by Vela Roth
Cassia took Perita’s hands. “You will hear many stories in the days to come.”
“Give me the truth, my lady. Those of us with any sense ought to know what really happened and tell the fools not to believe wild tales.”
“You and Callen and I knew the truth first. Amachos was a war mage from Cordium.”
“Was that his fire, my lady?”
“It was. The Summit was peaceful tonight when, out of nowhere, Amachos cast a terrible spell. He would have killed the embassy from Orthros—and every Tenebran who stood in his way. The Hesperines could have fled or defended only themselves, but they didn’t. They stayed and risked their lives to confront Amachos and protect us from him. You should have seen their magic, Perita. I will never forget. Everyone who stood under the pavilion tonight owes the Hesperines their lives.”
Keeping only the most dangerous secrets as her sole trust, Cassia started the spread of the truth, beginning with Perita.
Lio’s Solace
“Basir, Kumeta, I entrust our waiting party to you.” At Aunt Lyta’s words, the heady triumph hushed, and weary auras rose to alertness once more. “If we do not return by moonset, depart without us.”
The Master Envoys released one another. They took positions on opposite sides of the Overlook, their backs to the ridge and their eyes on the forest.
“Mother—” Kadi began.
Aunt Lyta interrupted with a smile, though her grief threatened to drown the Union. “I can no longer reason with the thirst in you. I could not reason with Nike when it took hold of her. I would not listen to reason when I journeyed from one end of the Empire to the other to quench myself learning the arts of war.”
Not a ripple of emotion escaped Uncle Argyros’s veil. “I did not reason with her. I went with her. War can only quench thirst.”
Javed took Kadi’s hand in his, tracing the shape of her fist. “Are you sure?”
“If you are.”
“We’re sure.” Javed wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pressed a kiss to her temple, where his braid hung.
Kadi turned to Aunt Lyta again. “For the first time since Nike left, I feel certain of what path I should take. Battling an Aithourian, I have seen our enemy’s face. I see my rightful place between the fire and our people. In the Stand, at the border. I have always been where I belong.”
Her father’s veil slipped. Her mother’s eyes widened.
“You’re not going errant?” Aunt Lyta asked.
Kadi smiled. “Javed and I have changed our plans.”
Javed nodded. “I had no intention of abandoning the children of Tenebra during an epidemic of frost fever, but I believe we will be taking my patients home with us tonight.”
“I wish we could say the same for Nike.” Kadi swallowed. “But she, too, knows where she belongs.”
“Come with me to the Grove tonight. I need you in my party.” Aunt Lyta touched a hand to her daughter’s hair. “Every mother wishes her children remained sucklings forever. But if that were the case, you and I would never have the fun of fighting together.”
Kadi grinned. “I think we made Nike proud.”
“Yes.” Aunt Lyta’s voice thickened. “I can no longer deny I miss having one of my daughters at my side in the face of the enemy.”
“Keep me at your right hand, Mother. And don’t worry for me. No place is safer.”
Uncle Argyros drew near and dropped a silent kiss on Kadi’s hair.
Javed released Kadi. “I will come to the Grove to provide any immediate care the children need. Besides, I want a firsthand impression of the Kyrian healers.”
He turned to his travel trunk and retrieved his healer’s satchel. Lio realized the embassy’s belongings were neatly stacked under the Overlook, his own trunk among them. He would not have to leave behind any of his mementos of Cassia.
Kumeta looked at Javed with a bemused smile. “In the instant we fled the scene of a war mage’s demise, you thought of our belongings back in the fortress and stepped them along with us? That reminds me of someone I know.”
Basir inventoried the trunks with a glance. “How resourceful of you, Javed. It is wise never to waste supplies, even under duress.”
“I wasn’t about to leave my medicines behind when taking a journey with two dozen children recently recovered from Frost Fever. Besides, it would be a crime to allow Grace-Father’s coffee service to fall into the hands of Tenebran barbarians.”
Uncle Argyros chuckled and patted Javed on the back.
