Chapter 28
Hope
“The women in the North aren’t wasting time,” Ciaran muttered as he nodded approvingly.
“Neither is Indianna,” Hope said.
After Ayla’s silver ink message, a very excited, violet-colored ink had arrived from Indianna, begging Ayla and Nina to moure to the Crystal Clear Safehouse in Corentre, so she could perform a very, very long list of research that included nightmare sleep studies, ink and blood extractions for analysis, and many other tests with words she had never read or heard before.
Hope hadn’t realized ink messages could be that long, but it was good to know.
Ciaran tilted his head, stepping towards her and placing a soft kiss on her lips. “Now it’s your turn to shine amongst my darkness, my beautiful.”
Her palm was on the back of his neck as Ciaran’s metallic arm held her waist, and she moured them to where the Speaker of Scales had pointed them to.
They landed on the central dune of the South Petal’s desert.
Even here, there were white petals floating in the air, more dispersed than around the South House, as if the desert had less density, which was very much the case.
There wasn’t a single soul, edification, or human- or magic-created item for miles and miles around them.
They were at the peak of the biggest dune, and all they could see under the bright sun shining in the post meridiem was petals and never-ending black sand forming dunes as if they were waves on the Radel Sea.
If Hope was ever to realize and acknowledge the incredible dimensions of Thyrian Petals—of the land she was meant to Rule and command—it would be now.
Her deep inhale must have given her thoughts away, because Ciaran held her from behind, looking at the vast expansion with his cheek next to hers, whispering, “Yes. All of this is yours, Organ Mandor.”
She elbowed him in the ribs with a chuckle. “And all the shadow-wielders of this world are your responsibility, Darkness Commander.”
“But have you seen how big this is?” Hope wanted to roll her eyes, but couldn’t stop grinning. How could she miss how big this was when it was all that surrounded them? From here, the world was just Ciaran, sand, and sun.
Perhaps she needed nothing else to survive.
“Do you reckon all your shadow-wielders would fit here? I don’t think so.
There are so, so many. And then at night, with no light pollution, you would get to see every single one of Llunal’s stars.
Yes, the god of night and shadows that whispers directly in your ear.
” She looked at him, trying to smile innocently until he inhaled sharply.
“So,” Ciaran said abruptly, holding on to her body tighter. “The Seizing Wind. Where exactly do we find it from here?”
They observed their surroundings for a while, Ciaran sending trails of shadows to different dunes to investigate, Hope analyzing their geographic position, the details and shape of each visible dune, the way the sun above reflected on them, and how the wind altered the grains of sand when she Gave it a stronger breeze or a smaller one.
A white petal landed in her eye, and she shook it with her hand until it continued floating. “Cardinals,” she condemned when she realized her mistake.
“South Cardinal, to be precise,” Ciaran replied as his shadows returned to him and he felt them to extract information.
“Exactly,” Hope insisted. “The creator of the Taking power. I shouldn’t need to Give any wind or anything to find the Seizing Wind and its treasures, if anything, I should have to Take.”
Ciaran turned to her, and she widened her eyes a bit. The contrast of his all-black clothes and the metal of his arm amidst the white petals in this this black sand desert was marvelous and extremely gorgeous.
“What are you going to Take? A dune? Sand?” he asked with his eyebrows raised.
She shook her hand, removing another naughty white petal that had landed straight in her eye, and she blinked multiple times until it stopped feeling teary. “These petals are highly inconvenient.”
Ciaran tilted his head. “They are beautiful. Too white for my taste, I must say. With my shadows around them, they look better.”
She nodded in agreement. “Everything with your shadows around looks better.”
Hope suddenly gasped and closed her hand, aiming to Take the white petals away, but not succeeding at all. It was hard to aim when there were so many literally everywhere. She tried again, and nothing happened.
She narrowed her eyes. “Odd.”
