Against my better judgment, a silent part of me buried deep within the strand of Damien’s Angellight had believed maybe I could trust him again. That maybe every foundation I’d been raised on wasn’t a fucking sham.
“Ophelia, let me take him to your suite.”
“Get away!” I roared as Damien took a step closer. A barrier of light rose around Malakai.
“You can’t carry him,” the Angel said.
My chest rose and fell rapidly, my knees weak from the power I’d expelled and the gross manipulations Echnid had pulled over me. And though I loathed to admit it, Damien was right.
“Fine,” I finally conceded, and all my power snapped back into me, buzzing to rest beneath my skin.
Damien picked up Malakai and lumbered from the room, my steps so small and hollow in the wake of the Angel. It wasn’t until Malakai was tucked into my bed that my feet carried me elsewhere of their own accord.
I slammed into the room, the door bouncing back against the wall, and raced to the bathing chamber. My knees cracked against tile as I fell and emptied my stomach into the toilet bowl.
Again and again, until I was dry heaving.
What I’d done to Malakai…
The way he’d screamed…
I heaved again.
The heartlessness with which Echnid had watched and commanded me to keep going.
Another heave.
Used. I’d been used once again, was no more than a pawn laced with the facade of power. To them, that’s all I was. All I would ever be. But what would happen if my power was not theirs to use but solely mine?
All Angellight is restorative. All can cure rot and the most deeply planted taints.
“I will cure the world of that god,” I whispered to myself, before collapsing to the marble.
When I woke,I realized I wasn’t in my own bathing chamber. With a stiff neck from the hard floor, I pushed upright and rolled my shoulders to work out the knots, blinking at my surroundings. The usual supply of fluffy white towels was dark blue, no combs or cosmetics littered the counter, and the lavender and lemon soap I loved wasn’t on the tub ledge. I’d been in such a furious, exhausted stupor, my feet had carried me elsewhere.
A suite I knew as well as my own.
One I’d come to for comfort on numerous occasions but had refused to visit since Echnid brought me back to Damenal. One that had the power to break me, especially now.
Pushing onto shaking legs, I crept toward the door and held my breath as I looked into Tolek’s bedchamber. Today of all days, it was the only place I wanted to be.
It still smelled of him. Of citrus and spice. Of home. I crossed to the desk set between tall shelves. Every paper was neatly stacked, the books organized alphabetically by author. A thin layer of dust had settled over it all, but instead of giving the illusion of a time forgotten, it reminded me of something perfectly preserved. Of a room the sun would shine on again, Tolek bounding through the door at any moment. It was only waiting for him.
I pulled a leather-bound volume from the shelf.Voices of the Lost Steel Age.It was a tiny sliver of our history, a small darkchunk of decades during the era when metalworking flourished. And this book documented the great poets and artists believed to have lived during that time.
The spine cracked as I opened it, the pages falling flat to one marked by a ribbon. And?—
I inhaled sharply.
Tolek’s handwriting was crammed in the corners, lines drawn beneath verses, and notes bracketing stanzas. He’d marked every inch of the available space around this piece.
I turned to a page that was folded down to find he’d done the same there. All throughout the book, on the biographical sections and those containing poems. Some were common questions and interpretations, a few only half complete like he’d thought of another note partway through and had to scrawl that down as well. Some were deeper musings about life and love, gratitude and death, dreams and mourning. In a few places, he’d even continued finished poems with his own stanzas, as if he was penning a tale about what happened next.
It was a deeply personal view into his soul, this book, but I couldn’t look away. And holding it, touching the pages he’d touched in the room that smelled of him, wrapped a shred of comfort around my bones.
Tucking the book back where it belonged, I quickly flipped through a few others. He’d marked up all of them. Every page. And the stack on his desk was pristine, as if he’d been intending to get to those next.
Angels, I hoped he’d read those one day. I’d ask him to tell me what each one was about. If it was poetry, I’d indulge in the different analyses with him. I’d scrawl my own notes alongside his.
