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

Chapter 35

Chapter Thirty-Five

Tolek

“Watch duty?” Lyria said, hopping up on the porch railing beside me as I nodded.

“Told Ophelia to get some sleep.” She probably wouldn’t until I switched shifts, but it was worth a try.

The door to the inn swung shut, Lancaster and Rina’s low bickering wafting out. “They’re getting along well,” I deadpanned.

“As best as we can hope,” Lyria said with a shrug. “I don’t know what to make of the fae.”

I blew out a breath. “Me neither. They appear to be trying to help.” Especially tonight, in the catacombs. They’d risked their lives. How much of that was only because their queen commanded it, though?

I yawned loudly as I considered it, and my sister guffawed at my theatrics.

“Go get some sleep, Tolek,” Lyria said when I failed to stifle yet another yawn.

“I’m fine,” I argued.

She leveled me a stare that reminded me of our mother.

“Angels, you look exactly like her when you do that. Ready to reprimand me for coming home with the knees of my pants torn once again or dirt smeared across a fresh tunic.”

Lyria stifled a laugh. “She did hate having to patch up our clothes.”

“You mean having to cart them to the seamstress,” I corrected.

“That walk was long,” Lyria countered. “She made me do it for her sometimes, once the triplets started adding clothing to the pile on top of ours, and we were all growing so rapidly.”

Even when it had only been Lyria and me, though, Mother never did her own sewing. Certainly not when three more children added to the family.

When I was little, a part of me hated that. Wished I had a mother like Ophelia or Malakai, who stayed up late to ensure those little things were done for us. But every time I thought that, I’d remember I was lucky to have a mother at all after my birth, and guilt replaced the longing.

Now, with distance, I didn’t care what kind of chores she’d done, only wished she’d been a bit more attentive overall. The rest didn’t truly matter.

“I’m only saying, you could have avoided the walk if she did it herself or taught us,” I joked with a yawn, running my hand through my already-messy hair.

Lyria eyed the strands standing on end and shook her head. “Go to bed, baby brother. I’ll take over the watch.”

“You’re not tired?”

“I didn’t have quite as thrilling a night as the rest of you,” she reminded me.

I quirked a brow. “You didn’t enjoy the fighting den?”

“Oh, I had a wonderful time,” she corrected. “Won quite a lot of money and watched men get jealous for it. But it wasn’t the same as battling risen corpses or getting to slay that cocksucker of a chancellor.”

I laughed at the description of Titus. “That is true.” But remembering our conversation in the rings, my tone sobered. “I know you probably would have preferred to be in the thick of the fight”—she had earned the title Master of Weapons and Warfare, after all—“but thank you. Not many of us could have commanded attention as a spectator in the den, and if you hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have made it to the catacombs in time.”

I didn’t even want to consider what that could have meant. Seeing Ophelia on her back, that corpse baring down on her, had been haunting me all night.

Lyria seemed to swell with pride at the comment—only slightly. But it was there. And it brightened my spirit to see.

“You’re welcome,” she said thoughtfully. I didn’t know what considerations were running through her head after my gratitude, but from the way she stared out over the vineyards, it was something heavy.

With a quiet goodnight and a kiss to her cheek, I left my sister to contemplate under the watch of the stars.

“I’m heading to bed,” I said to Santorina and Lancaster. The two stewed in tense silence as Rina continued to carefully pluck cypher splinters from his wound.

“Goodnight, Tolek,” she said.

Lancaster only grunted, “Warrior.”

I shook my head, fighting a laugh as I climbed the stairs to the bedrooms. Exhaustion pulled at me as I neared the door thinking of everything that had happened tonight. The catacombs and the manor, the words I’d vowed in the rainstorm.

I’d meant every one, would lay my life down for them.

Ophelia and I swore we would scorch the Angels, and as if in answer, the very air burned as I crossed the hall to our room. An inferno hot against my skin, like an iron fresh out of the forge.

Like I was being held directly to those fiery coals, and?—

“Alabath?” I called, throwing open the door and racing into the room.

There she was—asleep, twitching with pained whimpers atop sheets sticky with sweat.

“ Ophelia ?” I pulled her to me, her skin burning worse than the Spirit Volcano. Hot enough to blister my hands, but I turned her face toward me. “Wake up, apeagna .”

In the moonlight slipping through the inn’s curtains, blue-tinged lips parted on small, gasping breaths. Her eyes flickered beneath pale lids, brows pulling together.

My chest caved in, my own breathing desperate as it sawed through my throat.

The heat seared, and Angellight shimmered across her skin, like it was seeking a way out. But whatever had its claws in her had the iron will of eternity.