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

Chapter 23

Chapter Twenty-Three

Tolek

“You’re hiding it well,” Lyria said, leaning against the post beside me as CK climbed into the ring. I didn’t take my eyes off my friend as he stretched, facing the back wall away from his first opponent. A wiry, lean-muscled warrior who bounced quickly on his feet.

“What?”

“It’s killing you that you’re here instead of with Ophelia,” Lyria mumbled. She watched the crowd with disinterest. Playing the part of rich, bored commander who was merely here to collect.

I braced my elbows on the rope. “Not going to deny it. But this is my role.”

I let out a rowdy cheer for Cypherion, and the crowd answered in turn.

“Your role…” Lyria turned the words over as Cypherion and the first fighter began. Over her shoulder, Malakai and Mila slipped away into the shadows.

“We all have a role.” Cypherion took a hit to his ribs, and I grimaced and called out a random insult to the warrior, though I knew CK had allowed that one to sneak by him. “That’s his. And tonight, this is mine.”

Lyria pondered. “What’s mine?”

“What?” I asked, pulling my attention from the ring.

“What’s my role in all of this?” She sipped her drink, a strong liquor that burned even from here.

With a drastic blow, Cypherion had the first warrior down. The crowd erupted, and I used the excuse to shift toward my sister. “Lyria, you’re our commander. You’re the reason we won that war.”

“Everyone—”

“Every general, lieutenant, every damn soldier in that alliance survived because of you. Yes, they all played a pivotal role, but it was your steady direction that kept them there. That helped them all survive. Because you’re a damn good commander.”

CK’s second opponent was already climbing into the ring, the first guy dragged away to recover. The crowd was wilder, now, and Cypherion was a solid wall against them, focus solely on the fight.

“I don’t think I deserved that role,” Lyria admitted.

“You earned it.”

“Did I truly? I had a good team behind me and used Danya’s plans.” Grief twisted her features as she mentioned the former commander.

“Not only did you execute them, but you adjusted where needed. You listened to that team and collected the best ideas for the most favorable outcome. And it worked .”

“It could have been better.”

“That’s our father’s voice in your head, and you know it.”

Lyria shrugged, lifting her chin, and, facing the ring, she maintained that illusion of perfection she’d been bred to embody. “I don’t know what my role is now, though.”

“To be truthful, Ria, I think most of us are figuring it out.” Cypherion nailed his opponent with a fast combination, and the crowd roared. “Beyond Ophelia and CK, who have official titles, the rest of us are adjusting. And I think even they’re treading uncertain ground most days.”

That damn Angellight and how it had stolen from Ophelia and attacked Jezzie today flooded my memory. How fearful it had made her. Ophelia was nearly always determined enough to temper her fear, but when someone she loved was threatened, she cracked.

So, I didn’t tell her the Angellight had not only assaulted Jezebel, but it had consumed Ophelia, transformed her. It had felt different , pouring from her at an uncontrollable rate when the two sisters tried to enact their unknown power together.

Lyria said, stealing my attention, “It feels empty now. I do.”

“What do you mean?”

“Everything. I put so much energy into the war. And when it was over, I looked over that battlefield. Nothing but death looked back, Tolek,” she said, pensive. “Not survival, not the lives we saved. Only death. And I felt responsible for all of it. That knowledge took something from me that day.”

“What do you want to do next?” I asked. She could dwell in the past, but maybe moving forward would help.

“No idea,” Lyria said. She threw back her drink with alarming ease and flashed me a grin. “But I’m happy I can be here with you while I figure it out.”

I smiled back as Cypherion knocked out his second opponent. “I am, too, Ria.”

“I don’t remember him being quite this brutal,” she said as CK wiped a drop of blood from his lip. The only one he’d earned thus far.

“He’s been forced into it,” I agreed. “He’s still as soft as ever on the inside, though. When he wants to be.”

“Vale is a lucky woman,” she muttered.

I barked a laugh. “That she is.”

Lyria took a fresh drink from a passing servant. “I haven’t seen any of these tasks Ophelia has completed, but they sound extreme.”

“They are,” I gritted out. Again, that nagging feeling returned. My hands tightened on the rope.

“She went into this one with an idea of what to expect, though,” Lyria comforted. “More so than any of the others, at least.”

“That’s what’s bothering me,” I said. “Why was this one so easy to figure out?”

Reluctantly, as if afraid to worry me, Lyria suggested, “Perhaps the Spirits aren’t exactly rising to the occasion as expected.”

“Rising…”

And there it was. The translation adjustment that had been nagging at me for days. A rearranging of words—an imperfect match in the common tongue.

“It doesn’t…” My mind whirled, fear turning as icy as Xenique’s damn soul magic. “Ria, I need you to take over for me.”

“What?” she hissed.

“You can do it. Just be as obnoxious as I would,” I encouraged. “This is your role now.”

Lyria assessed me, and whatever she found forged her stare into steel. “Go,” she instructed.

I swept through the crowd, raced up the zig-zagging staircases, and burst out the hidden door into the flower-lined alley. Jumping on my horse, I shot for the catacombs across the city.

Because I had to warn Ophelia. Before it was too late.