9. Hope
9
Hope
T he red-tinged moonlight was so bright and clear that they didn’t need any candles or torches to illuminate the treehouse. The perennial thick trees provided cover from unwanted curious visitors. If someone didn’t know their home was there, they wouldn’t have spotted it. One benefit of having to climb quite a bit to get to the door. They could also use the open windows, which only had a thin cotton curtain separating them from the animals in the woods, but Hope’s mother always said it was good manners to enter a house through the actual door.
If her mother hadn’t been on the roof platform, Hope would have probably gone there a few hours ago. It was her favorite place to think, to plan, to decide, and to listen to herself. And what her mother told her a few hours ago…
Hope knew little about Aurora’s life before she was discarded to Verdania. She had imagined her mother had worked in different jobs to have so many diverse survival skills. But this? Not in a million years she could have imagined her mother was the Roix Reigner. The highest authority in the Roix.
Hope couldn’t wrap her head around it. The shock had been such that she couldn’t even ask her mother anything on the way back to their house from the river. She wasn’t sure where to even start asking questions. Hope optimistically expected that the sharing of something so important meant her mother would finally start explaining long-awaited information to her.
There were so many things Hope wanted to know. So many answers she had wished for a long time. She could still remember when she was barely four or five years old and every time she asked mother why it was just the two of them in the world, mother would get sad and stay quiet for a long while. Sometimes for a few hours. Sometimes for a few days.
As Hope grew older, she learned which things were triggers for her mother to distance herself from the outside world and get lost in her inner one.
It was painful to remember the sadness and frustration on her mother’s face when Hope, a few years ago, gathered her courage and asked her if she had a father. Mother silently looked at her and didn’t speak for two whole days after that.
Nina made a small noise and turned on her bed under the clean cotton sheets. Hope admired the whiteness of her long wavy hair, which seemed to shine to a pink tone with the red rays of moonlight entering the room.
Hope laid down on her bed and covered her naked legs with her favorite blanket. She was used to sleeping with oversized t-shirts from the Trading Table and some underwear. Nothing else she had tried was as comfortable and freeing.
From her mattress opposite Nina’s in the small room she had always shared with mother, she could hear the relaxing noises the leaves of the trees made when rustling against each other thanks to the breeze. Hope could hear Nina’s rhythmic, soft breaths next to her. She closed her eyes and focused on that sound as if it was a melody into the night.
Hope did not know if this was going to last for much longer or not. If welcoming a stranger to their lives would end up being the most stupid thing they had ever done. But for now, maybe it wasn’t just her mother and her in the world.
When Hope woke up the next morning, the bright sun shamelessly inundated the empty bedroom. She closed her eyes tight against the bright light and stretched her limbs while making many yawn noises. Someone chuckled next door.
It took Hope more than she would have liked to admit getting herself out of her floor bed, chucking the blanket in a ball on top of it, finding a pair of socks to put on and splashing some water on her face from the small pitcher near the window. When she opened the door, she saw Nina sitting at the oval table of the main room, apparently immersed in another book of their collection.
“Morning, Nina,” Hope said, walking towards the fruit bowls on top of the counter and grabbing an apple and a handful of berries.
Nina looked at her from top to toe and grinned. “Good morning. You look beautiful.”
Hope almost spat out the apple bite she had just taken. She could feel the dark hair in her two long braids completely messed up result of her multiple turns on the pillow last night, she was wearing a light blue oversized t-shirt and hadn’t even been bothered to check if the socks she put on were the same color.
“Hmm, thank you?” Hope said, lifting her eyebrows. She had a feeling she should say something nice to Nina, especially considering how much she had looked at her sleepy face and silk, silver hair the previous night.
Hope's mother appeared at the treehouse doorway and Hope gulped her berries with a big sense of relief by not having to continue her conversation with Nina. She didn't like the feeling of being caught off-guard.
Aurora was forty-something, and Verdania’s nature seemed made for her. Whenever they visited the towns near the coast, she and Hope were often mistaken for sisters. Both had the same almost-black eyes. Their bodies were fit and muscled from all the hours they spent together, practicing with their stash of weapons and hunting animals. They were taller than average. The main physical difference between them was the long scar that crossed her mother’s neck, and the two plaits Hope wore versus her mother’s shorter hair.
