Page 100 of The Curse of Ophelia

I groaned, flinging an arm out. “Why must you be so cryptic? It was removed yet I have it? None of your messages make any sense.”

“You will understand in time,” he promised, and I didn’t know why, but I believed him. Something within his omniscient gaze told me to.

I searched desperately for a question he could answer. Anything to solve this lingering web that wove itself through my life. “The Curse is gone.” It was not a question.

“Is it?”

I conceded to playing his game. “I felt it lift from me when I was in the Spirit Fire. The mark has stayed, but the Curse is gone.” I extended my arm for proof.

His gaze narrowed, and he tilted his head to the side, looking like a curious child. “Can you be sure it ever lived within you?”

“I felt it.” I rubbed my thumb across the web, remembering the pain of the Curse rooting itself within me, thriving on my blood. That excruciating ache as it reached further into my veins and drank from me would haunt me until the Spirits claimed my life.

“Maybe you felt what you were meant to feel.” Maybe he was not as much a curious child as he was devil’s advocate. His gaze followed a wisp of cloud as it drifted across the mountain peaks. I watched his eyes track it, waiting for a response, but that moment of playfulness faded from him.

“What in the damned Spirits does that mean?” I finally asked.

“Do not swear at me, Ophelia. You may be frustrated, but I am still an Angel,” he scolded.

“I could have said worse,” I muttered.

A knowing smiled twisted the edges of his lips, and it unsettled my stomach. “That affliction on your wrist was a pretense. Planted by the powers that be and lifted when they deemed it fit. You were never at risk of suffering from that Curse.”

“That Curse?” I repeated.

He watched my thumb continue to scratch at my new dark scar. “That ghost of an affliction may be gone, but your curse runs deeper, Ophelia.”

The words chilled my blood, though I didn’t understand his meaning. “I was never going to die?” Tolek had not felt the Curse because it had not existed.

“Everyone dies, Ophelia. It is what we are meant to do before the Spirits call your soul into darkness that matters. If you have truly lived, when you join the stars, the dying will not seem as scary.”

Before I could ask what I was meant to do, Damien vanished.

“Stop doing that!” I growled as the sun fully crested the mountains. It bathed the range beneath it in a breathtaking light, rising and falling with the slope of each magic-imbued peak. The sight should have relaxed the tension budding within me. The vision of a newly dawning day should have been a comfort after the horrors I’d faced, but my heart remained cold with the memory of Damien’s words.

All I could think of was the haunting echo of Angels and curses, darkness and stars.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Malakai

I woke alone in the room in which I had taken Ophelia. The memory of being buried inside her still burned into my skin, everywhere, but she wasn’t there. For a moment, I feared I had dreamed it all. That I was still a captive within my father’s prison, and torture lay just outside the door. But my fears eased when I rolled to my stomach, because the rug still smelled of her. That unforgettable swirl of jasmine tinted with citrus brought me back to my senses.

I retrieved my shorts—the only article of clothing I had. Bloodstained and battle-worn, they remained a vivid reminder of the past days’ activities. As were my sore muscles and stiff neck from sleeping on the floor with only Ophelia’s pile of golden hair for a pillow.

I should have been happy, waking to a freedom I thought I’d handed over permanently, but the aching reminder of my past haunted me. I stared into the dying flames, lit by the volcano itself, and recited the truths as I knew them.

“My father is dead,” I whispered.

“My father who had me tortured is dead.”

My father who had me tortured in order to bring glory to my enemy, his second family, was dead at the hands of the woman I loved. I couldn’t bring myself to say that one aloud, didn’t want to face it.

I closed my eyes, taking a breath to steady the emotions ricocheting throughout my body—a tangle of anger and grief and shameful relief that I knew I’d have to face—but all I could see behind my lids was that silver blade slicing along my father’s throat. The blood following its trail and spilling down his chest to the floor below. His face when he fell into that crimson puddle.

His wide eyes, apologetic as he spoke his last words. There is so much you do not know. Fucking Angels, what cryptic message had he tried to communicate to me?

My hands clenched at my sides as I tried to steady my breathing. It was all too much—so many emotions bottled up within me. For years they’d sat there, rattling the cage I’d locked them in. I’d refused to feel, refused to hurt. They’d tasted that sweet freedom in the last few days, once I’d finally thought myself broken. But now, I tried to lock them up again. If I didn’t, I’d drown in the force of grief and betrayal, the memories of what he’d allowed to be done to me.

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