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

Chapter 49

Chapter Forty-Nine

Tolek

“Cheap shot!” I called as Cypherion knocked my sword to the sand.

“ How ?” he barked back.

“You distracted me with frilly moves.”

Malakai laughed from where he watched. “I think that’s strategy. It’s one of your primary means of fighting, Tolek.”

“Yes,” I called, sheathing my sword and unbuckling my vambrace to stretch my wrist, “and it’s more fun when I’m the one using it against you two.”

I met Malakai on the sidelines and uncapped my canteen as we rested for a moment. It was early, so we’d come out back to spar in the clearing behind the Lendelli inn. We should have gone further away to stifle the noise, but none of us wanted to be too far while everyone slept.

Not that we should need a guard in Soulguider Territory—they were our allies—but with everything stacked against us lately and how the pleasure house ended, it unwound a knot in my gut to stay close.

“So, who’s going to explain what happened last night?” CK asked, taking a long sip from his canteen.

Malakai and I exchanged a look, both waiting for the other to continue.

I sighed, cracking first, and explained the cryptic hint the Storyteller shared about the Soulguider emblem and that she was someone both Ophelia and I had seen before. “That’s not even half of it,” I added. “Aimee told Ophelia some interesting things about where she and Jezebel ended up during the battle. About different realms and bridges between them and the fel strella mythos .”

I recounted the details quickly, and when I was done, Cypherion crossed his arms. “You think Ophelia and Jezebel are these sisters from the myth, somehow returned again?”

“I don’t know if I believe in all that.” I shook my head. “Perhaps it’s a continuation of the story.”

“It would make sense why the pegasus and khrysaor flocked to them,” CK reasoned.

“I don’t like any of it,” Malakai said.

“I’m not sure I do either.” I loved that Sapphire had this newfound power and that Jezebel had her khrysaor, but fear wrapped around my chest at what it meant.

“It’s a lot more intense than what I learned,” Mali added. Cyph and I gave him a look with raised brows. “After I was done beating up a man who deigned to touch Mila?—”

“ What? ” Cyph sneered.

Malakai grumbled, “That fucker is lucky all I did was hit him.”

I looked to his wrapped knuckles. “Good job.”

Malakai nodded. “After that, we found a Storyteller, but she knew nothing of the Angelcurse.”

“How is that possible? Aimee knew,” I said. “She didn’t reveal much about it, but she’d heard of it. Enough to tell us to go where all dead and riddled secrets lie .”

A confused silence settled over us, the call of desert birds cracking the morning air.

“I also asked about Lucidius,” Malakai offered.

Cyph and I exchanged a glance. “And?” he asked.

“And she confirmed Lucidius knew about the magic the Angels left behind—likely from Kakias herself—but she couldn’t tell me why or what he wanted them for.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because Lucidius never told anyone, and she can only deal in concrete historical fact.” Bitterness twisted his words.

There was clearly more he wasn’t saying—little details that rattled him. Last night had done a number on all of us. When we returned, Jezebel was still trembling from…whatever had happened.

It was all cryptic. Truthfully, it felt like a pile of lies.

“Did Lyria say anything when you guys met in the pleasure house?” I asked Malakai.

“Like what?” he asked, wiping a cloth over his face.

“She was quiet on the walk home.” It wasn’t entirely unusual lately, but there had been a haunted look in her eye.

Malakai rubbed the back of his neck. “She was jumpy. Mila was worried about her, too.”

I nodded, re-buckling my vambrace. Something had shaken my sister, Jezebel had possibly killed someone, Rina had felt followed, and we received a pile of confusing information from the Storytellers. Excellent.

At least we had a hint for the emblems. For right now, that needed to be our priority.

Or…in a few hours, once we all worked off a bit more frustration.

“Let’s go again,” I said, pulling my sword.

Malakai shook his head, laughing. “Accept the defeat, Tolek.”

