Page 12 of Petals for Vicious Secrets

“I know. What a moron of a sister, seriously,” Lenna said, shaking her head.

“Well, at least she is not the heir to your House. Imagine having her as your Ruler for the rest of your life,” Ciaran said, stretching his biological arm on top of his head.

Lenna chuckled. That would be absolutely unbearable. Lenna was fully aware of how much her narcissistic sister found it unfair that Lenna was the heir of the North House instead of her, just because Lenna was born five minutes before Ayla was. Ayla considered herself much more prepared and aligned with “the House’s vision” than her twin sister.

Lenna wasted little time of her life thinking about her future life as the heir. She didn’t give a shit most of the time. But to think Ayla was the alternative… Cardinals, yes, I’d rather be a Ruler.

“I can moure you to the North Petal, if you’d like,” Ciaran said. “As close to your House as I can get. It’s almost ante meridiem.”

“Wait, what?! You can moure?!” Lenna shouted. She took Ciaran’s grin as an affirmation. He should grin more frequently, she thought. It made him incredibly attractive. She patted him on the mechanical arm with too much excitement, and she almost felt the bones of her hand complain.

“We have a lot to catch up on,” he said, still smiling.

“It’s been so nice seeing you,” she said, returning the smile. “My parents are probably freaking out and mobilizing the roixers by now, unless a message I sent got delivered in time.”

“How did you send it?” Ciaran said, curiosity sparkling in his eyes.

There were three main ways to send a message in Thyria. Members of the Houses did not use frequently messengers because of the high chances that the message would be leaked. Messengers were actually one source of gossips and secrets for Ayla and other wannabe spymasters. Owlings were effective, reliable, and fast, but the creatures were extremely rare and only some Houses owned them. And the third way was…

“Magic,” she said. Even though her sister and Lenna had magic in their blood since the moment they entered the world, they officially could not use it until they had their Fifth Ceremony, and their full potential would be unlocked. Their parents had threatened them when they were little, saying if they used magic before they became panoms, they would lose the petals of their panom mark. But many flying vases, rogue pieces of furniture running around the house, and pets turned into decoration later, their parents stopped telling them anything and just pretended they didn’t know their daughters were using magic.

“I think I would have been disappointed if Lenna Brachyan had learned no magic before her Fifth,” Ciaran said. “Who has been teaching you?”

“Nobody. I stole a couple of books from Leo, my mentor, with the basics, and I have been practicing here and there on my own.”

After arguments like the one she just had with Ayla, a part of Lenna was glad that she was not a panom yet, and that she hadn’t been taught how to use the powers that would be fully accessible to her when she was. Lenna would have to learn to control herself with her high and mighty sister. She hated Ayla but would not like to harm her irreversibly during a fight.

They heard a dripping noise coming from the corridor behind the marble door next to them, and they both turned to face it. Ciaran lifted both hands in front of him, ready to use them, and Lenna in a fighting stance.

Ayla appeared, slogging through the door archway, fully soaked with some sort of sticky liquid that smelled like rotten eggs. Her usually perfect straight long hair was a mess. Reading her face was a challenge.

Lenna looked at Ciaran, lifting her eyebrows and biting her bottom lip, trying to contain a laugh out of some non-deserved pity for her sister. Lenna sent a silent thanks to the five Cardinals for their payback.

“I thought you knew about our neighbor,” Ciaran said casually. “I hope he was not too rude to you.”

Ayla walked towards Lenna. “Let’s go home. Now.”

“Ciaran is mouring us,” Lenna said with a false apologetic look.

Ayla took a deep breath with her eyes closed, probably trying to find the latest bit of her patience. “Moure us now,” she ordered.

Ciaran looked at Lenna, lifting his eyebrows. “Do you want me to moure your sister too? She’s very dirty.”

Lenna laughed, knowing Ciaran was enjoying this as much as she was. “I think it’s better if we both get home at the same time, otherwise I’ll be in more trouble,” Lenna said.

Ciaran closed his hand, and the stickiness of Ayla’s clothes and skin disappeared. Ayla clenched her jaw and said nothing.

“You’re welcome,” Ciaran said, getting closer to the sisters. As he touched the back of their necks, the three of them vanished into the night.

9

Hope

The red-tinged moonlight was so bright and clear that they didn’t need any candles or torches to illuminate the treehouse. The perennial thick trees provided cover from unwanted curious visitors. If someone didn’t know their home was there, they wouldn’t have spotted it. One benefit of having to climb quite a bit to get to the door. They could also use the open windows, which only had a thin cotton curtain separating them from the animals in the woods, but Hope’s mother always said it was good manners to enter a house through the actual door.

If her mother hadn’t been on the roof platform, Hope would have probably gone there a few hours ago. It was her favorite place to think, to plan, to decide, and to listen to herself. And what her mother told her a few hours ago…

Hope knew little about Aurora’s life before she was discarded to Verdania. She had imagined her mother had worked in different jobs to have so many diverse survival skills. But this? Not in a million years she could have imagined her mother was the Roix Reigner. The highest authority in the Roix.

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