Ciaran walked right behind her and said, “Odd indeed that they are only disappearing behind you, forming a petal-free path to the—”
“South!” Hope finished for him, turning around and half-walking, half-running down the narrow path down the dune that had no floating petals in the air.
Now and then, she needed to Take petals again for the path to resume its course, and when they had climbed and gone down five extensive dunes—which was easier said than done—they found themselves in an enormous space where there was—
“Not a single petal. Hello, Seizing Wind.” Hope nodded as she narrowed her eyes. “There is nothing here, so what the South Petal and South House Take—and hopefully the heart part of the Cardinal Queen—must be underneath.”
“This patch is clear of petals, Hope…” Ciaran let his shadows go, until their darkness covered an inch over the white sand on every space where the petals didn’t float, until Hope let out a chuckle.
“Of course it had to be a four-petal panom shape.” She stepped towards Ciaran, kissed him behind his ear and interlaced his biological fingers with hers. “So I guess we want to be taken exactly where the South House Takes things.”
They walked hand-in-hand until that very spot.
When they stood atop the Seizing Wind location in the petal-free panom shape, she closed her spare hand, with no specific aim in mind other than pulling the South Petal from the red panom mark at the back of her neck, simply Taking for the sake of Taking.
She felt Ciaran squeezing her hand hard before she felt the ground disappear under them.
In the time it took for her to recognize that they were sliding down a circular tunnel made of highly burnished silver and illuminate it with some red sparks, Ciaran was already sitting behind her, holding her body close against his with both arms around her waist. She leaned her head against his shoulder, stroking her nose along the length of his throat before she placed a gentle kiss.
“Nightblade doesn’t do justice to how comfy you are.”
Ciaran’s side smile lingered for minutes while they slid down and down, until suddenly he sat up straight and Hope braced herself for the fall.
They crashed down into a soundless explosion of wealth inside the colossal cave.
Gold jewelry scattered like drops of sunlight, rolling before coming to rest against heaps of silver goblets and tarnished diadems. Jewels winked from the shadows—rubies glowing like tiny hearts, sapphires dark as midnight seas, emeralds glimmering with forest light.
Strings of pearls unraveled under their weight, while sword hilts inlaid with gems thrust upward from the mounds.
The air smelled faintly of metal and dust, tinged with something older—greed, power, and the quiet sorrow of treasures stolen long ago.
“This is some impressive Taking obsession,” Ciaran muttered.
She sighed, trying not to let the increasing frustration in her chest take over.
“I don’t doubt the Cardinal Queen would want a part of her heart to be amongst the most valued, precious items in this Petal.
The question is, how the Fifth do we find it amongst this sea of riches.
In an effective, timely manner, I mean. We have other pieces to find and cannot be here forever. ”
With every step she took over the Taken possessions came a subsequent move of clattering things falling on top of other clattering things, until the sound vanished as it was too far away.
She kept walking in circles, analyzing, her mind heating as dozens of different thoughts overlapped.
Ciaran had sent his shadows to explore again while he analyzed what they touched and felt.
“This is not a sea,” she said as her heart started beating faster. “Ciaran, this is a desert.”
“A desert with a black crown,” Ciaran said, pointing to one of his shadows, the one that had gone farthest.
As they approached that area, Hope felt the Black and Red Lawful Stabs on the hilts around her waist thrumming with power, begging to be taken out. Her own heart drummed louder than she wanted to admit on her chest.
The Cardinal Queen had been here.
The Cardinal Queen had been here.
The goddess occupying her throne had been here protecting herself from another curse, harm, or destruction. Yet Ciaran and Hope were here precisely to do the opposite.
“There is no way the Queen would have left her crown behind,” she muttered.
“Unless the South Took it from her, too, and brought it here, but the Queen is stronger than whatever power the South Petal, South House, or even the South Cardinal may have. Which means she must have made a pact to allow her crown to be left here in order to also keep her heart here.”
