Chapter 29
Lenna
Her sister and Nina had succeeded in the North, and so had Hope and Ciaran in the South.
Lenna, on the other hand, couldn’t be more lost or farther from achieving either of her missions.
Her only success of late, if she had to pick one, had been winning at a sassy cuddling competition against Sweet Bitch.
That, and not giving the fucking fuck up.
From her many days researching, she had reached the brilliant conclusion that not in five thousand years could she have ever imagined there were so many ways to use panom powers as dark magic.
There were five things all literature considered dark arts and dark magic: causing death without using Harming, resurrecting without using Healing, creating life-binding curses without using Giving, breaking said curses without using Taking, and the creepiest one—the use of any parts belonging to Cardinals and Rulers, including blood, bones, and even a single cell.
From Lenna’s understanding, what made the Rulers important enough to class tampering with their bodies as dark is that they had once been—or currently were—intrinsically linked to a Cardinal House.
Other than them, not a single book reported anyone giving a shit about using fluids or organs from any other being, panom or not.
Which meant good old Jake and his hundreds of murders were very-appropriately-used, not-dark-at-all magic.
After thinking, rethinking, and some more overthinking, Lenna finally was sort of convinced that killing the former Organ Mandor—Jake and Hope’s father—in the cave in Orizane right after the Fifth Judgment didn’t involve dark magic.
Technically, they had used the Black Lawful Stab and not any other power to Harm him.
Technically, using a weapon on a piece of shit man was allowed, at least when it came to dark-and-non-dark magic terms. Which hopefully meant the five shared-owners of his murder—and more specifically, their five souls—were safe.
Because what was clear in most of the books is that performing any of the five dark magic usages ate a chunk of the soul’s panom and significantly decreased life expectancy compared to a healthy, proper-magic-user panom.
But who wanted to live that many centuries, anyway?
Then there were other unpleasant, quite off-putting symptoms, such as panom power inaccuracy and ineffectiveness, panom mark disappearance and self-combustion by magic exhaustion and lack of control.
Overall, the whole thing sounded as positive as a bunch of rotten feathers.
Lenna, however, had assumed that there was no other way to break the curse from the East Bird so her man could get back to normal loving capacity.
If she had to get used to living with a chunkless soul, it wasn’t the end of the world.
Especially if her life was going to be shorter than Fifth-knows-how-many-centuries, which had to get exhausting and boring at some point, surely.
Then, of course, there was the fact that Lenna still needed to find the part of the heart of the Bird Queen hidden in the East Petal, especially now that the North and South pieces had been found.
The East House never ceased surprising Lenna with renewed wickedness and ways of Harming its guests, definitely making sure it was an absolute delight to be here.
There were so many hidden places, corners, weapons, and Harming magic that it was not easy to figure where the Fifth a Queen would hide a part of her most important organ to keep it safe from unwanted hands.
With her hands full of books and the steps of her high heels echoing in the empty corridor, she turned a sharp corner to change course.
The library could wait. Her answers couldn’t wait any longer.
And seeing him again couldn’t either. Since that kiss—the damned kiss that had lived in her dreams and nightmares every night since—since he sent an ink so intimate Lenna was surprised the East Bird hadn’t somehow forbidden it, since she had left a handwritten letter under his door…
Since then, there has been no contact at all.
She had roamed around a lot, more than she would like to admit, even if her new scratches, bruises, and healing scabs were proof of pleasant walks around this joyful House.
Because, of course, she was here to investigate and learn about the East House inch by inch, not at all because she had the stupid hope of finding him accidentally somewhere.
He had been nowhere. It was almost as if the House had sucked him in, or he had buried himself in his circular firepit of an office. The one she was now heading to.
She hadn’t dared send him an ink either, not since the last one he sent, the one now permanently in white, scar tissue on her forearm.
Jake’s words were covered by a black, mesh long-sleeve she had magically reinforced by Giving it a second layer on her forearms. He didn’t need to know how fucked her mind was or the level of desperation she had reached, thanks very much.
Right when she was getting closer to the door, praying to all non-Harming Birds and flying creatures that he was inside and not buried, she heard a noise approaching her and she crunched down, covering the books as if she cradled a baby.
A metal arrow flew from the left wall, opening the skin on her cheek and setting free an array of curses from her mouth as her finger touched the neat line of blood.
When she had hands free, she would Heal it.
Or not. Sometimes they were so many that she didn’t bother anymore.
Just another one to add to her collection.
Sometimes it was hard to guess which was meaner, the East Cardinal or the East House.
The door opened in front of her, with only the outline of Jake’s body visible as he remained on the inside, the fire on the walls the only illumination in there.
Her lungs wanted to shut down in a panic, but she set her focus on him, and stepped in, trying to ignore all the reactions of her body—terrified of being surrounded by so much fire again.
“I’ve never seen you so covered in my life, Brachyan,” he said from behind her when he closed the door.
The flames were so abundant that she couldn’t see him properly, and what she saw was not what she had expected.
His always immaculate face had dark bags under his silver eyes, his hair was a mess, but the piercing stare was the same. “What are you hiding?”
The skin on her forearm tensed, and she tightened her hand into a fist, refraining from putting it behind her back. Cardinals, could she be any more obvious? “Multiple wounds from your sweet House.”
His eyes went from her fist to her golden eyes. “Too lazy to Heal them?”
“Too busy to.” She forced a smile. “Have you been busy too? You look…different.”
He stared at the fire crackling, and his sigh almost made him seem tired, if tired was something Jake Coralt could even be.
“Pretty busy. Too many people were in stupid roles and sub-roles, just pretending to do important jobs but scratching their lazy asses most of the time. I don’t allow anyone to suck money from the East or me, so I kicked them out.