“He’s always been a horrible loser,” Cypherion mocked.

“That’s because he rarely loses to anyone but me.” Ophelia’s taunt rained out from the porch. Based on the still-disheveled state of her hair, she’d only just woken and tugged on her leathers.

When we all retreated to our rooms last night, a nagging feeling had kept me up. It was obvious from her ranting of hypothetical scenarios about Jezebel’s magic and the fel strella mythos that she felt it, too. Now, when she flashed me a challenging grin and braced her hands on the railing, I raised my brows and returned it. “Care to put that claim to the test?”

Come on, Alabath . Play with me.

Ophelia examined the short sword strapped to her waist, her leathers looking as flawless as ever on her toned body. “You’re in the mood to be embarrassed?”

“I’m in the mood to win,” I corrected.

“Then you should keep fighting these two,” she said, waving a hand at Malakai and Cypherion, who both retorted in offense.

“I don’t know, Alabath. You haven’t been training with swords as frequently lately.” With the constant travel, we’d all had less time to work out. Ophelia and Jezebel spent most of their time experimenting with magic, only joining us for short circuits and sparring sessions.

Ophelia scoffed. “Let’s do this, then.” She descended the stairs, her sword drawn in a breath.

Meeting her in the center of the sandy clearing, I set my stance. We’d been here before, she and I. Had stood blade to blade to practice or teach or burn off excessive energy—especially that last one. Something about the way my muscles fell into that perfect position, ready to catch her first attack, was even more natural than our usual drills. With Ophelia, everything was a little more natural.

She struck first, surprising me. She didn’t usually lunge like that.

I met her blow, our blades clanging a few times before she dodged to the right, spinning behind me. I whirled to meet her, catching her next strike with my vambrace.

“Close one,” she taunted.

“You’re quick.”

“Always have been.”

I shook my head as I met another blow, swords vibrating between us. “Quicker than you used to be.”

I’d fought Ophelia my entire life. Her style was practically ingrained in my own muscle memory. Something had changed, though. Almost so minutely, it could have gone unnoticed, but every move had been smoothed out. Every attack a breath quicker. Angels, if she wasn’t entrancing.

Sweat beaded along my skin as she nearly beat me time and time again.

“You’re holding up well, Vincienzo,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Been training harder,” I said. In the spare hours when she was with Sapphire, I trained. In the down time when I couldn’t find it in me to rest or read, I prepared this way. We’d had too many damn close calls. I’d do everything in my power to avoid another.

Memories of the Fytar Trench—of Ophelia screaming in pain as Kakias’s power ate at her—flashed through my mind, followed quickly by Ricordan’s manor, and how Ophelia had gone to whatever fucking bridge in her mind.

And I’d been so…helpless.

My attacks sped up with each image. I sliced my sword through the air, meeting Ophelia’s. Channeled all the fear and rage those moments ignited within me into this fight.

Ophelia’s eyes widened as I nearly snuck by her defense, the magenta glowing with something akin to fire?—

No. Not fire. Angellight .

The very essence of the immortal bastards scorched through her stare, laced every sweep of her sword. It burned away the shadows claiming my memories, seared right down to my very soul.

There she fucking is. My heart beat in a way that I swore mirrored hers, some kind of melody.

And every time our swords met, it was another spark between us. Another word written in the silent poetry we wove, only her and me able to read it.

Finally, she got that deadly tip of Starfire beneath my chin. I breathed heavily, grinning down at her.

“I yield,” I purred. She dropped her weapon, but before she could step back, my hand snaked around her waist. Our sweat-drenched skin pressed together as I pulled her to me and kissed her desperately.

I didn’t really care who won, only that we shared the impassioned fire burning between us and the steel of our blades was forging new vows to the cursed stars.

“Want to go again?” Ophelia panted.

“Absolutely,” I said with a smirk, stepping back. And that time, as we sparred, laughter barreled between us.

