Page 6 of The Curse of Ophelia
“Was it passed?” He anticipated her next question. When Jezebel nodded, my father’s lips pulled into a tight line, his face grim. “It targeted our people at our most imperative source. The place where our power lives. Our blood. If one was plagued, it was a guarantee that anyone who shared their blood would be, too, starting with the eldest. It was also contagious, should you come in contact with the blood of a Cursed victim.”
All four of us examined our own veins, silently thinking the same, unanswered question. How did we, one of the most powerful bloodlines in Mystique history, escape unscathed?
The question hung in the air, a taut string of guilt stretching between my family.
After a moment, my father cleared his throat. “Was that all, Jezebel?”
I knew it wasn’t. I knew my sister better than anyone, and I felt that she was building to strike. Jezebel viewed the world as a series of opportunities. Just as when we trained, her common tactic was distraction. She led her opponent down one path, sensed when her chance was strongest, and attacked where they were blind.
Who was her opponent now, though?
My sister brushed her cropped blonde hair behind one ear and straightened her shoulders. This was it, the moment she would hit her unnamed target. I glanced at my father. The crease between his brows deepened.
“What changed? What caused the treaty ending the war and lifting the Curse? Why has no one been struck in two years”—the tattoo on my arm heated—“since Malakai disappeared?”
Breath cascaded from my lungs at a dizzying speed. No one in my family dared speak Malakai’s name around me, but my sister was a ruthless fighter, and for a reason still unclear to me, I realized I was her opponent.
The bindings on my dress felt too tight. I struggled to catch my breath. I couldn’t think, couldn’t understand. It was as if the blood in my veins stilled then heated, igniting every ounce of rage I had built up over the past two years.
I pushed back from the table. “You’re cruel,” I hissed, leaving before she could respond.
*
The gentle noises of our family’s horses calmed me, though each inhale felt like it would burst my lungs. I timed my breaths to my mare’s.
Brushing my hand down Sapphire’s nose, I brought my head to rest against her cool coat and inhaled deeply. She was one of the few that didn’t set me on edge these days. I always had a sense that during these past two years she understood me better than most people did.
As a warrior horse blessed by Lynxenon, the God of Mythical Beings, she would live over a century and be my support throughout that time. I didn’t want to think about the years after, when my extended lifetime would allow me to live for centuries after her. Another thing I was destined to lose.
White moonlight reflected on her pristine, snow-like coat. I stared into her turquoise eyes and wound my hand into her deep blue mane—the feature that was her namesake.She exhaled gently against my cheek, as if to say she read my ricocheting thoughts and held all the same questions but was here for me.
“I don’t know, girl,” I whispered. “I don’t know where he is, but I know he’ll come back.” My voice cracked over the end of my sentence as I remembered Malakai’s words on the night we received the Bind, mere weeks before he left: My North Star, so that we may always come back to each other.
But why hadn’t he?
Soft footsteps punctured the stillness, crunching over layers of hay, and I prayed it wasn’t my sister. I wasn’t ready to dissect her strategy.
Thankfully, it was my father’s strong hand that snaked across my shoulders and tucked me into his side. I fought every instinct to push him away.
“That was callous,” I said coldly when he finally released me. I picked up Sapphire’s brush to busy myself and kept my eyes on the soft silver specks that glowed in her coat, smoothing them with each brushstroke.
“Your sister will apologize,” he assured me, braiding Sapphire’s mane with his nimble fingers as he had regularly since he brought her home to me. “But she is right. Though her methods may be harsh, she only hopes to push you toward acceptance. She loves you, and she does not wish to see you suffer, Ophelia.”
I stilled at the sound of my full first name from my father instead of the nickname he usually opted for: Sorrida, a word in a tongue I didn’t know, which he claimed roughly translated to smile. For the smile your birth brought to my face, he always said, though now it felt so misplaced.
“She is wrong. You are all wrong.” The bite in my words was clear—I had no use for their doubt.
My father turned to me but kept braiding. “You are living in the past. We must move forward.” This wasn’t the first time he had given me this speech, but it had become more frequent as of late.
I couldn’t bear to speak of Malakai at this moment, not with the flaring heat still surrounding my Bind. “The Undertaking,” I whispered, choosing a safer subject. A pain that still ripped through my body when it was taken from me, but one my father understood as a warrior.
His voice was softer when he spoke. “What about it, dear?”
“It’s all I ever wanted. All I ever saw for my future.” I closed my eyes, seeing the life I would now never have, with Malakai as Revered and me as his Second.
“Now you will find a new vision.”
“I was born to be a legendary Mystique Warrior. Without that chance, I have no purpose. I feel useless, aimless.” Broken, I didn’t add aloud. “That’s why I do it. That’s why I cannot give up hope that our people will be restored.” My hands froze on the brush. I took a determined breath to collect myself. “That all of our people will be restored,” I added. And he understood. Malakai.