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Hope

L enna crumbled to her feet, gasping for air as if every particle of oxygen had burned with the final words of the East Cardinal. Her shaking hands covered her devastated face. Her golden, tearful eyes clearly debating the need to stop watching at how Jake drank his Fifth Power. Hope tried to walk towards her, but invisible magic held her inside the circular center of the chamber.

Lenna was alone, crying at the foot of the throne belonging to a goddess who still ignored her. Jake had ensured she was alive, unharmed, and untouched, and yet, Lenna was the vivid image of someone dying inside, her heart being ripped raw from her chest without asking for permission or forgiveness.

The North Cardinal cleared her throat, claiming the attention of the panom who had also tried to leave her petal to be with her twin with no success. “Continue we shall. Ayla Brachyan, successful striver of the Giving ordeal. Do you present your feather to unveil the fate of your gamble?”

Ayla stared at the Cardinal of her House as if she wished to stab her feather into her red eyes, and Hope couldn’t even blame her. It hurt her deeply to see how Lenna was ruined, and she wasn’t her blood, birth-twin. Whatever Ayla was feeling wasn’t patience and understanding.

“Am I dealing with a deaf striver?” The North Cardinal chuckled.

“I present my feather,” Ayla muttered between clenched teeth. If she held the crystal feather any tighter, there was a real risk it would explode.

“You are the current heir of my House, and in your ordeal, you proved how incapacitating the imbalance of your inner magical scale is.” Her smooth hands repositioned the white diadem atop her cardinal-red hair, and then Hope saw it. By the small, backwards step Ayla took, it was evident she’d seen it too.

The small white pieces forming the diadem of the North Cardinal were teeth . Teeth of beings. Human beings.

The goddess fluttered her eyelashes as she saw the focus of Ayla’s green eyes. “Beautiful, I know.” She sighed; her grin seemingly genuine. “Your blindness limits the use of your magic. If you didn’t have that painful impairment anytime your inner balance tilts, and you had the Fifth Power, you would be unstoppable. How badly do you want the Fifth Power, Ayla Brachyan?”

When she spoke, Ayla’s voice was a whisper. “You want my eyes.”

The North Cardinal laughed, pure joy and happiness on her face. “Clever girl. Your emerald-green eyes would make a pretty necklace. It would look lovely amongst all the red. So, what do you say?”

Ayla didn’t say anything. She lifted the palms of her hands to cover her eyes in the exact same way Hope had seen her protect herself when her balance was uneven, when the use of one power broke the even balance of the panom powers.

After a while, Ayla sighed. “I accept, on one condition.”

“Which is?”

The red-haired twin hesitated, and finally said, “If I am to lose my sight for the rest of my life, please allow me to see Nina Avert one last time.”

“As the Giving Cardinal, I find pride in being benevolent.” The Cardinal splayed her wings, her hands moving with sparks the color of her feathers, and then, Nina was there.

Hope inhaled sharply; her brow furrowed as the tips of her hands touched the hilt of her daggers. The white-haired young woman looked so out of place, her hesitant ocean-colored eyes taking in everything and everyone around her, her eyebrows shooting to the sky when she saw the five Cardinals in the room, her mouth half opened with endless questions that wouldn’t be answered. She wore a plain, pale pink dress over her pale skin, and she had never looked more fragile and vulnerably human than in this chamber of powerful panoms and cruel goddesses.

“Ayla, what’s happening? Are you okay?” Nina asked, her hand reaching Ayla’s, her eyes trying to decipher the emotions behind the green eyes of the woman in front of her.

Ayla smiled, a tear rolling down her cheek as she caressed Nina’s, putting a wavy, white strand of her hair behind her ear. “I will be okay. Sorry for disturbing you so late. I just needed to see you. I wanted to see you.”

Nina swallowed. “I’m glad to see you, too, but I don’t like seeing you cry.”

Ayla’s lips widened with a tense smile, her green eyes drinking Nina in for the final time, before she said to the North Cardinal. “Thank you. She may go back now, please. Nina, I’ll s—meet you very soon.”

A disconcerted frown didn’t suit the face of the North Cardinal. “But I granted you one condition, not two. Your friend here is welcome to stay the rest of the Fifth Judgment. Consider it a kindness. Now, if I may . . .” The joyful grin was back, and then, moving Nina to the side with a swipe of her hands, the Cardinal stood in front of Ayla, her hands in front of the green eyes she had gambled for.

There was no warning. One second, Ayla was staring with shock and determination at the goddess. The next, her eyeballs were floating out of her sockets and into the palms of the grinning Cardinal. Her ear-piercing screams filled the chamber as Lenna’s raging sobs resurfaced loudly behind Hope as she cursed, and Nina choked on any words, holding the wall with both hands as if that was all her body could do.

As if these noises were pure musical background, the North Cardinal hung Ayla’s eyeballs from a silver chain and placed it around her neck. She sat down on her throne with an unwavering smug smile, and when she looked back at Ayla, the North Cardinal lifted her hands, making everyone quiet, and somehow stopping Ayla’s pain. “Forgive my manners, I got overexcited. These are for you.”

Two metallic eyeballs floated from the Cardinal’s Giving hands, and replaced Ayla’s old ones, and when the heir of the North blinked, silver was all that was visible in her eyes.

Silver, the color of Ayla’s magic, her sparks, her ink, her mark, her dress. Silver, the color of her soul.

The powerful, liquefied mass of magic the feather of her ordeal had transformed into floated towards Ayla, and she seemed to sense it approaching, for she repositioned herself to align with it.

“Here is your Fifth Power, silver heir. Now, drink.”