by Vela Roth
“Everything. Except my life. It was a gift from your people, and the king shall not take it from me.”
Lio took a step closer. “I cannot express how grateful I am to my people who found you that night.”
“Your people have done more for me than I could ever ask. And yet here I am to ask for one more boon. It’s why I made sure to be at Solorum during the Summit, contrary to the king’s wishes. Why I first approached you. You see, there is just one thing the Hesperines did not explain to me that night: where your people take the bodies of the fallen to give them Hespera’s sacred rites. So please, if it isn’t too much to ask. Would you tell me, Lio? Where is my sister’s final resting place?”
Now Lio understood. For fourteen years, Cassia had waited for her opportunity to meet a Hesperine again. The Summit might be her only chance, and she had seized it. She had faced her worst memories and most primal fears and risked taking action to make sure she was at court. She had chosen to suffer through countless confrontations with her father. Again and again, she had endured the dread of her own death at his hands, a terror all too justified by what he had done to her sister.
All this, so she could ask a Hesperine this single question.
Lio had never been called upon to deliver words so important to anyone as what he told her now. He would try to give her an explanation both gentle and unflinching, as his people had that night. He could only pray she would not be disappointed.
“We do not inter our fallen, as mortals now do,” he explained. “Nor do we honor them with the ancient tradition of the funeral pyre, which mages have now claimed as their exclusive rite. When we perform the Mercy for humans, we treat their remains as we treat those of our own people.”
When he took her hands in his, she jumped. She was raw with emotion, but she let him gather her hands together, palms up.
“First, we offer a libation.” Lio lifted his wrist to his mouth and drew blood.
He flexed his hand over Cassia’s. Neither of them breathed as the crimson droplets splashed into her cupped palms. She held her hands together so tightly he could see them shaking.
He cupped her hands in both of his to still them. “Everything you can touch is, in its most fundamental nature, light. You. Knight. The ground beneath our feet. It is also true that all the light you can see has the potential to become a person or a hound or fertile soil.”
Her brow furrowed, and her lips pursed. She was trying so hard to understand.
“To change light into something you can touch,” he continued, “it takes a monumental act of power. Far more power than any Hesperine or mage will ever possess. We can only wonder if that mysterious transformation, which we know is possible but cannot achieve, is the essence of creation itself. The act of power by which we ourselves, as living beings, are made.”
Cassia listened to him with all of herself, from her pounding veins to her searching gaze.
“The most we can do,” said Lio, “is turn that which we can touch into light.”
He nurtured a spell light to life from his blood, bathing her hands in a white glow.
“When Hesperines are slain, our bodies do this of their own accord. So that is what we do, through a wholehearted and devoted effort of magic, for all fallen mortals who are entrusted to us. In that moment of transformation, a release of spiritual power occurs, which carries on it their final thoughts, feelings and memories. Hesperines partake of these through the Blood Union so they can know and remember. For all time, they carry with them a part of those to whom they have given the Mercy.”
Cassia did not look at him, only his spell light. Emotion wavered inside her like more tears ready to spill over.
“I am so sorry, Cassia. There is no grave, crypt or mausoleum where you can go to pay your respects to Solia. But what I want you to know is this. Every light mage learns that although we can banish light, summon or change it, we can never destroy it. All the light that ever was in this world remains and always will. You see Solia every time you look at the sun, moons and stars, or even the flame of your own hearth fire.”
“I am holding her in my hands.”
“Yes.”
Now at last Cassia met his gaze. “You have my gratitude.”
Lio did not move or breathe. He stood holding light with Cassia and prayed in silence. Asking his Goddess to comfort her. Saying thanks that he had been able to. He had not spoken the wrong words. He had given Cassia something to hold on to.
“Don’t apologize, Lio. What you’ve told me does not grieve me. I think it would have been too hard for me to understand as a child, when all I could think about was making sure my sister received the burial rite I had been taught was correct. When magic was something only mages did, which frightened me. Your people were right not to explain everything then. But I am grateful…so deeply grateful…that you have told me now. I’m glad I found out from you.”
“It is a privilege to be the one to tell you.”
“Solia was too great to be put to rest trapped in the ground. A crypt, or even an entire temple, would be too small to hold her. What better memorial for my radiant sister than light itself? What better resting place than this living one, which she shares with all your people who have gone before? Although I could not share in her final moments, I could not ask for finer bearers of her last thoughts than three of Hespera’s immortal Gifted. If you cross paths with your fellow Hesperines who performed the Mercy for her, please thank them for me. This is the second thing I have wanted to ask of you. If you ever have a chance, tell them they have my gratitude as well.”
To think, somewhere in the world there were three Hesperines who had known Cassia’s name before Lio had. “I cannot fathom who they could be. There is no Hesperine account of the Siege of Sovereigns, nor of you, I am sorry indeed to say. If you had not told me, I would never have imagined any of my people were there that night, nor that your name was known to us. I promise you, I will not rest until I find out who they are and give them your message.” Lio caressed Cassia’s hands. “I think Solia would want me to thank them for her as well, not only on her own behalf, but for snatching her beloved sister from the path of an arrow.”