Lio did not join Basir or Kumeta at their posts. “You already know my decision, Aunt Lyta.”
Uncle Argyros sighed. “I cannot enforce my wishes upon any of you.”
Basir turned slightly, looking back over his shoulder. “If Lio’s trust is not misplaced…”
“He will be an asset,” came Kumeta’s voice from the other direction. “The exchange will go better with Lio as our mediator, since he has already established a truce with the Prisma.”
Lio bowed to each of them and let the Union convey how deeply he valued their newfound confidence in him.
“Lio, directions, please,” Aunt Lyta said.
It was easy for Lio to envision the location of Kyria’s Grove. The challenge was keeping the rest of his thoughts from bleeding into the Union, which flowed strong and open between all seven of them after their collaboration on such a great working. Lio secured his veil about his memories of Cassia, and his Gift leapt to his aid more readily than ever. Her blood still empowered him. With the strength she had lent him guarding their secrets, he turned the Blood Union into a map for the others.
With their minds intertwined, Aunt Lyta issued the command. “We go.”
They stepped into an empty and silent Grove. Oaks towered overhead, older than any trees Lio had seen in Tenebra, testament to the strength of the harvest goddess. His own Goddess’s moonlight shone through the bare branches and filled the clearing the massive trunks guarded.
Lio and his fellow Hesperines positioned themselves in a strategic formation as Aunt Lyta instructed. When her power, along with Kadi’s, began to saturate the moonlight all around them, Lio once more amplified the light.
“Don’t overtire yourself,” Aunt Lyta cautioned. “We may yet need you in reserve if all goes ill.”
“I’ll pace myself,” Lio promised. The truth was, his power was nowhere near exhausted.
Uncle Argyros’s magic was a watchful gaze that hung over all of them. Javed’s power rose, reassuring as a healer’s emblem, a sign of peace the Prisma could not mistake. Their show of power would tell her they were well-defended but meant no harm.
There came a hint of other magic in the night. In a moment, Lio recognized the power he had felt when he had visited the temple. A Kyrian warding spell, drawing nearer.
Javed was the first to cock his head, listening. A moment later, Lio heard it as well. Footsteps. Scent and Union revealed twenty-four little lights in the darkness that smelled of medicine and warm milk, herded along by six stronger lights fragrant with incense, all wrapped in a tight weaving of the Prisma’s protective magic.
Lio felt his fellow Hesperines relax slightly, although they held their magical preparations steady. As the Kyrians’ auras drew nearer, his people’s admiration increased, reaffirming Lio’s own. They felt the strength and honesty of the Prisma’s magic.
Just after midnight, by the position of the stars, the Prisma appeared at the edge of the Grove. The younger mage at her side matched Cassia’s description of Deutera. Although Lio couldn’t see her face, he could sense her faithful, happy nature—and the deep wariness she felt in this moment. Behind her, four more veiled women waited with their young charges.
The children were delicate shadows under the trees, cast by the occasional wink of green light that revealed the presence of the Prisma’s ward. Lio looked at their faces one by one and saw that some were trusting, some frightened, others just sleepy.
Deep and green as the Grove itself, the Prisma’s magi
c trod ahead of her out of the trees, both welcoming and resistant to the Hesperines’ power. She followed her spells and came forward into the clearing.
Halfway between the Hesperines and the trees, she halted, her face in shadow under her hood. It struck Lio as strange to stand here before the Prisma with his aunt and uncle, his cousin and her Grace. One of the secrets he had longed to tell them and fought so hard to keep had now come to light. The boundaries of his whole world had shifted since he’d come to Tenebra, and tonight he was no longer sure where those boundaries were.
“Prisma.” Uncle Argyros bowed. “We cannot possibly express our gratitude for this unprecedented invitation.”
The Prisma’s hood turned to take in each of them. When she looked in Lio’s direction, the motion of her head paused. Would the look he gave her be enough to convey reassurance…and the need for secrecy? If she mentioned Cassia’s name, his efforts would be for nothing.
