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9

Hope

H ope was glad that her half-brother and Ciaran had finally arrived at some conclusions.

Five strivers, one for each of the five ordeals, to get a crystal feather from each Cardinal. All so the strivers could prove their worthiness to the goddesses, in the hopes that they would be granted the Fifth Power.

Yes, there were unanswered questions. And yes, she didn’t care that much about them. Hope had lived with a lack of clear answers for almost a quarter of a century. It was not the end of the world.

The red-haired woman with golden eyes stole Hope’s next question. “Where are the ordeals?”

“Well, that’s a separate issue altogether,” Jake said.

Ciaran continued, “We couldn’t find a single book that said exactly where the ordeals take place. Maybe no one ever wrote about this. Personally, I think the Cardinals made sure no written word was on Terrha.”

“Shady bitches,” Brendon muttered, earning a stare from Lenna that could very possibly kill, and a nod from Jake.

Ciaran walked to the table and put his metallic palm flat in the center of the Core. “Everything begins in the Cardinals Temple. The crusade seems to be a recreation of how the Cardinals created Thyria. They want the strivers to understand what each of them went through, how each goddess channeled her unique power into the world. Only by experiencing what they suffered and truly owning each magic, can an ordeal be survived.”

Hope bit her tongue to keep from interrupting. She walked towards the panom shape on the table, her biceps accidentally brushing Ciaran’s metal arm and sending a trail of goosebumps up her shoulders and neck. His night and pine scent inundated her nostrils, and she fought to keep from closing her eyes. He smelled like home, and she missed the pine woods of Verdania so much.

“If everything begins with the Cardinals Temple as the pivotal reference of the land they created, it makes sense for the ordeals to be in equivalent latitudes and longitudes,” she said.

“Did anyone understand a single word?” Sasha asked, her brown, wild curls shaping her pretty face with dark eyes.

Lenna laughed out loud, some people muttered some words, and next to Hope, there was silence. She lifted her stare to meet Ciaran’s. He was looking at her as if it was the first time he had seen her.

Luckily, this time, she was not throwing one dagger after another at him.

“Imagine parallel lines that circle our planet, Terrha, running horizontally.” Hope looked at Sasha and Lenna and waited for them to nod before continuing. “Now imagine the main latitude line crossed the Cardinals Temple, as if it was slicing it from the East to the West. If I were the East Cardinal, I would put my ordeal right in that line, towards the East.”

“Like slicing a cake in four pieces,” Nina said with a bright smile that reached her ocean-blue eyes. “Except the cake is the Cardinals Temple, and the two cutting lines go from North to South, and East to West.”

Hope nodded. She took a step backwards from the table and asked, “Do you know if the ordeals are on land or water?”

Jake answered this time. “That is the issue—the ordeals clearly are not in Thyria, but outside.”

“What do you mean, outside ?” Lenna spat. “There is nothing outside.”

“Oh, there very much is,” Jake bit his bottom lip, as if he was enjoying seeing Lenna riled up and about to arrive to the same conclusion that Hope just had.

“Please, no.” Lenna covered her eyes with a hand. “Not the fucking Radel Sea.”

“Very much the fucking Radel Sea,” Jake confirmed.

“ On the Radel Sea, or in the Radel Sea?” Hope frowned.

She had spent way too many weeks in the underwater tunneled Vessels traveling in a cellholt vehicle from Verdania to Thyria. The end of that trip had ended with lots of deaths. She didn’t care about the tons of roixers they had killed, but the memory of the six dead courtrades gave her a painful sting in her chest. She hadn’t known them personally. Not like Nina, who didn’t struggle to socialize, and Hope had no doubt remembered all their names. All Hope remembered were the words of the leading courtrade, Marcus Olanett.

“ May the stars not hinder their darkness. May Llunal shade them all, ” he’d prayed. Llunal, the god who gave courtrades their shadows and their whispers of night.

Whenever she thought about it, she was still shocked to know being dual-powered was a possibility. But there was Ciaran, in front of her, blessed by Llunal and the Cardinals and their panom and courtrade magics, ready to answer her question.

“Not in the vessels,” he said.

“Thank the Fifth,” Hope exhaled, without realizing she had been holding her breath in.

“We’ll have to swim, then? Does that already count as an ordeal?” Ayla asked, pressing her lips.

Sasha snorted. “No fucking chance. Swim North in a straight line until something happens? We’ll be dead before we know it.” Indianna, Nina, and Lenna nodded in agreement. Hope didn’t miss Lenna’s amber eyes narrowing when Sasha said we .

They still had to talk about who was going on this crusade. Hope had total conviction that said conversation would come with a lot of drama and verbal fights.

“We could use a courtrade navia,” said Ciaran.

“A what ?” Ayla cocked an eyebrow above her emerald-green eyes.

“A vehicle that transports people above the waves of the sea.”

“How, floating? You can't be serious,” Hope said, struggling to keep a smile in despite the seriousness on Ciaran’s beautiful features. Out of all the things she had heard and seen before, this was amongst the funniest.

“I think good old Ciaran here is fucking joking,” Lenna said.

“Does he even know what a joke is?” Jake asked. “If such a vehicle exists, and it belongs to the courtrades, how come it moves without panom blood? Or do they steal panom blood?”

“Not everything in the world functions thanks to panom blood,” Ciaran said, examining the unbelieving faces staring at him. “I know it’s hard to believe in a place where everything is ruled by panoms. A navia moves at night, with Llunal's shadows pushing it through. I am no expert, though. I know they exist, but I have never seen one, let alone traveled in it.”

“There is a courtrade who owes me a life-saving debt that surely knows all about these things,” Hope said, turning to Ciaran. “Is it safe to bring Marcus here?”

Ciaran tucked a long strand of his dark hair behind his ear. “If we are going to ask him about using a courtrade vehicle, bringing him to our safehouse is an initial sign of trust.”

Hope appreciated him using the plural ownership in regard to his safehouse. She had never owned anything other than her now-abandoned treehouse in Verdania, and her daggers. Subtle remarks like that made her feel less isolated, as if she truly was a part of something that mattered.