Hope hadn’t known her mother without that scar. She could remember asking her mother about it on different occasions, but she never explained how she got it.
“I used to hate it, but I learned to embrace it. It’s part of my history, of my life. It’s part of who I am,” was the most she said about it. And it had been enough for Hope to learn to love the small scars she had collected here and there during those years in the woods. Her left ankle and right elbow being the ones still visible.
She knew her mother like her palm, but what Hope had never seen was the metal box she was carrying under her armpit. Mother walked towards the oval table where Nina and Hope sat, left it on top, and shook the top part of the box with her hand to get some soil and dust off it.
The box was as plain and gray as it could be, which was not unusual. The maximum decorations they had were flowers they picked in the woods depending on the season, and some carvings they had done on the few pieces of rudimentary furniture over the years. A small snail on the corner of a shelf, a butterfly at the top of the doorway, a dandelion-looking flower next to the window, and a few others.
Mother stared at the box long enough for Nina and Hope to look at each other with questioning looks, wondering if they should say something or it was wiser to wait. Hope’s impatience was increasing by the second, and she had to bite her lip to give mother time to gather her words.
“I figured the Roix quarters would be a good start point to know where your brother is,” Aurora said without taking her eyes off the box.
“What’s in the box, mother?” she asked. Her patience had given up.
After opening the complex metal lock that kept the box shut, mother opened the lid, revealing the contents. At the bottom of the box, there were a few dozens of papers written with ink and Hope recognized her mother’s handwriting. Sitting on top of the papers, there was a small gold locket with a chain, a pair of old-looking, tiny wool socks that would only fit a baby, and…
Nina gasped and pointed at the last item in the box, then looked at Hope’s mother, lifting her other hand to cover her mouth in shock, and asked, “What is a compassom doing here?”
Hope looked more carefully at the said compassom. The palm-big transparent square looked like some sort of glass with thin red lines on the sides, as if framing the central part. There had to be something else there to cause such a reaction from Nina.
“It was mine,” her mother said with her gaze fixed on the compassom. Whether because it brought her many memories or because she was consciously avoiding Nina’s gaze, Hope was not sure.
Nina’s white brows flinched at the reply, and she started hyperventilating. “But…” she swallowed.
“Is this something from when you worked at the Roix?” Hope asked her mother without hesitating. Nina gasped again, without taking her hand off the front of her slightly opened mouth.
As far as Hope knew, only the Rulers and the roixers would cause such a frightened reaction to someone. Hope saw no reason to not share with Nina what her mother confessed to her the day before.
Nina was sleeping in their house, eating at their table, and if she wanted mother and her dead, she would have probably killed them already. Or, better said, she would have tried to kill them.
Hope didn’t know how good Nina was fighting or if she was versed with weapons, but she knew how mother and herself fought, and she genuinely doubted many people would stand a chance against either of them, least to say against both at the same time. But Hope realized she did not only trust Nina because she had not killed or attempted to kill them, but also because she was… Vulnerable. And the closest thing to a friend she had ever had.
Aurora looked at Hope’s dark eyes, assessing her question and the silent statement that Nina was to be trusted, and gave the smallest nod to Hope.
“I worked in the Roix in Thyria before we were discarded here twenty-four years ago,” mother explained, looking through the window as if remembering it. Nina’s eyes widened to a point Hope could see the whole blue iris surrounded by white. “It’s not something I am proud of. I… I was obeying orders from the Rulers, but the blood landed on my hands, not theirs.” Mother swallowed and continued. “I did many things I will never forgive myself for.”
Nina couldn't keep her scared blue eyes off Aurora's. She cautiously put her hands on her lap. “Even if you... worked at the Roix. Why did you own a compassom?”
“I should have specified I was the Roix Reigner,” mother said, an apologetic plea in her semi-black eyes. “My compassom was broken on my last mission as a Reigner.”
“Fucking Cardinals,” Nina muttered and put her elbows on the table while covering her eyes with both hands.