“They shepherded her into death and me back into life. I cannot…there are no words for my debt to them. I can count on one hand every person in the world to whom I owe anything. One of them is Solia, and four of them are Hesperines.”
“Cassia…I am humbled. It is an honor beyond measure that you count me among them.”
“After all you have done? I owe you beyond measure.”
“Hesperines do not practice debts. Only gifts. I will find the other three with whom you share a bond of gratitude, and I will give them mine as well. I cannot bear to imagine a history in which you did not survive that night to stand here with me.”
When he reached for her, her eyes widened. As he closed the distance between them, his light spell dissolved into a glowing haze and enveloped them. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close.
She was a bundle of bone and soft hair and tension. She stood in his hold, her arms tucked against her, unmoving. He ran one hand down her back, slowly, feeling the ridges of that proud spine she always carried so straight. With his other hand, he touched the back of her head.
She let him slowly, gently lower her face to his chest.
He had never felt anything like the sensation of holding her. Exhilaration raced through him at the knowledge. He had reached for her. She had not pushed him away.
Her arms unwound. Her hands unclenched. One came to rest right over his heart.
She breathed a sigh. “I feel like I’m under a spell.”
“I would never—”
“I know. And yet I feel as if you have.”
He dared to slide a hand under her hair and touch the soft skin at the nape of her neck. “I could do that, Cassia. Touch your mind and sweep away all your fear and anger and pain so you did not know they had ever been. But I wouldn’t do that, because you have
a right to every single one of them.”
When her arms came around his waist, he felt like he had won. They had won, together, their battle against her fears. She clung to him, and he finally learned what her touch felt like, what it felt like to touch her. Her temple, her cheek, her slender, stubborn shoulders. The curve of her waist.
He held her and touched her until she slid out of his arms and back into the trees. He watched her retreat through the darkness. She walked not with the march of a lady, but with a fluid step that made her hips sway.
22
Days Until
SPRING EQUINOX
Day Terrors
The sickle was in his hand. The bull’s roar spurred the frenzy inside him. Fear put unnatural strength in his swing as he brought the weapon down.
The bull’s wide eyes met his. Torch flames lit the blade as bright as the sun.
But the pain erupted in his own back. So fast. Fire-hot. His own blade flew from his hand, out of reach, while the one in his back impaled him.
He fell forward onto the animal, felt its sides heaving under his body. Together they exhaled.
Lio let out a yell on that breath and opened his eyes. He jolted up off the bed, but two hands held his shoulders and eased him back down. Currents of power shot through his mind and blood. Magic, frigid and potent. That was what had shaken him awake.
“Easy, Cousin.” A familiar, steady voice. Neither a frightened bull nor an angry soldier gazed down at him.
Lio heaved a sigh. “Javed.”
His Grace-cousin straightened, releasing his shoulders. “A real day terror, that one. Grace-Father sensed your distress even through your veil. He had to Call you three times to make you come around.”
“Uncle Argyros performed the Night Call on me? Three times?” Lio shuddered. No wonder he felt as if thousands of years of glacial movement had just occurred inside his veins in the course of a few heartbeats.
“I suggested I ought to be the one to come in and check on you. I think answering his Call is enough without also waking to find him looming over you.”
“Sunbound dreams.” Lio sat up slowly, glancing around him to get his bearings. After a day terror like that, even his cell in the fortress felt like a haven. “That wasn’t the least bit embarrassing.”
“Just be glad I’m the only one who crossed your veil. Grace-Mother and Kadi would be beside themselves if they heard the way you were screaming.”
“Does everyone know the intimate details of my troubling dream?”
“Basir was going to wake you if your uncle didn’t. Talk about a chilling experience.”
“Pray he and Kumeta don’t include that in their next report to Rudhira.” Lio rubbed both hands over his face and muttered another curse. “I feel the need to point out I’m not an uninitiated newblood, and you don’t all need to fret over me so. For the record. I know my protest will go unheard.”
“I’m afraid so. Your parents told us to take care of you.”
Lio sighed. Despite the embarrassment that rankled him, he felt a wave of the homesickness that became more familiar to him each night. “I can see my feeble assertions that I can take care of myself are fruitless. No one can resist a decree from Apollon and Komnena, not even their son.”
“Their only child,” Javed reminded him, “and the future of Blood Komnena.”
Lio slid out of bed on the side opposite Javed and pulled on his veil hours robe. The garment still smelled of Orthros. He went to the basin and washed his face, persisting in the same nightly ritual he would have observed at home. The cold water braced him like a physical Night Call. “You know I don’t take it for granted, Javed.”
“Of course not. Neither do we. You can’t expect any of us to take it lightly that you’re here in Tenebra where you’re vulnerable. Even if you come to no harm, this place may take a toll on you.”
Javed had an adroit way of turning the subject back to what ailed his patient. Lio stalled, drying his face with one of the rough-spun barracks cloths. Cleaning spells might be more convenient, but the mundane ablutions his people practiced now gave his tense hands something to do. “I will always be grateful for the Queens’ dispensation to travel Abroad.” He joked, “I suppose some prying from my elders is a small price to pay for such an honor.”
