Page 94 of The Curse of Ophelia

I pushed myself to my feet, ready to finally end this, but someone was there first. Santorina’s long dark hair swirled around her as she dragged Lucidius up by a white-knuckled hold.

I stalked toward him, dragging my dagger from my thigh, a predator moving in for the kill.

Lucidius locked eyes with his son and whispered, “There’s so much you don’t know.”

My eyes flicked to Malakai. Arms hanging loosely at his side, face twitching as if about to crumple, he looked conflicted. But it was his defeated sigh that sealed my decision.

Without another thought, I sliced the blade across Lucidius’s neck. The sound of tearing flesh was both satisfying and heartbreaking as I realized what it meant for Malakai.

Santorina dropped Lucidius’s body between us, facedown in a growing pool of blood. Her eyes raised to mine, black hair a flowing shadow around her as we caught our breath. Blood dripping from the blade to the floor was the only sound in the cavern.

Chapter Forty-Four

We dragged the bodies of Lucidius and the Engrossian guards into the hall to give ourselves a semblance of peace, but their blood left a red trail as a reminder through the cavern.

I set the former Revered’s body apart from the others and stood over him for a moment. Skin pale from blood loss, darkened eyes staring into the unknown, he looked more Engrossian than ever. Still, I crossed his arms over his chest and lowered his eyelids before turning my back on him forever.

When I returned, Malakai remained kneeling beside the puddle of his father’s blood, the curve of his spine and drop of his head forming the image of a broken soul. Firelight danced across the crimson in a breath of life, but his tear-lined eyes were unseeing. Despite it all, he mourned his father. Or maybe, he mourned the man he once thought his father was and the life that had been ripped away from him.

“Thank you,” he muttered, raising his eyes first to Rina and then to me. “I could not have done that myself.”

Rina relaxed, as if she had been awaiting a blow of anger and those words set her guilt free. She nodded, and something about her seemed different, but I could not place it.

My hands shook at my sides as the realization of what I had done—who I had killed—sank into my bones. Not only because Lucidius had been the Revered, but because he was Malakai’s father. No matter his despicable actions, that fact would always remain true. Looking at Malakai now that the heat of battle had calmed, seeing how broken he truly was, I worried how my decision would affect him.

Neither of us spoke for a long moment. We exchanged gazes hardened by circumstance. Then, he looked back to the puddle.

“What happened?” Tolek’s whisper was a knife through the tension and shock radiating from us all. He dropped to his knees beside Malakai and slung an arm around his shoulders. Cypherion sat on Malakai’s other side.

Malakai shook his head, eyes clenched, the pain of it all still too raw to share.

So, I did it for him. My friends and sister were silent as I exposed the truth of Lucidius and Kakias’s plans. Where Malakai had been for the past two years when they believed him dead, his father’s secret family, and everything that had happened since I said goodbye to them atop the volcano. Through the story, everyone unconsciously drifted closer to Malakai, as if to shield him.

I even divulged my secret—the Curse I’d hidden from them and how it was lifted. There were a number of outbursts at that.

“This entire time, you were going to die.” Rina gaped. The pieces clicked to place in her mind. My insistence throughout the journey, my decisions that were somehow rasher and more reckless than usual.

“I should have told you, but I needed you all to remain normal.” Be strong when I could not. Anything else would have been admitting I might not survive to see my mission completed. My eyes stung, speaking to all of them but mostly to Tolek. “I should have told you when you touched my blood. But I hoped I’d survive—to fix it.”

“You should have told me even before that,” he said, but there was no anger in his voice. “You should not have felt the need to fix it alone.”

The effects must not have had time to take root in his veins before he completed the Undertaking. I thanked the Angels for that.

“I don’t understand how, though,” Cyph said. I only shook my head, having no answer.

The only piece I left out of my explanation was the mention of the Angelblood in the Alabath line. That was my secret to be picked apart and deciphered down the road.

Malakai did not move as I spoke. He simply stared at his father’s blood as it hardened into the rock floor. Tolek and Cypherion remained at his side. I watched the spot where Tol’s arm draped across Malakai’s back, hand gripping his shoulder, and two pieces of my still-broken heart ached at the sight of them together.

“But how are you all here?” I asked when I finally tore my eyes away.

“It seems you weren’t the only one destined for the Undertaking,” Jezebel answered.

“Lucidius forbade the ritual,” Cypherion elaborated, the fire dancing in his blue eyes like a beacon against the crystal sea, “not for the well-being of Mystiques, but to our detriment.” His gaze met mine, shoulders squared and jaw tight. “It was a guaranteed way to ensure the Engrossians rose above us.”

I nodded as the deceit deepened. Lucidius had betrayed so many people.

“How did you get here, Rina?” I asked. “You can’t have completed the Undertaking.”

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