Page 56 of Petals for Vicious Secrets

34

Hope

Running had never proved more lifesaving. They were racing for life, and against death. A race to get to safety and to see tomorrow. A race before the roixers found them in the vessels. A race that had been going on for hours.

Hope was perfectly aware of her ability when putting her body against physical duress. She knew running for hours without a pause was nothing new to her mother, either. She had been impressed at the training of the courtrades before, so seeing them not get tired or complain was not unexpected news.

What Hope hadn’t expected was that Nina could run for so long, keeping their quick pace without passing out. The sounds of her own steady breathing and footsteps as they hit the floor intertwined with Nina’s next to her. But what Nina’s eyes reflected… That was stronger than any physical force. It was stronger than muscles and time. It was sheer determination.

Marcus had instructed them to run as a pack, weapons at the ready, to have a better chance if roixers were waiting for them on the next vessel. Or the one after that.

It would have taken less than a second for Hope, her mother, or most of the highly skilled courtrades in front of her to unsheathe their blades. Which would be less than a second too long. So she had been running with her sharpest blades in each hand. The wound on her palm was still open from when she had last given her panom blood to fuel the cellholt. The weapon she held tightly, rubbing against the dark red bandage covering the open cut, was not the best path to healing. Not that she had the time to care about it.

Hope did not know who had made the first living map of this underwater net that stabilized the islands above, but she had already thanked the Cardinals a few times for only reflecting the cellholts and not the beings within them. Maybe it had been created by the Cardinals themselves. She had a feeling Marcus would probably know.

Marcus, who was leading at the front of the pack, increasing or decreasing speed as he deemed safe, entering new vessels as if he had memorized the living map. Marcus, who held the fate of the twenty-five of them in his hands. Who had held their future on his shoulders since they had stepped into the cellholt, leaving Verdania behind.

Verdania seemed so far. It seemed another life. A life Hope was not willing to remember right now. She needed all her focus on these last few hours until they reached the tunnel they’d climb to get out of this blue-tinged labyrinth. Because they were going to make it. There was no other option.

That no one had found them yet could mean two things. The first one, that their cellholt was still on its way to wherever Marcus had sent it, and the roixers were still trying to intercept it. The second one, that the roixers had already found it and seen it was an empty vehicle and that the intruders were on foot. In which case it was a matter of Cardinals-blessed luck they didn’t cross their path.

After entering a small vessel to their right, Marcus lifted his arm up. The signal to stop. A few minutes to drink, eat, attend to their needs or simply close their eyes. Before resuming their journey.

Hope sheathed her blades on her belts. Next to her, Nina put her hands on her knees, trying to calm her breathing down. From how her legs shook, Hope knew precisely how much effort the last few miles had required.

“I can’t believe I haven’t fainted yet,” Nina chuckled.

Hope smiled, grabbing her leather pouch of water from her pocket and opening the buckle at the top with a hiss. The cloth around her wound moved, sliding down. She inhaled sharply at the rough pain in her palm when the buckle hit the now bleeding and reopen spot.

Nina frowned, looking at Hope’s hand, her blue eyes widening. “Cardinals guide us. Your hand—It looks awful.” Hope didn’t reply as she chugged some sips down. “How long have you been bleeding like this? This is going to be infected, Hope. It’s terrible.”

“I’ve had worse.” It was true, and there was no point in talking about her hand when they had bigger issues to worry about.

Hope had changed the stripes of cloth working as bandages during every stop since they jumped from the cellholt. Maybe it was stupid, but she didn’t feel like leaving traces of her panom blood behind her was a good idea. Hence why she had a few blood-soaked pieces of cloth in her pockets. She undid her current one and grabbed a couple of clean ones from another pocket. She wasn’t sure only one would be enough to control the bleeding.

“It’s not too painful. I promise,” Hope said, with her best attempt at a reassuring smile.

“Your definition of painful differs from the definition for the rest of the Terrhan population.” Nina lifted her eyebrows. “But I am seriously concerned about the risk of infection. Let me.”

Hope opened her mouth to reply, but before she could tell her to not waste a single of the precious few drops of water she had left, Nina had already poured a generous amount of water on a clean piece of cloth. She started cleaning it and Hope bit her lip, her nostrils flaring. Nina cleaned the rest of her hand, insisting on the parched areas until her hand was fully clean. Just a clean, deep cut with a bit of redness around it.

“Thank you very much.” Nina had done an immaculate job.

Nina smiled softly, blushing a bit. Her blue eyes met Hope’s almost-black ones. “I would have loved to be a healer in the West House. But I couldn’t receive the proper formation because I was just… Well, a servant. I used to visit the library often though, and the books somehow eased my need to know.”

The clean cloth now being bandaged around her hand was being moved by very capable hands. If Nina truly hadn’t been taught—and Hope knew there was no reason for her to lie about this—she definitely had a calling.

“We can share my water when yours runs out,” Hope said, and was glad about Nina nodding instead of refusing.

No one had much water left, and the chances of not being extremely thirsty by the time this was over, especially with all the running included, were below zero. Nina prioritizing Hope’s healing against her own wellbeing was… Very Nina.

If the thirst was their only thing to ration carefully, they would probably feel lucky. But it wasn’t. Because the food was running low, most of them with one ration left. Some courtrades were eating a quarter or a half of it right now.

And then there was the sleep. Or the lack of sleep, if semantics ever mattered in a situation like this. The maximum rest anyone had gotten was five-minutes dozing off, laying on the floor of the vessels before running resumed under Marcus’ orders.

The good thing about the courtrades was that they seemed in mission-mode. Looking around, Hope could see the signs of tiredness, thirst, and hunger. The dark bags under the eyes, the stretches of backs and necks as the muscles felt sore, the tongues wetting lips in a weak attempt at not feeling dehydrated, and the stomach rumbles. Still, there hadn’t been a single moan. All of it would be over soon, if the Cardinals blessed their luck.

A new, loud noise was approaching the spot where they were. A noise that Hope had become familiar with during the weeks of traveling inside its glass walls.

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