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

Chapter 61

Chapter Sixty-One

Malakai

The water washed the stickiness of Mila’s blood from my hands with each stroke, and a part of me hated it. A part of me wanted, needed, to feel that on me and remember nothing down here mattered with her waiting for me. For all of those tomorrows we hadn’t yet gotten.

The tide was pressing down on me, the song swirling louder as if in protest to my thoughts.

So, I did what was like carving out my own heart.

I shut it out.

Shut out the image of Mila’s blood and her shallow breathing.

Shut out the dead weight of her body as I heaved her from the water and how her limbs had flopped to the marble. The crimson-soaked, platinum hair sticking to her face.

I locked it all deep within me and kept swimming toward the heart of that song. Down, down, down I went, trying not to worry about how long the air in my lungs would last.

My chest was getting fucking tight already. Maybe if I’d completed the Undertaking, I’d have an advantage in strength and stamina.

But I was a stubborn fucker who couldn’t do it.

And I was too far down now to turn back. I had to trust in the fucking Angels, as everyone else insisted.

I counted my strokes as the music mounted around me and the marble gave way to rocky walls. I was beneath ground now, in the bowels of Gallantia, where magic ran thickest.

Finally, as the tightness in my chest was nearly unbearable, a chamber opened where the wall met the floor. The song called me to it, and when I swam in and up, my head burst above the water.

The music cut off immediately, a haunting silence hanging in its place. I made for the ledge and hauled myself from the water, rolling onto my back. With my arms splayed against the warm rock, I steadied my panting, counting the cracks in the cave’s ceiling.

Ten—that was all I allowed.

Then, I forced myself to my feet, crouching in the low-ceilinged alcove. This definitely would have been easier for Ophelia. Ascended warrior, Angellight power, and all that, but also nearly a foot shorter than me.

Pressing my hand to the ceiling to keep track of where it sloped downward, I crept toward the bend in the cave. The water sloshed against the bank, lapping at my ankles and making the rock pretty damn slippery.

I approached the turn slowly, my heart racing as I peeked around it, but?—

“A dead end?” My low words echoed.

I took a few more steps around the corner. There was only a small half-circle of rocky space, but sitting on the bank, cradled in an aged bronze stand that appeared to have been waiting there for thousands of years, sat a sparkling, moon white orb.

There was nothing else. No defenses, no humming power. Looking cautiously around the space, I nudged the shimmering ball with my foot.

Nothing happened.

“This can’t be it,” I muttered. In Firebird’s Field, the earth had erupted. The statue of Ptholenix had roared and flamed.

Here, the water sloshed lazily against the rock and the air remained still. Stale, if I was honest.

Crouching down, I pressed a hand to the glassy orb. It was as hot as the rock around me—a warmth that could only come from power —but still, nothing happened. Not beyond the racing of my heart and the sharp pang piercing my chest.

I stood, turning in a circle and rubbing my sternum. “It can’t be this easy.”

But I wasn’t going to look too closely at a gift from the Angels. Perhaps the test was the swim down here. Or perhaps hearing that music marked you as worthy.

Am I?

The thought only blinked through my mind, but something about it tightened my throat. Worthiness wasn’t a sentiment I’d associated with myself after I’d been imprisoned. After that sacrifice I’d made to end the war hadn’t actually made anything better, instead allowing Lucidius and Kakias to devastate the Mystiques, I’d lost a lot of personal faith.

It had driven all sense of value from me for a while. And still, when I considered my worth, it wasn’t anything like…this.

Wasn’t anything a warrior deserved. No Undertaking, no titles. Nothing more than a quiet existence away from this mess.

But…

When you signed the treaty, Malakai, I was freed from my imprisonment. You saved me.

That decision hadn’t been all bad. Perhaps there was some worth yet to recover.

I turned back to the orb, crouching again to examine it. My reflection was distorted in the glassy surface, but after a few seconds, it cleared and I saw the high points of my life. The ones in recent months where I’d come back from the dead and fought for myself. The moments I’d felt and seen the purpose of life again.

Mila. I saw a whole lot of her in there. Every tomorrow, every redemption.

Maybe that was what made me worthy of getting here. Of hearing that song in the depths of the chasm. Because I’d been as good as gone and had fought to stand on my own two feet.

If that’s true, though , I thought, watching my muddled reflection return to only me and the cave, what does that mean for me next?

Damned if I knew.

Whatever had gotten me here, I didn’t care. I swiped up the moon-white orb from its stand and waited for any sort of reaction.

Minutes passed, the scars across my back itching, and I rubbed my fingers along the rough indentations cut into the orb.

Still, nothing happened.

I didn’t stop to question it, though I worried a trick was breathing down my neck, an Angel laughing at my na?veté.

But instead of paying heed to that unavoidable possibility, I waded back into the water and got the fuck out of there.