Chapter 11
Ayla
Her blindness had never made her feel guilty before.
She had held Nina closely in her arms all night, while she moved around, fighting her nightmare, trying to console and reassure her. She made uncomfortable noises all night, and yet, when Ayla had tried to gently wake her up, it was to no avail.
Hope was in front of Ayla, and she could feel her touching Nina’s hair.
Was there a black strand, like Raoul had every time he woke up from his Queen-invaded dreams?
Would Ayla have been able to see the darkness progressively inking Nina’s hair if she weren’t blind?
Would she have been able to stop the Queen from bothering the woman she craved to protect?
She felt useless, impotent, frustrated. What was the point of having powerful magic if she couldn’t protect what mattered most?
“Do you remember the beginning of the dream?” Ayla asked.
“Sort of,” Nina said. “I was a child, and I was playing with a black bird. I thought it was a crow, but perhaps it was a black cardinal. It looked very familiar, as if I had seen it many, many times before. I was hiding behind a white curtain, and I could hear it chirping, teasing me to come out. It didn’t take long to find me, and when it did, it ripped the curtain with its beak, and from the hole came the Cardinal Queen herself, in her female form, with a dress made of black feathers, beautiful black-feathered wings, and a black crystal crown atop her long, black hair. She was majestic and frightening.”
The way Nina had trembled in her sleep, holding on to Ayla’s arms and neck unconsciously as if she needed firm ground to survive… Frightening was short of what she probably felt.
“Majestic,” Lenna snorted. “Majestic she’ll look when we rip her wings off. How do we kill a fucking Queen?” Lenna asked, and a rush of profound pride swam through Ayla. If Nina’s life was at risk, they needed to eliminate the Queen from the playing ground as soon as possible.
“Would killing the Queen of Cardinals not destroy the land?” Ayla wondered. She couldn’t have been the only one wondering this.
“She was captive for two hundred fifty years, and the land managed just fine,” Hope added. “I want her out of my throne and off of our island, and if she has infiltrated Nina, that only adds urgency to the case.”
“I get you, but what if getting her off the island, in whatever way or manner we manage, if that is even doable, ends the island? What if there is no island after?”
“Too many questions and too few answers, sister,” Lenna said, shaking her head.
“As far as I’m concerned, the only question that matters here is: do we allow these goddesses to do what the fuck they want with everyone’s lives, and ruin us all?
Or do we stop them, however we can, and take back some control over the lives of panom, courtrades, and humans? ”
Silence followed, and Lenna didn’t take more than a heartbeat before continuing.
“All I know is these rotten birds have stolen my man, and have killed my best friend and her boyfriend. What is next? My sister? Nina? The bloody Organ Mandor or Darkness Commander? Ciaran, Hope, you are meant to be blessed by the Core Cardinal and Llunal himself, are you not?” She scoffed.
“Whatever choice you all make, I will respect. Or I will try. But I am very much not going to fucking sit around until they also steal or kill any of you. I am going to get my man back, and if I need to kill the damned East Cardinal to do it, then I won’t stop until I succeed or I die failing.
So, if the land breaks in half when I kill the Harming bitch, kindly accept my apologies in advance. ”
“Is that what you plan on doing, Lenna?” Hope asked.
“What part? The part about getting Jake to be able to love again, or the part about killing the Cardinal asshole?”
“The part about killing the East Cardinal.”
“If that’s what needs doing to ensure Jake doesn’t give up on living his life the way he fucking wants to, with whoever he wants or doesn’t want to, then yes—very much so. No deity should have the power to command or forbid feelings.”
Ayla felt Hope walk towards Lenna. “Then you will need the Lawful Stabs.”
“I will indeed need both.” Ayla felt the confidence in Lenna’s voice, no doubt accompanied by a side smile.
On the Fifth Judgment, her sister hadn’t wasted the chance to get a true answer from the South Cardinal, the only thing she was granted.
Lenna continued, reciting word by word the truth she had fought with her life for.
“The life of a Cardinal can only end when her wings are torn by the weapon bearing her own blood, and her heart is struck by the weapon bearing the blood of her Queen.”
“I will keep them safe until you need me to wield them,” Hope promised.
“And then, we will learn what to do with a land lacking a Cardinal, we will reconvene, and we will plan and adjust to a new reality.” Hope turned to speak to the others.
“As for how we kill the Queen—Ciaran, did your years of research shed any light on that?”
“I’m afraid not. But I believe I know who might have the information we need, and it lies not in light but in darkness.”
“Your courtrades?” Hope asked.
“Not all of them. The ones who were based on Thyria for decades, researching as per the orders whispered by Llunal himself. I wondered what kept shadow souls so incredibly busy in a land of panom magic, and Marcus hinted at something that could mean…”
Marcus Olanett, who had traveled from the island of Verdania with Hope and her mother, using Hope’s panom blood to travel through the net of vessels underneath the sea and to Thyria.
“Can you moure me to the courtrade quarters in Corentre, Hope? I need to check on them, see if they need anything, assess the losses and the aftermath of the battle and the navias escaping. Marcus can brief me, and then we can ask him if he knows anything about the Queen.”
It was an irony of the magic system that Ciaran had created a safehouse one could only enter by mouring in and out, with his permission, protected with epitellia wards that didn’t allow unwanted beings to know the house and the inhabitants were there.
However, because of his current lack of panom magic, and that courtrades couldn’t moure, he couldn’t enter and exit his own home independently.
It wasn’t just irony. It was a danger and a weak point they would have to work on.
“Why would the courtrades know more about the panom Queen than panoms themselves?” Nina asked.
“Because she probably kept distance and secrets from the beings she considered most powerful and therefore more dangerous: the beings bearing panom blood,” Hope said.
“And because, by the sound of what the Cardinals said in the Fifth Judgment, Llunal and the Core Cardinal have been in love for a while, which means they probably have their own agenda,” Ayla added.
Lenna hummed. “Llunal and the Core Cardinal have managed to unite Hope and Ciaran despite being born in different centuries, despite living on different islands, despite different types of magic flowing through their veins. They have made both of you the leaders of their people. For Fifth’s sake, don’t even make me talk about love, okay?
But they didn’t just unite you two in time and space.
They united you two for life, for a reason.
If you two don’t save all our sorry asses, I don’t know who the fuck will. ”