We fought—unfairly on some part, like when I gripped her by the waist and tossed her over my shoulder—and Malakai and Cypherion trained beside us. Santorina joined, and the five of us took turns, forming a tournament of sorts.

Soon, Mila and Lyria came outside, and I watched my sister closely for any hints of shadows from last night. She seemed unusually chipper, and I couldn’t tell if it was forced.

Jezebel and Erista added to the rotation, the former having recovered a bit from last night, but she and Ophelia both seemed to want to use steel instead of magic today. Neither seemed ready to talk about whatever Aimee had implied.

The Engrossians and even the fae lined up to join. We started our roster over, pairing up to battle throughout the rest of the morning. The only one missing was Vale, who CK said was testing her new supplies inside.

Maybe we should have been on the move again. After last night, we should have been refocusing everything on finding the final emblem. On figuring out whatever where all dead and riddled secrets lie meant, along with all the other information Aimee revealed and what happened with Jezebel’s magic, but we needed this reprieve. This chance to breathe because we were only a group of young warriors and the Angels had dealt us a damn unfair hand lately.

So even if it was only a few hours, we allowed swords to clash, taunts to be thrown, bets to be made, and for a little while, in those hours behind an inn in the Lendelli Hills, everything didn’t feel so damn threatening.

“Lyria wins!” Mila called.

“You’re a biased judge,” I cursed.

“You’re a sore loser, baby brother,” Lyria mocked.

My jaw dropped open. “Such unsportsmanlike words.”

“I assure you, I could have said much worse. Do you not recall the things you heard shouted across the war camp a few months back?”

I certainly did remember, and I certainly laughed about them, too. “But you are the Master of Weapons and Warfare,” I teased.

“Then it’s only fitting that I have the best insults, no?” She lifted her sword, pointing it at me in a mock threat. “Would you like to hear some of my favorites?”

I knocked aside her blade with my own. “I’ll allow you to throw the more colorful language at your other opponents. It wouldn’t be brotherly of me to respond, and you know I can’t resist a challenge.”

“A wise choice.” Lyria grinned and flounced to the side of the makeshift sparring ring beside Mila. It was the happiest I’d heard her sound in a while, so I didn’t argue the ruling, instead traipsing to where Ophelia sat beneath a cypher.

“Resting?” I asked, dropping down next to her. The sweeping branches stretched all the way to the sand, some of the only trees able to persist the desert.

She flashed me a welcoming smile, eyes drifting over our still-sparring friends and the trees dotting the perimeter. “It’s pretty hot,” she said. Her eyes narrowed on Lancaster and Mora, sitting on the outskirts of the circle opposite us.

“True. What are you doing there?” I nodded to where she was using her dagger to whittle a branch fallen from a cypher into a lethal point.

She searched the trees again. “I wanted to keep my hands busy while I watched.”

That meant she was agitated. Not at us or she would burst with it, but at something . Likely the influx of information from the Storyteller.

Ophelia tilted her head, studying the carving, then scanning the sparring ring. “Rina?” she called.

Santorina jogged over, wiping sweat from her brow. “Yes?”

“That was a good disarming of Celissia.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re dropping your left elbow a bit. Watch out for that,” Ophelia said, and Rina nodded. As she turned to go, Ophelia added, “If you’d gotten that last jab through her defenses, and it went through her shoulder, would that be a killing blow?”

Rina’s brows tugged together. “I would have pulled it.”

“I know,” Ophelia said confidently. “But I’m not as skilled at healing as you are. Would it have been?”

“Not here, with the trained healers. But during a battle? With dirt and grime getting in the wound? Sure.”

“Interesting,” Ophelia considered.

Rina and I exchanged a curious glance, but I shrugged and she walked away.

“What was that about?” I asked once it was only Ophelia and me again. She looked at me, biting her lip, and my eyes dropped to the cypher stake in her hands again. “Alabath?”

