“You’re still my brother,” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “You always will be.” I set aside my own pain in order to be there for Tol in that moment, but I wasn’t smothering it as I had. Instead, warmth spread throughout my chest, cracking open at bearing his pain before my own. A step toward healing.
Amicable silence surrounded us as we turned back to the mountains. Tol’s confession repeated in my head, and I drew one conclusion: Maybe even those who seemed the strongest among us were broken in their own way. Maybe I didn’t only need to heal myself but learn to be there for those I cared about.
“If I hadn’t started that fight with you,” I began, “would you have ever said anything to her?”
“Never,” Tolek swore, laughing. “Not unless she asked.”
Spirits, he truly was the most selfless bastard in existence. Honed through years of pushing aside his feelings. Tolek looked at everyone else’s happiness first—it was time for a change.
“Ophelia and I couldn’t be together. Despite how you feel or how she may feel toward you.” The words hurt to push past my throat, but he needed to hear it from me. “I changed when I was imprisoned, and so did she. We grew into different people, and we aren’t right for each other anymore.” Instead of the flash of blades tearing my skin that I’dexpected to feel, there was only an echo of longing through the Bind. Then, the tattoo fell silent. “She deserves someone who’s able to love her the right way.”
The way I chose not to.
Tolek wasn’t looking at me. He was watching the sun slip toward the mountains, drawing closer to the end of another day, but when he spoke, his voice was laced with unabashed truth, despite who stood beside him.
“I’ll always love her.” His promise seeped into the world spread before us, bathing it as the sunset did the peaks. “It’s up to her how.”
Chapter Forty-One
Ophelia
Jezebel had not beenhappy with me.
She had torn into my suite, hands braced on hips clad in cream silk and tulle. Her features were painted with rouge and liner, but beneath the beauty was a silent fury.
“You have a lot of explaining to do, sister,” she’d scolded as she forced me onto the stool before my vanity and began combing my freshly washed hair.
I’d apologized profusely for my secrets as she applied cosmetics and set my locks in waves, hoping she’d find a twinge of understanding in her stubborn heart. Explained that it wasn’t that I didn’t trust her, it was that I didn’t understand what Damien meant in his warning.
I still didn’t, still carried that fear of what would happen now that everyone knew, but since they’d found out about the Angelcurse themselves, my priority was showing everyone how much I did trust them.
When she set the liner aside and perched on my vanity, looking down at me, shadows lined her face.
“I understand.” She didn’t meet my eye. “We all keep secrets, and you felt bound to yours. There are truths to each of our souls that cannot be divulged until the time is right.”
I wanted to ask what she meant, but the noise in the palace was rising, and we were running out of time.
“Jezzie,” I began, taking her hand. “If you listen to only one thing I say tonight, let it be this: You are destined for greatness. Theyoungest ascended warrior in Mystique history. And I am honored to be your sister.”
She crushed me to her then, allowing for a moment of soft grace before yelling at me to get dressed. Then, she swept from the room, leaving an air of questions behind that I didn’t understand.
Thirty minutes later, I stood on my balcony, preparing the rest of the apologies I wanted to make tonight. Damenal’s beauty soothed me, sparkling as the sun started its descent.
The highest-ranked warriors entered the palace in their finest outfits and jewels, bearing the weapons they cherished most. Light gilded the terra-cotta roofs of the city atop the mountains, dancing across stacks of tapered rocks and tiers of stone buildings. Spires poked into the air from the temples in each quarter, gold adornments accenting the smaller buildings. Everywhere you looked, life was breathed back into Damenal. Even from my balcony, the revelry in the streets was contagious.
I watched it all, concern gnawing at my stomach. Jezebel had forgiven my secrets rather quickly because we were cut from the same cloth. For whatever reason—maybe it was an Alabath trait—my sister and I both tended to keep truths close.
I only hoped the rest of my apologies would be as smooth.
My fight with Tol twisted my gut. I had not seen him since we’d returned. He wanted space, and I gave him that, but every second I worried what he was thinking. If I’d hurt him like I’d feared I would, and after only a couple weeks of knowing how he felt…
“Daminius in Damenal is truly a special event,” my father said, stepping onto my balcony. The vest beneath his dark jacket was nearly the same color as my champagne gown, but the fabric hugging my frame was thin and beaded. Shining.
“I’ve always hoped to experience it. A part of me thought we never would.”
“Let’s make it one to remember, then.” His arm slid around my shoulder, squeezing me to his side. I wrapped my arms around his waist, hand grazing the large sword strapped on the opposite hip. It was an Alabath heirloom I once thought I would wield. Now, with Angelborn on my own back, the weapon held less promise. “May this holiday be the first of your long, fruitful reign as Revered.”
A lump formed in my throat at his words. “And hopefully one day a peaceful one.”
