Page 41 of Petals for Deadly Power

Hope knew she was not meant to listen to this. Whateverthiswas, she was not part of their private conversation. She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but her black eyes fixed on a spot on the floor, her feet refusing to move, the tight knot in her throat needing to hear what the answer was.

Until the answer came.

Ayla exhaled profoundly. “I—I have never told anyone. I wouldn’t like to—Please don’t judge me or be scared of me. Promise you won’t.”

Hope should have left as soon as she heard their voices.

“I can’t think of anything that could make me fear you or judge you, Ayla,” Nina replied.

Hope should leave right this very moment, but she couldn’t. Shephysicallycouldn’t.

“I see them. The long-gone, the beings who aren’t here anymore . . . I see them.” Hope’s goosebumps trailed up her arms up her neck, but Ayla’s voice continued, “If your parents were dead, I’m sure they would visit you and your brother, but I’ve never seen them.”

Hope’s body snapped out of the trance she had been suspended in. She scurried up the stairs, walking as fast and as far as she could away from the secret Ayla had been hiding for a quarter of a century. She felt her lungs tighten, the air struggling to come in as she couldn’t take the image of her mother out of her mind. What if—

She needed air. She needed fresh air now.

She was not aware of her hands pushing the door to the deck of the navia open. She was not aware of her feet freezing, her head tilting backwards, her eyes closing, or the deep inhale that filled her lungs as if it was the first breath she had ever taken.

What. If.

She was not aware of how long she stood there, if she wasn’t alone on the deck, or if the red moon had fallen from the sky.

Ayla was a necroseer.

Hope didn’t know how long she had been lying on the comfortable bench that hadn’t been at the deck before or how long she had been staring at the night sky.

The breathtaking smell of woods in the middle of the sea and the warm layer of shadows atop her body could only mean one thing.

“Thank you, Ciaran,” she said as she sat.

“Not at all.” He stood a few meters away, the shadows pushing the navia trailing from his arms and feet towards the darkness. “You seemed . . . affected.”

“I was overwhelmed.Veryoverwhelmed.” Their eyes met and Hope felt immediately at ease. “Sometimes life seems to be . . . excessive. Too sad, too loud, too risky, too hopeless. I lacked so many things living in Verdania.”

Ciaran nodded slowly. He moved his hands and shadows stopped floating from him. He paced towards her and offered Hope his metallic hand.

Hope looked at it, admiring its beauty and strength, before she took it. Ciaran pulled her up, and when she stood in front of him, the touch of his fingers on hers lingered until he finally let go.

“What did you lack?” he said.

Hope looked towards the sea. There were so many things it was difficult to pick. She did not lack the worry about what food to eat the following day or attending Trading Day. She had missed friendship, truths, peace, trusting others, and not fighting to survive every day. But she had also missed smaller, insubstantial things. She had missed talking to people, deciding which game to play, and—

The memory of Sasha and Lenna jumping to the music on the balcony of the Crystal Clear safehouse, feeling it, singing it, was enough to make her pick.

“Music, having fun.”

Ciaran’s lips twitched. “We can kill two birds with one stone.”

Hope laughed. “I thought bird-killing expressions were risky in a Cardinals-ruled world.”

“What is life without risk?” Ciaran looked at her, and the way he spoke, as if it was a fact and a ruination, made her heart ache. He bowed his head slightly. “May I have a dance?”

Hope felt a rush of heat and shame jumping to her cheeks. “I have never danced.”

His blue eyes glittered as he lifted his biological hand. An offer.

“Then it would be even a greater honor to be your first.”

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