Page 234 of The Legacy of Ophelia
And it truly was the happiest he’d sounded in ages. That alone dulled the hollow ache in my soul. We may have lost that faulty bond, may have killed pieces of our souls in the process, but we were here. And we were happy.
As the others swarmed Malakai, I met Damien’s stare behind him. I squeezed Tolek’s hand, jerking my head at the Angel. Tol flashed Damien a glare but nodded to me.
My wings held strongly at my back, I crossed the dunes to the Angel, walking right past him toward the streams in the distance, surrounded by cyphers and palms. Damien followed, though I didn’t look at him.
“Thank you,” I said when I stopped.
“He deserved another chance,” Damien answered.
“You owed it to him,” I clipped. My breaths turned short at the next question. “Echnid is truly gone?”
It was a worry I hadn’t dared voice to my friends. In the aftermath of losing Malakai, we’d let Aimee see to disposing of the ashes. Nerves twitched through my fingers as I waited for Damien’s answer.
“Yes,” he finally said. “He is truly gone.”
“And Thorn?” Tolek had told me how he’d disappeared under Cypherion’s scythe.
Damien’s feathers ruffled. “It appears Xenique employed a few…unique sources of magic when she forged that weapon. Things that could cleave open bridges.”
“Realmspinner magic,” I breathed. Thorn has been sent…elsewhere.
The Angel didn’t confirm or deny it. “Thorn will be found. He will be fine.” Damien’s throat bobbed. “The scythe is dangerous when combined with the right magic source. It was the key Echnid was searching for. One he didn’t know existed until yesterday when Xenique revealed she thought it was in this city.”
The first night Echnid ever manipulated me came flashing back. When he’d seemed so aggrieved over the loss of the Realmspinners. “That’s why he came?”
Damien nodded. “And because when your friends sought to distract him while you recruited Mindshaper allies, Valyrie revealed that the stars showed her how to break through Artale’s defense.”
Two key facts I was certain Valyrie and Xenique held for much longer than the god knew. More ploys of the Angels to get Echnid to act only when they wanted him to.
With a foreboding dip of his chin, Damien added, “See that the scythe is guarded.”
I nodded, swallowing that weight. “And the gorgons and demigods?”
“All dead or returned to where they belong with no way to break back into this world, save for the aid of a Realmspinner.”
My attention whipped toward him. “How?” How had they left the realm?
“Your magic was a magnificent display in that battle, Ophelia,” Damien began. “And combined with Xenique’s potent Godsblood and the veil she opened using the Realmspinner scythe, it created a way for the enemies to be sent away.”
The violet lightning and churning black clouds. Xenique was not only an Angel but a demigoddess, and she’d used Cypherion’s scythe to create that storm. She’d had it waiting on Ambrisk all these years for a time when she needed help from…
The beings I saw when Aimee appeared, wavering in the light behind her. My skin tingled as I realized with certainty exactly who the Soulguider Angel had called on.
“The gods were here,” I whispered.
Again, Damien didn’t confirm it, but he didn’t need to.
They may have abandoned us to fight the Angelcurse, but in the end, the gods had come.
My eyes stung, and I wiped at them. We had not been entirely alone.
“Will the Angels stay on Ambrisk?” I asked.
Damien’s jaw tightened. “For now. The full might of our raw power will return to us with Echnid gone. We will carry the weight of his death as your friend does Moirenna’s, and I think we would all like to embrace it. We have unfinished business in this realm. Stories to complete and secrets we are seeking. For now, though…we will be here.”
The nagging curiosity within me wanted to ask more. To know what he meant by stories and secrets. But a larger part of me was tired. I didn’t have room for anyone else’s fights. Not right now at least.
I glanced over my shoulder to where my friends had sprawled across the sand, Tolek watching us with a quirked brow, then back at the Angel beside me.
