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Hope

N o being needed to see the sender of the navy ink to feel the desperation in his words.

Jake’s message caused very different reactions for Ciaran, Ayla, and Hope.

Ayla squealed, her emerald-green eyes tearing as she gasped. Ciaran ran to the deck of the navia, his dark green sparks heading downstairs no doubt on their way to make the other courtrades aware. Hope’s hands were over her daggers, more out of self-reassurance than usefulness. Except there was nothing to reassure herself about, and she needed answers, she needed action. So she ran after Ciaran, Lenna’s twin running after her.

The sea around them was not as quiet as other days. Ciaran’s shadows were on the move, darkening the space around the navia, pushing the metal mass farther down South. Stevian and Nyraxa joined him shortly after, the three types of shadows working as one against the sun above.

Hope could ask Jake for more details, but she didn’t. All that mattered was getting to them as soon as the Cardinals allowed. They were on track, at the precise point that cut the Organ House from the South. The Fifth only knew what distance separated this navia from theirs—from them.

She walked from one side of the deck to the other, testing the wind with her wet finger, red sparks flying from her hands as she tried to work out if her plan was doable.

“The shadows in plain daylight are not as efficient,” Ciaran said from behind her.

“I noticed. I’m going to push it.”

His eyebrows raised, followed by a slight frown.

“Wind, is it?” A tense smile appeared on her lips at his immediate understanding. The corner of his lips tugged upwards with pride as he nodded. “I’m with you.” It was impressive what such a short sentence could do to someone’s heart.

“You can’t Give wind just like that. It’s nature. You’ll burn out,” Ayla said.

If only Hope had an inner scale to take into consideration. Lifting her hands, her fists closed ready to Give, she looked at the sea around them, at the sky, the clouds, the breeze against the waves. Ciaran walked behind her, his back against hers, and she felt him lift his hands as well.

Hope inhaled deeply, the powers she was gathering from the red panom mark at the back of her neck tickling, fueling what she was about to unleash.

“It’s not me you have to worry about,” she said.

And then, air currents gained a new meaning.

As if the world had been waiting for her to concentrate her magic on the force of the air, the wind answered her call, allowing the navia to move as fast as the courtrades did with their shadows at night, if not more. Behind her, Ciaran’s dark green sparks illuminated his fingers, occasional shadows interlacing with his panom magic. Stevian and Nyraxa did not relax either.

And just like that, the navia moved and moved and moved. When the time Giving had to be close to an hour, her arms ached from keeping them straightened in front of her for such a prolonged period of time. Not that that was any acceptable excuse to stop. What was a bit of sore arms when Lenna was not fully alive? What the Cardinals’ Fifth hell did not fully alive even mean?

Her arms did not concern her, but Ciaran’s body against her back felt cold as ice. Even with his body temperature usually low, he now felt dangerously cold. Was this the way his inner balance was uneven?

“Ciaran,” she said. “Don’t push it.”

“Pushing it is precisely what I want to do.”

“You know what I meant.” Against his lack of response, she exhaled exasperatedly and added, “Not the navia— yourself .”

“I said I’m with you, and I’ll be until we reach them. I’m not going to leave all the fun to you.”

Hope chuckled. “Right, because freezing to death is fun. Such a courtrade thing to say.”

“Breaking the laws of magic and nature with you is fun. Even if it includes freezing to death.”

“Right. Much more reasonable. Will you be able to Heal Lenna when we get there? Because out of all of us, the panom with the most expertise in that field is you. It was proven quite recently, you shall not forget.”

Of course, Indianna and Nina also knew non-magical healing, and Hope had zero doubts they had been packing their supplies and remedies since Jake’s ink had arrived, preparing for whatever emergency the situation required, very likely with the help of Ayla as well, who left the deck when they started commanding the wind. With Stevian and Nyraxa and their shadows somewhere at the opposite end of the navia, here there were just Ciaran and Hope and their magic.

His deep inhale followed. “Forget shall I never.”

It was impossible to guess how much longer they needed to reach their navia, how far they were, how long Lenna had to wait, what Jake was doing to keep her from going to the only state that could follow being not fully alive . The only state that had to be avoided.

“My permanent inks,” Ciaran said from behind her, his voice getting lost as he spoke towards the sea.

