Everyone else might have left him on his own, but I wouldn’t.
I pulled my hood up, both to fight off the wind as we tore out of the palace grounds and to hide my identity. Sapphire would still be recognizable, but we’d be gone before anyone could sound an alarm. And if they tried…well, I had my weapons on me. The Vincienzo dagger strapped to my thigh.
The night was quiet save for the pounding of Sapphire’s hooves on the path and my blood roaring in my ears. I urged her forward with every ounce of energy I held, visions of Kakias’s gift imprinted on my memory.
If I didn’t get there soon…no, I wouldn’t think that. I would get there in time.
With every stride, my heart pounded in a rhythm I hadn’t realized had become its new tune.
I raced to rescue the cause of it.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Malakai
“Where the fuck did she go?”I dug into the Bind, trying to find an inkling of Ophelia, but I couldn’t feel a damn thing. Like when I’d first been imprisoned, it was there. But silent.
A frustrated growl rumbled in my throat.
“You know damn well where she went, Malakai, and you better knock off your territorial little games, because while my sister may tolerate them for fear of hurting you further, I have no such qualms.” Jezebel’s voice was laced with calm fury.
“What are you implying?”
“I’m notimplyinganything. I’m standing up for her when she won’t.” She crossed her arms, and I almost felt her next words before she said them. “I told her to go.” She leveled me a stare that nearly had me withering. Where had the little girl who wistfully begged to train with us gone? Jezebel was fucking terrifying now.
But I could be worse. I pushed to my feet, voice a lethal dare for her to press me. “Why?”
Cypherion and Santorina sat quietly at the breakfast table.
“Because she needed to.” And Jezebel sank a little admitting that. Her gaze turned pitying, and that rattled my chest. It was the same look she’d given me that night we ran into each other near the Spirit Volcano. This fight between us had been brewing even then.
Ophelia was gone, run off to rescue Tolek like the damn hero she was, blades sharpened and poised for revenge.
It was idiotic and irresponsible. She was practically handingherself over to Kakias, delivering her seat here to the hands of that bitch queen. The chill I’d gotten the first time I laid eyes on her shot down my spine, and my anger flared with it.
“She just left us?” I growled, rubbing my tongue over my teeth.
Why wasn’t Jez angry? Her sister had abandoned her, too, yet her fury was reserved for me.
“She can’t do this.” Panic clouded my chest, weighing me back down into my seat. We were safe as long as we were here—away from threats. But look at what happened when one warrior left the mountains. Capture. “She can’t leave everyone. We’re relying on her.”
“She didn’t leave them alone.” Jezebel’s eyes swept over me, then Cypherion and Santorina.
“And what do you think of this?” I glared at them.
“The second the threat was read I knew there was no stopping this,” Rina claimed. “I wish she’d consulted us, but?—”
“We shut her down.” Cyph ran a hand down the back of his neck. “Once we said no, she’d seen this as the only way. Am I frustrated she went alone? Yes. But are you really surprised?”
I wasn’t. Because this was what Ophelia did. She risked everything for those she cared about, diving headfirst into the battle while we were still planning the war.
And it was Tolek.
But did she consider there was an entire clan relying on her? While she cared for Tol, she cared for the Mystiques, too. And if she were to get caught, she’d be abandoning them.
Jezebel’s voice softened. “She’s trusting us to take care of the Mystiques in her stead. To continue the plans she’s begun.”
Pressure mounted on my shoulders with their stares, questions hanging in the silence. And I knew what they wanted.
