Page 13

“This mess we’re in with the Angels…Lucidius knew something about it.”

And for the first time, I wondered if maybe my father’s death wasn’t entirely good.

Chapter Five

Ophelia

Shouts echoed from the infirmary, and my boots pounded harder against the palace’s marble corridors.

I knew that scream. Had been haunted by it for weeks.

Rounding the corner, I skidded to a halt, Santorina and my mother on either side of me.

“What’s happening?” I gasped.

Sweat coated Tolek’s body, the sheets were damp, his eyes closed, and those guttural shouts scraped up his throat again and again. Rough, like scratching a sword against jagged stone.

“Why are you holding his arms and legs?” My words were panicked, my chest flaying wide open as he shouted, like the sound ripped out pieces of me one by one.

Two Bodymelders stood on either side of Tol, trying to keep him still so he wouldn’t hurt himself, but he bucked wildly. The scars littering the right side of his torso where his bones had shattered caught the light. The large one across his shoulder and second around his hip tore pieces of me out further.

“He started thrashing again,” Rina said in the soothing voice she always used around patients. It didn’t help. “We can give him another?—”

“No!” I cut in, rushing to the bedside and placing gentle hands on his shoulders. Putting only enough pressure to let him know I was there but not cage him. My mother’s presence was steady beside me, an unexpected cloud of comfort. “We cannot keep drugging him like that.”

“Ophelia, he can’t?—”

“STOP,” Tolek shouted, and everyone froze. “No, no no!” His body bucked again.

“He’s talking, Rina!” Sobs caught in my chest as I whipped around to face my friend. I shoved them down. Now was not the time for me to fall apart. “He wasn’t doing that before.”

“Not-not—I CAN’T!” His scream echoed off the high stone ceilings, head turning from side to side and brow creasing.

“Tol,” I whispered, a bit broken and a bit desperate. “Tol, wake up.” I cradled his face to keep him steady.

Did he lean into my touch, or was I imagining it?

“Tolek, Tolek…please,” I begged, tears slipping free. My chest was empty, a void, not even pain residing there anymore. “Tolek, please come back to me.”

My words were so low, no one else in the room would hear. Words meant only to cast a rope into the darkness and pull my best friend back into the world.

But he fell still, and what was left of my world shattered.

“NO!” The shout was jagged up my throat. “You made me a promise, damn it, Tolek!”

I kept my hands against his cheeks, trying not to shake, and dropped my forehead to his, my eyes squeezing against the tears.

His heart was still beating—that lifeline I’d clung to every day still tethering me down. My breathing turned slow and meditative, willing him to follow suit. Willing his heart to keep trying, to not stall in the silence that haunted me.

And as I sat there, every memory of our childhood played through my mind. The games through Palerman and broken curfews. The taunts when he grew taller than me and the wooden-sword duels it resulted in. The tears I shed for various reasons and the simple fact that he had always been there to catch them.

Followed by every future we hadn’t had a chance to experience yet. Of us strolling through Damenal under the moonlight and racing our horses around the city limits. Of every nook and alcove of this palace being filled with the type of unyielding love he inflated my heart with. Of one day, laughter and the patter of small warrior feet bursting through the halls.

I wanted all of them. I listened to his breathing, clinging to him now, and made promises on every Angel that we’d have them if he would only come back to me.

Then, there was a weak brush against my shoulder.

A faint tickle down one arm.