“Unprecedented indeed,” the Prisma said. “Never in all my years of service to Kyria have I treated with Hespera’s kind. But now it is Anthros who demands a blood sacrifice of me.”
“Hespera does not ask for blood,” Uncle Argyros said. “She seeks only to give it for others.”
“Receiving her blood is a high price to pay for survival, even for those trading one heresy for another.”
“I remember when neither the children’s path nor my own was heresy,” Uncle Argyros replied. “Eriphon was a peaceful god of agriculture, the Herder of Demergos, as he was known. In those days, my brother was a mage of Demergos and I of Hespera. The Eriphites sometimes carried letters between us on their wanderings, as they traveled with their herds from one sacred grazing ground to another.”
“I am not as old as dead gods,” the Prisma returned, “but I am old enough to remember when I thought better of my brothers at Namenti. I believed they would take these children into the fold with a kind and guiding hand, not make them suffer for their parents’ transgressions. It is they who have betrayed our gods tonight, not me.”
“We are ready to aid all those who stand up in defense of the falsely accused. I do not believe for a moment Eriphon’s cheerful goatherds ever descended into banditry and bloodlust. Surely their only crime was their refusal to give up their traditions. Everything else, they must have done in defense of their own lives and families.”
“They would not obey the Anthrian command to give up their pilgrimages and settle in one place to worship in a temple. There’s no hope for their cult now, but I held out hope for their children. Until it also became heresy to fulfill my goddess’s command to give a home to orphans.”
“I cannot imagine how you achieved the feat of their rescue, nor what would have become of them without your compassion.”
“I won’t betray the trust of those who brought word of them to me. Suffice it to say, their plight reached my ears. We found them living like animals in a cave with the corpse of their late caretaker. Age and the elements claimed her life while the other adults were away on a desperate search for provisions. Before it turned into a tomb, the cave was a refuge the Eriphites maintained for their young and elderly. I am convinced they would have come back to their children, if they still lived.”
“Their sacrifice will not be in vain. Hespera has homes for these little ones.”
“Tell me what you have in mind for my children, and I will tell you if Hespera may have them.”
Lio felt the others’ surprise and growing respect for the Prisma. She was bold indeed to not mince words with Hesperines who, her gods taught her, would not hesitate to destroy her.
Uncle Argyros gave a nod, almost another bow. “We have complete respect for your position and the hesitations you must have.”
The Prisma’s magic flared, and Lio knew she was testing them with more than her words. Aunt Lyta and Kadi’s magic held steady. The three mages prowled about each other like mother bears.
Aunt Lyta offered the Prisma a close-lipped, reassuring smile. “We are not blessed with our own offspring as humans are. Every young life is sacred to us, to be nurtured and cherished above all else. Among our people, these children will never again know danger, deprivation or loneliness. We will keep them out of harm’s reach, no matter what may come between our kind and yours.”
The Prisma’s hood turned to Lio again. “Let the boy speak, for he has already proved himself to me.”
Lio bowed deeply to her and, at Uncle Argyros’s nod of agreement, came forward. “I am honored by your confidence in me, Prisma.”
“My gardener is very suspicious by nature, but she vouched for you.”
It was clear he and the Prisma were of one mind. They must leave Cassia’s name out of this. “I appreciate the value of her good opinion of me and the risks she took to form it firsthand.”
“You might have used her very ill when I sent her to you, but you treated her with greater care than her own kind have.”
It was an unexpected balm to him, this one last chance to speak to another of Cassia. “She deserves her people’s respect, and she has my people’s gratitude.”
“I have questions about your people. You grew up in Orthros, you said.”
“I was born and raised there.”
The mage’s eyes narrowed, and she looked him up and down. Her magic probed his aura. He loosened his veil as a demonstration of goodwill.
Finally she gave a nod. “If what I see here is the future that awaits my children, I may rest easy. Answer me, boy, and do not think your nocturnal powers will conceal a lie from me. Has any Hesperine ever demanded blood from you?”
