Page 75 of Petals for Deadly Power

“They were and will always be. They were the light even the deepest darkness couldn’t tame.” His white eyebrows met as he swallowed, his throat bobbing as he looked at the girls.

“They look like you.” The same oval shape, the same blue eyes. “How lucky wer—are they to have a father like you.”

“A father who swore to protect them from any harm. A father who failed.” He sighed. “Sometimes it’s not possible to control life, to control what others do. Llunal was graceful to bless me with a second chance, to offer my guilt a path to redemption.”

She barely knew him, yet Lenna couldn’t see any scenario in which this man would’ve allowed harm or failed to protect his daughters from harm intentionally. They admired the beauty and innocence of the past together, in silence, until the rest of the house started to wake up.

It was obvious there was no point in Lenna attending the Fifth Judgment when she hadn’t got any crystal bloody feather to offer the winged, godly creatures she was still angry at. But was she going to miss her opportunity to tell them off for tricking her into an ordeal that had no feather? Not in fifty-five years.

“The words the crystal feathers spoke to you saidthe five strivers will be welcomed at the Fifth Judgment for your futures to be gambled with, correct? Well, I am a striver. An unsuccessful, pissed off one, but a striver nonetheless. All five of us are going,” Lenna insisted, ignoring Jake’s stern-and-very-much-unhappy stare and Ayla’s rolling eyes. “How long will it take us to get to that sacred place?”

“The Birthing Pit of Blackness is in the middle of the Veiled Mountains, at the other side of Orizane,” Stevian said.

One second, Jake was behind her, his hand on her hip. The next, he was at the other end of the room. Lenna cocked an eyebrow. “Having fun?”

“Just testing if his god allows us to moure.”

Fair point, since mouring was part of the red-feathered females’ magic.

“We have the name of the place and its location. That’s enough to moure there,” Hope said.

Stevian blinked, looking at her. “I can go with you. Make sure you get there safely.”

“Thank you, but I’m sure we’ll be fine.” Hope’s reassuring smile and very broad explanations of mouring were notthataccurate and definitely not inclusive of all the risks and things that could go wrong, but Lenna wasn’t going to tell her off. “What exactly are we looking for when we get there?”

“You will see the woods, the place where the trees are marked with red sparks, as if red magical rain had fallen on them.”

“Where the darkness meets the sparks at the light of red,” Hope remembered, staring at Ciaran, who nodded slowly. “Where the Birthing Pit of Blackness is covered in red sparks. When the red moon will illuminate it—at ante meridiem.”

In an hour, they’d be where courtrades who ventured never returned, to gamble with their futures with the five goddesses that had attempted to kill them during their five ordeals.

If that wasn’t a wonderful plan.

47

Hope

Itmadenosensethat the Fifth Judgment, the moment when they would present the crystal feathers to the five Cardinals to determine whether they were worthy of the Fifth Power or not, was here. Not in Thyria, the four-petal island the goddesses had created. Not in the Vessels, the undersea net that helped keep the land balanced.

No. The Fifth Judgment washere, in Orizane, the island created by a god of darkness and shadows not related to panom magic. Yet the Fifth Power was the extreme form ofpanompower.

There had to be an explanation Hope was missing, something she failed to understand.

It was impossible to know what the night would bring, what the Cardinals would have waiting for them. The only comfort was the weight of her multiple blades on their sheaths, and knowing she was not going alone.

A year ago, Hope would have thought relying on others was a sign of vulnerability and a liability to one’s survival. Her life had changed, though.Shehad changed.

Confronting adversity with people who would do anything for each other was not a weakness, but a strength. The greatest, most powerful strength.

Over the past hour, the usually loud and bubbly group of friends had become increasingly quieter. Now, a few minutes away from mouring to the place Stevian indicated, the silence in the living room could be cut in half.

Indianna, Sasha, and Brendon sat together on a couch, the former tapping a nervous finger on her leg, the middle one curling and uncurling her already curled curls, Brendon combing his blond hair more times than were necessary. Nina held Raoul’s hand, and she didn’t take her worried eyes off Ayla, who paced up and down and up again. Lenna sat on Jake’s lap, her red waves covering her face as she leaned on his shoulder as he stroked her back distractedly, his silver eyes narrowed and focused on a spot in the wall. Arabella was nowhere to be seen, but no one seemed to miss her. Who Hope was impatiently missing still wasn’t here, and it was after the fifth time rearranging her daggers on her belt and the second time re-braiding her two plaits that she decided to go look for him.

Hope didn’t question why her feet knew which way to turn, or why her body seemed to know where his was. She followed her instinct, and two corridors and a few closed rooms later, she found him.

“Ciaran,” she said.

His curtain of dark hair moved as he looked at the door, at her. His usually straight posture looked affected and . . . Was his jaw trembling? He held a wooden frame with both hands, tightly, as if he’d fall if he let go of it.

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