30. Hope
30
Hope
A urora brought a pile of clean courtrade-black clothes to Hope and sat next to her on the crates of the cellholt.
“Thank you.”
Aurora held Hope’s hand tightly in between hers. “I don’t think I tell you enough times how proud I am to be your mother and how much I love you.”
“I love you too, mother.”
“Are you nervous for what you will find in Thyria?” Hope didn’t need her to mention her father. Both of them knew that was what she wanted to find in Thyria.
“I am. Nervous, excited, curious and impatient. Thank you for coming with us. I know you said you wanted to, but you didn’t have to. I appreciate not being alone in such an important moment of my life.”
Aurora smiled with all the kindness and love that a heart could bear. “You didn’t leave me alone when I wanted to end my life in this world. You were little, and yet you didn’t leave my side. You didn’t stop insisting I ate. You looked after me when I couldn’t look after either of us. You are brave, my dear Hope. You have always been.”
Aridian passed by and must have overheard the last few sentences as he started and grinned at Hope. “If you’re so brave, come throw some of your precious daggers against me.”
It was her turn again, and the courtrades were making too much noise. They cheered Hope while she got ready to throw her blade across the cellholt again, aiming at the empty crates on the opposite side. She preferred this annoyingly loud excitement to the moaning rounds of how hungry everyone was and the useless conversations about what they’d love to eat.
“Difficult to guess who you’d like to win,” Aridian snapped, an incredulous look on his face as he played with his next blade. “I thought us courtrades had a real family bond.”
“Don’t be a baby, Ari,” Jessica laughed. Nina was also laughing next to her. Jessica added, “The bond is there, but this woman is wiping your ass with her blades. How much longer will it take?”
“Ready to go!” shouted the courtrade who just finished piling the crates, adding some extra support from behind to avoid them crashing against the back wall of the cellholt.
Hope’s last throw not only reached the middle of the cross Aridian and she were aiming at, but made all the crates fall on top of each other. Which lead to Marcus shouting that they would end up playing in the fucking sea if they broke the cellholt with this dumb game .
But Hope knew Marcus was looking at this dumb game from the cabin that he had barely left during these four weeks it had taken them to reach Thyria. She certainly did not want to break anything, not when they were less than two days away from reaching the tunneled exit from the vessels that would take them to the streets in Corentre.
Thyria. Where Hope would finally meet the male that gave her panom blood and find the answers she needed. Where Nina would finally be closer to reuniting with her brother. Where Aurora, Hope remembered with sudden angst in her chest, would have to face the beings she led all those years ago as the Roix Reigner. But more importantly, her mother would have to face the male she had fallen in love with. The one who broke her heart, mind and soul in such small pieces that took years to put them back together. The one who discarded her and their newborn child because they were inconvenient.
Hope knew deep down that nothing was going to stop her. She was a survivor. She was still alive after over two decades of fighting against all the odds. Her determination and perseverance, her will to achieve whichever goal she set her mind to, was proof that she didn’t need anybody or anything to get what she wanted.
In the cellholt, the courtrades stopped cheering, letting Hope focus as she lifted her blade next to her face. But she didn’t need to focus. She already knew precisely what she was aiming for.
With the right amount of strength to rip the hypothetical veil off the truths she was chasing and break the crate but not destroy the cellholt, Hope threw her blade.
The blade hit the cross, and the crate was propelled backwards against the protective blankets the other courtrade had laid out. Most courtrades and Nina started clapping and shouting with excitement. Most courtrades, because Hope felt Marcus’ quiet stare at the back of her neck, and Aridian was damning Llunal and all his shadows.
Hope bowed at Aridian as she said, “Your turn, mister,” leaving him the best spot to throw once Julian had rearranged the crates.
Before Aridian could take the two steps that separated him from said spot, the cellholt shook vigorously, leaving many courtrades on the floor. The same strong shaking Marcus usually warned them about when he was about to push the cellholt from their current vessel to one further apart. Except Marcus was not touching the living map of the cabin. He was running towards it to find out what had just happened.
Hope, Aurora and Nina entered the cabin after Aridian and Lidia. Marcus’ second and third in command stayed alert and silent, awaiting orders. Marcus’ jaw clenched, his fingers fastly touching and adjusting the multiple views on the living map in front of him.
Hope saw the fear in Nina’s eyes, and the calm storm brewing in her mother’s dark eyes, reflecting her own. Only experience let someone stay in control of their rawest emotions when everything around them was collapsing.
“That was not a burst of panom power,” Marcus whispered. “And for the cellholt to move from vessel F35C to D19H… That is a massive jump. It can’t be accidental. Which means…”
“The roixers know where we are, and that we are intruders,” Aurora finished for him.