Ophelia pulled me to my feet and led me toward the center of the room. We waited for a few minutes, my thumb brushing across the back of her hand in anxious circles. She stood beside me, letting me steal strength like the greedy man I was when it came to her.
But the longer the silence stretched, the more my chest tightened.
After what felt like endless minutes, I started, “Maybe?—”
But an echoing groan stifled the words. It fucking rippled down my bones, uncomfortable but familiar. I wasn’t sure if that was the force of the stone grating against the marble floors or if it was the magnified power of what was revealed as the Hall of Wandering Souls slid into view.
Legends claimed there was one in every Gates of Angeldust, but they only exposed themselves when need be. When they appeared, those with Soulguider blood were meant to travel into the hall, for reasons unknown. With Ophelia and Jezebel, it had been to meet the sphinx and learn the truth of the Angelcurse and Warrior God.
Tonight, though, no one would be going within.
Tonight, the hall opened for an entirely different reason.
And I nearly fell to my knees as my sister appeared in the swirling mist.
“Ria,” I gasped, rushing to the newly revealed archway.
Ophelia pulled me to a stop, hands tight on my arm so I didn’t charge straight into that sacred space. I was grateful; a part of me knew if I tried to hug my sister, she wouldn’t be corporeal.
No, this was Lyria’s spirit smiling before me. And if she slipped through my hands, it might crush the resolve I’d been very carefully building for weeks to come here.
Lyria looked every bit as real as I remembered, though. She hadn’t taken on the misty form of the Spirits from the Undertaking yet. Her cheeks were even a touch rosy, and her dark flowing gown was made of rich black velvet. It was exactly something she would have worn when she was…alive.
“Ria,” I repeated, my voice cracking. Heart thundering.
“Hello, baby brother,” she said, a ghostly echo hanging on the tips of each word.
“Hi,” I muttered, frozen. Ophelia squeezed my arm again. “Ria, fuck. I miss you so much. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, Tolek,” she said.
“But you shouldn’t have—it wasn’t time yet!” And it all bubbled through my chest. The grief, the confusion, the anger. Every feeling I’d been suppressing, masking. Everything I hadn’t been ready to face. “It wasn’t time!”
“It was,” she assured me. “I was meant to fall that way. To a blade and for a cause much larger than any of us. Than all of Ambrisk.”
“But not this soon. Fuck, Ineedyou, Ria.” Every time I said her name, my heart bled further.
“You don’t,” she said. “You have everything you need beside you.” She nodded at Ophelia who had silent tears streaming down her face. I hadn’t realized my eyes were wet, too.
“We were going to do so much,” I whispered.
“We were. And for that—and for the time we won’t have in this life—I will always hold regrets. Butyouwill still accomplish amazing feats, baby brother. And do not think for one moment that I won’t be watching each of them.”
“You’re watching?” I barely muttered.
“Every day, Tolek. I saw the Blackfyre when you saved that girl. Saw you fight Thorn, and you better believe I roared my fury to all the spirits around me at what that fucking Angel did to you.” Her voice was just as passionate as I’d remembered, as alive as ever.
I laughed, sniffling. “Spirits, Ria. Any tips on how to kill the fucker?”
Her eyes dropped to my sword, then the dagger carved with her initials, and finally Ophelia’s hand locked in mine. “I don’t know, but like I said, I have a feeling you already have everything you need. Don’t look pastallthe weapons at your friends’ disposal.” She put an odd inflection on that sentence, but her expression sobered, and I tucked away the note for later. “But Tolek, I want you to heal. I want you to cope with my death because I know you haven’t. It is okay. You don’t need to carry guilt for still walking your realm.”
Your realm. No longer hers.
That ripped me open. “How am I supposed to do that, Ria? How—how do I just move on from something I don’t understand?”
“You take it one day at a time—one breath at a time if you have to—and you search for a light in every one of them. Sometimes it will be hard to find, sometimes it will feel impossible, but that is when you turn to the shoulders beside you, and you hold one another up.” Lyria lifted a hand as if to reach for me, then seemingly remembered she couldn’t and dropped it back to her side. “Please, baby brother. For me. I want you to heal. Remember the good moments, but don’t carry the bad.”
Those words delivered a weighted assurance I hadn’t realized I needed. Unknotted my grip from the dagger I’d been purposely driving into my chest each day, not allowing the wound to heal. Holding onto the rotten guilt and anger rather thanremembering the moments we were gifted and honoring her spirit.
