Page 70 of Petals for Vicious Secrets

“Your inner fire doesn’t depend on your powers,” he said, and she turned to look at him. His face was serious, and his eyes lined with anger and determination. “You are much more than a panom.”

“You don’t need to be here anymore. You are no longer my Panom Guidor,” Lenna said, turning to look at the gardens in front of her. And before he could say anything else that would make her reconsider, she added, “I want to be alone.”

She was home, and yet she had never felt such loneliness and emptiness invading every single part of her being.

44

Hope

The accumulated tiredness of the past few days perhaps had taken its toll at last, or perhaps Hope hadn’t fallen asleep properly until the early morning, between sobs and tears and pain and grief. When she opened her swollen eyes, the pale sun was shining brightly above the small clearing.

Her back was sore from laying on her mother’s chest for the Fifth knew how many hours. Her mouth and throat felt dry as arid dunes.

Ciaran emerged from the trees with—

“Is that water?” Hope approached him with fast steps, and shoved down the whole water pouch Ciaran handed her. Fresh water was underestimated. He sat down on a bunch of rocks, putting berries and apples in front of him. An offering.

“I thought beings on your island had nicer meals,” she said, taking a huge bite of an apple and savoring its freshness melting in her mouth. It had been too long since she had eaten something as tasty.

“We have all sorts of food, yet nothing can beat what the Cardinals provide through nature,” Ciaran said. “I’m glad you’re eating. I thought you maybe didn’t want to.”

Was it a thing from the West House beings that they were easy to talk to? Even though Brendon had said this man was not one of many words. Yet here he was, with his metal ring on his bottom lip and his nonmetallic arm full of ink, and she hadn’t even checked her blades were securely in place after having slept in such an unusual position.

“I need strength for what I need to do,” Hope said. She had a long list of things she needed to do. Starting by burying her mother, finishing by killing her father.

Hope finished the apple and walked around the clearing, tapping with her feet on the ground until she found the perfect spot. She kneeled down and started digging on the soil with her hands, the wound on her palm reopening against the old bandage.

The agony in her heart and the blood in her hands didn’t stop her. She wouldn’t stop. Nothing had ever stopped her before, and nothing would stop her now.

The sun above her indicated it was barely past meridiem, and if she dug without stopping, she would finish before the sunset. Ciaran approached the area she had picked to bury her mother, and started digging with his bare hands, metallic and biological one.

Hope stopped and looked at him, and Ciaran stopped and looked at her. She knew that as a panom, he surely had many other ways to do this. Yet he seemed to understand why she had left her blades lined on the ground next to the hole, slowly growing.

Why she hadn’t looked for a piece of wood that helped her dig more efficiently. Why she needed to feel the pain with each movement to compensate for the guiltiness of her mother’s death. Why this was the least she could do for the woman who had taught her all she knew.

Another tear flowed down her cheek, and Ciaran’s blue eyes followed its path down the soil, mixed with the blood from her hand. His lips were tight as he bowed his head slightly and resumed the digging. So did Hope.

The grave was deep enough to place Aurora’s body when the sky was brushed with reds and oranges. Hope’s hand was an utter mess, but that had been part of the point. Ciaran and she took the stiff body inside it.

Hope cleaned her mother’s hair, removed the dirt from her clothes. She took Aurora’s blades from their sheaths, placing them on the sides of her body, and helping her inert hand hold her favorite dagger by the hilt. She had been a warrior all her life, and she would be a warrior wherever the Cardinals guided her now.

Hope went into the woods and came back with the most beautiful leaves she could find. Yellow, Cardinal-red, orange, and different shades of brown. All with different shapes that she carefully placed over her mother’s body. A nature-made blanket to wish her farewell.

Hope used another water pouch that Ciaran had brought during these long hours to clean her own blood from her clothes, her face, her hands. She let her long black hair go and redid her two braids as her mother always preferred them.

“Would you mind bringing Nina here? She knew my mother.”

Ciaran nodded and moured away. A few minutes later, he returned with Nina, and he must have filled her in, because Nina already had tears in her eyes when she hugged Hope tightly.

“She was a brave woman,” Nina said, her silver-haired head tight against Hope’s chest.

Hope’s own tears had dried, as if the pain she had allowed herself to suffer had worked its way in and out. She gently let go of Nina and turned towards the blanket of beautiful leaves. And the woman underneath.

“I will always remember you, mother. Whenever I wake up, and whenever I fall asleep, I will remember you. Whenever I walk in the woods, or see trees around me. Whenever I think about giving up, but instead fight with all my might. Whenever I let myself feel sorrow, even if I know one can be reborn from it as you did. Whenever I clean my blades, as you showed me. Whenever I use them to kill an enemy. And most of all, when I kill the being that destroyed your heart when I was born. The being who ended your life. I promise you, mother, that I will not stop until I kill the Organ Mandor of Thyria. I promise you, mother, that I will not stop until his blood is in my hands and I avenge your death.”

Hope clenched her teeth with rage and sorrow and grief. A bird cried somewhere in the woods. She took a deep breath in and said, “I love you, and I am sorry. May the Cardinals guide you to peace.”

Hope looked at Ciaran. She wasn’t sure if she had any strength left in her soul to pour the massive amount of soil onto her mother’s body. He seemed to read this in her eyes and nodded, opening his hands and letting the soil move carefully on top of Aurora until there was a neat, small mount in the clearing.

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