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

Chapter 41

Chapter Forty-One

Ophelia

Zanox roared something fierce as Sapphire looped around him.

“Competitive?” I tossed over my shoulder at Jezebel.

She leaned forward and stroked her khrysaor’s neck, her voice carrying on the wind. “He’s a big baby.”

In response, Zanox bucked. Not enough to actually dismount Jezebel—that creature would dive in front of flaming arrows before he let harm come to my sister—but she did pop off his back, airborne and laughing for a moment.

Sapphire sped ahead. As I peered back at them, the khrysaor’s wings beat among the wisps of clouds stretching into the sky high above Soulguider Territory. Dynaxtar soared peacefully to his left, carrying Erista.

My heart inflated, a bubble of bliss expanding between my ribs. I curled my fingers tighter into Sapphire’s mane and released a wild laugh to the stars.

After everything in the catacombs and the rescue—everything with Damien’s odd dream visit— this was what I needed. To feel unbridled, unbroken, lost among the clouds with my myth-born warrior horse.

“Cypherion and Malakai said we need saddles,” I called to Jez as Sapphire swooped around Zanox again.

“No thank you!” From the lift in her voice, it was clear she shared that utterly freeing and intrinsically right feeling spreading throughout my body. Erista whooped in agreement, the sound trailing along the clouds. Sapphire shook her head as if to agree she wouldn’t be saddled again.

“That’s what I said.” I laughed. “Tolek told him there wasn’t a chance we’d agree.” Not when the heart of these creatures was freedom after being contained for so many years.

“Knowing Cypherion, he’ll find a way to create them regardless,” Jezebel said.

She was likely right. “Tol gets it because he’s flown with me. Cypherion and Malakai only see the dangers.”

“It’s something you don’t understand until you’re a part of it,” Erista said wistfully, in a way that made me wonder if she wanted to be a part of it—a khrysaor rider as the girl she loved was.

“Your friends are rather overprotective, sister.”

My next laugh echoed through the heavens. “I don’t think I’m allowed to say that.”

Jez did have a point. The boys were a mix of curious and cautious when it came to us flying. Tolek less so, understanding that Sapphire and the khrysaor would never let us get hurt. Still, they bickered over it.

And it warmed my heart each time.

“Landing soon?” Jezzie called to me.

“A little longer?”

She nudged Zanox so he circled high above the earth, carving a path back through the clouded skies with his razor-tipped wings.

Dynaxtar found a burst of speed at the end of the flight, her clawed feet digging into the sand as she landed first, sending it spraying up around those midnight-black scales I would have thought would be retracted with only us around.

Sapphire had been unsettled since we left Valyn, too. As her wings tucked in, I searched the dunes and cyphers, but the low, sloping mountains of Soulguider Territory appeared empty for miles.

We were at the edge of the expansive Lendelli Hills that stretched across a central section of the clan’s domain, nothing but desert until you hit the town a mile east, but no stragglers from the market or nomadic parties dotted the sands.

Still, I remained on guard as I dismounted Sapphire, keeping my weapons close.

“That’s my girl. Both of them,” Jezebel cheered as she slid from Zanox’s back and raced to her other khrysaor, helping Erista down and kissing her with all the exhilaration of the flight.

I turned my back, giving them a moment of privacy. Angels, I was so happy Jez had her. When we began the hunt for the emblems, there’d been strife between them. A debate of loyalty versus love.

Jezebel had always been a force, like a well of power was packed in her bones, but those weeks Erista was gone had taken something from her. Dimmed a light only love could restore.

Now, she’d become an even stronger version of herself, bolstered and encouraged by her partner’s wild spirit and curious nature. She was scared of the magic within her—unsure what it did still—but her confidence shone with Erista’s support at her back, and it was a sight I’d never tire of seeing.

“Come on, girl,” I whispered to Sapphire, running a hand across her downy-soft wings.

We led the way into the series of caves Sapphire and the khrysaor would hide in while we were here, ensuring the curtain of brush was secured across the entrance. Our steps were muffled by soft sand that turned to stone as we crept deeper into the tunnel, finally rounding a bend into a wide-open pocket set beneath a high, domed ceiling.

Sapphire and the khrysaor immediately strode to the shallow pool in the center, dipping their heads to drink. Thin streams trailed off, leading deeper into the caves.

Between the height of the tunnels and the fresh water source, it was the perfect spot for the creatures to hide out. Almost as if this Soulguider land was meant to stash secrets.

An ache went through my heart as Sapphire crossed back to me, wishing for the day she wouldn’t have to be hidden. When we had explanations to the myths. It ebbed from her, as well—the need to be free, though she understood why she wasn’t yet. Why none of us were, truly.

Sapphire and I had always been connected at a soul-deep level, our spirits entwined by the ether, but ever since she sprouted those beautiful wings, something between us had shifted. It was like a latch hovering over its lock, needing a final nudge to seal it.