Instead of answering, she pressed the hand holding her dagger to my chest and kissed me. And Angels, if that didn’t make me forget everything I was going to ask her. She moved closer, fingers curling into my leathers, and I swore something akin to Angellight sparked between us.

When she pulled away, cheeks beautifully flushed, I took a deep breath and tried to focus.

Leaning back on my hands, I lifted my eyes to the trees and waited for Ophelia to answer the questions I could barely remember. When she didn’t, I tried another distraction. “I’d never thought about why the cyphers are able to grow throughout the continent when others can’t.”

She tilted her head, studying the willowing branches. “What do you mean?”

“Why do the oaks and pines only grow in certain regions, yet the cyphers are in every territory?”

“Because of the magic within them, I suppose. How they pump the ether of the mountains into the rest of the world as conduits.” She brushed a hand along one draping limb, leaves returning from the winter and a few buds sprouting. “Perhaps since they contain an extra defense against the fae, they’re able to weather all terrains?”

I nodded. “All good explanations. I never thought it was odd until recently.”

“Sometimes we forget to question what we’re told is normal.”

Her voice was so fucking heavy when she said it, dipping with a weight I wanted to wipe from her shoulders, from the planet. Ophelia had been forging ahead for so long now, taking everything the Angels threw at us with only minor tremors to her facade.

And I was the only one she truly let see them.

As she watched our friends laugh and spar today, I watched her . And while the infectious energy in the air made her smile, the pressure it was adding was evident. It swam beneath the surface, wormed its way into the small cracks in that mask.

To protect them. To find the solutions. To end this but have us all standing on the other side.

And the part that twisted me up the most about that? I didn’t have the answers. I didn’t know what to do to make her feel better. Whatever the fuck it was, I’d do it. Cut up my own arm and bleed across those emblems in her stead if it would provide some sort of clarity for whatever the fuck we were doing.

Sighing, I scooted closer to her, throwing an arm around her shoulder and kissing her temple. “I love you, apeagna ,” I whispered. “Infinitely. You know that, right?”

She blinked up at me. “More than anything.”

“And we’re going to figure this out. We’re going to find the answers about…” I blew out a breath. The pegasus, Jezebel’s and her magic, the Storyteller’s revelations, the emblems…there were so many obstacles competing for our attention. “About all of it. I promise.”

With a sigh that seemed to curve her entire frame, Ophelia hugged her knees to her chest. “I love you, too, Vincienzo.” Based on the way her voice seemed a bit freer, it wasn’t fear that sank through her bones. It might have been relief. Like that reminder had been enough to make her feel invincible once again. “Let’s take today to enjoy, though.”

“If you insist.”

And with that, I wrapped my hand around the back of her neck, tilting her chin up with my thumb, and kissed her more roughly than before. Damn everyone in his clearing; I didn’t care what they saw.

I slipped my tongue against hers and coaxed one of my favorite little moans from her throat, devouring her as I wanted to every damn time she was near me.

Only when she was absolutely breathless did I pull back and rest my forehead against hers. “We’re going to scorch the Angels, Alabath. Remember that.”

A vicious, beaming smile and dazed magenta eyes that only tempted me to do wicked things in her honor looked back at me. “Infinitely, Vincienzo.”

A throat cleared daintily beside us. Ophelia looked up, but I kept my eyes locked on her.

“Vale?” she asked.

“Please don’t stop on my account,” the Starsearcher joked, sounding a bit more like her old self.

Cypherion echoed, “They can stop. They do it enough to get by with a break.”

I flipped him off for that one, still looking at Ophelia, but based on the gentle grunt, Vale elbowed him.

Ophelia laughed. “What is it, Vale?”

“When you’re done, I have an idea.”

“Oh?” That mischievous smile was back on Ophelia’s lips.

I finally looked up to see Vale matched it, and Cypherion instantly appeared exasperated. “I’m ready to read the gods.”