“What's this compassom thing?” Hope asked. A small part of her was glad her mother was explaining more things. Important things. But she couldn't help and be pissed at the fact that mother had just explained more things to Nina than to her in her whole damned life.
“It's a device the five Rulers of the five Houses of Thyria and the Reigner of the Roix use to... detect panoms,” her mother said, as if fighting against herself to say the last two words out loud.
"Detect what ?" Hope asked more sharply than she wanted.
"Cardinals spare us," Nina lifted her head from her hands to give a come-on type glance to Hope's mother, as if she couldn't believe she hadn't told Hope.
Aurora gave a sharp look to Nina, her mouth in a thin line. A silent warning that she would not allow Nina judging how she parented or her relationship with Hope.
“Panoms have special abilities. Magical abilities. All the Rulers are panoms and their blood lines have the potential to become one,” mother said. Well, maybe that would explain why the Rulers were so feared and respected within Verdania. That and the fact that whenever a villager crossed one of the many invisible lines, the Roix had orders from the Rulers to get rid of them. From Nina's reaction, it looked like the respect out of fear was present in Thyria, too.
“Panoms have the four-petal mark magically inked on their skin during the Fifth Ceremony. But... the symbol is present on the skin of a potential panom since birth. It's not visible, but it's there. And the compassom allows to see it.”
Hope felt a list of questions piling up in her mind, but before she could decide which one to shoot first, her mother continued, now leaning to sit on top of the lower and more robust shelves of the treehouse's main room. “Compassoms shouldn't exist. There are secrets that are best kept that way.”
Aurora got the papers out of the box. They looked a bit discolored, but the black ink was readable. Hope was handed a bunch of them. Some of them looked like drafts of maps. She continued eyeing the pages, and she realized she was reading lists of roixers’ names, ranks, physical features such as scars and permanent inks, average age, and...
“Which House owns them? Seriously?“
Mother sighed and nodded, taking a deep breath. “When we become part of the Roix, we resign to our own will and family. We resign to our freedom and we technically become property of the Houses, even though we are only allowed to answer to the Ruler of said House, the Roix Reigner, and the Organ Mandor.”
Hope remembered the political terms from the lessons her mother had taught her over the years. Only mother had clearly “forgotten” to mention that said Rulers were damned magical panoms. Hope tried to avoid rolling her eyes at the exasperating thought.
The Organ Mandor was the Ruler of the Organ House, in the circular area in the middle of the four-petal shape of Thyria. All the other Houses were connected to the Organ, and even though the cardinal Rulers, from the North, South, East and West Houses, had the power to mandate within their own territories, they ultimately had to answer to the Organ Mandor.
Hope’s mind was spinning in circles. “If you had to resign from your own family, how did you have me?”
Mother closed her eyes. Her face was unreadable, even for Hope. She simply said, “We will have this conversation another time, Hope.”
Hope realized Nina was sitting there, even though her stillness and silence had almost made her forget her presence.
Hope had been waiting for answers for years. Years. She had asked for them, only to get silence or a straight no as an answer. Repeatedly. This time, Hope did not even bother to hide her desperation.
Mother seemed to know exactly what she was thinking. “Soon, Hope. I promise,” mother said, putting her hand on Hope’s shoulder with a reassuring touch.
Hope said nothing and pretended to read the lists of names she had in front of her as if she cared about them, silently trying to avoid the tears building in her eyes. Soon . She had heard that dreaded word so many times she had lost count.
But she had made a promise . At least she had that. Her mother never broke a promise. This promise was not specific enough to mean much, though. “Soon” could be a day, a week, or a year, for all she knew. Hope breathed in and out, trying to get her frustration off her chest.
Nina moved on her chair opposite Hope and drastically shifted her position to face Aurora, who had gone back to sit on top of the shelf in front of the window. Hope appreciated the small privacy of not having anyone directly facing her as she wiped the corner of her eyes.
“So the plan is to enter the Roix quarters?” Nina said in an incredulous voice, as if she couldn’t believe what she was saying. “I can think of another hundred ways I’d prefer to die”, she said with a short panicked laugh. Hope agreed, her tears drying as fast as a lightning.