Well, the House got rid of them when I gave it names. ”
Lenna lifted her eyebrows. “The House? You get along with it?”
His nostrils flared as he nodded slowly. “We have come to a mutual understanding.”
“Care to elaborate?” she prompted.
“It respects me as its Ruler, and I don’t burn it down and the whole East Petal with it.”
Lenna chuckled and grinned, and when she did, she realized how long it had been since the last time she had grinned, because her cheeks were not used to the tension under her eyes.
What she was less used to, though, was the corner of Jake’s lips lifting even a bit, and the way his piercing eyes went from her grin to her lips to her eyes, before he swallowed and any amusement faded.
“So aggressive, East Ruler,” she said.
His defined jaw clenched as he swallowed. “Once upon a time, a woman told me I had not a fucking clue how aggressive she could be.”
Her blood froze, and her heart squeezed in her chest as if it had been punched. “Do you remember that?” she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.
Jake nodded slowly, and there was turbulence behind his eyes she couldn’t decipher. “I remember everything. Every single moment, every single second, every single feeling, every single word.”
“I feared you had forgotten us. I feared that, and it gave me peace at the same time, because not remembering would mean the memories can’t hurt you.” The way they hurt her so deeply, so often, so hopelessly.
“I might not love, but I can still miss. I miss holding you, I miss you making me laugh, and I miss wishing for a future together until the very last of our days. I miss kissing you, I miss your body against mine, and I miss falling asleep with you in my arms. I miss the longing, when I was so close and you could feel how I filled you slowly. When I started touching you, playing with your nipples a little, feeling your breath on my neck, feeling how you wanted me to kiss you and kissing along your body. I miss spreading your legs and diving down, looking at you in the eyes as you’re about to come.
I miss every single part of you: the sexy, the naughty, the lovely, the funny. I miss all of you.”
Her jaw trembled as angry tears fell fast down her cheeks, control long abandoned.
“Why give that up, Jake? Why accept a life without that?”
He narrowed his eyes. “To protect you, Lenna, that’s the only reason I accepted this fate.”
She shook her head vigorously as goosebumps trailed up her arms, her lip curling with deep rage that raised her voice an octave. “This is no fate. This is a punishment. A punishment someone decided single-handedly.” A punishment she was determined to stop.
“Call it whatever you want. It was the only option to keep you alive, so I took it, and never looked back.”
“You might not have looked back, but I came looking for you.” She wiped her cheeks with both hands, biting her bottom lip before continuing.
“You might have accepted this fate, Jake, but I believe no one, not even a fucking goddess, deserves the power to ruin someone’s life, to deprive them of feelings that filled their heart and their life with meaning.
This bullshit must end, even if I end with it. ”
He crossed his arms over his chest, the muscles on them tensing as he squeezed his hands against his elbows, as if trying to contain himself. “Don’t you dare put yourself at risk, Brachyan. I swear on every single Petal and feather of Thyria that I will burn the entire island down if you do.”
She narrowed her eyes, lifting her chin. “Perhaps then the East Cardinal will regret her choice. Can you ask to meet with her whenever you want? I might ask for an appointment.”
“Whatever you are doing, whatever you are planning—you need to stop. She must know, Lenna. Her mood is quite temperamental, and she could change her mind rapidly.” Was that fear in his eyes? As well as anger—at her?
She didn’t have the energy to force a smile when her whole soul was consumed by rage burning harder than the fire surrounding them. “Good. Then she would come to meet me.”
He dipped his chin, his eyes not meeting her wet ones, as his voice filled with resignation said, “You deserve someone better. Someone who can love you.”
She had never seen him tired, exhausted, giving up.
This man—her man—was broken, and arguing with him, or making him fear her actions, was doing nothing but breaking him further.
It hurt her so much to know he could still miss and remember, and she couldn’t even bear to imagine what it would feel like to be inside of his mind and heart, to have access to the pain but not the pleasure, to be refrained from it, for life.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. She hadn’t meant to argue or make him feel bad for something he couldn’t change. She was angry with the Harming Goddess, not with him. By behaving like this, she wouldn’t do anything but distance him further.
“So am I,” he whispered back, lifting his glassy eyes to the ceiling. “So am I.”
She picked up the heavy books she had left on top of a side table, and before she left, she turned to him. “Maybe one day life will not have to be like this.”
He replied without looking at her, his throat exposed as his stare was still lost in the ceiling. “Stay alive, Lenna. Do me that favor.”
In another empty corridor, when she was halfway to the library, another arrow appeared from another wall, and this time she covered her face with both hands without thinking.
The tomes she had been carrying in her arms fell straight to the floor and over her feet, but she couldn’t find the energy to curse right now.
All her energy was centered on going over and over the conversation they just had in her mind, word by word, gesture by gesture.
When she picked up the books, she noticed one was missing.
Pinned on the opposite wall was the arrow, in the very center of a book she hadn’t yet read but she had carried around for days and days.
She hadn’t read it yet because it was an absolute mess: some parts had clearly been burned and tried to be restored magically; there were whole chapters in the wrong place, as if someone had ripped them and then put them back quickly without bothering too much; the ink was smeared in different pages, as if someone had tried to make its words disappear.
Whenever Lenna managed to remove the metal arrow from the wall—because it didn’t allow her to Take it the fuck away—the book would also have a vast hole penetrating the very middle of its pages and back cover.
She put her hands on her waist, examining the book with her eyes narrowed. This was a book that had survived more than many beings. She definitely should have started with it.
When she read the title on the open page, she gasped loudly, golden sparks leaving her fingers before she could control her shock.
Chapter 55: Exposing Harming Forces and Wicked Interests
By now, she knew better than to believe in coincidences.
“East House, East House, what do you want me to find out?”