Page 26

25

Lenna

“J ake!”

The courtrades had told her Jake was somewhere here. Somewhere being the smallest, shittiest platform Lenna had ever seen.

She was going to fucking kill him for not telling her he was going to his ordeal.

There was nowhere to hide here, and he very much wasn’t here.

The absolutely terrified blood in her veins ran as fast as her heartbeat. What did that mean? Had his ordeal . . . finished? Fear, as she had never known, overtook her, tears flowing from her golden eyes before she had the guts to acknowledge what that could mean. Him not being successful was not a fucking allowed option—it simply wasn’t .

“Jake!” she shouted again, her voice breaking with desperation. “I swear to the Five Cardinals, I will re-kill you if you are dead!”

A broken noise sounded closely, but Lenna couldn’t see anything, anyone. Wait a fucking minut—

She ran towards the edge of the platform, gasping at the impressive drop to the deck of the navia. The very empty drop with no one there.

“Please, come to me,” her voice was loud yet broken between sobs.

She heard a scraping noise and turned to look at the other end of the platform. A bloodied hand got hold of the floor by penetrating it with a red crystal.

A heartbroken gasp left her throat as her heart felt electrocuted with relief.

Thank the damned Fifth. Cardinals, bless the fucking Fifth.

She ran towards Jake, pulling from his slippery, blood-soaked wrist as his other hand followed.

His other hand was just as destroyed, another sharp crystal in the middle of his palm. Had the goddess made him climb the navia? If the East Cardinal hadn’t flown away, Lenna was going to make her regret touching him.

When Jake managed to pull himself up with Lenna’s help, his head rested on her lap. His silver eyes were closed, his face suffering and anguished, his body pained with exhaustion.

She wanted to say so many things. She wanted to do so many things. She caressed his pale face with shaking hands. “Jake, I’m here.” He was so still it was unnerving. “You’re not alone. I’m here for you.”

He didn’t react; his breaths didn’t relax. When the silence of his pain was too much, Lenna spoke again. “Say something, please. Anything.”

His silver eyes opened slowly, as if it was taking all his effort to even open an eyelid. The silver in his eyes was darker, moving, as if whatever was in his mind hadn’t settled yet.

“I will always come to you, my love,” Jake said, his voice barely audible.

Lenna’s tears fell freely as her mouth tensed awkwardly between a sob and grin. “You better fucking do, because I will always be waiting for you.”

She Gave herself a wet cloth, gently wiping his sweat from his face, attempting to clean the blood from his arms and wrists with little success because two royally damned, huge crystals were stabbed in his hands.

“We need to get these out of you.”

He tried to prop himself up by leaning on his elbows, but Lenna put a hand on his chest and pushed him back on her lap.

“I’m not sure if my ordeal is finished,” he said.

Lenna frowned, combing his black waves with her fingers. “What do you mean?”

He let out a shallow exhale. “I had to climb, so I climbed. There is no feather and no Cardinal. Either my ordeal isn’t finished yet, or I was not deemed worthy.”

“Do you think my most serious concern right now is the ordeal?” He had to be taking the piss. “You are the living image of someone Harmed, Jake. Severely Harmed. If that is not good enough for the bloody East Cardinal, then she can go ruin someone else.”

“But I saw the feather. Before I—before I started seeing things, I saw the feather suspended in the air around the platform. That’s why I climbed.”

“There is nothing here, Jake.” Lenna swallowed. “You saw . . . things?”

Jake shook his head slowly, frowning deeply, his eyes closed again. Lenna couldn’t take her eyes off him, the pain of his expression shattering her heart as her worry increased exponentially.

He sighed. “She Harmed my mind with memories as she Harmed my body with crystals.”

Lenna bit her bottom lip until it hurt, the taste of copper filling her mouth as unstoppable rage threatened to take control of her.

It was a blessing that the East Cardinal was not present. It was a fucking blessing, because Lenna would have attempted to rip her feathered wings off.

“You’re hurt, Jake. Will you allow me to Heal you?”

He didn’t move for what seemed like the longest pause, and then he nodded, his eyes still closed. “Only you can heal me.”

Lenna carefully closed her hand above his, Taking away the crystal shard, making it vanish. It left a horrendous hole across his palm that moved her guts in a way she didn’t enjoy. And despite that, she couldn’t take her eyes off it.

A panom needed hands to perform any magic. How the actual hell was she going to fix this ? Surely the East Cardinal wouldn’t have Harmed him permanently, leaving him as good as panomless for the rest of his long life.

Surely. Fucking. Not.

Lenna was glad Jake’s eyes were closed as she couldn’t stop the tears, fueled by the biggest fear, from flowing again.

There was no way she could Heal his hands. She was not a good Healer, that was a shameful fucking fact. Maybe such damage, inflicted by the crystal of a Cardinal, was not able to be fixed at all.

Lenna lifted her hand over his other hand, the second and last red crystal protruding from his skin. She knew what she was going to see as soon as she Took it away. A second, perhaps also unrepairable hole.

She inhaled deeply and Took it.

A loud gasp of shock, fear, and hope left Lenna’s mouth as a gasp of sudden relief left Jake’s.

The crystal hadn’t vanished.

The crystal had transformed .

It wasn’t a sharp shard of red crystal anymore. It was a Cardinal-red crystal feather.

The feather, floating in front of Jake, waiting for him to pick it up.

His hands—magically repaired, full hands, completely unharmed, with no holes or missing flesh—lifted, wariness in his light silver eyes, and he held the feather of the East Cardinal. The feather of his ordeal.

Suddenly, his eyes opened wide, his jaw clenching as he swallowed. After a few seconds, his body relaxed, he lowered his hands and the feather on top of his chest.

“Did she speak to you?” Lenna asked, already knowing the answer.

Jake narrowed his eyes as he looked at the darkening sky above them. “She said a worthy striver can’t have broken hands. And that I should consider killing everyone in the East Petal because no one in Terrha deserves being the Ruler of her Petal and her House as much as I do.”