Page 14 of The Trials of Ophelia

My eyes shot open, meeting a pair of dazed chocolate-brown ones that all my dreams and worlds and anguish unfolded within, stretching from the beginning to the end of time.

Infinitely.

That weak flutter of a touch lifted to my cheek, catching an errant tear.

“Is my beauty really that devastating?” Tol barely croaked, voice hoarse from shouting and disuse.

And fucking Angels, I laughed like I hadn’t in a long time, the heaves mingling with sobs I finally allowed free. They were a tangle of relief and awe and desperation, of all the grief that had been hanging over my head for two months and the fears that this moment would never come.

I locked my arms around his neck, and though he was weak, Tolek held me to him, inhaling against my hair. Like he needed this as much as I did. For an endless moment, we remained like that, imprinting the feel of each other back into our memories.

I had to let him go for Santorina and the Bodymelders to do an assessment and give him strength remedies to continue the progress they’d made while he was unconscious, but I stood right there, never leaving him.

“You’ll need a new workout regimen, and a cane might be necessary,” Rina instructed, and my stare stayed on Tolek as he rolled his eyes.

I barely looked away when Cypherion and Malakai—the former sporting a split lip and the latter’s eyes fighting to stay open—tore into the room.

And Tolek kept his fingers entwined with mine.

My mother remained the entire time, too, save for when she left to get Jezebel.

Finally, it was only Tolek and me and the remnants of the moon as dawn approached.

“Come here,” he whispered, tugging my hand and scooting to the edge of the small bed.

I curled into his side, careful not to jostle his injuries.

“It’s been two months,” he said, “I’m healed.”

Physically, his injuries had been healed for well over a month, but he was still weak, still hurting. And if the way he’d screamed earlier said anything, there was more going on within his mind.

“Two months.” I exhaled. Tears leaked from my eyes to his bare chest as I listened to the steady—strong—beat of his heart. So much stronger than it had been even hours ago.

Tolek placed a finger beneath my chin, tilting it upward.

“Miss me, Alabath?” he teased, stroking a hand down my back, but there was a shadow to his usual playfulness.

“I thought I lost you.” And a piece of me truly had believed it.

“Nothing would keep me from you. Infinitely yours, remember?”

My chest nearly caved in at those words. “You heard?”

He’d heard me when I spoke to him. Every desperate plea for him to return. He heard my vow that he was it for me, though I needed time to build this slowly—and he’d come back.

“Every word. It was like I was trapped within my own body, but I heard everything you said to me, and I’ve waited months to hold you like this and reassure you.” Tol kissed my forehead, tucking me back into his side and resting his cheek against my head.

A future just like this stretched before me, of peaceful moments easily found. Locking our fingers together, I sealed the thoughts in my mind, a promise to us both of a safe future after the Angelic prophecies and mortal war awaiting us.

“Now, tell me what I’ve missed outside of this room,” Tolek said. Spirits, every time I heard his voice it was like a shredded piece inside of me was stitched back together.

“There’s a lot…”

“Start at the beginning.”

And I did. I’d told him of the Battle of Damenal while he was out, but now I answered his questions about Kakias’s ritual and the Angellight I displayed at the induction ceremony, and how I was trying to figure out what it all meant. He leveled a murderous stare at the scar the queen left on my arm, throbbing pain shooting through it.

I told him of how the chancellors were assisting in the hunt for the emblems, but we had made little progress aside from research on the Angels. And I told him how Vale had offered her sessions—though inconclusive—and how I thought she might become a true ally if Titus was not controlling her.

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