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26

Hope

T he red moon shone in the dark sky across the window when Hope’s forearm tickled, and golden ink appeared:

Lenna’s ink disappeared as soon as Hope read her words. It was a very factual, brief message, not like Lenna at all. Hope sent her red ink:

A second later, golden words traced Hope’s skin:

The Fifth only knew what that ordeal entailed. Hope sighed, removing the daggers she had thrown against the opposite wall of her cabin and placing them carefully under her pillow, in the drawers, and behind the bathroom door.

She closed the door silently, waiting in the corridor, listening. Not a sound. Either most people were already asleep, or they were somewhere in the upper levels. The courtrades had been taking it in turns to push the navia towards the West, and Hope didn’t know who of them was on duty tonight.

Still, she started walking, heading towards the stairs that led to the rooms they spent most of their time in. It was only when she slipped by Ayla’s room that Nina’s voice made her stop.

“It wasn’t easy to assume I wasn’t going to see or talk to them again. It was . . . painful.” Nina’s voice halted for long moments before she continued. “I didn’t want to let them go. I couldn’t let their memories go, because if I did, then there was going to be nothing keeping them alive.”

Hope’s black eyes fixed on a spot on the floor. Nina was talking about her and Raoul’s parents. She had briefly explained to Hope that her parents, servants of the North House who ended up working at the West House, had disappeared years ago. Neither of the siblings found them in Verdania, so Nina thought they hadn’t been discarded. The guess of the white-haired woman was they had been killed, even though their bodies were never found.

Hope doubted for half a second whether to knock and tell Ayla and Nina that the East ordeal had been successfully completed, but Ayla spoke before Hope could lift her hand—

The quiet sound of a hand caressing clothes was followed by Ayla’s even quieter whisper. “Your parents . . . They are not dead, Nina.”

“How do you know?”

Hope knew she was not meant to listen to this. Whatever this was, she was not part of their private conversation. She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but her black eyes fixed on a spot on the floor, her feet refusing to move, the tight knot in her throat needing to hear what the answer was.

Until the answer came.

Ayla exhaled profoundly. “I—I have never told anyone. I wouldn’t like to—Please don’t judge me or be scared of me. Promise you won’t.”

Hope should have left as soon as she heard their voices.

“I can’t think of anything that could make me fear you or judge you, Ayla,” Nina replied.

Hope should leave right this very moment, but she couldn’t. She physically couldn’t.

“I see them. The long-gone, the beings who aren’t here anymore . . . I see them.” Hope’s goosebumps trailed up her arms up her neck, but Ayla’s voice continued, “If your parents were dead, I’m sure they would visit you and your brother, but I’ve never seen them.”

Hope’s body snapped out of the trance she had been suspended in. She scurried up the stairs, walking as fast and as far as she could away from the secret Ayla had been hiding for a quarter of a century. She felt her lungs tighten, the air struggling to come in as she couldn’t take the image of her mother out of her mind. What if—

She needed air. She needed fresh air now.

She was not aware of her hands pushing the door to the deck of the navia open. She was not aware of her feet freezing, her head tilting backwards, her eyes closing, or the deep inhale that filled her lungs as if it was the first breath she had ever taken.

What. If.

She was not aware of how long she stood there, if she wasn’t alone on the deck, or if the red moon had fallen from the sky.

Ayla was a necroseer.

Hope didn’t know how long she had been lying on the comfortable bench that hadn’t been at the deck before or how long she had been staring at the night sky.

The breathtaking smell of woods in the middle of the sea and the warm layer of shadows atop her body could only mean one thing.

“Thank you, Ciaran,” she said as she sat.

“Not at all.” He stood a few meters away, the shadows pushing the navia trailing from his arms and feet towards the darkness. “You seemed . . . affected.”

“I was overwhelmed. Very overwhelmed.” Their eyes met and Hope felt immediately at ease. “Sometimes life seems to be . . . excessive. Too sad, too loud, too risky, too hopeless. I lacked so many things living in Verdania.”

Ciaran nodded slowly. He moved his hands and shadows stopped floating from him. He paced towards her and offered Hope his metallic hand.

