Page 83 of Petals for Vicious Secrets

Hope exhaled deeply, sheathing her dagger. Her shoulders were so damn tense. “Sorry,” she muttered. Her reflexes would need to hold for a few minutes until this was over.

“No matter what happens, once the Fifth Ceremony is started, we must carry on until its end. No matter what happens, I repeat.” Ciaran’s voice was grave.

Brendon seemed extremely relieved about not having a sharp blade pointing towards his body again. He looked at his hands, palms facing Hope, and said, “May the light enfold your strength.”

An invisible but boiling wave hit Hope’s chest, and she did her best at not taking a step backwards.

“May the darkness accept your weakness,” Sasha said. The wave this time was stronger, spreading from her chest into her brain, her fingertips, her toes. It was hot, vibrant, and powerful.

“May the world cherish your mind.” That was Carson’s voice. And this was Hope fully focused on not being thrown to the floor by the third explosive wave against her. A small part of her mind wondered if the power blasts in the vessels had been practice runs for this very moment.

“May the Cardinals guide your soul,” Indianna said.

Hope’s body was trembling so much she could barely stand. Or was the world trembling with her?

“May the Fifth unleash your magic,” Ciaran said, and Hope roared as the power filling her veins threatened to make her body explode. To make the world explode.

The light emanating from her body through every transparent bead of her outfit was red. Arterial red, Nina had said in another life.

The five beings around her said in unison, “May the light enfold your strength. May the darkness accept your weakness. May the world cherish your mind. May the Cardinals guide your soul.”

Her blood, body, soul, and mind were red. The world was red. The crystal dome was red. And that was a very familiar red bird flying towards her. Arterial red, or Cardinal red. Hope would have grinned at the sight if she hadn’t been busy staying alive with the unending power threatening to burn her alive from the inside out.

“May the Fifth unleash your magic,” their united voices said.

Time seemed to stop as the cardinal circled her body in impossibly fast rings, and those were her feet letting go of the trembling ground. The cardinal spiraled around Hope until her body was horizontal in the air under the dome. Her blood burned so much it was hard to keep her eyes open.

The cardinal flew to the top of the Temple, and just when Hope thought it was going to disappear through the crystal dome as fast as it had appeared, it faced her. The eyes of the cardinal were not the eyes of a bird. They were the eyes of a creature made by magic, the eyes of a wise and determined female. The eyes of a goddess.

A goddess trapped in the body of a cardinal that was diving towards Hope. Towards her chest. A goddess that flew through her chest as if her entire purpose in this world and any others had been this.

Hope’s back arched in mid-air, and she felt two limbs extending from her back. No, not limbs. Wings. Two huge, splayed wings, beautifully and perfectly feathered in the exact same color that the world had turned into. The color still emanating from her.

The Cardinal was gone, and Hope’s wings had gone with it.

That was her body falling, falling down to the ground. Those were Ciaran’s powerful hands on her back and under her knees, catching her in time to avoid the dramatic fall. That was the Cardinals Temple, not red anymore. That was the dome, its broken crystals raining on them.

That was a panomquake, breaking their world.

54

Lenna

The panomquake had started like any other: the ground slightly shaking, things trembling, a background hum coming from underneath. Until the floor moved like a wave in the sea, and Lenna heard the crystal dome at the other side of the antechamber door fucking explode. She had also heard ripping noises coming from outside the Organ House, as if the actual land was breaking in half somewhere.

“If anyone had a doubt about that woman being the heir of the Organ House, that was a hell of a Fifth Ceremony.”

“Cardinals. We need to get the fuck out of here before my father rushes in,” Jake said. Since he was the only one that could moure them out, and there were too many of them in there. “Ladies.” He offered both hands to Ayla and Lenna so he could moure, and he winked. He fucking winked even though the island had probably parted in half and the Organ Mandor could catch them right now and kill them all.

His firm hand touched the back of Lenna’s neck softly, a shiver going down her spine that she knew it wasn’t only caused by the floor disappearing from underneath her feet. And that was his thumb stroking her skin for the few seconds the mouring lasted, before he left them in a barely illuminated alley and disappeared.

Ciaran and Hope were moured in shortly after, and Jake was gone again before Lenna had time to gasp. Ciaran was carrying a limp Hope in his arms. The moment he set foot in the alley, he bent his knee on the ground and Gave the floor a cushioned mat where he carefully placed Hope.

“Fuck, is she alive?”

“She better be, or I will kill that fucking Cardinal myself,” Ciaran said through his teeth, holding his breath.

His index and middle fingers were on Hope’s throat, checking for her pulse, and he must have found it because he inhaled sharply, closing his eyes for half a second. Then he proceeded to do circling Healing movements over her heart with his biological hand, the metallic one Healing the multiple small cuts on her face, hands and feet, and some of the transparent beads of her outfit were broken too, but they had kept the skin underneath safe from sharps. Ciaran himself was full of those cuts too, covering his face, neck, and his biological arm and hand. He didn’t seem to care one bit.

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