Page 205 of The Trials of Ophelia

I made out flashes of stone floors strewn with glittering dust. My boots were coated with it, too, a deep black liquid dotting the leather. Where moonlight hit the drops, an eerily-beautiful, hypnotizing crimson sheen reflected up at me.

I braced one hand against the velvet and wiggled my toes to ensure I had feeling through my entire body. The plane hadn’t affected my physical form, then. Sapphire huffed softly nearby.

“Ophelia,” Tolek whispered, his thumb slowly stroking my hip. His voice was not wary as I’d expected. It was awestruck. “Look, love.”

I staggered against him, but tilted my face up to meet his gaze.

“Welcome back,” he said, eyes misty and relief turning the words into a sigh. I wouldn’t have lived without you, that breath said.

I blinked against the pain in my head. “Is my beauty really that devastating?”

He laughed as I repeated the words he’d said when he first woke. Then, he kissed me like he couldn’t resist any longer, a kiss burning with passion that awoke all of my senses and scattered them in a much more satisfying way.

When he pulled back, his fingers slid down my arm. “Yes,” he said. “But I hadn’t meant look at me.” Lifting my hand, he placed it back against that velvety material. “Look at Sapphire.”

There was something in his voice that had me wrenching my eyes away from his. I met Sapphire’s crystal blue ones, but?—

“What in Damien’s name?” I breathed. The ground rumbled, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

A pair of snow-white wings extended from Sapphire’s body. With the tips tinged crimson from the sticky substance still dripping across us all, she looked like a blood-streaked legend. She flared them, meeting my stunned gaze with a proud one.

I looked between her eyes and the wings. Through that inexplicable connection we always shared, she seemed to communicate something to me. I was not sure exactly what words she sought, but she and I were based on instinct. It was a confirmation, an assurance that she had been waiting for this day her entire life.

The shadow of Sapphire’s wings fluttered across me as she slowly beat them. Power poured off her, misty in the air.

“You’re a pegasus?” I gasped. Tears stung my eyes.

My warrior horse was not only a fearsome mare to ride into battle—she was a being of myths. A creature I thought only existed in fables.

Unable to fight the smile on my face, I whirled to Tolek, who grinned and shook his head with disbelief and excitement. “It seems she is. But there’s also…” He gestured behind him, and rage solidified in my gut at what I saw.

One of those ghastly beasts, with leathery, scaled wings, that we’d fought in the forest on our way to the Undertaking. The one that attacked Jezebel, whose spirit she had communicated with.

Every blissful feeling Sapphire had spurred in my heart was replaced with hot fury. I lunged for the beast, unsheathing Starfire from my hip.

But Tolek’s arm banded around my waist before I took a step.

“Let me go, Vincienzo!” I struggled against him, and nearly broke his hold. Now that I was awake, I felt stronger than ever.

Tolek only let out a low, infuriating snicker in my ear.

“Relax, sister.” Jezebel stepped around the creature, her hand resting affectionately on its snout. As docile as my horse—pegasus—that thing nudged her shoulder. “He won’t harm us.”

“Jez.” I wilted against Tolek. Starfire dropped at my side, blade clattering against stone. My sister and I locked gazes, and everything that had happened on the other plane flashed before me. “Jez, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said confidently. But the lack of explanation for that realm and the burning desire to understand how we’d ended up there solidified between us.

“I’ll explain what I have answers to,” she assured me. The frame of Ricordan’s manor shuddered again. “But we need to get out of here before the courtyard collapses.”

Snapping back to the moment, I swept the scene. Mora held a limp but breathing Kakias. Her gaze filtered in and out of consciousness, one moment widening at the beasts, the next clouding over.

Lancaster held Dax, Barrett watching cautiously. Santorina glared at the fae male, her hands clenching at her sides, and I remembered her promise to kill him the next time she saw him. She was determined enough to do it, I knew for certain, but she’d confront him when he wasn’t helping one of our friends.

Mora gazed at Sapphire and the scaled creature with starry-eyed adoration. Then, a second winged beast swept through the now-open ceiling.

Atop its back, Erista grinned her feline smile down at us. “We should go quickly.” There was a tightness in that smile that unsettled me.

“Did you fly those things here?” I shot at Jezebel, my jaw dropping open. “What about the border?”

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