But Javed did not laugh. “A day terror has struck every one of us at some point, Lio. We all fear what misery we may endure when we are trapped in the Dawn Slumber, unable to escape our dreams.”
Lio turned to face Javed again and abandoned any attempts at lightness. “I appreciate your concern, Javed. I’m very grateful Uncle woke me.”
Javed nodded once and gave one of his slight, disarming smiles. “I won’t stir the veil. But you know where to find me if you wish to invite me behind it.”
Javed’s own veil felt like that smile. Had he let it fall for one moment since they’d left home? With Kadi, perhaps. But not in front of his patients. And everyone was his patient.
“You know where to find me,” Lio reminded him. “This place takes a toll on all of us.”
“Oh, don’t worry about me. I was a human physician errant with mortal patients. That has a way of preparing you for anything.”
Lio sighed. “I won’t stir the veil, either, then.”
“No veil to stir.” Javed lifted a hand in farewell and headed for the door. “I prescribe you a run and a decent drink. Don’t wait. Negotiations are on hold tonight.”
“As well they should be. Tomorrow is the fourteenth anniversary of Solia Basilinna’s death. The whole kingdom ought to mark the occasion.”
“Yes, we’re told the Tenebrans are preparing to begin a day of mourning at dawn.”
“The pain is still fresh for those who loved her.”
“Try not to dwell on mortality. Your physician advises you to exercise, drink up, and get a solid day’s Slumber tomorrow. His Grace advises him not to begin their night seeing to his patients.”
Lio grinned. “Apologize to Kadi on my behalf. I see you already have plans for your free night.”
With a wolfish smile, Javed stepped out the closed door.
Uncle Argyros and everyone else were certain to be waiting on the other side for a full report. Best to go out a different way.
Lio donned a simple, knee-length tunic of breathable cotton and stepped to one of the fortress’s upper corridors. Let the guards see him without his formal attire. The sight of Hesperine knees wouldn’t make their eyes fall out, nor would his bare feet render the ground he walked on barren. He would return and change into something more suitable before he met Cassia.
He wanted to be at his best to offer her support. That meant he must arrive free of his own dark dreams and his thirst.
As soon as Lio got out of the fortress, he loped for the nearest tree line. Under the cover of the woods, he surged into a run. He wanted to not think, just run. Bare feet on the ground. Finding purchase between the roots and undergrowth. Angling around trunks and between tree boles. If he gave into instinct, he could win a few moments of pure relief, when his mind quit and his reflexes, his body, his senses took over.
They honed in on the scent of freshly soaped skin and the throb of her heart. Cassia was already here.
Cup and thorns. Exertion and her scent made him feel he was in a desert with his oasis in sight. For an instant, it struck him that not a deer, but Cassia awaited him tonight.
Hespera help him. He should not be in her presence in this condition. The drink he had let her witness last night had been his third. Tonight he hadn’t even begun to tame his thirst, and here she was.
Because she didn’t want to be alone. She wanted his company. Even his comfort.
She trusted him. That gift beyond value should be all the motivation he needed to maintain his self-control with her.
Union drew Lio toward the clearing where she had taken him into her confidence the night before. He slowed as he approached, letting her hear the sound of his feet in the brush so as not to startle
her. He entered the glade to find her waiting on the opposite side with Knight lounging at her feet. She leaned against an aspen tree, her hands pressed behind her back, her buttocks propped against the trunk.
Hands he had felt on his chest the night before. Buttocks he had watched as she retreated, hips that had given her away. As the warmth in her blood now did.
Let her see him in his tunic as well. She would never admit it, but the sound of her pulse and the change in her scent told him just how much she liked his present attire. A Hesperine’s bare knees and feet seemed to affect her like a charm, not a curse.
Her gaze fixed on his face a little too deliberately. “Good evening.”
“Well met.” He drew closer. Just close enough.
Did she wish to speak of what would begin at dawn? Or did she seek to escape from it with him? He would not probe her open wound. He must let her indicate what conversation would be the greatest solace for her.
“Forgive me for interrupting your habitual exercise,” she said.
“Your company is an infinitely better remedy than running, I assure you.”
“Remedy? What could possibly ail you, Sir Hesperine?”
He sighed. “An immaterial, but eternal, malady. We are vivid dreamers, and yet no dream, no matter how troubling, is sufficient to awaken us from the Slumber. I confess, day terrors have given me no peace of late.”
“Nightmares from which you cannot wake? That sounds like one aspect of your Gift that is a curse.”
He cleared his throat. There were other times he didn’t want to leave his dreams and wake to the reality that Cassia was not in his bed, but on the other side of a clearing.
“I happen to have something that may be of use to you.” Cassia dug in her gardening satchel. She pulled something out and tossed it to Lio.
Hesperine instinct sent his hand out, and he caught her offering. A charm smaller than his palm. The square of undyed homespun was stitched on all four sides with thick green tapestry thread and stuffed with something fragrant. He held it to his nose. He couldn’t name the plant, but the scent of its leaves and flowers wrapped him in an inexplicable sense of reassurance.