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Hope

E veryone had agreed to continue planning for their Fifth crusade the following day.

It was a lot of information to digest, they said. It would be difficult to decide who would be the striver for each of the five ordeals, they thought. It would take time to pack whatever they needed for however long they were going to be on their navial trip, they claimed.

Everyone had agreed, except Hope. She could understand people benefiting from time to mentally prepare, though. Allowing them a brief pause before they were ready to risk their lives was a reasonable request. Hence why she had shut her mouth.

She had finished packing as soon as she lined up her fifteen blades on the table. Next to the beautiful and lethal array of her favorite weapons was a small pile of dark leathers and belts to hang those daggers from. That was all she needed. That was all she had ever needed to survive.

Compared to a few months ago, when she had packed before leaving the island of Verdania, the major difference was that her leathers were made of a sturdier, more protective material. And, of course, she now had her panom magic.

The magic that caused a panomquake that almost destroyed the world when she became a panom and left her unconscious. The warning of the Core Cardinal in the conversation they had while Hope didn’t know whether she was dead or alive never fully left her mind.

She who remains in the deep sleep we forced her to is awaking. She who should be contained for many more years might rise before it’s time.

She . The Cardinal Queen.

Sometimes Hope wished she were unconscious again even if it was just to speak to the Core Cardinal in her mind. There was so much more she needed to know.

In the emptiness of her bedroom, she sighed. Accepting that the impatience would not let her sleep anytime soon, and refusing to sit in her room looking at the wall until the sunlight made an appearance, Hope headed towards the balcony of the safehouse.

There was someone already there, looking at the body still hanging from the fountain of the Sweetgum Beech. Courtesy of her father, there hadn’t been any live music at night since the woman’s corpse had appeared there.

Hope walked towards the rail, looking at the red moon illuminating Corentre.

“Hi,” Jake said. His arms were crossed, and his silver stare went from the dome of the Cardinals Temple in the Organ House to the water fountain.

“Hi,” Hope replied.

They stood in silence for long minutes, taking in the unusual silence of the square. Hope didn’t need to ask what—or more precisely, who —was Jake thinking about.

“Did you know my mother?” Hope asked.

Jake looked at her, his pale features tinged red from the moonlight.

“Us panoms live long lives, and your mother was a human being. I knew Aurora Nevada when she was the Roix Reigner, yes.”

The sharp, invisible shard that seemed to be permanently stuck in Hope’s heart was sorer than usual. She clenched her jaw, holding in the tears that she had only allowed out when her mother had been stabbed in front of her eyes.

“Did you know that your father— our father—and her were . . .” She swallowed. She felt the bile threaten to go up her throat at the thought of the Organ Mandor and her mother being together. Even if Hope’s life had been the very outcome of that union. “Did you know she was pregnant?”

Jake shook his head slowly. “I didn’t. I wouldn’t be surprised if only he did. One day, your mother was commanding the roixers as she did for many years. The next, she was gone.”

“Did nobody wonder what had happened to her? Did nobody wonder why she disappeared?” Hope bit her lip, the pain she caused herself helping keep her devastation in. How could nobody care enough about a woman to wonder whether she was dead or alive, discarded or not?

“The Organ Mandor does not give explanations.” His voice was low. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Hope nodded in silence, the invisible shard seeming to slice her up and down with an unbearable amount of sorrow. No biting of her lips would keep her from crying if she acknowledged his condolences, so instead, she waited until she found her words again.

“Is your mother . . . present in your life?” she asked.

“She is, and I miss her.” His brief look at his forearm made Hope think she was not the only one having ink interchanges with family members. For a moment, Hope thought he would not add anything else, but after a few seconds, Jake continued, “I love her dearly, and it is very painful to see—to know— she means nothing to my father. She has never meant anything to him.”

The memory of Rhei Coralt laughing out loud when Hope asked him for answers echoed in her ears.

I damn the Cardinals every single day for letting women believe they have a say in life , he had said. How could a male like this ever care about any female?

“What does she look like?” Hope asked.

Jake swallowed. “When she is not bruised, she is very beautiful.”

Hope snapped her head towards him, her dark eyes wide with urgency and worry. She could feel the blood in her veins rushing, her pulse speeding at what that woman had to endure.

The silver in Jake’s eyes glittered with rage or heartbreak, Hope couldn’t tell. “Sometimes she lets me Heal her, sometimes she prefers to let her body take her time. She says the wounds make it easier to remember why she hates my father and why she must never drop her facade.”

“Can’t she stop him? Can’t you stop him?” Hope asked, only half-regretting such an inquisitive and personal question. She wouldn’t be surprised if he told her to fuck off, as she had heard him say so many times to other people.

“She can’t. I could. I did, many years ago. And what came after was worse. He almost killed her, and I wasn’t there to avoid it when he did. She . . . She asked me to never mention it again. To never stop him again.” Jake exhaled, and for the span of a second, Hope saw the weight of the years he had lived on his drained expression. He finally added, as if it was a self-consolation, “I don’t think she feels the pain anymore.”

“Can pain not be felt?” Hope frowned. She was used to pain. Fighting always came with pain. She didn’t mind it, not enough to let it stop her. But she always felt it.

“Yes,” Jake’s voice didn’t have a trace of doubt. “When it’s as common to you as breathing, you stop thinking about it. You stop realizing you are in pain.”

The conclusion hit her hard and fast. “He’s hurt you as well. Many times.”

“Not all of us are lucky enough to own the power of his family blood but not have suffered the pain of his rage for centuries.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“So am I.”