“What on Cardinals-damned Terrha is happening here?” His voice was hoarse, nearly swallowed by the roar of flame. His gaze cut to Lenna, then back to the goddess standing before them.
His voice threaded through Lenna’s mind, sharp and fast. “You need the Lawful Stabs right now. Do you have them?”
Damn. His voice in her head again—how she had missed that. She shook her head ever so slightly, panic tightening her chest. At the same time, she sent her ink outward, clawing for Hope.
No answer.
Her ink sharpened, frantic.
Still nothing.
Jake shifted, one hand moving subtly behind his back, and she realized he must be sending his own desperate inks.
Someone else. They needed someone else. Her gut twisted as her ink leapt unbidden toward the courtrade.
Jake’s jaw tightened. He turned and left the East Cardinal and Lenna alone, and a fragile inch of hope bloomed inside her chest that he had gone to moure straight to Hope, to get the blades the Organ Mandor always carried on her.
The East Cardinal’s attention returned to her like the weight of a mountain. “You think you will have him?” Her voice coiled with venom. “Jake belongs to pain. And pain belongs to him. Pain is and will always be the only true love of his life.”
The ink scar carved on Lenna’s forearm, the one that tied her to Jake, did not read the same.
Then Jake was back. His face was bloodless, his eyes ringed with horror. He slipped behind her, and in one swift motion pressed something into her hand. Smooth hilt. Razor weight. The Red Lawful Stab.
Her fingers curled around it with instinctive greed. The blade glowed faintly—red crystal, forged from the blood of the five Cardinals. Its twin, black crystal carved from the blood of the Cardinal Queen, followed, pressed against her other palm. The Lawful Stabs.
The East Cardinal sneered, pinning Jake down with her fatal stare. “You couldn’t resist, could you? You swore obedience tome, Jake Coralt, therefore you will suffer the consequences.”
Jake’s body convulsed as blood spilled from his nose, his mouth, his skin itself. Every drop of him that dared rebel against the Cardinal’s curse fell, staining the ground.
Lenna’s breath caught, fear stabbing sharper than any blade. Jake was choking, falling to his knees, drowning in red.
“Such a disappointment of a man,” the goddess spat. “I believed you stronger. I believed you worthy of my Harming Petal.”
Jake’s chin dipped. He stepped forward, closer to the Cardinal, his face shadowed, his hands trembling. For one wild, wretched moment, Lenna thought he might beg. But Jake Coralt was not a man who begged. He was the manothersbegged to.
And so he proved it.
He seized the East Cardinal’s hands and slammed them into the Ruining Flame.
The fire locked her there, wrapping around her wrists in front of her, like shackles. She shrieked, the sound rattling every bone in Lenna’s body.
“East Ruler and East House,” the East Cardinal thundered, wings unfurling in a storm of red feathers, “beware what you wish for. You cannot exist without me. You are nothing. You exist because I allow it.”
“Self-entitled bird with the audacity of a glorious ass,” Lenna spat, walking towards the goddess, raising the Red Lawful Stab high. She drove it down with all the force she had—straight into the joint of one massive wing.
The blade bit deep. Resistance like stone fought her every inch. Her arms shook with the effort, but Lenna pressed harder, gritting her teeth.
“You!” the Cardinal screamed, her voice fraying. “You vicious woman—youshould be my Ruler.Youdeserve. Twisted and screwed up, full of pain and rage. You and I, my wicked soul, could go incredibly far.”
“Far enough to gut you,” Lenna hissed. She shoved harder, and the wing tore free with a sickening crack, falling to the ground in a heap of feathers.
The East Cardinal shrieked, fury boiling. She ripped one hand free from the fire, her fingers blackened, and wrappedthem around Lenna’s throat. Pressure crushed down, steel-hard, unyielding. Stars burst in Lenna’s vision as her lungs begged for air.
On the floor, Jake writhed in his own blood. His eyes met hers, wild and desperate. And then—light.
Sweet Bitch leapt, a crackling storm of golden sparks, and bit into the Cardinal’s wrist. The goddess howled, loosening her grip just enough.
Lenna staggered, gasping.
