“You are not the Revered. I am. These aremydecisions to make for the good of the Mystiques, and though I appreciate your counsel, I won’t have your emotions tangled up in your advice.”
Myemotions? As if she was making decisions out of anything but fear of Kakias and desire to prove herself to the Rapture. Who gave a fuck what those five people thought? She was allowing their vapid opinions to endanger us all.
I opened my mouth to tell her as much, but she held up a hand.
“I’m done arguing. I’m going for a ride.”
My heart stuttered as she stormed past me, the shreds of our trust in each other stomped out beneath her boots.
Chapter Five
Ophelia
He followed me.
I knew he had.
And I didn’t mind.
Sapphire led us across a path overlooking the northeast of Damenal, the mountains winding their way through the world with sloping sides and jutting peaks, the bones of the continent. We cut between rocks that looked like they had risen from the earth for the sole purpose of hosting this ancient city and the magic beneath. Maybe they had. I’d never given much thought to the formation of the mountains themselves. Whatever being birthed the gods and Angels must have created the land, as well. But there were plenty of conflicting tales on that. The fact that the range had been here for millennia—surviving plagues and wars, outlasting rulers and celebrating them—was a comfort to me, simmering my anger.
As if attune to my attitude, Sapphire didn’t stop until my thoughts calmed from a roaring cascade to a trickle. My fury still flared, but under the open skies and the gentle breezes, the urgency subsided. I dismounted, walking to the edge of the trail and sitting in a patch of long grass, swaying in the wind. It was my sign that I was ready to not be alone.
Tolek joined me.
First in silence as I tied knots in a length of rope from Sapphire’s saddlebag and Tol wrote in one of his journals, each page embossed with the initialsTV. He siphoned off those heated emotions that hadbeen warring within me. It was the first time we’d been alone since before the Undertaking, Tol always claiming he had business in the city. At his absence, a hollow ache had followed me. Now, it dulled.
Once my shoulders slackened and I tucked my knees to my chest, arms resting atop them, he reclined on his hands and asked, “What happened?”
“He thinks I’m making a mistake.” Unable to stop the flood of words, I recounted the entire conversation to Tol, including the parts that flayed my chest open and exposed my shredded heart within.
“I’ll kill him,” Tol growled when I finished.
I smirked, knowing he could do no such thing. “He’s grieving.”
“He’s taking it out on you.”
I shrugged. “Better me than someone else.” An excuse to mask how deeply Malakai’s words had cut.
“And where does that end?”
I didn’t answer because I wasn’t sure. If these fights between Malakai and I didn’t end, if we continued to use each other as outlets for rage and cushions for our jagged edges, where would we end up?
Two broken people couldn’t hold each other up. At least not two who were as tangled in each other’s pain as we were. One of us would crumble. The question was—who would crack first?
I rested my cheek on my arms, looking into Tol’s eyes. The sun had risen high into the sky as I rode, the light gilding the highlights in his brown hair and setting the amber flecks in his eyes aflame. That heat burrowed into me, inquiring after my feelings without words, until it hit my soul.
“Do you think he’s right?” My voice wavered, each word laced with a vulnerability I wasn’t used to.
Tol shot forward, reaching a hand to my shoulder that steadied my rocking world a bit, an emotion I couldn’t name twisting his face. “Not in the slightest.”
“You don’t think allowing the delegates to stay is a bad decision?”
“No, Ophelia, I don’t. I think he’s being guarded after everything he’s been through—and rightfully so.” He ducked his head until I was forced to meet his stare. “But I also know that isn’t the part of the argument that’s worrying you the most.”
Damned Spirits, how did he always know? Tolek Vincienzo’s all-seeing soul would be the death of me—I swore it.
“You don’t think I’m foolish to hope?” My words were small now, hanging in the space between Tol and me like a dying ember.