“No, Prisma. They have only given it to me.”
He sensed her disgust, but she continued her questions. “Have they ever committed slaughter or sacrifices before your eyes?”
“Certainly not. I have only seen them save lives, and they taught me to do the same.”
The venerable mage watched Lio’s face, while her magic watched his heart. “Have they ever demanded you participate in orgiastic rituals?”
“No, Prisma, unless you consider a lady’s consent to a private tryst with me to be such a ritual.”
“Hmmph,” was her only reply. “What of your living arrangements? Impervious to cold you may be, but children need a home.”
“Orthros is a land of strong, beautiful houses built of stone. Our geomagi bring warmth out of the ground to make our homes hospitable. We clothe our children in comfortable robes that are practical for play. Children perform no labor,” he said firmly. “They devote their time to learning, so they may grow strong in both mind and body and discover their aptitudes.”
She did not say whether these answers satisfied her. “What further sign of good faith do you have to offer me?”
Four elder auras waited behind Lio, listening, and before him, six powerful women. Twenty-two pairs of wide, confused eyes gazed at him from between the oaks. Two pairs stared into the middle distance, unfocused. Unseeing.
Lio swallowed and let his power take stock of the other children’s condition. There was the boy with the scar on his cheek. He was younger even than Cassia’s brother. He held a girl who appeared barely old enough to walk, a younger sister perhaps, for she had a mop of dusty-brown curls just like his. Her eyes were closed, and her head lolled on the boy’s shoulder.
“I am no healer,” Lio said, “but even I can sense how much stronger the children are now. You did not lose a single one.”
“Yes, they all lived.”
It was bitterness, not pride, that Lio heard in the Prisma’s voice. The mage’s grief rose to join his own.
“No one can stop the fever from leaving its mark,” he said.
“We did all we could.”
“May we show you how we will carry on your work? If you would permit us and my elders deem it wise, we could demonstrate how our healing can benefit the children. Perhaps this would assure you of our intentions.”
“We would be more than happy, should the Prisma accept this proposal.” Un
cle Argyros turned to Javed.
The healer came forward and bowed. “Prisma. If you will allow me.”
“You may examine them from where you stand.”
“Thank you.” Javed’s magic reached for the children like a gentle, affectionate hand. They huddled closer together, but their alarm quieted. “Prisma, I stand amazed at your skill and dedication. The healing you and your mages have performed on these children astonishes me. I will personally see to it your labors were not in vain. The two boys who lost their sight to the fever will see again, and the girl who has not awoken will wake.”
“They are not too far gone for your art?” the Prisma asked.
“No. Our ministrations will make their bodies whole again. We have another kind of healers as well who can tend the wounds in their minds.”
“Do not spin fantastic tales to influence my decision,” the Prisma warned. “The truth will serve you better. Food in hungry bellies does more to impress me than miracles.”
“Allow me to show you. I will bring the girl out of her sleep here and now.”
The Prisma hesitated while the stars moved inevitably across the sky. Whatever her lingering doubts, she must know she was running out of time and solutions. Dalos was no longer a threat, but the king knew the Prisma’s secret. A word from him to Namenti, and the Tenebran mages of Anthros would descend upon the Temple of Kyria. When they came, there must be no children for them to find, only a model temple that proved Dalos wrong. At last the Prisma gestured to Deutera.
The other mage knelt by the boy with the scar and spoke softly to him. “This man is a healer, and he has offered to help your sister get well. Take her and go stand next to the Prisma.”
Holding his sister close, the boy came forward with a scowl worthy of a mighty knight. A scrawny girl made to follow him, tugging two toddlers along with her. At the edge of the Grove, Deutera stopped her and held her back.
The boy stood tall, but didn’t stray far from the Prisma’s skirts. She rested a hand on his shoulder. “This young man and the young lady you see there with Deutera are the oldest among the children, ages ten and seven. The younger ones have been in their care since they lost their elders.”