Page 67 of Petals for Vicious Secrets

With a couple of hand movements, she Gave herself a black top, and Gave a shirt with the usual style Jake dressed in, putting it into his hand instead of straight into his body for some sense of normalcy.

“I was wondering,” he started, “since my dear father will keep us here for the Fifth knows how long, if you’d like to learn the last Cardinal power.”

Lenna blinked. “I’m not Harming you,” she said, twisting her mouth to the side.

“Yet you must feel the horizontal balance scale of your petal tilting towards the Healing, after you worked on my back for so long. Am I right?”

Lenna nodded, lifting her eyebrows. “Still, I’m not Harming you. I’d very much rather have the balance uneven.” Which meant she felt like she had been drinking myster since she had Healed him, a feeling she enjoyed often enough, if it was in the right measure.

Jake frowned slightly, some confusion crossing his eyes. “So kind of you, golden heart. Let me at least tell you the theory. So if you ever need to do it, you know where to start.”

Jake lifted a hand in front of him, all his fingers straight and together as he said, “In a similar way as when you Heal, when you Harm, you must visualize the desired outcome.” He moved his hand down in a straight line, as if he was cutting with the side of his palm. “Harming can bear many forms: from a plain cut, to locking limbs, to internal organs damage, to breathe-holding… As with Giving, Taking, and Healing, Harming only has the limits of its wielder. Which can be many, or can be close to none.”

Lenna avoided a shiver as a never-ending list of atrocious possibilities crossed her mind. How cruel must the East Cardinal have been to own this power in her soul? To think such a limitless hurting potential was in the hands of any experienced panom… “That’s some scary shit.”

Jake nodded in silence. Lenna asked, “Is that how you discard people? Is it a way of Harming them?”

Jake stared at her, as if he was considering answering honestly or not.

“I don't like to talk about the details of... my duties. But no, it's not Harming. Harming always involves a very unpleasant feeling, usually pain, agony or misery. I would never Harm the babies and children that sometimes I have to discard. In any way.” If that was not deep relief in Lenna's chest, only the Fifth knew what it was. Jake continued, “Discarding is painless. It's more similar to mouring somebody away.”

“So you do have some sort of incredibly relaxed and blurry ethical limits.”

“You didn’t seem too concerned about my ethical limits a few minutes ago, Brachyan.” Jake lifted his eyebrow, and that slight curl of one corner of his mouth did things to her core.

“We went further than what two responsible heirs of the Houses should have ever gone. I bet you are happy with the panomquake that came out of your brief experiment,” Lenna said, tilting her head. Good thing both knew they were quite far from being responsible heirs.

“I’d be much happier if we had continued.”

“Shame the rocks falling on top of us didn’t agree,” she said. “Can you not moure out of this cell?”

“It has epitellia wards that prevent mouring in or out unless ordered by the Organ Mandor,” Jake said. “Sorry, you have to be stuck with me for a while longer.”

“I’m sorry too,” Lenna sat down, her back against the curved wall of one of the petal shapes of the cell.

“Maybe we should find out at exactly which point the land breaks in half,” he said, standing up and walking towards where Lenna was. “If it is when I lick that wetness between your legs dry,” his voice had dropped an octave, “or when I fuck you as deep as I know you want it. You know, for experimental purposes.”

An experiment that had the risk of killing hundreds of thousands of people when the land truly broke in half, for Cardinals’ sake.

Lenna looked up to him, past the massive bulk in his pants that was very difficult to ignore, and found Jake looking at her with the dark gray tinge in his eyes.

Before she could reply, someone appeared next to her and touched the skin on the back of her neck. Jake grabbed the arm of this being half a second later with preternatural speed, Jake’s own hand on the back of this being’s neck as their bodies left the floor, and they were moured away from the cell.

Lenna landed on her ass in the throne room, and stood up as soon as she could, all the heat inside her body cooling down instantly, as if drowned by a gigantic iceberg. Because touching her neck was the Cardinals-damned Organ Mandor, Jake removing his own hand from his neck, and next to Lenna—

Ayla was standing next to her, a confused look on her face, as if this had been an unexpected mouring summoning for her too. Ayla’s green eyes kept looking up and down Lenna’s back, as if she couldn’t believe she had recovered so quickly.

“Change of plans,” Rhei Coralt said, mouring into his throne and facing the three of them. “Women with defiant attitudes keep proving to be a vast annoyance later down the line. Despite a variety of punishments, some women don’t seem to learn. Maybe some aren’t capable of learning. And I have a feeling, Lenna Brachyan, that you are one of them.”

“What do you want?” Lenna spat.

“I want you to prove here and now that the five Stabs helped you understand who is the only true Ruler in Thyria. Who you must listen to, obey and respect.” Rhei Coralt’s eyes were as bright as if a black silver fire was igniting them. “I want you to apologize for being rude and disrespectful towards the Law, and to swear your complete loyalty to me. On your panom blood.”

A blood swearing that only death could break.

“You represent all I have ever hated from this putrid nation of yours.”

Ayla gasped, and Jake kept quiet, even though she felt a hint of amusement and deep fear coming from his body. She hated his motherfucker of a father so much.

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