“Daughter of Red.” The Core Cardinal’s voice was a command, raw with grief and fury. “Save us.”
Hope had already decided.
She inhaled sharply as her chest constricted. Her breath stuttered. The Red and Black Lawful Stabs burned in her hands. The five stars Ciaran had gifted her along with her new chance atliving shone inside her body, in the Core of her panom mark. As if switched on, her Fifth Power felt like it was running inside her veins, awaiting, awake.
She looked at Ciaran, and the world seemed to stop spinning so they could savor this moment. She could fall into the blue depths of his eyes, into the embrace of his arms and shadows, into the security of his heart and company.
But they both knew it. Everyone in this Temple knew it.
This was a battle between the Organ Mandor and the usurper of her throne.
“I’ll be right back,” Hope said, low enough so that only Ciaran could hear her. She wasn’t strong enough to tell him to wait for her while she was in the grip of death. Again. So instead, she said, “Tell your shadows to wait for me.”
Ciaran’s jaw clenched as he acknowledged her request, his shadows untangling from her limbs one by one. Each time one abandoned the reassuring presence in her limbs, she felt exposed, unprotected, incomplete.
But she wasn’t incomplete. She had her own blades and the Lawful Stabs; those the Cardinals themselves created centuries ago with their own blood. She had a nation fighting, bleeding so she could ensure a better future for them. She had her own panom army and the courtrade army behind her. She had her family in this Temple, trusting her with their lives and their future. She had him.
She had her magic, determination, and a goal.
She had everything she needed to kill a Queen. Especially a Queen with only a fifth of her heart beating.
“Do your worst, bloodrose,” Ciaran said, pressing a kiss on her lips.
Hope turned to face the Queen, her steps steady and firm while she let her veins light with starshine and red sparks, her skin trembling with the force of it. Her body crossed the invisiblebarrier where the Queen and she were separated from the rest of the world.
The moment she was in, the Queen lunged, wings outstretched, feathers flying like knives towards Hope’s chest and face.
Hope moved faster than she ever had, dodging the killing feathers, preventing them from striking her sacred organ and her mind. She couldn’t Take the feathers away, and the half a second she spent trying was all the Queen needed for two black feathers to touch Hope’s skin, ripping her arms open, her red blood staining the ground of the Temple.
As she dodged, she ran towards the Queen, head-first, both Lawful Stabs in her metallic hand, Harming with her biological hand. What a joyful discovery the black blood of the Queen dripping from her cheek was. The feathers could not be Taken, but the Queen could be Harmed, and she could bleed.
So, Hope Harmed, and she made her bleed.
Their magics clashed, red against black, the sound like thunder splitting the Temple. The Queen struck feathers with fury, every blow meant to kill. Hope Harmed, slicing her pale skin open, still holding the Lawful Stabs dear in her hand. Hope’s stars burned brighter inside her body, fueling her to move at the speed of magic. Each strike sang with the strength of the Core, the memory of Ayla, the faith of every Cardinal sister slain, the justice of every innocent life the Queen had claimed.
“You are nothing,” the Queen spat. “You are a child with borrowed blood.”
Hope’s smile cut sharper than her blade. “No. I am the Daughter of Red. I was forged to end you.”
As if the name Fate had given her awoke an unknown force, her stars erupted.
A force made of the Fifth Power and the stars burst from her chest and her panom mark, flooding through her arms,injecting the sacred crystal blades, and irradiating towards the goddess. The Queen staggered as the starshine hit her, her black feathers burning, her wings tearing apart. She screamed, black ink spilling from her veins, her heart beating its broken fifth.
The staggered step back was all Hope needed to run towards her and strike, cutting her wings from her spine with the star-infused Red Lawful Stab. The sound of the Queen’s pain was a musical melody.
The Queen’s scream shattered glass, rattled bone, shook the very Core. Her wings convulsed as they broke, her feathers crumbled to ash, her eyes wide with disbelief.
“No crown. No heart. No Queen,” Hope whispered, as she pressed the Black Lawful Stab into her chest.
Blood called to blood. The crystal blade holding the Queen’s blood collided with the very same blood inside the Queen’s chest. The claws of the goddess holding onto Hope’s arm seared her skin, opening five long gashes that made her red liquid spill.
The Fifth Power blazed from her hands through the Black Lawful Stab, the light from her five stars collapsing into the blade. The Queen’s body split with light, leaking darkness, her scream torn into silence.
And then, she was gone.
Ash floated where the Cardinal Queen had been, black ink pooling on the floor of the Temple. The Core shuddered once, twice, like a final breath, and the Temple fell silent.
Hope dropped to her knees, lungs tearing for air, the Lawful Stabs in her hands guttering to dull crystal before they shattered into a million crystal pieces.
