Page 188 of The Legacy of Ophelia
The woman flipped through the air and landed perfectly on the balls of her feet in the height of madness in Xenovia. Then, she ran, disappearing into a cloud of smoke.
“Fucking Angels,” I cursed.
Grimacing, I ripped the blade from my wing. Blood slicked my skin and feathers, making everything…sticky…and it was all…slower. I looked at the blade in my hand, taking a moment to realize it was that same black onyx as the gorgon arrows.
Poison.
By the Spirits. It crawled through my blood, slithering serpents sinking their teeth in one pierce at a time. Gorgon poison, wrought of the seraph’s natural-born enemy. Lethal.
No. No I could not go down like this. Could not become such an easy target for Echnid to grasp. Not while a battle staked onmeraged below. Not with the Angels and gorgons and whatever else wreaking havoc.
But I was no mere seraph. I reached into the depths of myself, beyond my bruised spirit and into the magic birthed by my Godsblood and myth.
I channeled every drop of healing power toward the serpentine venom crawling through me, to leach out the tainted substance this woman had planted in my body. This poison may have been lethal to a single seraph, but I wasof every Angel, a rival of the gods.
As Sapphire continued to circle, climbing higher to keep me out of the fight, I found those vipers in my blood and choked them one by one with leashes of shining seraph power.
With fire and the brimstone it bore, I scorched them. Drowned them with a raging sea and called on my own Godsblood to seal the death of the poison until the world swam back into its ruinous view.
I’d slumped against Sapphire’s neck, her wings keeping us perfectly balanced so I didn’t slip.
“Thank you, girl,” I said, sitting up. Pure appreciation for this magnificent creature burned through me as bright as Angellight.
Looking over my shoulder, a gash shone in my wing. Not healing. It was no longer bleeding, but dark drops of poison seemed to ooze from the wound. A rock sank in my gut. Not even my Angellight would mend it right now.
I wouldn’t be able to fly without Sapphire tonight. My myth born horse would be with me until the end, or I’d fight on foot beside my warriors. And despite the terror at what waited, pride bubbled within me. Pride to stand against the gods and Angels.
As if summoned, the pair of wings I’d been searching for flared up in front of us. Sapphire was speeding through the skies so quickly, she looped around the Angel, stopping on the other side of him, her back to the open desert rather than the city beneath.
“Damien!” I called, and there was no bite of pain in my tone. No hint that I’d sustained a wound to my hyper-sensitive wing or that I was expending precious magic by the minute to staunch it.
No, my voice was utter rage.
“Ophelia,” Damien greeted, not even beating his wings to stay aloft. He was held by that raw power I was beginning to suspect ran deeper than any of us knew.
“What are you all doing? Is it me you’re here for?”
“Yes and no,” Damien explained. “You know Echnid has been working on his plans.”
“And I know you have been helping him do it!” My hands fisted against Sapphire’s back.
“You truly still believe the worst.”
I threw a hand out, encompassing the city. “I have fair proof!”
“I have helped you learn your magic.”
“Only for it to be manipulated!”
He remained frustratingly calm, gold light tumbling from him and wings still perfectly clean, like he hadn’t visited thebattle raging below. The scar along his face glowed eerily in the night like a crack to the surface of a frozen lake.
And that shattering ricocheted deep in my bones as Damien said, “We have been waiting for our chance for much longer than you have, Ophelia. We may all be on the same side.”
“I cannot believe after all of this, you expect me to believe that! You expect me to take your word for it that you are truly trying to help the warriors?” Ezalia’s weight pressed against my memory. “I saw what Gaveny did—what the others are doing. When will it end?”
As those four words that had been strangling me squeezed out, I looked over my shoulder, across the desert. And my heart stuttered to a stop. A hazy white mist seeped across the dunes, pressing closer and closer to the city borders.
Damien followed my horrified stare, and his jaw tightened. “I have to find my sacrifice. I promise, Chosen Child, that answer is coming.” Then, he left, dipping down into the city, and Sapphire turned about to face the mist.
