Page 19 of Petals for Deadly Power

She who remains in the deep sleep we forced her to is awaking. She who should be contained for many more years might rise before it’s time.

She. The Cardinal Queen.

Sometimes Hope wished she were unconscious again even if it was just to speak to the Core Cardinal in her mind. There was so much more she needed to know.

In the emptiness of her bedroom, she sighed. Accepting that the impatience would not let her sleep anytime soon, and refusing to sit in her room looking at the wall until the sunlight made an appearance, Hope headed towards the balcony of the safehouse.

There was someone already there, looking at the body still hanging from the fountain of the Sweetgum Beech. Courtesy of her father, there hadn’t been any live music at night since the woman’s corpse had appeared there.

Hope walked towards the rail, looking at the red moon illuminating Corentre.

“Hi,” Jake said. His arms were crossed, and his silver stare went from the dome of the Cardinals Temple in the Organ House to the water fountain.

“Hi,” Hope replied.

They stood in silence for long minutes, taking in the unusual silence of the square. Hope didn’t need to ask what—or more precisely,who—was Jake thinking about.

“Did you know my mother?” Hope asked.

Jake looked at her, his pale features tinged red from the moonlight.

“Us panoms live long lives, and your mother was a human being. I knew Aurora Nevada when she was the Roix Reigner, yes.”

The sharp, invisible shard that seemed to be permanently stuck in Hope’s heart was sorer than usual. She clenched her jaw, holding in the tears that she had only allowed out when her mother had been stabbed in front of her eyes.

“Did you know that your father—ourfather—and her were . . .” She swallowed. She felt the bile threaten to go up her throat at the thought of the Organ Mandor and her mother being together. Even if Hope’s life had been the very outcome of that union. “Did you know she was pregnant?”

Jake shook his head slowly. “I didn’t. I wouldn’t be surprised if only he did. One day, your mother was commanding the roixers as she did for many years. The next, she was gone.”

“Did nobody wonder what had happened to her? Did nobody wonder why she disappeared?” Hope bit her lip, the pain she caused herself helping keep her devastation in. How could nobody care enough about a woman to wonder whether she was dead or alive, discarded or not?

“The Organ Mandor does not give explanations.” His voice was low. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Hope nodded in silence, the invisible shard seeming to slice her up and down with an unbearable amount of sorrow. No biting of her lips would keep her from crying if she acknowledged his condolences, so instead, she waited until she found her words again.

“Is your mother . . . present in your life?” she asked.

“She is, and I miss her.” His brief look at his forearm made Hope think she was not the only one having ink interchanges with family members. For a moment, Hope thought he would not add anything else, but after a few seconds, Jake continued, “I love her dearly, and it is very painful to see—toknow—she means nothing to my father. She has never meant anything to him.”

The memory of Rhei Coralt laughing out loud when Hope asked him for answers echoed in her ears.

I damn the Cardinals every single day for letting women believe they have a say in life, he had said. How could a male like thisevercare about any female?

“What does she look like?” Hope asked.

Jake swallowed. “When she is not bruised, she is very beautiful.”

Hope snapped her head towards him, her dark eyes wide with urgency and worry. She could feel the blood in her veins rushing, her pulse speeding at what that woman had to endure.

The silver in Jake’s eyes glittered with rage or heartbreak, Hope couldn’t tell. “Sometimes she lets me Heal her, sometimes she prefers to let her body take her time. She says the wounds make it easier to remember why she hates my father and why she must never drop her facade.”

“Can’t she stop him? Can’tyoustop him?” Hope asked, only half-regretting such an inquisitive and personal question. She wouldn’t be surprised if he told her to fuck off, as she had heard him say so many times to other people.

“She can’t. I could. I did, many years ago. And what came after was worse. He almost killed her, and I wasn’t there to avoid it when he did. She . . . She asked me to never mention it again. To never stop him again.” Jake exhaled, and for the span of a second, Hope saw the weight of the years he had lived on his drained expression. He finally added, as if it was a self-consolation, “I don’t think she feels the pain anymore.”

“Can pain not be felt?” Hope frowned. She was used to pain. Fighting always came with pain. She didn’t mind it, not enough to let it stop her. But she alwaysfeltit.

“Yes,” Jake’s voice didn’t have a trace of doubt. “When it’s as common to you as breathing, you stop thinking about it. You stop realizing you are in pain.”

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