“Didn’t she teach you and Jez when you were young?”
“The basics, yes. But I don’tknowit the way I do the Mystiques. I’ve never been able to tap into the magic or recite the histories.” Digging a few coins out of my pack, I exchanged them for two silk scarves, draping one around Santorina’s shoulders and the other around my own.
Something about the thin maroon fabric, gold trim catching the light, helped me feel closer to my grandmother.
“We always thought I’d inherit my father’s position as Second,” I continued, “so Grandmother understood why I focused on that dominant side of my bloodline, but I completely shunned the other piece after the first war.”
When the option of the Undertaking had been ripped from my future, I became sullen and disinterested in anything that didn’t have to do with restoration for the people I was meant to lead.
“Your grandmother knew a great love worth running away for. I’m certain she understood why you reacted as you did.” Rina shrugged a shoulder. “We all knew.”
“Still,” I said, rubbing the silk between my fingers, “I wish I’d tried harder. I wish I hadn’t been so awful those years.”
“You were heartbroken, Ophelia,” Rina intoned. “Over more than one loss. No one is their best then.”
I’d made amends with my friends and family for how I’d acted, but that didn’t mean it didn’t haunt me. I didn’t think my grandmother begrudged me the time I took to grieve—if anything, she seemed to understand better than most—I only wished I did so differently.
I gripped the silk tighter. “It was her stories of my grandfather, actually, that made me believe in the idea of all-consuming love.”
“You never met your grandfather, right?”
“No.” I shook my head, following the rest of the group around the next corner where the clangs of steel rang from the blacksmith’s tent. “She spoke of him with such adoration, though. It was always what I thought Malakai and I had—that sort of enthralling love. But she’d always seemed a bit resigned about him and me.”
“Really?” Rina’s brows shot up. “She never showed that.”
“Not outright. She did—does—love Malakai, but she was never emphatic about the pairing.” I shrugged. “I always thought it was because it sealed my fate as a Mystique and led me to focus even less on our Soulguider heritage, but maybe…” I looked over my shoulder to where Malakai walked with Cypherion and Tol, laughing with a few of the Soulguiders Erista had introduced us to. To where the quartz pendant my grandmother had gifted me for my twentieth birthday shone proudly on Tolek’s leathers. “I think a part of her might have always known that it wouldn’t be Malakai and me at the end.”
Perhaps she’d seen it in one of her Soulguider visions—that it would be Tolek and me hand in hand until our dying days.
“I love your grandmother as if she’s my own,” Rina began, examining a hooked knife.
“She feels the same toward you.”
“She’s told me.” I smiled at that. “And as someone who also loves you, I’m certain she only wants you to be happy. We all do, and that’s why we were so frustrated following the first war. Not because of the heritage you shunned.” Rina squeezed my arm. “Be happy, Ophelia. We’re here now—youcanlearn.”
Ahead, Erista called Rina’s name to point out a stall full of tonics and herbs.
“Thank you, Rina,” I said. “Go shop to your healer heart’s desire.”
She laughed, never having been one for shopping, and ducked into the tent.
Learn, Rina had said.
I picked up the knife she’d been looking at. With its delicately crafted, rounded blade, it was a pristine Soulguider weapon. I didn’t know the exact name, but Rina was right. Icouldlearn.
As I stood on this land my grandmother may have walked on, I couldn’t help but wonder, had these markets been here when she shopped? Had she roamed these sand-strewn stone streets? Were the vendors old friends, or descendants of them?
Where was her home? Her place of worship and schooling? Herlife? Before she gave it all up for the man she loved.
Someone tugged at my hand, breaking through the thought.
“You okay?” Tolek asked, those brown eyes searching my expression, amber flecks burning right though me, all the way down to the soles of my boots, rooted on Soulguider ground.
“Yeah,” I said, a bit sadly. But the market around us was bustling with both shoppers and magic, and for once, the day didn’t feel burdened by the Angels.
It was clear in the intensity of Tolek’s gaze that he knew I wasn’t being entirely honest. Obvious in the very intentional step he took toward me. In the way he tilted my chin up with his free hand and kissed me so passionately, I could almost forget the remorse swirling through me.
Whatever it is, I’m here, his lips spelled. My heart raced at the sentiment, at the feel of his tongue stroking mine, at the warmth of his body, evident even in the dry desert heat and making me squirm.
