Page 84 of The Curse of Ophelia

Lucidius nodded. “She demanded Malakai in exchange for the end of the war.”

“So, you handed over your heir? Just like that?”

“It was not an easy decision.” His features were unreadable. “I saw how our people suffered, and I made a sacrifice that has eaten away at me every day since.”

“You’re lying!” Malakai barked, energy slowly returning to his drained muscles where they draped around me.

Lucidius looked between me and his son, eyes dejected. “We would have been entirely extinguished by the Engrossians thanks to the sorcia they partnered with. Alone they couldn’t have beaten us, but with her…” He swallowed. “The Mystiques would have become extinct. The Engrossians would have ruled over the mountains. I couldn’t have that. I thought Malakai would be presumed dead and live out his days in solitude. There’s a cabin in the northernmost region of the range. I did not expect torture and—”

“Do you truly think that is the truth?” Malakai scoffed, and Lucidius flinched. “Or do you forget that I knew everything before coming into this Spirit-forsaken volcano? It was not tortured out of my memory as you may have hoped. I held on to it all for when this day might come.” Malakai turned his gaze to me, voice softening a touch. “What he said is not the whole story, Ophelia.”

I looked at him for only a brief second, afraid to take my eyes off of Lucidius, but I saw such pain festering behind his green irises that it could only be from one thing—betrayal. “What is the truth?”

Malakai deflated. “He’s painting his actions as a sacrifice on his part, but every decision he made was selfish. He does not care about me.”

Lucidius’s jaw tightened. “That is where you’re wrong, son.”

“Am I?” Malakai gestured to the chains at his feet.

The Revered nodded, but his expression did not falter. “I never wanted this.”

“But you caused it. Your actions for more than a century brought this about—your nefarious plans and dreams.” Malakai pulled me closer to him. Whether it was to protect me from the truth or to lean on me for strength, I was not sure.

Silence surrounded us.

I did not care what Lucidius said. What truth he thought was correct. He had known that his son was being beaten for two years. Two years of scars and lashes and…carvings. I held no sympathy for the man, regardless of the tale he spun.

I raised my chin to the Revered, wrapping my fingers around Malakai’s hip and squeezing to communicate that I understood. “But you still have not explained why, Lucidius. What do the Engrossians gain in eliminating Malakai from rule? We would have chosen a new ruler after you. With the end of the war, we were rebuilding. You cannot expect me to believe Kakias waged an entire war simply to get Malakai out of the way.” Even for the queen of darkness, that was a steep cost.

In a blink, something in Lucidius’s face shifted, and I knew I had found the exact question he had hoped to steer me away from. His veil of feigned remorse dropped completely. His brows lowered, and the shadows under his eyes deepened until his expression turned into a cold, cruel image of nightmares.

The gray of his cloak suddenly did not make him a piece of the volcano, but a commander of the sinister actions contained within. Understanding coated my bones with cold dread.

“The war wasn’t a surprise, was it?” I guessed.

He laughed, the sound passing through me like a cold spirit. “I’d hoped you may believe my facade. We could have used you, but you have always been too smart for your own good, Ophelia. And apparently my son’s brain has not been as addled as I intended.” His casual shrug had my blood roaring in my ears.

“Very well, I shall tell you the full tale.” A sneer twisted his lips. “Then, I shall dispose of you both.”

My grip around Malakai tightened. Lucidius was a skilled fighter. If it came to that, could I survive the battle with him and escape with his son? Malakai’s heartbeat quickened beside my head, waking a fierce determination within me. As long as the stars shone, I would not let that heart stop beating.

Lucidius’s voice was harsher when he spoke again, as if the confession unleashed the truly sinister being hidden within him. “You are correct that I knew about the war before it began, but this plan has been in the works for decades. Much longer than either of you have been alive. It begins with my mother.” His scowl deepened. “As a young warrior, barely a century old, she grew restless. She had not traveled since her summer exchanges as an adolescent and was eager to see the world, but she never made it past the Engrossians.”

My brows cinched together, and Lucidius saw my confusion.

“No, she did not die there. But she did have a brief dalliance with a highly ranked Engrossian soldier. Nothing more than one night, but thus—I was born.”

“You’re…you’re half Engrossian?” If that was true, he did not have the right to the Revered title of his Mystique father’s bloodline.

Lips curling into a grin, Lucidius prowled around us as he spoke. “I am. But my mother hid it from everyone, especially the man I thought was my father. She went home and convinced him that the child was his. I was born with her tanned skin and dark hair, so there was not much question. Though, my eyes always favored those of my true father.” He gestured to his face, and I swore I saw a bead of pride in those eyes—the ones Malakai had inherited.

“My mother died when I was only sixteen, but not before sharing her secret with me. And unaware of the truth, the Mystique man raised me as his own.”

My mind raced to rewrite the history I thought I knew while also figuring out how this led to where we were today.

Lucidius continued, “I tried to force that other part of me away. The Engrossians were our rivals, after all. I grew up detesting them and their thirst for our power.” His voice slithered over those last words, nothing but admiration in his tone. Based on the slight tremors rocking his body, I knew that Malakai heard it, too, and was as disgusted as I was.

“But I couldn’t deny it.” Lucidius remained lost in his tale, unfazed by our reactions. “I wanted to know the other half of my heritage. I wanted to see if I could fill this void within me that had formed when my mother told me the truth. So, a few years after her death, I started taking annual trips to the Engrossian Territory under the pretense of diplomacy. My Mystique father never would have let me go otherwise, for I had outgrown the age of summer exchanges, but I learned their history, their culture, and their strife, directly from my biological father. And that was when I met Kakias.”

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