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

Chapter 72

Chapter Seventy-Two

Malakai

“Why are we constantly left in the fucking dark, as toys and playthings for the deities?” Ophelia had thrown at the queen.

Ritalia was trying so damn hard to tell her something without saying it. To fight through the lock the Fae Goddess put on information about the Warrior God, her mouth opening and closing in a very un-queenlike manner.

As I struck out at another fae blade, Ritalia’s voice skimmed the air of the cavern, all the heaviness of her crown instilled in it. “I don’t know. Trust the gods, though.”

I huffed a laugh at that, ducking a swipe of my enemy’s sword and parrying as my heart thudded uncomfortably. Trust the gods ? The Angels were who we worshipped, and we couldn’t even trust them. What were the gods to us?

Ophelia kept one eye on Tolek, worry and fury etched deep in the harsh lines of her face. But the way Lancaster had spoken on the sphinx while we flew over here made me trust him.

She placed rules on my sister’s life that have caused her a great deal of pain, and she took more than I can name from me. I have felt the ill will of bargains that reign through the generations, and will do what is in my power to guide hands to unravel them.

And he’d healed Mila tonight. Had stood against Brystin.

The rest of these fae? They could rot with the cypher magic. But perhaps there was more to the words Lancaster had spoken?—

One of Ritalia’s soldiers swiped at me with a dagger. I dodged, but the fae were everywhere, and they were lightning-quick.

My heart stuttered again, and I stumbled. Something burned behind my ribs, distracting me enough for the soldier to jam the hilt of his dagger below my temple, striking the top of my cheekbone. I bit my tongue at the impact.

“Oh, fuck,” I grumbled, spitting blood to the floor.

Cypherion was at the male’s back, knife dragging across his throat as my vision spotted.

“He get your head?” Cyph asked over the clash of metal.

I shook out the pain, blinking to steady myself. “Barely. Fuckers have to have better aim,” I said, falling back into line.

“Won’t help him now,” Cyph answered.

A high whinny sounded, and Sapphire swooped down, prancing sharply along fae soldier’s unhelmeted heads. Careless, to come here without a hint of armor. To so gravely underestimate warrior potential.

The pegasus’ wings turned the blood-streaked scene into a feathered frenzy as she fought with us. I feinted, spinning around my next opponent to get his back to Cypherion, who finished him off with a sword between his ribs.

On the seats, Zanox and Dynaxtar flared their wings as if they’d take off, too. Or open those deadly mouths and emit those white-blue flames I’d seen before. It was only once, during the final battle. The khrysaor had never done it since.

Perhaps it was a power not fully awoken or trained, one that Jezebel’s hand resting on Zanox’s leg said not to test in such close quarters. I didn’t have time to consider it now, though.

Between opponents, I searched for Mila’s hidden form.

Still there. Chest rising and falling. Fucking Spirits, whatever was in that water had really infected her to keep her down this long.

I needed to get back to her. Needed up those steps and away from this fucking battle. With a sloppy lunge, I drove my sword into the back of a soldier advancing on Santorina.

“Thanks,” Rina breathed as the fae collapsed at her feet.

“Let that Bounty blood kick in,” I joked.

She scowled, but we both turned back to the fight.

Or we tried to, but the body of the male I’d just killed swung up, his sword raised. I whirled, ready to strike, but his head sagged?—

Jezebel . I spun toward the seats. Her stare narrow, Jez commanded the fallen’s spirit with impressive speed. All the way across the cavern until he rammed straight into the lone standing Engrossian soldier, opening up the way to the councilman.

And Dax didn’t wait.

The general tossed his prince an ax—wincing with the throw and clutching his scarred gut—and Rebel lunged. The wolf knocked Nassik onto his ass, and Barrett—with a vengeance I rarely saw in the prince—brought the ax down on the councilman’s arm, slicing off a hand.

His wail was lost among the fight.

Immediately, I looked for Celissia, but she only glared at her father with a stare that matched Barrett’s. There was no love in that look, not from the girl who had been nothing more than a pawn to the man who fathered her.

