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46

Lenna

B y the time the navia reached the shore of Orizane, the sun peaked through the horizon, illuminating the black, loose sand of the beach, expanding as far as Lenna could see. Stevian, the oldest courtrade, guided them to his family home. Thank the Fifth, his place was close and big enough to hold them all.

It was only now that she realized also how heartbreakingly empty it was.

There hadn’t been a living soul until they arrived, the silence prominent and present. Her footsteps echoed as she stepped into a room full of black wooden furniture. Children’s furniture. There were two small tables and four small chairs with marks of black pens—or were they shadow stains? Red, green, and yellow wooden blocks were half-piled, half-splayed on the table and the floor.

A knot sat on Lenna’s throat. How many years had those blocks been there, purposely untouched? Untouched, yet cared for. There wasn’t dust anywhere, not even on the frames sitting on a shelf next to a wide piano.

She approached, unable to step away from this invasion of privacy of the man who had been generous with them. The privacy of his family , for in the frames were images of a younger Stevian with dark hair, a beautiful, grinning dark-haired woman ruffling the hair of two small kids. One was older than the other, but neither could be older than five, and they were both laughing. Carved on the black frame, white words read: May the stars not hinder their darkness. May Llunal shade them.

Goosebumps took over her skin as Lenna covered her mouth, keeping her sob as quiet as possible as tears struck down her cheeks.

“No need to cry, Miss Lenna,” his voice sounded from behind her, and she was so overwhelmed by the sudden sadness that she forgot to apologize for being there.

“Are they . . . aren’t they—I’m so sorry.”

Stevian joined her side, his wrinkled finger tracing the face of the woman in the image with a melancholic smile. “My wife lived a long, full life, and is patiently waiting for me in the stars until Llunal claims my end.”

The hand covering Lenna’s mouth became a fist, her knuckles pressing against her lips. “Are they your daughters?”

“They were and will always be. They were the light even the deepest darkness couldn’t tame.” His white eyebrows met as he swallowed, his throat bobbing as he looked at the girls.

“They look like you.” The same oval shape, the same blue eyes. “How lucky wer—are they to have a father like you.”

“A father who swore to protect them from any harm. A father who failed.” He sighed. “Sometimes it’s not possible to control life, to control what others do. Llunal was graceful to bless me with a second chance, to offer my guilt a path to redemption.”

She barely knew him, yet Lenna couldn’t see any scenario in which this man would’ve allowed harm or failed to protect his daughters from harm intentionally. They admired the beauty and innocence of the past together, in silence, until the rest of the house started to wake up.

It was obvious there was no point in Lenna attending the Fifth Judgment when she hadn’t got any crystal bloody feather to offer the winged, godly creatures she was still angry at. But was she going to miss her opportunity to tell them off for tricking her into an ordeal that had no feather? Not in fifty-five years.

“The words the crystal feathers spoke to you said the five strivers will be welcomed at the Fifth Judgment for your futures to be gambled with , correct? Well, I am a striver. An unsuccessful, pissed off one, but a striver nonetheless. All five of us are going,” Lenna insisted, ignoring Jake’s stern-and-very-much-unhappy stare and Ayla’s rolling eyes. “How long will it take us to get to that sacred place?”

“The Birthing Pit of Blackness is in the middle of the Veiled Mountains, at the other side of Orizane,” Stevian said.

One second, Jake was behind her, his hand on her hip. The next, he was at the other end of the room. Lenna cocked an eyebrow. “Having fun?”

“Just testing if his god allows us to moure.”

Fair point, since mouring was part of the red-feathered females’ magic.

“We have the name of the place and its location. That’s enough to moure there,” Hope said.

Stevian blinked, looking at her. “I can go with you. Make sure you get there safely.”

“Thank you, but I’m sure we’ll be fine.” Hope’s reassuring smile and very broad explanations of mouring were not that accurate and definitely not inclusive of all the risks and things that could go wrong, but Lenna wasn’t going to tell her off. “What exactly are we looking for when we get there?”

“You will see the woods, the place where the trees are marked with red sparks, as if red magical rain had fallen on them.”

“ Where the darkness meets the sparks at the light of red, ” Hope remembered, staring at Ciaran, who nodded slowly. “Where the Birthing Pit of Blackness is covered in red sparks. When the red moon will illuminate it—at ante meridiem.”

In an hour, they’d be where courtrades who ventured never returned, to gamble with their futures with the five goddesses that had attempted to kill them during their five ordeals.

If that wasn’t a wonderful plan.