An extension of myself, that’s what I’d always thought my horse had been. I’d assumed that’s what everyone’s relationship with their warrior horse was. But perhaps we were more, written in the fel strella mythos —though we were still figuring out exactly what that meant.

We sat along the bank of the pool, Sapphire’s wing draped beside me and my fingers gently stroking her feathers.

“Do you think there are more out there?” Jezebel turned to me at my question. “More like us? With these…connections? More of the pegasus and khrysaor?”

Jezebel was silent for a moment, watching as Zanox and Dynaxtar took up guard positions near the entrance to the cavern, folding their wings in and settling down for the night. “I don’t know.”

As she admitted it, for the briefest flash of time, we could have been back in our manor in Palerman, exchanging secrets beneath the covers. Like we were sketching our warrior leathers by the light of a Mystique lantern well after our parents told us to go to bed. Like we were innocent young girls again, wondering about the secrets held in the future’s palm.

I gazed up at Sapphire. Were there more pegasus out there, waiting to spread their wings? More phoenixes? How did we find them?

The shift in my warrior horse’s countenance since her wings emerged was impossible to ignore. Like she claimed some stifled destiny. Stretching my arm up to weave my fingers through her mane, I swore I’d find them, too.

“So,” Jez began, and from the way Erista rolled her eyes at the too-casual tone of her voice, I knew I wouldn’t like what she asked next, “do you want to work with our magic?”

I stared out over the pool. “Now?”

Ever persistent, Jezebel crawled into my line of sight. “We know what happened in the catacombs. How it became…destructive and burnt those corpses to their bones.”

“ Fucking Vincienzo ,” I simmered. I’d given Jezebel the overview—told everyone what they needed to know. Apparently, based on the concern widening her tawny eyes, Tol told her how scared it made me. “He should keep his mouth shut.”

“He won’t ever do that where your safety is involved,” she retorted.

I gave her an admonishing glare. “My safety is not the issue here.” It was everyone else’s.

“We don’t know that, Ophelia,” Erista said softly. Dammit she was always hard to argue with, her words coming across as understanding and empathetic no matter how little she said. A part of me wondered what her Soulguider magic derived of the future that she couldn’t share and how it shaped her opinions.

Jezebel placed a hand on my arm, asking, “Are you scared because of what happened at the inn? With me?”

Had Sapphire stepped closer to me, too? Her wing cocooned us from the world, forcing me to talk to my sister. I glared up at my pegasus.

And though it twisted my insides, as I met those crystal blue eyes, I admitted, “Yes.”

“Ophelia,” she began.

I cut her off. “It singed those corpses to ash. What if that had been you ?” I shook my head. “I don’t ever want to use it again if I don’t have to.”

“None of that was your fault.”

“That’s even worse!” I pushed to my feet. “That means I can’t control it.”

“It means you need to train it,” Jez said, following me. Erista remained on the bank, allowing us to argue. “We both do. And I know it’s scary, but I don’t think running is our answer.”

It wasn’t. I’d never been one to run from power. But this wasn’t a title or a sword, this was beyond any conceivable realm. Any territory we’d encountered.

It was another seed planted within me that I was afraid was only there to use me.

“You’ve been spirit-speaking for years, though, Jez. You have a familiarity I’m still learning.”

Her eyes widened as she nodded, as if that was the point. “Then let’s learn.”

“Why don’t you?” I threw at her.

“My magic requires death, Ophelia!”

“And mine seems to cause it!”

“Not always,” she challenged. “There are two sides to all of it. A balance.” As she said it, she called up the silver-blue light. It pulsed around her for a moment, seemingly useless, and faded back into her frame.

“How am I even supposed to train Angellight?” I sighed, throwing my arms out. “There are no Angels here. They abandoned us. They abandoned me .” The back of my eyes stung, and I didn’t fight it. The caving in of my chest, the jilted hurt, seared my words. “They cast the curse and then they left me to fight it. To figure out what the fuck I’m supposed to do.”

“Figure it out!” she yelled. “Damien said to use the Angellight.”

“No,” I growled.

“Do it.” She took a step forward, and something buzzed beneath my skin.

“ No ,” I asserted with the command of the Revered, but it was pushing, pushing .

“Jez…” Erista said softly.

But Jezebel wouldn’t be deterred. “Unless you’re truly so sacred of it, do it! Unless you’re scared of what the Angels may do and want to hide instead!”

My armor was cracking, power ebbing closer to the surface.

I wasn’t. I wasn’t one to hide. I wasn’t one to run. And as those truths settled into me, I screamed.

And light burst from my skin. Searing and all-consuming. Uplifting but not devouring.

This . This was the Angellight from the battle against Kakias, the pulling of different hollows of my spirit, each tethered to a thread of magic in the emblems. The euphoria, the fulfillment, it all flooded me.