Aurora chuckled, as if realizing how stupid it sounded. “The Roix must know what happened in the cave. Especially because there was the panom symbol carved on the wall. At least the higher ranks must know. Or why that man wanted to kill you after the last Trading, for all that matters, since he knew about your brother too.”
Her mother turned her back to Nina and grabbed a leaf from the nearby tree that was peeking through the window. She started bending it in multiple folds while she paced the room. “We can’t enter the quarters and leave them without a fight,” mother said as if that was a possibility, but it would be a risky one. As if she thought there was an actual scenario that they would come home alive after attempting it.
Against the Roix . For Cardinals’ sake. Hope didn’t know whether to laugh or cry again.
“Each roixer has twenty-four hours off duty every week. It’s one thing I got to introduce as the Reigner. They are on a rotation pattern, so there are the same numbers of them off at anyone time. Usually, one out of ten is off. Before I left the Roix, there were fifty roixers assigned to Verdania, meaning five would be off.”
Hope flinched at the awful thought. Did Roix workers only have twenty-four hours every seven days to themselves? She had mixed feelings about it. A part of her thought it was unfair, and it scarily reminded her of the slave systems of the past she had read about. Another part thought the roixers didn’t even deserve those damn hours for all the pain they inflicted and the blood they had on their hands. And her mother had been their captain. Their damned Roix Reigner . Hope wasn’t sure she would ever get used to that.
“What do they do with their free time?” Nina asked, her brows showing her concern.
“In Thyria, most do everything and anything that is not allowed when they are on duty. I used to stay in reading or go to the woods at the borders of the Core. Most pay for sex or company,” mother said.
Considering these people were, apparently willingly, separated from their families, it made sense that they would seek any sort of emotional connection whichever way they could. Since meeting Nina, Hope had experienced first-hand how nice it was to talk to someone and have another person in her life, to feel understood and have a laugh for insubstantial things, and not having to worry much about it.
“If we could find out where they go, I could try to get close to them,” Nina said, her silk, silver hair covering the side of her face.
Hope opened her eyes and said. “You don’t have to do that, Nina. There are other ways. There have to be other ways.” But her mother had fallen silent, studying Nina. “Mother, she doesn’t have to do that,” Hope said a bit too loudly.
“She doesn’t have to do anything she doesn’t want to do. But she is stunning, and her beautiful features unusual enough to make anyone pay attention to her straightaway. So unique, in fact, that they would recognize her resemblance to Raoul straightaway, if he looked as alike to you as you both said,” mother said, almost muttering as if she was talking to herself. “Unless she approached a brand new roixer, or someone in the lower ranks.”
“I will do it if it gets me closer to finding where Raoul is, and how to get to him,” Nina said, making Hope silently curse all the Cardinals. Nina continued, confident but serious, “I won’t do anything I don’t want to do. I have played with men before.”
Hope tried to hide the deep shock she had after Nina’s statement. She couldn’t imagine the sweet, vulnerable Nina playing with anyone. Especially not in that way Hope had only ever read about.
Aurora considered Nina’s words before saying, “It’s worth a try.” Hope couldn’t believe the pair she had in front of her and realized she was annoyed about the shit plan they had. She wanted to protect Nina from harm. Like she had done the first time she saw her being dragged in the woods.
“I suggest we head to Cralia after the next Trading Day. Hope and I will stay nearby, at all times within ears’ reach of where you are, and we will come for you if you shout for help, Nina,” her mother said, casually grabbing a dagger from one of the weapon shelves and a whetstone to sharpen it. Hope was glad she was not the only person in the room who cared about Nina.
“Oh, it shouldn’t get to that point,” Nina said, with a small appreciative smile to Aurora’s for her offer of protection. “I was planning on taking the little red vial I got in the Trading in case anyone doesn’t understand “no” as an answer.”
Hope laughed with nervous relief. She could perfectly remember how the beautiful poppy had died in front of them within seconds of a drop of the red liquid touching it. That would be a quick solution. And if for whatever reason Nina couldn’t use that, Hope would make sure to hang the balls of whoever touched her without permission from the roof of the damned Roix quarters.