And I prayed to the Angel himself it was true.
Chapter Twenty-One
Ophelia
“Hello, Ophelia,”Lyria said when I found her behind the inn the next morning, dragging a sharpening stone down her sword. As the Master of Weapons and Warfare, she commanded the blades like they were her own limbs.
I dropped onto the step beside her and pulled a piece of rope from my satchel, practicing my knots to the steady sound of her work. “How are you?”
“Good,” she drawled. “Visiting Sapphire?”
A breeze wound through the air, warm with heavy gray clouds darkening the sky. A storm was coming—I only hoped it waited out the one we had planned for tonight.
“Yes, though I wish I had more time to properly fly with her.” My chest twisted at the separation, and I tugged the rope tight, immediately loosening it to start the pattern over. “I hate that she’s hidden, especially since Zanox and Dynaxtar were gone until early this morning.”
Lyria hummed in thought. “Tolek said he’s flown with you.”
“He has,” I said. “As you can guess, he loved it.”
The commander avoided my eyes as she had been her brother’s.
“Lyria,” I whispered, gently touching her elbow. And finally, leaning the sword against the railing, she looked at me. “Is everything okay?”
Those chocolate irises—twin to Tol’s—searched mine and seemed to see straight through me. She sighed. “Should it be?”
And that was all she had to say for me to understand. Lyria wasn’t hiding from us as Tolek feared. She was searching.
“No,” I told her honestly. “No, it does not everhaveto be okay. Especially not after everything we’ve done and seen.”
Not with what we were preparing to face tonight.
“How are you doing it?” she asked softly. “Continuing?”
I deflated a bit. “I don’t have a choice.”
“Don’t you?” When I cocked my head, she continued, “Why must you listen to the Angels?”
It was a sacrilegious question almost, but it stuck thick between my ribs. A root winding around the bone—one I was afraid to let grow, but also afraid to pull out.
“I’ve cursed them on many occasions, but there is something within me that cannot stop.” My hands tightened on the rope, and Lyria tracked the motion. “Maybe it’s the Angelcurse, maybe it’s the way my spirit is woven.” I shrugged. “Whatever it is, it’s incessant. It needs answers.”
Lyria gazed down the path winding away into a vineyard in the distance. “Purpose,” she mused, looking a bit sad.
“You could call it that,” I agreed. “I accepted the title as Mystique Revered. I have to keep pushing to make the world better for them.”
For a moment we were quiet, sitting in each other’s company. Echoes of life drifted from inside the inn—our friends and family waking, cooking, scheming.
“You’re good at it, you know,” Lyria finally said. “Leading. You’re an easy person to want to believe in.” Her words stretched out and wrapped tight around my heart. “And I’mhappy Tolek has you. Happy he’s had you all these years, in one way or another.” She laughed. “Even happier that the woman he’s with will challenge him when he needs it.”
I hid my smile as I watched my hands. “Trust me, Lyria, he challenges me more.”
“I believe it,” she said. “I remember how you two were as children. I may have been older, but I watched the training sessions sometimes. Watched you go head-to-head. Saw him fall in love with you, too.”
My heart skipped a beat over those summer days and what I hadn’t even realized they meant.
Lyria continued, “All those years he spent yearning make these moments—like flying on the back of a pegasus—so much sweeter.”
Inside, doors opened and closed, and Barrett’s energetic voice called, “Who’s making breakfast for the royal couple?”