Hope looked at it, admiring its beauty and strength, before she took it. Ciaran pulled her up, and when she stood in front of him, the touch of his fingers on hers lingered until he finally let go.

“What did you lack?” he said.

Hope looked towards the sea. There were so many things it was difficult to pick. She did not lack the worry about what food to eat the following day or attending Trading Day. She had missed friendship, truths, peace, trusting others, and not fighting to survive every day. But she had also missed smaller, insubstantial things. She had missed talking to people, deciding which game to play, and—

The memory of Sasha and Lenna jumping to the music on the balcony of the Crystal Clear safehouse, feeling it, singing it, was enough to make her pick.

“Music, having fun.”

Ciaran’s lips twitched. “We can kill two birds with one stone.”

Hope laughed. “I thought bird-killing expressions were risky in a Cardinals-ruled world.”

“What is life without risk?” Ciaran looked at her, and the way he spoke, as if it was a fact and a ruination, made her heart ache. He bowed his head slightly. “May I have a dance?”

Hope felt a rush of heat and shame jumping to her cheeks. “I have never danced.”

His blue eyes glittered as he lifted his biological hand. An offer.

“Then it would be even a greater honor to be your first.”

She couldn’t deny him a dance. She didn’t want to deny him a dance. She wanted to know what it would be like to dance, even if she felt more fear now than if she had twenty-five enemies waiting to kill her. She wanted to know what it was like to be close to him. She wanted to feel the touch of his hand on hers for as long as she could.

She could only pray the Cardinals didn’t consider a dance between two heirs of the Houses a reason to cause a panomquake that could break Thyria in half.

It was just a dance.

She inhaled deeply, taking his hand with hers, her heart thumping wildly against her ribcage. Ciaran placed his metallic hand on her waist, above her leathers.

“Relax,” he whispered, his thumb stroking hers. “You’re safe.”

She closed her eyes, hoping he didn’t realize how much her hands were shaking as much as the waves in the surrounding sea. “I know,” she said. “Don’t we need music?”

Ciaran smiled and started singing.

He sang in a language she had never heard before. His eyes shone brightly while he guided her body, moving together around the deck.

It was a joyful song. A melody that reminded her of the things she loved, of a sunny day in a forest with the lightest breeze, surrounded by animals and flowers, of the happiness and innocence of childhood she had read about in books; of feeling full inside and knowing one’s own path. The song went on, Ciaran’s voice filling the night as his lips moved.

Hope couldn't stop grinning. She couldn’t take her eyes off him, his eyes and lips the only firm things in the world as everything else appeared unfocused on a second plane. Ciaran made her spin around one more time as he sang the last note.

“I didn't know you could sing.” The song had stopped, but her grin had not.

His eyebrows lifted. “I didn't know you could dance.”

Hope swallowed, hoping the night covered her blush. “Can you sing another song?”

Ciaran smiled. “For you, always.”

This time, he chose a haunting song, a melody about loneliness and sadness.

It wasn't a song to move as fast to as before; it wasn't one to spin around to.

Hope felt the need to be closer to him, to touch him as his voice trembled with all the words she didn't know, but all the feelings she knew too well.

She put her hands around his neck, moving in unison as his hands surrounded her hips. His mouth was all she could focus on as he sang with the emotion that came from the deepest of one’s heart.

This was music about raw pain and solitude, hopelessness and devastation.

She felt wetness on her skin and Ciaran lifted his hand to dry a tear from her cheek.

She didn't smile. She couldn't smile.

Not as his song struck something buried deep inside her. Something she had spent years hiding under layers of self-convincing and not allowing herself to linger in the hurtful feelings that would stop her from moving forward. Feelings she knew were dangerous to acknowledge without letting them take over.

Yet here he was, singing about these exact feelings, without breaking on the outside.

But Hope knew the truth. Only someone could express these feelings, sing about these feelings, if he had been utterly broken by them where it mattered most: on the inside.

The song finished, and Hope was not ready to let go of this man who had opened his heart in such a devastating way without warning.

She placed her head on his shoulder, and Ciaran's arms embraced her while her silent tears fell.

He didn't need to ask.

She didn't need to explain.

They both embraced in silence for the Fifth knew how long, the only witnesses being the red moon, the Cardinals, and maybe even Llunal himself.