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Lenna

“W hat the fuck does this mean?” Lenna asked.

The ink on Jake’s arm from the Cardinals didn’t make any sense.

“ The feathers are claimed , my ass,” she spat, looking up. “Excuse me, Cardinal bitches, but you forgot a striver over here. And— the Fifth Judgement awaits ? Useless revelation of the century. They could have said where, when, how, and what exactly that is.”

Jake was grinning at her, his silver eyes glittering with amusement. “The confusion is worth it if it makes you so angry.”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t you get me started now, for Cardinals’ sake.”

With her hands on her hips, she faced the window. The storm outside was significant. The courtrades wouldn’t have an easy night.

“We’ve been going South for days now. Surely my ordeal can’t be much farther.”

“Have you practiced enough?”

Lenna forced a smile. “I’ll never get back the hours I’ve spent with your ex-girlfriend.”

“Fucking someone doesn’t make them my anything ,” he said, walking towards her. “Answer me. Have you practiced enough, Brachyan?”

The authority in his voice as he towered over her was hot as fuck.

“Do you miss overseeing my panom training, Jake? Miss being my Panom Guidor? Those were fun days.” It felt like it had happened years ago, and it had barely been a few months. How much could a life change in such a small period of time?

He narrowed his eyes, his lips pursing. “Why are you not answering my damn question?”

“Maybe you’re not the only one who enjoys riling other people up.” She went to leave the room, but Jake held her hand, stepping in front of her.

“It’s not that.”

Lenna sighed. “Look, I’ve practiced, okay? Arabella isn’t a terrible teacher; I will give her that. Would that be enough ? Cardinals bloody know, but I am going to do the South ordeal even if it’s the last thing I do.”

Jake’s tense nod was the last thing she saw before the navia disappeared and Lenna’s body fell like a dead weight onto a crystal-red floor.

By the time Lenna woke up, the storm was gone, and so was the night.

If the South Cardinal wanted to jinx Lenna by breaking her legs before her ordeal even started, she would have to try again. After the fall, her legs were not broken but—fuck, they were sore. There was no point in Healing them and starting the ordeal with her inner balance uneven, especially when she didn’t fancy Harming herself to compensate, and there was nothing else to Harm.

Half-limping, Lenna managed to stand up on the four-petal shaped platform in the middle of the Radel Sea. Looking back, there was no doubt: it was the Radel Sea, and that small floating moon-shaped vehicle far from her was the navia.

What looked totally out of place was the bright red water in front of her. As if a magical field had fallen atop the sea—a field the color of the Cardinals, vast with red ground, untouched by the waves of the sea surrounding it.

And in its very middle, right where the core of the panom would be, was a floating, crystal orb.

“Red-obsessed,” Lenna muttered.

She waited a few moments, but nothing happened. It was clear where she had to go, and it was not clear what the heck she was meant to Take. Remembering everything she knew about the synced use of opposite powers and praying her practice with Arabella would suffice, Lenna inhaled deeply and took the first step out of the platform and into the field, towards the core of the shape.

A curtain of red petals fell thick like the worst downpour. It fell on her, everywhere else except where she stood remained completely petal-free.

Lenna snorted loudly, grinning. It was bloody cool to be chased by Cardinal-guided petal rain.

She could see how fast the petals accumulated at her feet, heavier than she had expected them to be, the strength needed to move not appreciated by her sore legs.

The middle of the Thyrian-shaped field was far, the petals fell fast, and her feet were about to be stuck. What was she waiting for?

Run, girl, run .

Lifting her feet above the height of her knees, up to where the petals had buried her in the span of less than a minute, she ran. The falling petals followed, and it took Lenna all of five seconds to realize how hard it was to run with the speed they fell. She waved her arms in front of her to keep from slamming her face against them, but the petals were faster than her.

She knew she had to start Taking them away or it wouldn’t be long until she couldn’t move. She needed to find something to Give at the same time, something that required the same amount of magic so that she could Take and Give simultaneously, her opposite powers synchronized to keep her scale balanced, or else she wouldn’t make it to the center, to where the feather surely had to be.

Something she could Give that didn’t give her any more trouble, something that she didn’t have to worry about. The Radel Sea surrounded the red field, and Jake’s side-smile flashed in her mind before she lifted her hands.

An open hand ready to close and Take petals, a closed hand ready to open and Give fire sparks to the sea. Fire sparks that would extinguish when they touched the water. A release to allow her to Take, Take, Take, because the longer it took her to clear her way, her feet, her knees from the petals raining on her, the longer it would take her to finish this.

It took all her concentration to continue running as fast as she could while allowing the two powers of her panom magic to flow. She could barely keep on top of the Taking needed to avoid ending up buried in petals, and she relied on her Giving to ensure she didn’t get dizzy or faint.

The center of the four-petal shaped field was closer and closer, the distance to the sea greater with every step she managed to take, and yet, the middle still seemed suffocatingly far. Her hands alternated opening and closing, her magic Giving and Taking non-stop, the parts of her brain aligning each power to each objective without pause, because if she paused—

A high-pitched scream left her mouth when her ankle twisted, her face slamming against the petals piled on the floor immediately after.

Fuck .

She’d fucked up big time.

It wasn’t that these precious seconds had broken her rhythm and would give her a massive disadvantage when trying to reach the core, but that the fire spark she had Given aimed at the sea hadn’t reached the water by a few inches with her fall and instead had landed on the field. The field that hadn’t extinguished the spark like the sea was meant to.

The field that had let that spark become a flame .

Big, fucking, royal fuck .

Groaning, she managed to push herself upwards despite the petals piled on her back and shoulders, her legs and arms. The flame was starting to roam freely on the field, and if the path of petals Lenna had left behind caught fire, she wouldn’t have enough space or time to run.

Clenching her jaw to the point of pain, she pushed against the force of the petals blocking her way as she Took them, while she Gave shoots of water to the fire starting to surround her. The water was useless against the fire growing exponentially by the second, the fire now burning the petals behind her as if it was its sole reason to exist.

Thanks to Arabella, her inner scale was not tilting.

Thanks to Lenna’s own stupidity, a burning world of Cardinal-red petals was going to consume her.

The pressure of the petals around her thighs was worse than the weight of the petals on her feet. She was so close now, the crystal orb standing mere steps away from her. She roared, lifting her arms above her head so the petals couldn’t bury the hands she needed to use her powers.

There was no point in continuing to use the powers evenly. The chances of being successful—to survive—were slim unless she Took enough petals away so she could reach the inside of the column. She had no doubt the South feather was there.

In the middle of the field full of petals and fire, Lenna opened her hands wide, her nostrils flaring as her hair waved wildly with the heat emanating from the flames behind her. With a roar that could break glass, she closed both hands with all the strength she had ever gathered, Taking petals away from her legs so that she could take the few steps left to the orb.

She felt her inner balance tilting already, her mind blurry as she blinked desperately to focus. Her feet moved, her hands finally reaching the orb.

The broken orb. The side of the crystal sphere was open, exposing the center of the orb.

The very empty orb.

She gasped, her limbs stuck with blood-freezing realization as petals, petals, petals and more petals covered her chest, her neck, her head.

There was no feather.

There-was-no-feather.

Therewasnofeather.

The shock cost her deeply.

The petals buried her face, blinded her eyes, covered her nose, filled her still-open mouth.

The fire must have followed, but, by then, Lenna was long gone.