Page 38 of The Trials of Ophelia

It made sense. If one was looking for an emblem from an Angel, it was only logical they might be in locations special to their mortal selves. Damien had delivered Ophelia’s spear, but that didn’t mean the others would be as blatantly exposed.

Seron brushed a hand across his jaw. “This one was different. The stones were?—”

“Burned.” Andrenas’s subtle accent was harsh. “The stone was burned.”

“Stone doesn’t burn.” Santorina’s brows pulled in.

“Exactly,” Seron answered. “Whatever happened there left deep scorch marks. They had to have been centuries old, but they were still warm to the touch.”

“They were hot?” Ophelia’s hand wrapped around her necklace again.

“Not hot, no,” Seron said. “But not as cool as stone islands in the ocean should be. The water evaporated right off of them.”

Ophelia turned to me, and fears screamed through her gaze. The two emblems we already had burned her when she first touched them. Only her.

“It’s supposed to be me,” she muttered. The shattering behind her eyes was a hammer to my chest. She took all of this on her own shoulders—didn’t want this pain caused by the Angels to touch anyone else.

“Maybe each one is different,” I offered.

Her eyes dropped from mine, my stomach clenching, but I tucked my arm around her, and she quickly recovered herself.

“When do we go?” Ophelia asked the chancellor.

“We can be ready in three days.” Ezalia smiled, and it was the same smile she’d worn during the Rapture. A flash of full teeth that said she was ready for a challenge. “We’ll finish preparations.”

She placed a hand over Seron’s on the table and squeezed. Cresting wave tattoos aligned on the backs of their hands, forming one endless swipe of water. My jaw ground as I watched it, the back of my neck sweating. Tattoos and their commitments?—

A cool hand tangled in the hair at my nape, and I blinked out of the trance, meeting Ophelia’s raised brows. Are you okay? she silently asked.

Tangling my fingers with hers, I kissed her palm. Perfect.

Across the table, Jezebel laughed, shaking her head.

Low muttering started around the table now that a plan had begun to take shape, but Ophelia stared at her plate, brows scrunched. I ducked down, brushing my lips against her shoulder, and muttered, “Your thoughts are awfully loud, Alabath.”

“Something Barrett told me…” The uncertain bob of her voice had me shutting everyone else out, being here for her as I hadn’t been for two months. “Shortly after the battle, I asked him where he got his sigil ring.”

“He stole it from his mother, correct?”

“It was passed down through his family, and he doesn’t think his mother ever intended to give it to him, but if it’s an Angel emblem, where did it truly come from? Before his family…” She sighed. “According to him, the ancestor who first found the ring rescued it from”—she hesitated, and I squeezed her shoulder to encourage her—“a seven-headed swamp monster.”

When I didn’t answer immediately, Ophelia looked up warily, like she was expecting me to laugh.

“Do you believe it?” she asked.

“Am I crazy to say sort of? Perhaps the original story has gotten warped over time. Most legends do. Maybe it was simply a reptile or even a very angry jungle cat, but maybe the ring was found in a swamp. Look at the big picture rather than the details.”

She mulled over that for a moment, the dull hum of conversation surrounding us. Somewhere in the distance, waves crashed against three landforms that had once been very important to an Angel.

“So, why the swamp, then?” she asked.

“And why the islands?”

“And how can these help us find the locations of the others?”

“Or the purpose of the entire task?”

“I’ll write to Barrett tonight,” Ophelia said, fire returning to her voice.

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