Page 17 of The Curse of Ophelia

“Damien’s balls,” Cyph muttered, rolling his eyes. “How was your day, Ophelia?”The firelight in the room darkened his auburn hair, casting shadows across his straight nose.

Do I dare share the truth? With the essence warm beneath my skin, I couldn’t keep the revelation to myself. Nor did I want to, because for once, though I held so many questions, something felt right.

“I trained with Jezebel today.” I sipped my drink, cleared my throat. “Using Malakai’s spear.”

“Malakai’s spear?” Santorina whispered. It was the first time in months—years, maybe—that my friends heard me speak his name. Not the name I used for him, but his given name. To me, he was always Augustus, but it felt too personal to voice since his disappearance.

I nodded as Rina moved down the bar to deliver a glass of whiskey.

When she returned, Tolek turned his back on Hylia and the Bristols. My friends created a fortress around me as I dropped my voice to a whisper and explained in vague detail how I had found the spear, answering their questions without describing precisely how connected I felt to the weapon. I needn’t cause suspicion until I knew what was going on.

My stare remained on the amber liquid swirling in my glass as they watched me, digesting all the information I had revealed and forming their own conclusions.

“How do you feel about that?” Cyph broke the silence first, though I knew his actual question was, Have you accepted Malakai’s fate?

I took another sip to calm the nerves fluttering through my stomach. “It felt right. My body reacted to having that spear in my hands like nothing I’ve ever felt.” I recalled the way I had struck with such ease, driving away my hatred of spearwork one slice at a time. The weapon was no Starfire. It was something…different. Unspeakable. The power that flowed through my veins, stemming from where I held the weapon and shooting throughout my body, was an unleashing of something long dormant.

I locked eyes with each of my friends in turn as I braced myself for their reaction to my next claim. “It’s Malakai’s by right, though. I will only keep it until I can return it to him.”

The lighthearted spirit of the night dissolved in an instant. The collective breath had been knocked out of them, the progress they thought I’d made slipping through their fingers.

But what they called progress, I called surrender. I was not made to surrender.

“How will you return it to him?” Rina asked carefully, twisting her long black ponytail between her slender fingers. She was proceeding with caution after the last time we spoke, but her eyes narrowed at me.

Another sip of rum. “When he returns to me.” The tethers of promise that lived within my Bind burned ferociously.

“Ophelia—” Cypherion began.

My glare silenced him. “I have told you this many times before. He will return to me,” I said calmly but through gritted teeth, the ice seeping from my voice and into the air around us. All hint of joy I had gathered today went with it.

“It’s been two years, Ophelia,” Rina stated. There was a softness in her features that resembled pity.

I shook my head, throwing back the rest of my rum and shooting to my feet. “You may have all given up on him, but I will not.”

My stool clattered to the ground as I stormed out of the Cub’s Tavern, leaving every ounce of burning bliss simmering into ash in my place. The buzz of energy that had awakened within me shook, cascading through my blood as I stalked up the staircase and through the deserted alley.

I didn’t know where I was going. Surely, I did not want to return home.

Once on the main street, I stopped walking and leaned against the window of an empty alehouse. The glass was cool against the back of my neck, calming the emotion that welled up in my chest and clawed into the back of my throat.

It was my own fault for expecting any other result from telling them of the spear. They all surrendered so easily. I didn’t know why that fact caused me to implode when I had known it for two years now, but something felt different tonight. My emotions had been thrown about so wildly today—from my mother to the spear—and this was the final straw. Hearing them say once again that Malakai was not returning felt like a shard of ice slicing through my heart. Cold and sharp and damaging beyond repair.

Turning my face to the stars, I listened for the footsteps that I knew would follow me. One set, as there always was. The only one who dared confront me in these moments.

Citrus and a note of something spicier drifted around me as he stopped. He leaned against the glass beside me, shifting his gaze to the sky, as well. In this moment of silent camaraderie, I was relieved Tol had sought me out. Though I did not act like it, I needed his presence.

Tol was silent, waiting for me to speak or not speak. Giving me the strength of silence and the power to break it. He always knew what I needed, even when I did not.

“I miss him,” I whispered after many long moments of silence. My eyes did not stray from the sky, but I couldn’t bring myself to look for that one star that shone brighter than all the rest.

Tol deflated a bit at my words. “We all do, Ophelia.” It was a simple sentence, but it cracked something in my icy heart.

“You don’t always act like it.” My voice was not harsh. I felt defeated.

“Just because I hide my pain doesn’t mean I feel it any less than you do. Just because I have accepted his absence doesn’t mean I am happy for it.” A rare hint of sadness cracked his voice—the raw edge of mourning.

I turned my attention from the moon, an orb of bright light against the pitch black of the night, to Tol. That’s what Tol was for me—a beacon of pure hope, guiding me through life’s darkest moments.

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