for how it happened.

The original bird riled when it realized the trick, and I plunged the Angellight deeper around the jungle. Tunneled all of the magic I could into this bubble without losing control of it.

Sapphire’s striking hooves and my light shoved the bird down, and when it danced above Lancaster, the male lunged. He shot into the air with a jump only fae strength could guarantee, and clasped one of the stone shackles around the bird’s neck.

It squawked as it was dragged to the ground, scraping and clawing. Leaving long slashes across Lancaster’s face and singing Mora’s dress with those wings.

Sapphire landed, and I ran toward where Lancaster wrestled the bird. “Let’s take it back,” I said.

But it was too late.

With one final screech that wrenched through my heart, there was a crack, and the bird fell still. And with its silence, the aura of death—the loss of a destructive yet mystical and magnificent creature—settled over the jungle.

“Wh-why did you do that?” I stuttered, voice low as Lancaster stood. The entire right side of his face was covered in blood.

“ What? ” he seethed.

“Why did you kill it?” I couldn’t explain it, but despite the fact that the beast had attacked us, the loss echoed along my bones.

“Because that thing should not be alive!”

“What?” I gasped, a hole widening in my heart.

“It needed to die,” he emphasized with a wave at all of us, at the wounds still bleeding.

Zanox came galloping through the trees, Jezebel atop his back. “You killed it?”

“Enough!” Lancaster shouted, wiping blood from his eyes. The gashes across his cheek were deep. “We will discuss it back inside.”

Then, he stormed through the trees, a silent assertion that if we wanted answers—and a healer—we had no choice but to follow. My ire ignited at the fae commanding us.

Jezebel and I solemnly returned Sapphire and the khrysaor to their hiding spot.

“Sometimes our people are locked to our tempestuous habits, though we’d rather not be,” Mora muttered in an explanation I didn’t understand as we traipsed back down the jungle path. “Come along. Tolek didn’t hear you guys, and we didn’t tell him where we were going when we left. He’s probably worried we escaped to attack a nearby human settlement.”

She rolled her eyes, but her attention drifted back to the clearing once again hidden by oversized fronds and sweeping vines. And a crease formed between her brows, dimming her immortal beauty in a moment of uncertainty.