Welcome to the club .

We were denting their numbers, at least half of the fae on the floor now. Perhaps because we were on our land, so close to the source of the Angels, but luck seemed to be on our side.

I tossed my sword between my hands and jumped back into the fray.

Ophelia was still pacing in front of the statue, Tolek an all-seeing guard before her, his own breaths labored. She and Ritalia lobbied comments across the cavern, each trying to get the other to be honest or see reason.

“I don’t want you as my enemy,” Ophelia finally shouted. “I don’t want to work against you.”

“Then listen to me,” she demanded, voice laced with the contempt of someone who was used to being obeyed.

“I can’t trust you! Don’t you understand?” Ophelia shook her head, rolling Xenique’s orb in her palm. “I don’t want you as an enemy, but we tried to work with you—we made a bargain, and you went around it.”

The queen tutted. “That is your fault for not being more careful.”

“Wrong fucking thing to say,” I grunted beneath my breath as I lunged toward my opponent.

“A true ally would not argue whose fault it is,” Ophelia yelled.

“What do you know of allies?” Ritalia spat. “Your kind has never.”

Ophelia spread her arms wide. “Look around, Ritalia! Everything you see here is an alliance.” She gestured to Barrett and Vale, Erista and even Lancaster and Mora. “They are our allies! But I do not think you are.”

In light of everything Ophelia said, the queen still retained her cool command, announcing, “A true queen does not stoop to find allies. She collects them like prizes.”

To do her bidding, no doubt.

Ritalia switched her approach. “We do not need to be allies, Revered Alabath. We do not need to stand arm in arm on a battlefield. Simply hand over the emblems. Let me remove them from this land where they are so near their locks and take them where no Chosen will ever find them again. I will not walk on your shores for all my rule if you do this.”

Ophelia took a deep breath, calm washing over her. “And what about the rest of it? What about the power wrecking our world? The storms and the creatures waking?”

“What of it?”

I ducked around the fae female before me and lured her toward the steps, where Jezebel had another spirit puppet surging forward.

“The land is dying,” Ophelia said sadly. “The creatures are mutinous. This is only the beginning of the effects of the godly prison unraveling. How do you propose we fight it?”

Jezzie’s fae rammed a blade through the thigh of my own, and they both fell, blood mixing on the rocky floor.

“If we do away with the emblems, the known gods as you call them will bless us,” Ritalia said.

Again, I scoffed. So idealistic.

Sparing a glance at Ophelia, that same doubt flashed behind her expression as she studied the emblem in one hand.

And the queen—she saw the warring gleam in Ophelia’s eye. Saw that her words hadn’t been enough. That not even Lancaster’s bargain or melting Ophelia’s weapons was going to stop her. It only fueled her, giving her less of a reason to trust Ritalia, and more of a hope to fight our way out of this.

The ancient queen of the fae had overplayed her hand—had created an enemy in Ophelia the moment she instructed her hunter to manipulate Tolek, sealed that fate in melting Starfire and Angelborn before her—and no pretty ideals of bountiful gods could stop a stubborn Alabath.

And the switch in Ritalia’s understanding was like a lightning strike, a bolt of realization that drew her arm back.

“No!” Vale shouted as a reading slammed into her, and her head tipped back toward the heavens.

And Ritalia sent her dagger flying across the cavern with lethal precision and speed.

“Alabath!” Tolek warned.

Ophelia’s head snapped up, eyes locking on that blade that whistled through the air, poised to strike her heart. Not quickly enough, she tried to lunge away.

But she barely flinched before someone else was there to take the dagger in her stead.

Before that sharpened sliver of silver sank into Lyria Vincienzo’s heart, and a small gasp escaped her lips, her hands cupping the hilt against her chest.

Lyria, the Commander of the Mystique armies, our Master of Weapons and Warfare, fell to her knees, one of the very things that had given her her title thrust deep in her chest. Her eyes wide and lips forming a silent o .

And Tolek?—

Tolek’s scream wrenched the air unlike anything I’d ever heard.