Page 68 of Petals for Deadly Power

Ciaran’s expression switched to grave and anguished, but his eyes still did not move from Hope.

“What?” Hope coughed, her eyebrows shooting to the sky.

The sky was spinning. “I’m dizzy as fuck,” Lenna whispered, and Jake put some red strands behind her ear. “What happened?”

“You were in your ordeal. Don’t you remember?” She didn’t know how long she had been gone but she had missed Jake’s voice in the quiet limbo.

She exhaled with effort, sitting up, and readjusting her sore back on Jake’s chest. His arms around her waist were a welcome blessing.

“I remember too well. It was a trap. There was no feather.”

“What do you mean,no feather?”

“I honestly couldn’t put two and two together by then, but I remember an orb where a feather was meant to be, and there was no bloody feather.”

“Maybe it didn’t appear because the ordeal wasn’t completed the way they wanted?” Ayla asked.

Lenna had been wondering the same. “If I wasn’t worthy, you mean? After petals half-drowned me, I pushed my inner balance to a new limit, and I almost incinerated myself? The South Cardinal can shove her crystal feather up her ass, then.” She sighed. “I don’t know if I fucked up, if I wasn’t good enough, or what the Fifth hell happened, but I only know there was no feather. I’m sorry.”

“Never be sorry for trying your best,” Jake said.

“Even if my best wasn’t enough?” Lenna asked, looking up at him.

“Even more so.”

The kiss he planted on the spot behind her ear made her close her eyes. She inhaled deeply, enjoying how his embrace filled her with his leather and ginger scent. When Lenna opened her golden eyes, Ayla’s green ones were observing her, an amused smile on her lips.

“You enjoy looking, Ayla?” Lenna asked.

Her twin chuckled, biting her bottom lip. “I’m simply happy to have a non-dead sister.” She tilted her head and added, “And to see you two together. You look like cute, traumatized lovebirds.”

Lenna slammed her hand against the deck floor, a painful idea that she immediately regretted. “Can everyone do me a damned big favor and not mention flying creatures for a while?” Lenna asked, covering her forehead with the other hand.

“You mean not even the Cardin—”

“Especiallynot them.” Lenna’s fuck-you-smile was greeted by a cough that sounded very much liketraumatized-indeed.

Hope finally removed her Healing hands. “You’re safe, everyone is alive. Fine, we have no South feather, but we have the other four. It could be worse.”

“Could it?” Lenna lifted an eyebrow.

“We could havezerofeathers. We could all be dead.” Hope’s tone was as matter of fact as her stare.

Lenna opened her mouth to argue but then settled for, “Point taken.”

“So, who got the ink about the Fifth Judgment?”

Jake, Ciaran, Ayla, and Hope raised their hands. Lenna bit her tongue. How very kind of the flying creatures to exclude Lenna and then try to kill her.

“Any clue about where the Fifth Judgment could be?” Hope asked.

Ayla clicked her tongue. “Will they even accept us at theFifthJudgment withfourfeathers? The math of this crusade isn’t in our favor.”

Hope narrowed her eyes, crossing her arms. “Surely we can’t just go back to Thyria as if nothing ever happened, as if all ofthis—all these weeks, traveling, suffering, ordeals, near-deaths—was worthless.”

“It wasn’t worthless,” Ciaran said in a low voice, looking at Hope. “And no, we aren’t going back to the same island ruled by the Organ Mandor with empty hands.”

“Even if the Card—” Ayla started, but rolled her eyes when Lenna faked a coughing fit and continued, “Even iftheywill not give us the Fifth Power because we lack thefifthfeather?”

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