Page 13 of The Curse of Ophelia

The occasion was nothing but a reminder of what I had lost, and after everything I felt last night, my losses weighed heavily on my heart. It didn’t help that Jezebel and I had to skip our training this morning to assist our mother, so I had not even been able to show her the weapon—or use it myself. All I could think about as I roughly shucked another ear of corn was where the spear was now tucked away in our weapons shed.

“I’d rather not celebrate at all,” I grumbled, plucking hairs from between kernels and discarding the scraps into the growing pile on the floor.

When we had extra food, my family prepared what we could to donate to the less fortunate of Palerman. This usually required the help of Jezebel, Illia, our grandmother when she was available, and me. Today, the five of us gathered in the kitchen, washing, chopping, and cooking vegetables that would be delivered to the group homes tonight.

“Twenty is an important year in your heritage, Ophelia,” my mother noted. Her dark hair swayed behind her as she bustled through the kitchen.

“Sixteen and eighteen are the significant birthdays,” I corrected her, because I was a Mystique Warrior, and twenty was not a significant year to us.

The memory of my sixteenth birthday—the last before the war—gutted me. The day Malakai and I had spoken the Warrior’s Words to one another in the confines of our clearing.

Ophelia Tavania Alabath, his promise echoed in my mind, memories of soft kisses brushing across each of my cheeks, my partner in life, from this day forward. I offer my heart, my soul, and my hand, that all will be yours until the Spirits beckon us into darkness.

I’d known he would say them eventually, and that I would repeat them in earnest, but I had not expected the Words on that day. In the solitude of our clearing. At the first moment possible on the day that I was deemed a woman.

I could not have chosen a better time.

My response echoed his own words in my memory. Malakai Augustus Blastwood, my partner in life, from this day forward. I offer my heart, my soul, and my hand, that all will be yours until the Spirits beckon us into darkness.

Every word, syllable, and letter that had crossed over my lips held weighted truth and a flame of promise that bound us together for eternity.

Neither of us knew that in two years’ time, the promises would be stolen from us.

“You’re more than just Mystique, and you know that.” My mother’s sharp tone called me back to the present. Her hands braced on her slender hips, fingers tightening like she was holding her patience together, but it was wearing thin. Good. This storm between us had been brewing for years.

I tossed the ear of corn I had been cleaning into the bucket beside me and took a sip of my tea. It was my favorite herbal blend, fruity with a bit of tart, and it calmed me enough that I relaxed back into my chair and chewed over my response.

Jezebel promptly picked up the corn I had discarded. “Ophelia, you barely even finished this one. Look at all the hairs remaining.” My sister redirected the tension, proceeding to show me how to properly prepare an ear of corn. I barely noticed her fingers effortlessly sliding over the kernels, correcting my mistakes.

I ignored Jezebel, glaring at my mother as she filled a large pot with water from the tap. She moved with the grace of someone who had trained, but not with the fluidity of a warrior. My fingers curled around my teacup. How did she think it was acceptable to lecture me on my heritage when she had scorned her own?

“And you are of Mystique blood,” I hissed. “But one would never know that.”

Her spine stiffened where she bent over the sink, but she ignored my jab, hoisting the pot to the stove. Mystlight flared beneath it. Illia repeated the action, placing a second pot beside it. The water started to bubble almost immediately, softening the tense silence we’d fallen into.

The blow was low, but the anger building inside me did not quell. My mother had chosen not to partake in the Undertaking when she turned eighteen, claiming that she was only half a Mystique Warrior and therefore unsure if she would be worthy, never mind the fact that her parents had raised her in Palerman. It was not an unusual choice for one of her blood composition, but to have my mother—the woman who married into one of the most powerful Mystique bloodlines and birthed two rightful warriors—turn her back on that chance…I was ashamed.

I knew I shouldn’t be. She and my father had fallen in love among the dizzying summer days of Palerman over a century ago. She had only been seventeen. He was twenty and already in line to serve the next Revered. They’d explained it was safest for their—our—future if she did not attempt the Undertaking, but I would do anything for that chance, and she had refused it.

I frowned at the Bind on the fourth finger of her left hand. She and my father had them inked where some might wear a ring if they chose to go through a proper marriage ceremony beyond the Words and the Bind.

She didn’t deserve the tattoo without the commitment of the Undertaking. Without the Bond and the Band, it broke the rules as much as my own, but given my father’s ascension, it was permitted.

“Do not throw around insults you don’t understand, Ophelia,” my mother finally said.

“Tavania…” my grandmother’s tone around my mother’s first name was chastising, and the latter did not reply.

Sitting beside me at our round worktable, my grandmother gripped my wrist between her darkened, weathered hands. “Twenty is the year my people begin their lives. It is the year you accept your role in society, whatever it may reveal itself to be.” The emphasis of her words was not lost on me, and her subtle nod was a confirmation that she understood how I viewed my heritage. Understood and even—maybe—supported the choice. “The Soulguiders are powerful spiritual readers, leaders, and healers, guiding mystical beings to their final rest. At the age of twenty, our paths are made clear.”

She knew that like my father’s parents and her late husband, I identified as Mystique. The quarter of me that came from her—the blood of the Lower Soulguiders—was dwarfed in comparison to the ties I felt to the Mystique Warriors. That had nothing to do with the power we held as a major clan over the minor clan of the Soulguiders, or the low position in society of my grandmother’s family. I understood the importance of each of the five minor clans.

The Soulguiders, Starsearchers, Seawatchers, Bodymelders, and Mindshapers were instrumental to the survival of magic on Ambrisk. They helped ensure the balance of power, but it was the Mystiques and Engrossians given the heavier tasks of guarding sources of magic, while the others guided it or read it, each in their own way. Together, all seven clans protected power for this world and every other that may exist. Each held a unique strength among us, and ours lay in the mountains.

So, no, my disinterest in my Soulguider heritage was no slight to my grandmother.The Mystique Warriors were the song of my blood.

Wisdom of centuries past swirled behind my grandmother’s wide golden irises. She knew how I felt, but one night was what she asked of me. One night in celebration of her traditions, people, and symbols. My future.

Birthdays had been insignificant to me since my eighteenth passed without the Undertaking. They reminded me of where I should be compared to where I was now. For my grandmother, though—one of the only people who didn’t force me to be someone I wasn’t—I could stifle my pain. The second heartbeat in my blood, the one that surfaced with the spear, pounded as if in encouragement.

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