46. Hope
46
Hope
T he view of Corentre across the windows was breathtaking. That the wall covering a whole side of the dark living room Ciaran had moured them to was fully made of glass instead of bricks or wood didn’t make it easier to stop staring outside.
The red-tinged moon was very visible, but its red reflection on top of the small, very formed white clouds hovering over the roofs of many low buildings was beautiful. Small flickering lights illuminated the streets, converging on the very center of the city.
The sight of an extraordinarily big crystal dome crowned the middle of the impressive palace that all the flickering lights seemed to lead to. The stars reflected on its radiant cupola, as if all the light on this planet and above led to the same place. Hope inhaled at the magnificence of the palace and how small and insignificant it made her feel.
Because she knew what that place was. She had already been in the throne room of the Organ House, and it had ended catastrophically. And she also knew who was inside.
Nina muttered something about coming back soon and her steps grew distant before a door closed somewhere in the house. Hope didn’t need to hear him to know she wasn’t alone.
“How do I kill him?” she asked, staring at the white jeweled walls of the palace. The hatred tasted bitter in her words.
Ciaran walked towards the window, leaning his back on it. Hope blinked, unable to decide if she would ever rely on a piece of glass to keep her alive with such ease and lack of worry. The look on his face looked like something between respect and interest, but she doubted it was because of the window.
“No human being will ever be able to kill the Organ Mandor,” Ciaran said, looking at her. She couldn’t help but notice he had not only a metal ring on his bottom lip but also a few on top of his ear, barely visible underneath the dark hair. “Can I have your hand?”
Hope hesitated for only half a second, before extending her hurt hand to him, her healthier hand touching the hilt of a blade with her fingertips. He held the offered hand, not missing the movement of the other one.
“Just because Nina trusts you, it doesn’t mean I do.”
“I could have killed you last night if I wanted to. I could have killed you this morning when you were asleep. I could kill you now,” Ciaran said, and Hope side-smiled at how bold he was for believing his magic was faster than her blades. At this short distance, she had the advantage, hence why she had deemed safe to give him a hand. He seemed to read the I’d-love-to-see-you-try in her face, and she could have sworn a hint of amusement glittered in his eyes before he added, “But I don’t have a single reason to do so. I’m not your enemy.”
“Why do you want my hand?”
“To tell you how to kill him.” Ciaran closed his metallic hand and the bandage on top of hers vanished, revealing the deep cut that had worsened so much after digging the grave. At least her skin was clean now. He didn’t flinch as he said, “I need some drops of your blood.”
“My blood is in high demand as of late,” Hope sighed. “Help yourself.” If he could truly tell her anything of use, she would definitely take it.
Ciaran’s metallic hand drew a small line in the air above Hope’s hand. She held in a gasp as the scab reopened for the Fifth knew which time.
The index finger of his metallic hand touched the middle of the reopened wound, and a shiver went down her spine, making her close her eyes. Where pain should have been, there were many things but that.
When Hope opened her eyes, Ciaran was staring at her, his eyes slightly glazed as if he too had felt something similar. Hope didn’t want to think about what the Cardinals had that something exactly been.
“Are you happy for me to continue?” Ciaran asked.
Hope didn’t have a clue about what he was doing, only that she wanted it to be over as soon as possible before her knees buckled, and that she needed answers to her question. Perhaps she also wished to feel that intensity again. So she swallowed and nodded.
Ciaran didn’t look at her hand again, as if he had already memorized the precise location, length, and depth of her wound. His blue eyes seemed to look inside Hope’s soul through her pupils as his metallic index traced the exact shape again. Hope was expecting the powerful sensation this time, and managed to keep her eyes mostly open even as the skin on every single part of her body seemed to tense at his touch. Every single part of her had tensed.
And again, it wasn’t because of the pain. It was quite the opposite.
His nostrils flared slightly, and Hope’s own sense of smell identified the copper scent of her blood. Ciaran lifted her now bleeding hand to his mouth, and licked the length of her open wound with his tongue, the metal ring following suit. A low sound left her mouth before she could control it.
The world seemed to stop. Her thoughts had paused, on hold, with only a deep need for him to lick her blood again.
Without removing her hand from his lips, Ciaran closed his now drunk-looking eyes, inhaling through his nose deeply, the warmth of every exhale sending a shudder through Hope’s skin.
Damn every single Cardinal if this wasn’t the most intimate thing Hope had ever lived. If her knees weren’t about to let her collapse on the floor, giving up on any attempt at keeping her posture. Her own irregular breaths were louder, but she couldn’t control them.
The sight of this exquisite man savoring her blood sent many thoughts and feelings through her. Thoughts and feelings she had never considered before. And with each deep breath of his lips against her skin, her knees were losing the last forces. She was going to fucking fall to the floor, right there and then.
Ciaran inhaled sharply, opening his blue eyes and separating his warm mouth from her skin, giving Hope her hand back. As if a spell had been broken, Hope widened her eyes, wondering what the Fifth had just happened, and swallowed, blinking a few times. What the actual Fifth had just happened?
Ciaran cleared his throat, and his usually straight and muscular posture somehow seemed affected as well as he said, “I wasn’t expecting… that .”
Hope was glad she was not the only one caught unawares, but didn’t dare ask what that meant. So instead she asked, “So, how do I kill the Organ Mandor?” She walked towards the nearest gray couch and was about to lean her hands on it to somehow support her still affected knees until she remember one was bleeding.
“I can Heal it for you,” Ciaran offered.
“I prefer to let biology work naturally.” Biology and the grief-guilt that would continue to heal its way through her soul. “But I could do with some bandages.”
Ciaran opened his biological hand, and a perfectly placed white bandage covered her hand. His hands could do wonders, clearly.
“Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” His blue eyes seemed to darken slightly.
Nina entered the room, smiling calmly as she said, “I told the others and they are on their way.” Then she looked from Hope to Ciaran, and back to Hope, her nostrils flaring as she lifted her eyebrows. “Am I interrupting something?”
“Ciaran was just about to tell me how to kill the Organ Mandor,” Hope said, without taking her eyes from his blue ones.
Nina made a choking sound. Ciaran said, “Your blood is extremely powerful. I would say it has the potential to become the most powerful blood in Thyria.”
“How does he know about your b—” Nina started, but Hope gave her a look that said Not-now-or-I’ll-die-please-don’t-ask that Nina seemed to catch at once because she changed her question to, “She can’t be more powerful than the Organ Mandor though, can she?”
Ciaran hesitated, his fingers playing with his metal ring. “Your father is the Organ Mandor. His panom blood is in your veins. Yet you are the first female with Core panom blood alive in generations. The Cardinals protect you, somehow.”
“I couldn’t believe my eyes when a cardinal bird appeared in the middle of the vessels and started guiding you. That is truly unheard of,” Nina said, shaking her head.
“A cardinal bird also guided me to the chamber underneath the Invisible Grand. I didn’t know it existed. Which probably means that not only one Cardinal protects you, but two.”
“That bird has been my buddy since I was little. It always visited me in our treehouse in Verdania.”
Mentioning her basic treehouse while standing in the middle of this fully furnished, stylish living room with more attention to detail that she had ever seen made her feel minuscule. Yet, the image of the treehouse came with memories of her mother, and a whole wave of very painful feelings.
Ciaran’s eyebrows rocketed to the sky. “A fucking cardinal bird was your buddy ?”
“It is a cardinal, but not the Cardinal,” she snapped.
Ciaran chuckled, and he must have decided it was not worth an argument because he said, “If you want any real chance at killing your father, you need a Fifth Ceremony to become a full panom and access the worlds of magic waiting for you. If that is not enough, we will have to consider desperate measures for desperate times.”
A door opened on the other side of the living room, and Nina turned to the door. The knowing look on her face reminded Hope that Nina had probably slept here while she had been in the clearing last night, and that she probably knew whoever these four people were.
Hope recognized Brendon. A small nod at him was all her acknowledgement and gratitude at the fact that Nina was safe and sound.
“Fucking Cardinals above, under and around us,” a dark-tanned, beautiful woman with long dark curls stopped a few feet in front of Hope, opening both hands in mid-air and her mouth wide open, eyeing Hope from top to bottom and back to top. “How many weapons can a single person carry?”
Hope said nothing, her body tense and ready for any attacks. Her eyes slightly narrowed and her jaw clenched. She didn’t miss noticing the similar traits between this woman and the other tall man behind her. Same dark hair, same skin tone, same curious, beautiful eyes. Was everyone in this island gorgeous?
The other woman was shorter and with a shoulder-long black bob and a perfectly straight fringe, her lips painted with a cardinal-red tone. She was looking at Hope with a mix of interest and awe.
“Okay, fifteen weapons that I can see. I absolutely adore your killing style,” the woman with dark curls said, laughing out loud. Hope never considered the black leathers of the courtrades to have anything to do with style . Not that she even cared to consider such a thing in her list of priorities.
The woman looked at Ciaran, grinning. “You should be proud of yourself for keeping your balls intact after a night with this absolute boss.”
“No one said his balls were intact,” Hope said, dead serious, and a snorting sound emanated from Brendon.
“You two can discuss my balls later.” There was definitely a hint of amusement in Ciaran’s eyes. “Meet Sasha, Carson and Indianna,” he inclined his head towards them as he named them, Sasha being the owner of the curls and Indianna the owner of the bob. “You already know Brendon. Everyone, meet Hope.”
“Oh. Five. Cardinals. I love your name.” Sasha was staring at her with wide eyes as if she was from another world. Honestly, Verdania seemed like a whole other world compared to this place, this city, and these people.
Hope stared at her, wondering whether she should attempt to be polite and say thank you, or the pain it caused to remember her mother had given her this name and how useless it had been at saving her life. She opted for saying nothing.
“You already know Mister Stiff-as-the-Fifth,” Carson said, pointing to Ciaran, and Hope couldn’t help but think he had been anything but stiff a few minutes before. “So don’t worry about being socially awkward. That is his thing, too. Except you have a perfectly reasonable excuse, since you were raised in the middle of nowhere.”
Hope raised her eyebrows, turning to Nina, who crunched her face in a So sorry, they had many questions kind of way.
“And yet you are the coolest badass I’ve ever seen.” Sasha nodded approvingly. “I mean, look at you, for Cardinals’ sake.”
Nina held Hope’s hand, and she welcomed that bit of normality in front of these strangers. Nina inhaled deeply and said, “The Organ Mandor found out about Raoul being in the West House and brought him to a healing center in Corentre. Indianna is a professionally trained healer and works there.”
Hope’s eyes snapped at Ciaran. Rhei Coralt mentioning Ciaran’s passion for aiding discarded beings now clicked into place.
“How can we get him out of there?” Hope asked Indianna.
“It’s quite complex. The Beftac Center is heavily guarded right now, because of him.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Ciaran was looking at Nina, and no trace of doubt or hesitation laced his words. The others looked at him with the type of deference that was well-earned. “We will retrieve Raoul to a safe place where we can keep him safe and out of the Organ Mandor’s hands until we figure out how to bring him back to consciousness.”
Tears of relief and gratitude lined Nina’s eyes, and Hope squeezed her hand tighter.
Ciaran was now staring right into Hope’s eyes, as he said, “But first Hope must become a panom, and it will be us running her Fifth Ceremony.”