Page 115 of The Legacy of Ophelia
I didn’t kill them all—I needed to conserve some power for finding Tolek—and with every passing second, the god’s familiar, repulsive presence crawled along my blood. I couldn’t see him, butfucking Angels, he was all I could feel.
Nausea swooped through me, and my vision dimmed. Black spots swarmed the air, dunes rushing up toward me.
Ophelia, echoed through my mind.
“No, no, no.” My hands clamped against my ears as my light recoiled, shuttering back into me. Hiding from the god.
He was everywhere. Mist gathered closer, dissolving my Angellight.
It wrenched my head back, my mouth open.
And with utter consumption, in the most violating way, the Warrior God’s power shoved itself down my throat. I choked and flailed, my neck straining, but my body was locked in his grasp.
“Ophelia,” Echnid purred, appearing out of a swirling mass of power. One step closer, and those phantom snakes held my limbs in their coiled grasp. I was forced to bow further backward as the magic kept pouring into me. “You should not have run.”
I will always run from you, I wanted to say. To scream and rage and roar. I would never be his. In whatever way he wanted me—power, mind, body—he could not have me.My mind is my own. My body is my own.
Echnid’s milky eyes shone as he leaned over me. He caught my chin in his grasp, forcing my watery stare up. I forced myself not to cough and splutter.
“You are under my domain, Ophelia,” Echnid hummed. “You are already mine. You will rule with me, and I will give you all the power you dream of.”
And that was the flaw in the logic of ancient gods. I didn’t dream of power. I dreamed of peace.
Of a life where I was not used by them.
Of mornings where fear did not crowd my chest.
Of not having to choose between being selfish or being sacrificed.
Of a home with Tolek where boots lined the entryway and little feet pattered on bare wood.
Tolek.
I dreamed of Tolek as mist fought to consume me. I thought of his hands on my skin and his breath in my ear.
My body is my own. My mind is my own.
Echnid laughed morbidly, like he saw all those trivial dreams and could banish them with a flick of his fingers. But beyond the god, the mist parted, and?—
I choked on the power as a scream tried to wrench up my throat. Sapphire glided through the air, her wings and hooves coated in golden Angelblood, and Tolek sat atop her. Sword in hand, every bit alive and fighting.
The pure heart of a warrior gleamed in my pegasus’s eyes as she looped around Thorn, and it fueled my own determination. Tolek raised his blade, and with the dregs of magic I could pull up over Echnid’s torture, I sent another bolt of Angellight to channel into the steel.
I didn’t know which Angel it stemmed from or if it was purely mine, but just as Tolek whipped his head around and foundme on my knees before the god, choking on his power, Echnid sealed the wall of mist between us.
NO!I wanted to scream—tried to—but it was no more than a jagged thought.
Terror flooded every facet of my body. It clawed at my heart and pierced my lungs like a living beast.
Heat—it was the fire of the Spirit Volcano laced with vitriolic thoughts.
Burning—it was hungry and raw and riled.
Effervescent—it was the hope and will of an entire species slain before their time.
And light burst from my skin. Shining and endless, it shot toward Echnid, toward the gorgons. It blasted through the mist for Tolek, seeking to reassure and feel and touch. Seeking a beating heart and pumping blood, a laugh that healed my own spirit and eyes that glimmered with mischief.
“Behave, my seraph!” Echnid roared, desperate mist tunneling against my light. Where golden beams blazed, his power turned denser. It swallowed and masked the world until it was all I could see, all I knew. The chilling, vengeful dreams crawled beneath my skin and tried to devour me.