“In which case, her crown could be retrieved the moment we get that piece of heart.” Hope bit her bottom lip. “And we are not leaving the Seizing Wind until we get it, so she might be alerted that something is wrong.”
“Not ideal.”
“Very much not,” Hope agreed. “The North piece is already in Ayla’s hands. If today the Cardinal Queen figures out we are after her heart to kill her, it just means we have to be faster to get the West and Core pieces after this one.”
“And pray to every star Lenna finds the East part,” Ciaran added.
“Or ask Ayla and Nina to go to the East after Indianna finishes doing whatever she needs to do to them at your safehouse in Corentre.” Hope crossed her arms, halting as they had finally reached the black crown made of the same black crystal of the Lawful Stab, mere a few feet away.
“Regardless of that, let’s hurry to get this.
” She was not used to feeling stressed, and from her brief experience right now, she didn’t enjoy it one bit, so the earlier the tasks got done, the better.
Ciaran looked at her with amusement glinting in his blue eyes. “How exactly are you going to hurry? The crown is here, but do you know where the heart is?”
“The Black Lawful Stab is moving of its own accord, and I’ve never felt the urge to grab it so strong. No need to worry, I can control it. However, this blade was made of the blood of the Cardinal Queen, so of course it recognizes her. It’s right underneath the crown, buried fifteen feet down.”
“Fifteen feet—fuck.”
“My plan is going to ruffle some feathers. It’s a pity we told Gabrielle that we would leave without disrupting her House or her Petal.”
The metal ring bobbed as he grinned. “Why?”
She shrugged. “Because the opposite is going to happen, but we don’t have time to waste asking for permission I would never be given, and I’ll have the rest of my life to apologize. So, here we go.”
Hope inhaled deeply and extended her arms widely, both hands fully opened as she prepared to use one of her powers more intensely than she ever had.
She closed her hands, forming tight fists, and Took.
Without pausing, her fingers clenched and released, working the South petal of her panom mark to its limit as she Took heaps of jewels, hoards of ancient possessions, mountains of gold, and an endless scatter of weapons and gems. The valuable treasures vanished under their eyes and under their feet, disappearing from Terrha never to reappear, being Taken for good.
Hope didn’t need to look behind her to know she had Taken more than half of the valuable possessions the South had stolen from their owners for centuries.
She felt it in her magic and how much of it she had used, even if she didn’t have an inner scale to tilt.
She also felt it in the shaking of the ground above them, the ceiling and the walls of the cave, and in the sand from the desert raining onto them.
The world was shaking, and there was no way to know if it was a panomquake, if the desert was collapsing above them, or both. What was clear was they had to leave the cave as soon as possible, or they were going to be buried with every other treasure left.
Hope didn’t stop Taking, though. Not until something biological and dull finally appeared in front of them. The piece of heart had pieces Taken from it, as if chunks had been bitten from it. From the joy Hope felt, one would have thought she had just seen a newborn come into the world.
“Here,” Ciaran grabbed the heart with his shadows, lifting it in front of them until Hope took a crystal case from her pocket. She had Given herself the rectangular recipient the day before with this specific purpose.
Ciaran’s shadows placed the heart inside, and before Hope closed it, she grinned and whispered to it. “We’re getting closer, Cardinal Queen. You should leave my throne and my island while you’re still alive.”
The sand was now not raining but pouring on them, and the shaking ground was making all the remaining valuables cling and clatter against each other louder than a continuous thunderstorm.
Hope felt a tickle from an unknown ink waiting for permission to appear on her forearm, but she declined it. If Gabrielle was wondering what the Fifth they had done to her Petal, she would have to wait for an answer.
Her hand was on the back of Ciaran’s neck, ready to moure away from the Seizing Wind and never return. First, because she would hopefully never need to. Second, because it probably wouldn’t exist any longer.
The last thing she saw before they moured to the West House was the black crown, right before the dune fell and buried it under its sand, but by then, they were gone.