Gold light filled the cave and pulsed against my skin, begging me to use it.

A fearful thought broke through: I don’t know how .

It is in your blood , a voice echoed—a voice I knew, but I couldn’t place. Not in this haze of burning.

Searing .

It didn’t singe the brush. Didn’t melt the sand. If anything, it seemed to feed life deeper into the earth. To restore weeds withered in the cave corners and crystalize the soft grains beneath my boots.

Even the khrysaor and Sapphire looked curiously at it, neither attracted or repelled. And Jezebel?—

Jez had erected a precautionary silver-blue shield before herself and Erista. But unlike in the inn, this light didn’t hunger for hers.

As our eyes locked, she dropped that wall, a ring of charred earth left where it had been.

And still, my Angellight did not harm her. It didn’t lunge, didn’t lock around her throat. Did nothing but slowly, curiously, slip across her skin with affectionate licks of greeting.

“How does it feel?” Erista asked, eyeing the gold shimmering up Jezebel’s arm.

I tugged at Damien’s thread, warmth gathering in my chest. “It feels how it used to. The safe version.”

“Can you do anything with it?”

With another pull on Damien’s string, I sent it shooting toward my pack. It dug within, spilling the five emblems across sand that glowed like diamonds.

The gold light wafted the emblems to me as if on a breeze. I crouched down, running my fingers over each, luxuriating in the distinct presence of each connection.

It was the newest one, though—Valyrie’s heart—whose pulse beat the loudest. I scooped up the carving and felt into the shrinking hollows of my spirit.

“There,” I muttered. A bead of power swirled like the depths of the cosmos, unspooling within me. It stretched out, longing to meld with its five counterparts.

I latched on to it and pulled, feeding that source into the power within the emblem. It fueled me in turn.

Until a might like the stars flooded the cave, darkness and silver stars shimmering through my Angellight in a canopy across the rocky ceiling.

“That’s Valyrie,” Erista gasped, constellations reflected across her awed face.

“It is,” I agreed.

An instinct screamed in my bones, wanting to be united with this emblem as it had the others.

My gaze flashed between the fated lovers in my palm and the magic painting the ceiling. Then, I took my dagger from my thigh. With a prick to my finger, I smeared a streak of crimson across Valyrie’s heart.

And her magic reared up, shooting stars and trails of white fire among those cosmos. Jezebel released a laugh, and I tugged on the other threads of light. Gaveny’s turquoise-tinted tides and Ptholenix’s burning fire frolicked with the constellations, the colors of Angellight tangling in the air. Thorn’s silver storms rioted through them, and Damien’s and Bant’s brute forces cracked like lightning strikes.

Together, they forged a new world around us. The crystallized grains of sand rose into the air, swarming among the light, shadows painting them deep maroons.

And through me, that empowering sensation I’d come to associate with Angellight flooded. It burned and ignited all my deepest hollows, restoring my magic.

Light looped around the cave, dancing among the khrysaor’s and pegasus’ wings. Carefully, I separated the six distinct magics so each Angel’s hovered above us, six ancient sources. Then, I allowed them to melt back together.

“Look at how you’re controlling it,” Jez encouraged.

And as precisely as I had been toying with the magic, I recoiled that mass of power back into me, like a snapping of a band against my spirit. I stopped burning, and the world fell into stillness again.

Jezebel opened her mouth, but Erista gasped. “Come on!” she demanded, racing to the mouth of the cave.

We followed, a swell of noise mounting.

“What is it?” Jezebel asked.

But as soon as we parted the brush curtain, I knew. Far in the distance, away from the city, in a haze of burning ruby reds and deep violets, a sand storm swirled high above the desert.

“The Rites of Dusk,” I gasped. Swarms of Soulguiders danced among the dunes in the ritual.

“How does it work?” I asked Erista.

“The sands are blessed by Artale,” she explained. “It’s how we connect to her, though we revere the Angel more. The Goddess of Death’s magic laces the land, and when it’s stirred up, it pools in the air, like it’s being set free. As it falls on you and you say the ritual words, perform the acts, your own Soulguider magic is replenished.”

“How often do you have to take part?” Jezebel asked, likely counting the last time Erista had.

“Not frequently, once a year is typically enough. The Rites have been occurring more lately, though. In various places across the desert, mainly near major cities.” Perhaps the increasing warrior populations caused that. “They used to only be a few times per year, and timed fairly evenly. Now they’re sporadic.”

Sapphire brushed a wing over my shoulder, and I glanced down at the still-burning emblems in my hand, then back at the swirling Rite.

As Jezebel and Erista continued discussing the ritual, I recalled the magic unspooling across Ambrisk. Unusual temperatures and riled creatures.

And my skin chilled at the idea that it may all be connected.