Page 211 of The Trials of Ophelia

“What does that mean?” he asked.

I shook my head and clenched my fist around the Engrossian emblem, letting the burning familiarity steady me. It felt less potent, the pulse not as strong now that the Angelic Spirit of its predecessor had returned to wherever it belonged.

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

For the Angel, for us, for the next steps in this aimless hunt—I did not know.

The range was peaceful from the highest peak looking down on camp. Far below, warriors scurried to-and-fro, carting supplies, packing tents, some simply relaxing. It was a necessary reprieve after the constant battles of the past few months.

Tolek and I sat on a blanket beneath one of the few cyphers that had somehow retained its leaves, though there were only a few, sporadically dotting the branches. The storm had cleared, the sky a gray lilac though it was the middle of the day. Tol had pulled me up here after long hours tending to the injured, and I’d told him of Kakias’s confessions and Bant’s spirit releasing from her body.

“Where did it go?” Tol asked, drawing shapeless designs in the snow with a stick.

“Disappeared into the mountains.” I shrugged, watching my hand as a thin thread of Angellight danced between my fingers. “I think it’s all connected.”

Tolek raised a brow, and I dismissed the light, turning toward him.

“Kakias practically admitted Annellius hid the emblems.” I pushed onto my knees, anticipation bubbling within me. “It would make sense with what Vale has seen. Annellius found the tokens and hid them.”

“Why, though?” Concern was etched in Tolek’s face.

“Because…” I gripped my shard necklace, almost afraid to admit the next idea. “Because he didn’t like what he was meant to do with them.”

“If that’s the case, Alabath, we need to be even more careful than before.” Chills spread down my arms. “Remember how Annellius’s story ended. We don’t know what these things are capable of.”

He was right, but the thought stuck to my mind, a theory I needed to continue to work on. I sagged back against the tree, lifting my hand again to summon Angellight. It burned in a bright snap for a moment, and I concentrated on that orb, willing it to dim.

Once it did, and it was nothing but a thin film wafting around my palm again, Tolek laughed and reached up to brush my hair from my face.

“It’s amazing,” he said.

“I don’t have much control over it,” I sighed, watching this new power ebb on its own will.

It is clear to me that your spirit sits differently on the plane among us, Missyneth had said to me before we left Damenal. I had not realized how right she’d been until I visited whatever realm Jezebel and I had been in, but was there more to her warning still?

And how did it connect to Annellius?

“You have more control than you did a few days ago,” Tolek reminded me, pulling me from my thoughts. “You’ll learn it as you have everything else.”

I dropped my hand and crawled to him, straddling his lap and locking my arms around his neck, relishing in that easy confidence he carried about every endeavor I faced.

“Thank you for believing in me so fiercely,” I whispered, and I dropped my lips to his. It was a languorous kiss, exploring each other lazily, like we hadn’t had the time to before. A brush of my lips against his jaw, down his neck. Him sighing into me before turning us, pressing my back into the blanket and hovering over me to steal control back.

I could kiss him forever. Even if the Angels rose around us, I’d choose him over it all as I had on that plane.

When Tol pulled back, he rolled onto his side next to me and brushed my hair behind my ear. His steady hand cupped my cheek, eyes searching my face. “Tell me what happened there.”

There. The plane.

I told him all of it, every sensation I could recall, every pain and power surge. How Jezebel appeared and the winged constellations fell. How when the light exploded around me at the end, an excruciating burning shot through my body, and the gray murky world was obliterated. How we assumed that was what defeated Kakias’s power on the battlefield. How I was left tunneling through white light, trying to get back to him, my whole body scorching.

When I was done, he lifted my hand, and I knew what he wanted. Focusing on the shard at my neck and the tether it left in my soul, I willed a bead of Angellight between my fingers.

“Whatever happened there…it unlocked this,” Tolek mused. I nodded. “Another mystery to figure out.” He kissed my fingers and tucked them into my palm, holding the light within my clenched fist.

We fell into one of our comfortable silences after that, breezes coasting across our skin. Tolek wrote in one of his journals, slamming it shut every time I asked what he was working on. I constructed a crown of weeds that pushed through the icy ground up here, looping one over the other in an intricate fashion.

“It’s like the halo,” Tol observed. It did resemble the symbol a Revered was inducted with.

---