40. Hope
40
Hope
T he panom who sat in the throne made of bones and black feathers needed no introduction.
Short black hair, perfectly shaped beard, straight posture that only a Ruler of a nation could have. The shape of his silver eyes were replicas to Hope’s own ones, and that look… She knew it well. It was the same as when she assessed a prey before going for the kill.
He touched the tips of the fingers of each hand together.
“For a long time I wondered if you would ever be foolish enough to come back,” he said, not taking his stare away from Hope, even though she knew he was talking to her mother.
Aurora didn’t say anything. Hope wasn’t even sure if her mother was breathing. She was so still, unmoving. Utterly paralyzed since they had appeared here.
“For a long time, I wondered if you would be as sickening as I believed you were,” Hope said.
Rhei Coralt ignored her. He looked at Ciaran as he said, “You are giving me loads of unnecessary trouble recently, boy. Such a passion to aid discarded beings. Maybe you would rather end up discarded yourself.”
Ciaran bowed his head slightly as he said, “I will be careful.”
Hope wasn’t sure if he meant he would not do it again, or that he would be careful to not get caught in the future. But the Organ Mandor only said, “You will be careful. Your father is getting old and it would be a shame if he didn’t get to live all the years the Cardinals would guide him to live.”
Ciaran looked at Rhei Coralt’s eyes, and Hope felt the air around him stop moving. She wasn’t sure if the Organ Mandor felt that, as he only added, “I see you have recovered too nicely from your recent punishment. I will make a note to double it up next time.”
As if that was a dismissal, Rhei Coralt looked at her mother again, and he smiled. Hope’s upper lip curled. That smile was the most repulsive thing she had ever seen.
“Do discarded beings lose their voices in the woods?” he asked.
Aurora inhaled sharply, and Hope did her best at resisting the urge to hold her hand. She knew the Organ Mandor would take it as a sign of weakness, and the least she wanted was her mother to look as destroyed outside as she was inside. But her mother, not opening her mouth, was not doing herself any favors.
But it hadn’t been her mother who had wanted to return to Thyria. It hadn’t been Aurora who had wanted to see the face of this man, to confront him and ask the questions she needed answers to. It had been Hope.
“Do you know who I am?” Hope asked.
“Of course I know who you are. You are a discarded being, like the soundless one next to you,” he said, and the power emanating from him was enough to throw someone to the floor. Hope was silently grateful that at least her mother was keeping upright.
Before Hope could reply, Rhei Coralt added, “Did you think someone with my blood could enter my nation without me realizing, girl? Because if you did, you are a stupid fool, like your mother is for bringing you here.”
“Why did you discard us?” Hope asked, ignoring the blood roaring in her veins at the constant humiliation towards her mother.
“I don’t answer to discarded beings,” he said, his fingers curling.
“But you must answer to your daughter,” Hope spat, her fists clenched at her sides.
The Organ Mandor laughed out loud briefly, before his face was utterly serious, his teeth exposed as his lips curled in disgust. “I damn the Cardinals every single day for letting women believe they have a say in life.”
He stood up in front of his grim of a throne. Another wave of power hit Hope’s face, and by the infinitesimal movement tensing Ciaran’s and Aurora’s bodies, she knew they had felt it, too. They were quite far from him, and Hope did not know how she would attack him should she need to. She wondered if wounds inflicted by her blades could be healed as easily if she aimed for his heart or his brain.
“You fucker,” Aurora said quietly, as if it was taking all her effort to push her words out.
“I knew the viper still kept her tongue,” the Organ Mandor’s lips curled upward.
“Why did you discard us instead of killing us? Does your son know I exist?” Hope insisted.
“I tire of the past and this conversation, girl,” her father said, indifference lacing his words.
“You sired me. You owe me the truth,” she spat, her voice raising more than she wanted it to. She didn’t want to seem like she was losing control of herself. But she was. She very much was, as this man in front of her seemed impenetrable, and she hadn’t come here for nothing.
“I do not owe you anything, bastard. I don’t owe you even a minute of my life,” the Organ Mandor said, another wave of panom power, stronger than the previous ones, menacing to move her steady position.
He flicked his hand behind his back, keeping his hands away from sight. Hope wouldn’t risk it, her hands close to the hilts of the sharpest blades that could penetrate through ribs and skull at the ready.
Rhei Coralt continued, “There was a reason you were discarded, and that is because you meant nothing. You are nothing. And so is she.”
With that, a black crystal blade shot through his hand at an impossible, unnatural speed. A blade as dark as a starless night sky. A blade with the presence that only weapons with their own history and name had.
A blade that went through her mother’s heart before Hope could step in front of her.
Aurora fell backwards, Hope unable to take her eyes off her mother’s body as she saw it falling with all its weight on the stone floor. The sound echoed in her ears.
Hope kneeled next to her, gasping for air as she removed the black blade that had perforated her mother’s heart with immaculate precision and depth, and she begged Ciaran, “Heal her. Heal her, please. Please, please, please.”
Ciaran kneeled next to her, placing a hand over Aurora’s eyelids, closing them gently, removing the awfully frightened last expression on her mother’s face.
“The Black Lawful Stab allows no Healing,” he whispered, with pain in his grave voice.
Her father was a killer. Just like Hope was.
What growing in Verdania had made her become. A killer. And a very well skilled at that. She had been a killer all her life, fueled by the need to live and see another day.
Hope looked at her mother’s dead body with tears and pain and sorrow in her eyes.
It was too late.
Too late to go back to doing nothing about the fact that her mother had been thrown like a piece of garbage with her newborn daughter into a cruel island where only death ensured one would live. Too late to ignore the years of pain that had consumed her. Too late to not make her father pay. The being who caused her mother’s soul to break into such small pieces that had taken years of tears before a half smile appeared. The being who had fucking killed her after two decades of ignoring their existence.
Too. Fucking. Late.
And as she stood up with the black dagger in her hand, Hope realized she was ready to become a killer fueled by revenge. She was ready to make him pay. She was ready to kill her father, even if that meant killing all the truths and answers with him. And she couldn’t wait to have his blood in her hands.
“I will fucking kill you.”
The Black Lawful Stab trembled as she held its hilt tightly. As Hope threw it with all her might against the room. Against her father’s heart.
The blade didn’t move as fast as it had moved before. No, it definitely wasn’t as fast. It was actually slowing down as it approached its target. It landed slowly on the Organ Mandor’s palm, his expression smug and proud.
“The Black Lawful Stab only obeys the only panom blessed by my beloved Cardinal Queen: the Organ Mandor of Thyria,” he smiled, and Hope’s guts twisted at the sight.
Without waiting for Rhei Coralt to finish the sentence, Ciaran moved his hand and Hope’s body slammed against him, still kneeling next to Aurora. He placed his hand on both their necks, one warm with rage and one cold with death.
He moured them away before Hope could tell her father that not killing her before her mother would be the biggest regret of his wicked life.
Ciaran moured them away before the Black Lawful Stab, thrown by her father and now aimed at Hope’s heart, ended her life as well.