Hope’s eyebrows raised, her back straightening and making even more contact with his own. “Yes?”

“You asked about them.”

“And you didn’t answer.”

“I can answer now.”

Hope opened her mouth, her jaw dropping. “ Now ? Of all moments? When I cannot even see you and can barely hear you? Not to mention this half-hurricane we have in our hands.” The one that swallowed and pushed the navia through the world.

Ciaran turned swiftly and Hope gasped. His chest was breathtakingly in front of hers, his extended, Giving hands above Hope’s shoulders. Her arms found a new home on the sides of his very terse, very muscular chest.

A wind-Giving embrace.

“Now, of all moments, Hope, I have to tell you.” His low voice finally reached her fully, the short distance between his mouth and hers dangerous and painful, the way his blue eyes and her black ones met as powerful as their magic.

It was only because she had been Giving for over an hour without stopping that her mind switched to a sort of autopilot magic, enabling her to focus on him, his words, his mouth, his voice. She aimed for, “I’m all ears,” but her traitorous subconscious opted for, “I’m all yours.”

Ciaran’s throat bobbed, his arms bending slightly as if he wanted to relax them and caress her.

“Each time I stopped believing you would come, Llunal sent me an ink. Every permanent ink on my arm, on my chest . . . Every ink is made of shadows. They're made of you.”

Words had vanished from existence. But luckily, Ciaran continued. “Now . . . Now their purpose has been fulfilled.”

“What purpose?” Her voice was hoarse.

“To remind me to believe in the fates the gods laid out for us. To remind me to be patient, that you were real, and one day I was going to meet you.”

She swallowed, praying the ongoing wind would continue pushing for a while even if she needed to use her hands for something else, because she was physically unable to stop her fingers from caressing his skin, from tracing the shadow inks that marked his biological arm. Ciaran’s eyes closed at her touch, his head tilting slightly back as he inhaled deeply.

He had been patient. He had been patient for her . For centuries .

Feelings that could wipe Terrha in one go were surging from a very specific part of Hope’s chest.

“If they’re made of shadows, could you make them vanish now?”

His eyes opened to look at her, his brows furrowed. “I would never. They've shaped who I am. They were there when nothing else was. They've been my compass and my moon. I owe them my life.”

He caressed her cheek as a tear rolled down. She hadn’t noticed her eyes watering, she was too busy feeling everything else, understanding the brutal impact of what he was revealing.

“The inks are getting all the credit, but don't be fooled.” He cupped her face, the tip of his nose touching hers. “ You have been my compass and my moon, Hope. You kept me going when the world seemed hopeless. I begged the Cardinals for answers, for any little hint about you. They gave me nothing . And then you appeared, blades in hand, panomquake under your feet, shaking this world like no one else had. You shook my world. The moment I saw you, I knew—I knew the wait had been worth it.”

Hope’s breath shook and he didn’t let go of her face. Her arms reached to hold his—to hold them as if she was holding on for dear life. Every time he spoke, it felt as if a new dagger stabbed her heart, a dagger full of the most meaningful and the most destructive venom to ever exist.

“You are more than I could have ever dreamed. You are fearless, humble, loyal, lethal. There was never a chance I wouldn't love you.”

The air between their lips was tense, in static suspension. She wanted to kiss him. She needed to kiss him so badly.

“I hate them,” Hope whispered, her voice shaking between the tears. “Why make you wait all your life, waste all your precious years, for something they never allowed? Why make us suffer, why break us by forbidding—”

Ciaran’s bit his bottom lip in a way that had to hurt, his eyes glittering as if he was shattering in a million pieces. She didn’t want to say the words out loud, but it was too late to stop them.

“—our love.”

For a second, Hope thought her words had been the cause of a panomquake. But when she managed to look at something other than the man in front of her, the man who had overtaken the reason for living and breathing, she understood.

It hadn’t been a panomquake, but the crash of one navia against another.

On the deck of the other navia, a man covered in burns with black hair and silver eyes—Jake—held the limp, pale body of a red-haired woman—Lenna.

As one, Ciaran and Hope were on the move before the next heartbeat, sprinting to the rail and jumping into the sea, ready to climb on the navia as if their lives depended on it.