Page 1 of The Curse of Ophelia

-PART ONE-

ALECTO

Chapter One

The scrape of metal against metal rang out across the dusty enclosure that formed our family’s training circuit. Three sharp clangs, followed by a thud as the double-edged blade of my short sword, Starfire, slipped past Jezebel’s sword arm and came to rest gently against her wrist brace. Without the gold band, she would have lost her hand.

My sister was lucky I had pulled back at the last second, falling into our training habits rather than unleashing the rage that had festered inside of me for two years.

“Good one,” Jezebel encouraged, tossing her cropped blonde hair out of her face and smiling mischievously. “Again,” she spat the word at me, baiting my anger.

It wasn’t irritation at my sister that fueled me. It was fury at the world. At the perfect life that slipped through my fingers two years ago as Malakai walked away from me for the last time. The image burned behind my eyelids as I gripped the leather hilt of Starfire and raised the two-foot blade in front of me: our hands outstretched, holding on until the very end.

That moment my fingers broke from Malakai’s, a cold loneliness slid into his place, and everything in my life shifted.

My heart stuttered, and I blinked away the emotion.

Dawn’s light glinted against Starfire’s immaculate steel and the gold-and-topaz pommel. I’d polished her after yesterday’s training, as I had every time I’d used her for the last decade. She’d seemed so heavy when I was gifted her for my tenth birthday.

She’ll grow into it, my father had assured my mother.

I flipped the blade between my calloused hands. Grown I had.

Jezebel sheathed her sword and braced herself with a spear before me, our weapons unmatched, but our skill equal. Neither of us acknowledged the fact that training was futile. These sessions were our solace. A place where we bore the weapons we were born to carry and honed the skills that should have delivered us our birthright.

Had the war not devastated our people.

Had the Curse not been cast against our bloodlines.

Had the Undertaking not been forbidden for our future.

As I swung my blade in the direction of my sister’s heart, I felt the power of the Mystique Warriors sing through my blood. That ancient magic tunneled through the land and into me. Into all seven warrior clans across Gallantia. It manifested as strength and connection; I felt it now, in the precision of my strike, the focus on my target, and the swiftness of my feet as I staggered away from Jezebel’s spear.

It surrounded us, stemming through the willowy branches of each cypher—the trees growing throughout Gallantia since the Angels roamed the continent. The ash-white trunks and vibrant green leaves were pure conduits of power. As we fell deeper into spring, I could feel the magic blossoming in the small white buds dotting the space between the leaves.

I flexed my muscles, reveling in the gift of the Angels.

Jezebel lunged, a low growl escaping her lips as she thrusted the shaft of her spear in front of my sword. “You’ll have to be quicker than that,” she taunted, throwing my weight back against me. She twirled the spear fluidly above her head and brought the tip just below my rib cage.

Spears. I had never liked them.

“And you’ll have to be less obvious,” I retorted. My free arm struck out, catching her spear hand off guard and knocking her weapon to the ground.

She was quick. By the time I raised my sword again, she had unsheathed her own long sword from her hip to meet Starfire. Sparks shot up from where the blades collided.

The clashing of metal echoed again, and for a second, I thought this may be the day we were caught. Never mind the fact that our training circuit lay a half mile from our manor, on the outskirts of the Alabath estate. Since the war, many people had grown bored—and meddlesome.

With the suspension of the Undertaking, young warriors were forbidden to train. A bitter taste filled my mouth when I thought of the pointless order. I gritted my teeth against it and swung Starfire.

If war had not broken out, the Curse had not ravaged our people, and Malakai had not disappeared, I would have plunged through the ritual that ascended young trainees into adult Mystique Warriors two years ago on my eighteenth birthday. Jezebel would have been attempting her own Undertaking six months from now—assuming our parents allowed it. Often, second children were discouraged from the risky endeavor if the firstborn succeeded. It was a means of keeping the bloodlines alive and active while also ensuring the safety of their precious children.

But Jezebel never would have allowed that chance to be taken from her. Though, I supposed that no longer mattered.

The Undertaking. Another thing stolen from my life.

Despite the ban, Jezebel and I found ourselves in the training circuit every morning. We danced swift-footed across the dust bordered by the cypher trees and created our own challenge to the authority ruling our lives.

Those first few weeks, our parents had been suspicious when we showed up to breakfast with rosy cheeks and ravenous appetites. They had not said anything, though. Two years later, I suspected it was feigned ignorance. Our father was the Second to the Revered Mystique Warrior—our leader. He could not be found with knowledge of flouting the restriction.