Because I could also detect these emblems. I guessed I wasn’t as uninvolved as I’d hoped.
I nodded. “Of course.”
“Thank you.” And there was a quietuntil the stars stop shiningbeneath that gratitude. With a slight dip of my chin, I sent the sentiment right back, attempting it through our broken Bind.
Ophelia smiled as if she felt a hint of it.
She instructed us all to be careful, and then the three warriors with Soulguider blood stepped beneath the archway, into the field of swirling spirits and mists, or whatever it was exactly.
A part of me hoped they didn’t find out.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Ophelia
The Hall of Wandering Soulscalled to me the moment the archway revealed itself in the marble. Dull, ghostly voices, like whispers through the trees, echoed down that hallway, the towering walls stretching impossibly high and deep.
As I stepped through with Jezebel and Erista, some untended part of me woke. Something wanting and lively.
Something powerful.
A groaning of marble had my head whipping back toward the atrium, catching the final slivers of mystlight as the door slid shut of its own accord.
I’ll be waiting at the end of wherever that damn hall takes you,Tolek had whispered to me before he’d stepped back.
It was only a corridor, I told myself. No cause to be afraid. But my blood pounded faster in my veins.
At the last glimpse of the atrium, I met Tolek’s eyes.I love you, I mouthed. But I didn’t get to see him say it back as the final crack in the doorway sealed over with a dull thud.
And with it, my heart rioted.
I straightened my spine, locking away the fear. The was no room for it tonight. We had a chance to find the seventh andfinal Angel emblem by venturing through this hall, and I would return to the Spirit Realm before I let it slip away.
Especially with Ritalia scheming somewhere off the shores of our continent.
Gripping Starfire’s hilt and siphoning off the strength only my weapons could provide, I stepped forward.
“What’s the haze from?” I asked Erista as we proceeded cautiously. Even the Soulguider was watching her steps, as if unsure what lay beyond.
“A side effect of so many lingering souls,” she explained.
Eyes on the thick mass of fog ahead, Jezebel asked. “It’s not their actual spirits, is it?”
Something within me writhed at the possibility of having to gothroughrestless spirits. I thought back to the ones who had tested me during my Undertaking. There was a similar misty essence in the hall.
But Erista shook her head. “I don’t think so. Spirits would likely be in their bodily form still, not scattered.” She paused, walking a small circle as her gaze scoured the ceiling. The hooked sword at her hip glinted in the mystlights piercing the haze. “These are remnants of those lost.”
Grief twisted through me at that explanation.
“Can you hear them?” I asked Jez.
My sister shook her head, and in a voice cracking with sorrow, she said, “No.” Jezebel paused, listening more intently. “I think they’re too far gone, even for me.”
Lingering somewhere between.
Though that was devastating, a piece of me thanked the Angels or Artale or whoever planted these powers in Jezebel that she did not have to walk this stretch of hall with a myriad of wandering spirits shouting through her mind.
We continued on, entering the thickest of the fog. I could barely see Jezebel and Erista beside me. My sister slid her hand into mine, securing us together.
