Page 69 of Petals for Deadly Power

“Maybe we can exchange something equally important that convinces them we need the power. If they care about their island, surely, they can’t just look and clap at how my father destroys every living being in it.”

“Bargaining with goddesses,” Ayla sighed. “Fabulous plan.”

Ciaran shook his head slowly. “Not bargaining—trading.”

43

Hope

“Notbargaining—trading,”Ciaransaid,and his voice echoed in her mind.

Trading.

The idea of trading with the Cardinals came with a wave of grief towards Hope’s mother and her previous life in Verdania, of the many times they had attended Trading Day for twenty-four years.

What Hope needed was the absolute certainty that the next time she saw her father, she would be able to kill him. If she had to trade with her life to get the Fifth Power, she would.

The corner of Jake’s lips tugged upwards. “I don’t care what they ask for. We are getting the Fifth Power, and we are killing our father. There is no alternative.”

Hope nodded with a side-smile. She was all in for this type of family bonding.

Perhaps the Cardinals read minds, perhaps they read intentions, perhaps they were present everywhere. Perhaps they would never know what triggered what happened next.

The four crystal feathers moved at the same time. Ayla’s flew from her cleavage, Jake’s from his pocket, Ciaran’s from the sleeve covering his metallic arm, Hope’s from the blade sheath she had been keeping hers. They floated in front of them, suspended mid-air, the redness of the crystal reflecting the world surrounding them, and then, Hope heard the Core Cardinal, speaking from her feather.

The five strivers will be welcomed at the Fifth Judgment for your futures to be gambled with. My sisters and I will greet you where the darkness meets the sparks at the light of red.

When the message was over, Hope grabbed her feather, putting it back in its safe place. There was no doubt no one else heard the Core Cardinal, but each of the other successful strivers had also heard messages, their feathers speaking to them. The question was if they all had said the sam—

“Where the darkness meets the sparks at the light of red,” Ciaran repeated.

“At the light of red?” Lenna asked, who was clearly pissed at how the Cardinals were treating her, or—more accurately—nottreating her.

“At night, when the red moon shines,” Hope said, thinking out-loud.

Jake nodded. “Where does the darkness meet the sparks, though?”

“Whydarkness, is the question,” Ciaran wondered. “Panom magic is about light, sparks, colors.”

“Courtrades, Llunal, shadows, night. Darkness is all about you,” Hope said, and the way Ciaran smiled back at her filled parts in her heart she didn’t know she was missing.

“There must be a connection between the two, somewhere. Somewhere both magics meet,” Ayla guessed.

Ciaran lifted his hands and thin trails of shadows going in different directions left his fingertips, some of them going to each navia, and some towards the sky. Was he sending whispers to Llunal?

It didn’t take long for the courtrades to arrive. Two men, Franklin and Nevan, with a woman, Annie. The ones who had guided, pushed, and moved the navia through the Radel Sea from the East to the South, allowing Jake and Lenna to find their ordeals.

Stevian and Nyraxa appeared shortly after. The latter repositioned her eye-patch after the descent and climbing from navia to navia. Stevian’s blue eyes, surrounded by wrinkles, were wary and clever as always, assessing. He bowed his head with a kind smile when Hope looked at him, and she didn’t hesitate to smile back. It was easy to sometimes forget how nice it was for beings to be kind to each other, how the smallest, simplest things were the ones that mattered most.

The courtrades listened, the shadows around Ciaran’s feet moving in dark swirls as he asked for their help. He explained what they knew, what the inks had read, what the voices had spoken.

Stevian didn’t take his eyes off Ciaran while he talked, nor when he stopped talking. The silence that followed was brief, thick, and full. He seemed to be focused on him, but Hope didn’t miss the way his white hair moved with an infinitesimal nod, the way the shadows around the old, wise man shifted, as if pushed by another, darker force. When Stevian spoke, he had the answer they had been waiting for.

“There is a sacred place in Orizane. A mountain where Llunal was known to live when he built his land. No courtrade sets foot in that place, because the few who ventured never returned, and from afar, one can see the light. The trees, the rocks . . . they are marked with red sparks, as if red magic had rained above the woods, inking it forever despite the shadows of Llunal.”

Not any red magic, but Cardinal magic.

Red, the color of Hope’s sparks.

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