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

Chapter 73

Chapter Seventy-Three

Tolek

“ Ria !”

I dove to my knees, catching my sister as she fell forward.

“Lyria,” I begged. It was a broken sound. Not my voice. That wasn’t my voice talking, and this wasn’t my sister in my lap with a dagger in her chest.

“Lyria…Ria…” I brushed the hair that had slipped from her braid out of her face.

My hands were red.

My hands were red .

Why were they red? They shouldn’t be leaving streaks on her cheeks like that. And her eyes shouldn’t be so unfocused. That wasn’t Lyria. Lyria was a pillar. Lyria was strong. Lyria was?—

“Ria, please, please don’t.” I looked around frantically, and only then realized I was crying. Everything other than my sister’s face was blurred. “Someone help! Santorina!” My friend’s name sawed through my throat as I turned back to my sister.

A piece of me knew no one could do anything. Fate was in the flutter of Lyria’s lashes, in the weak grasp she had on my arm. In the fucking fae dagger lodged in her heart.

I grappled to hold her tighter. “Lyria please,” I sobbed. “We have to—we have to get our siblings still. We’re going to do that together.”

A warm presence wrapped an arm around me. Something I knew was supposed to be comforting but only made me realize how quickly Lyria was losing that warmth.

Because it was all spilling out over her hand, still cupped around the hilt of the dagger.

There was so much noise around us, but I couldn’t remember what any of it meant. None of it mattered, because Lyria was…my sister was…

“We didn’t have time!” I yelled. “We said this was our time , Lyria! You can’t…you can’t…” My words became gasps.

Red. Everything was red.

It was all sticky and red. Except her face which paled with every struggling inhale. Each one sounded like they hurt. Each one ripped a hole wide in my chest.

If she had to go, I didn’t want her last memory to be painful.

“We got the time we needed,” she muttered through cracked lips. “Made amends.”

“I didn’t want fucking amends,” I growled. “I wanted the future.”

Someone knelt on her other side, but didn’t touch us.

“Don’t get what we want.” Lyria tried to smile. “It’s okay.”

I shook my head, my tears falling on her. It was wrong that she was comforting me right now. I should be holding her, telling her it wasn’t going to hurt anymore soon, but this was my big sister, and I suddenly felt like the smallest child, before I’d learned to look at her as competition. When all Lyria meant to me was guidance and safety and warmth.

Every memory vanished in that moment. And I was a young boy again, standing alone in a cold, empty house.

“It’s not okay!” I burst.

“A warrior’s death, Tol.”

One at the end of a blade, protecting our cause. It was an honor to most, and maybe I should think it was for Lyria, but centuries from now. Not at twenty-four-years old. Not after surviving her second war. Not like this.

“I knew,” she forced out. “The pleasure house. A Soulguider saw this happen. Hinted it was coming soon.”

Lyria knew her time was coming. It was why she’d been so shaken after the brothel. And she still walked into every battle tonight. Into the Gates of Angeldust, where she’d made sure I knew how she felt about her purpose, where she told me her goal of rescuing our siblings, so I could carry it on.

And into this battle, where she threw herself before Ophelia.

“Tell Mila—” A ragged breath. “Tell her she was the best friend I could have asked for. A sister.” Another pained inhale. “The reason I kept fighting.”

Mila . She was unconscious. She was going to wake to a world where her rock was taken from her.

Unfair. It was so fucking unfair. Out of all the horse shit we’d been thrown, this might be the worst piece of it all.

“I’ll tell her,” I whispered, voice cracked and ruined. “I promise.”

The seconds were closing in now. It was in her shallow breaths. The flowing blood. So much blood.

How the fuck was anyone still moving around us when Lyria wasn’t?

I had to…I had to say something. To make these final moments matter as much as all our recent ones had. But words…I couldn’t…for once, I didn’t have them.

“Ria, I’m sorry.” My voice was hollow, but I reached down into the depths of me, dragging up every last sentiment I might regret leaving unsaid. “I’m sorry for all the years we lost. If I could go back, I’d do it all differently, but I can’t, and now we’re out of time. But I’m so”—my voice broke—“so fucking proud of everything you’ve accomplished. Of everything you’ve overcome. You always thought you had to be perfect and couldn’t reach it, but the truth is, Ria, you are perfect. You’re the perfect sister to me and the perfect friend to everyone here. You’re the perfect you, and that’s all anyone ever needed you to be.”

“Tolek,” she whispered, so hoarse. So…dying. “You were the purpose, Tolek.” She fought for another breath. “Always were.”

“Please. Please don’t say goodbye, Ria. Don’t go.” My voice tore on that word. My sister was dying.

Dying.

Dying .

Her eyes flicked over my shoulder, to Ophelia kneeling beside me, the queen forgotten. “Take care of him. And finish this.”

Ophelia’s voice was barely a cracking whisper. “Forever, Lyria. Thank you.”

And then, in my arms, my sister said for the last time, “I love you, baby brother.”

My heart shredded, and I embedded the echo of those words into my memory, never to forget how her voice sounded saying them. “I love you.”