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

Chapter 68

Chapter Sixty-Eight

Tolek

The raging clashes of the battle faded as Sapphire sped toward the theater buried deep in the mountains—the location the sphinx had hinted at.

One Ophelia and I had been to before.

“Do you recognize anything?” Ophelia asked as her pegasus wound through wide tunnels, following either instinct or memory.

“Not a damn thing,” I admitted. The last time we were this deep in the mountains was when she’d come to rescue me and we were heading back to Damenal. I’d been riding the high of her appearance while battling off the nightmares the Mindshapers planted in my head. I’d been distracted, all the while only caring about the fact that she was inching closer toward me.

As I wrapped my arms tighter around her waist with the din of fighting melting behind us—and my prayers to the Spirits echoing for our friends’ safety—it struck me that the last time we were here, I’d never thought this version of us was a possibility.

Now, those magenta eyes gazed at me over her shoulder, and I shut out the thoughts of the fae and the Angels.

I would do anything for this girl. Slaughter any Angels or gods or queens that tried to touch her and place their heads at her feet. Carve my heart from my chest if it was my blood she needed, bow to any title she claimed, and offer my hand across any realm.

I ducked to kiss Ophelia’s shoulder, and for one fucking moment, I wanted to freeze every eternity right here. Soaring through the mountains on the back of her pegasus, with those eyes on mine.

“Vincienzo?” Ophelia asked.

I blocked out all those desperate wishes and assured her, “Sapphire knows where she’s headed.”

As the words left my mouth, Sapphire dove. I gripped tighter to Ophelia and tightened my thighs around the pegasus’ body, my stomach dropping. She swooped through an opening and landed in the center of a familiar cavern, steps carving the rounded walls on all sides but one.

Dismounting, Ophelia and I both looked up. The ceiling was a dark mass above, impossible to tell it was open as it stretched into the heart of the mountains. “Not what I expected,” I commented.

“No,” she agreed, shaking her head.

The theater looked exactly as I remembered, though. The seats loomed around the ring, facing the platform at the front, and arched doorways stood on either side.

And on that dais—a crumbling statue curved toward the back of the makeshift stage. A sculpture that resembled seven figures worn to time. Bowing or rising, I couldn’t be sure. Few distinct features were visible.

“You’re sure about this?” I asked Ophelia quietly, despite the fact that it was only us. Giving her room to confess what I saw buried in those magenta eyes.

“No,” she sighed, looking to that platform, then back to me. “I don’t think I have a choice, though.”

Clasping a hand around the back of her neck, I hauled her to me and kissed her. I’m with you every step , I said without voicing it.

And for a moment, something in my gut told me not to let go. To never stop kissing her, for fear that I wouldn’t get to again. For fear that everything was about to change.

But we’d learned that the gods and Angels waited for no one.

I stepped back, appreciating her flushed cheeks, and waved a hand at the statue in place of a proper stage. “Be fucking furious,” I repeated what I’d said to her outside the Gates of Angeldust.

“To scorching the Angels,” she said with a determined nod, and she faced that figure. The one we studied all those months ago. The one something had called Ophelia toward on our first visit here, the stone blistering her skin upon contact.

My heart beat so ferociously against my ribs, I thought it would bruise. I stood beside Sapphire, a hand on her namesake mane, and buried all my worries, ready to watch Ophelia reclaim everything she was owed.

After everything she’d been dragged through, every fate she’d never asked for thrust upon her shoulders, I was ready to tear the Angels apart for her. To face down a trapped god with nothing but a blade and my bare hands.

As Ophelia took a step forward, I muttered, “Let’s wake a god, Alabath.”