“If that’s what needs doing to ensure Jake doesn’t give up on living his life the way he fucking wants to, with whoever he wants or doesn’t want to, then yes—very much so. No deity should have the power to command or forbid feelings.”
Ayla felt Hope walk towards Lenna. “Then you will need the Lawful Stabs.”
“I will indeed need both.” Ayla felt the confidence in Lenna’s voice, no doubt accompanied by a side smile. On the Fifth Judgment, her sister hadn’t wasted the chance to get a true answer from the South Cardinal, the only thing she was granted. Lenna continued, reciting word by word the truth she had fought with her life for. “The life of a Cardinal can only end when herwings are torn by the weapon bearing her own blood, and her heart is struck by the weapon bearing the blood of her Queen.”
“I will keep them safe until you need me to wield them,” Hope promised. “And then, we will learn what to do with a land lacking a Cardinal, we will reconvene, and we will plan and adjust to a new reality.” Hope turned to speak to the others. “As for how we kill the Queen—Ciaran, did your years of research shed any light on that?”
“I’m afraid not. But I believe I know who might have the information we need, and it lies not in light but in darkness.”
“Your courtrades?” Hope asked.
“Not all of them. The ones who were based on Thyria for decades, researching as per the orders whispered by Llunal himself. I wondered what kept shadow souls so incredibly busy in a land of panom magic, and Marcus hinted at something that could mean…”
Marcus Olanett, who had traveled from the island of Verdania with Hope and her mother, using Hope’s panom blood to travel through the net of vessels underneath the sea and to Thyria.
“Can you moure me to the courtrade quarters in Corentre, Hope? I need to check on them, see if they need anything, assess the losses and the aftermath of the battle and the navias escaping. Marcus can brief me, and then we can ask him if he knows anything about the Queen.”
It was an irony of the magic system that Ciaran had created a safehouse one could only enter by mouring in and out, with his permission, protected with epitellia wards that didn’t allow unwanted beings to know the house and the inhabitants were there. However, because of his current lack of panom magic, and that courtrades couldn’t moure, he couldn’t enter and exit his own home independently. It wasn’t just irony. It was a danger and a weak point they would have to work on.
“Why would the courtrades know more about the panom Queen than panoms themselves?” Nina asked.
“Because she probably kept distance and secrets from the beings she considered most powerful and therefore more dangerous: the beings bearing panom blood,” Hope said.
“And because, by the sound of what the Cardinals said in the Fifth Judgment, Llunal and the Core Cardinal have been in love for a while, which means they probably have their own agenda,” Ayla added.
Lenna hummed. “Llunal and the Core Cardinal have managed to unite Hope and Ciaran despite being born in different centuries, despite living on different islands, despite different types of magic flowing through their veins. They have made both of you the leaders of their people. For Fifth’s sake, don’t even make me talk about love, okay? But they didn’t just unite you two in time and space. They united you two for life, for a reason. If you two don’t save all our sorry asses, I don’t know who the fuck will.”
12
Hope
The main courtrade quarters in Thyria were everything but what Hope had expected. She had imagined they would be some sort of underground bunkers made of metal and black, a static version of the navias.
However, what surrounded Ciaran and her after they moured was an interior greenhouse with many exotic flowers, bushes, and trees she had never seen. It wasn’t a standard greenhouse either. It was not warmer than outside, but cooler. The glass panels were darkened, letting the beings inside see if it was daytime or nighttime outside, yet the feeling inside was probably of a permanent flow between dusk and night. The pale sun wasbut a mere dim light through the window panels surrounding them, and Hope could only imagine how the stars would mark the sky at night, like small white dots in the blackness above.
The smell of the flowers reminded her of the salty sea and citric fragrances, with a tinge of rare rocks she had never smelled before. There were multiple species, mostly navy, black and white, covering the spaces between the multiple intricate white stone paths. The trunks of the trees were pitch black with white dots, or pure white with small black specks. The leaves shone so much they appeared to be made of different metals.
“This is beautiful,” Hope said, spinning around to admire the dimensions of this space. It was huge, and through the window panels she couldn’t see any other buildings or demarcation points that would help define their exact location. Was this truly in Corentre?
Ciaran kneeled down on the white stone path they had landed on, admiring the closest black flower with white wavy stripes, taking it with his biological hand. Hope couldn’t take her eyes away from him as he stood up, approaching the night-infused flower for Hope to smell. The aromatic scent of a mix of mint and citronella made her close her eyes and smile at the same time.
“Youare the most beautiful of everything that has ever existed,” he said, placing the flower behind Hope’s ear while she blushed in the darkness, trying to contain her smile from becoming a grin.
A metallic fingertip traced the shape of her lower lip, sending heated nerves to every single part of her body. What his touch did to her was unheard of—forbidden. Except it was forbidden no more. He had given up the panom magic he had inherited from his father’s blood for them to be together.Together.
After his centuries of waiting for his fate to be fulfilled, after her whole life blindfolded by the destiny awaiting her, they were finally allowed to love, to kiss, to—
She didn’t open her eyes as he leaned into the space below her ear, whispering against the skin of her throat, “I have desired no one but you, Hope, and I desire you very, very much.”
The air seemed to leave her lungs, sucked by all the nature and darkness around her. By the Darkness Commander leaning on her body, by how the firm grip of his hands on her waist was clearly awaiting her response, the way his shadows trailed up her ankles and knees, slowly up her thighs, to where her core was heatedly beating of its own accord.
Speechless with unmeasured need and shy insecurity she was not used to, Hope tilted her head to the side to give him better access to her throat. The consequences of her move were immediate. Ciaran took the opening and slowly licked from her earlobe to her clavicle, as he held her extremely distracted self tightly against his chest and pushed both their bodies until her back was against the black trunk of the closest tree.
Perhaps it was the contained feeling between nature and this man, the welcomed protectiveness of the surrounding tree, but Hope finally found her speech and some sort of ability to think and put a few words together while Ciaran’s tongue licked her body away, now trailing from her shoulder towards the breast his metallic hand was exposing by unbuttoning her shirt.
“You are the only one I have ever desired, my shadow warrior. The only one I have ever wanted to make—”
Just when his lips were reaching her peaked nipple, he separated from her skin barely enough to repeat her last words. “To make?”
