Blood Solace (Blood Grace Book 2)

by Vela Roth

  In the air above Zoe’s head, he let his first illusion take shape. She gazed raptly at the miniature Temple of Kyria he conjured on her ceiling, although the image was now familiar to her after so many tellings.

  From his own memories of Tenebra and the paintings he had seen of daylight, Lio reconstructed the temple in every detail. He showed Zoe the place she had almost died and shrank it to fit inside her room in their home in Orthros, where she lay surrounded by a family who loved her.

  Now Lio swept them down inside the walls of the temple and into the gardens. “The Brave Gardener planted seeds that would grow into a bounty of vegetables. She pruned trees that would drop delicious fruit, and watered plants the Temple mages could turn into powerful medicine that would make the sick well.”

  Zoe smiled at the images of tiny seedlings sprouting from the soil and branches shaking free their fat, succulent apples.

  “And during the night, she helped people,” Zoe recited.

  “Indeed she did. Under the shelter of darkness, with the Goddess’s Eyes to light her path, she did good deeds in secret…”

  Night descended over Lio’s illusory garden, and in the midst of the shadows he conjured her. A slender figure in a cloak, her face hidden in her hood, bearing a basket in her arms.

  His Grace, of whom his family had heard him speak these long months. They believed her to be no one but a messenger with whom he had spoken only briefly, a nameless gardener embellished into a hero by Zoe’s imagination.

  “The Brave Gardener had many secrets,” Lio went on, “and she was very good at keeping them. She knew there were children in the temple hiding from wicked mages, and she made sure no one found out.”

  “Because she was smart and kind,” Zoe murmured.

  Lio smiled to himself. What would Cassia think if she knew she was a hero in a story? “One night, the Brave Gardener learned the children hiding in the temple were having bad dreams, and they were very frightened. She wanted to make them feel safe. So she decided to harvest good plants from her garden that would help the children. She cut beautiful purple betony flowers and fragrant green betony leaves and bound them together in cloths.”

  Lio sprouted a garland of betony about Cassia’s image. A square of cloth fluttered to her, and at a motion from her hand, needle and thread obeyed her and sewed the scrap of fabric into the charm Zoe wore at her neck. Despite Cassia’s protests about her awful sewing skills, he made the work of her hands into art, her labor into magic, for it had always seemed to him like nothing less.

  “She sewed the cloths into charms, and she put the charms in a basket. This basket, she brought to the Prisma of the Temple, who brought it to her mages, who brought it to the children who were having bad dreams. The good mages took the charms the Brave Gardener had made, and they put one around the neck of every child. The bad dreams were banished, and the children wore their charms all the way home to Orthros, where there are no bad dreams.”

  “What are the children’s names?” Zoe’s eyes had slid shut, and she did not see him conjuring their faces in the air above her, but she smiled to herself.

  “All the children got new names when they came to Orthros,” Lio said, “to show how brave they are. The oldest girl is called Zosime. And the oldest boy is named Boskos, and he has a little sister named Athena…”

  By the time he named each of the two dozen children who were now the youngest Hesperines in Orthros, Zoe’s breathing had stilled. She had finally slipped into Slumber.

  Or not. “What is the Brave Gardener’s name?” she mumbled. Still awake enough to end the story with her customary question.

  For which Lio always gave his customary answer. “Her name, like all her good deeds, is a secret. All those who admire the Brave Gardener must keep her secrets safe, just as she protected their secrets from the wicked mages.” But the night had come when that answer was no longer enough. “The Brave Gardener’s secrets are safe with us, so I shall tell you, and only you, her name. She is called Cassia, and she still lives in Tenebra, where she works hard to keep everyone safe.”

  Zoe’s eyes flew open, only to slide shut again. “You never told me that part!”

  “I’ll tell you even more about her after you wake.”

  “Don’t want to…sleep…”

  But Zoe was asleep before she could ask him anything else, leaving Lio to answer the much more difficult questions from their parents.

  Breaking Point

  Lio held his veil steady and braced himself. But the storm would not break until they were out of Zoe’s room, it seemed.

  “Come into the Ritual hall,” Mother said, low and urgent, “where our words will not trouble her dreams.”

  They stepped to the Ritual Circle, and to Lio’s credit, he didn’t land face down on it. His parents stood across the mosaic from him. For a moment, the only sounds were the splash of the fountains throughout the house and the rustle of feathers as Mother’s familiar stirred in her sleep in the study. Then the questions began.

  “Are all the stories you’ve told Zoe true?” Mother asked.

  “I have romanticized them in the telling, I admit. But yes, all are essentially true.”

  Mother’s brows arched. “Only one ‘Cassia’ has ever been mentioned in connection with our embassy’s time in Tenebra.”

  “So,” Father pronounced. “Lady Cassia Basilis is none other than the Brave Gardener—the object of Zoe’s admiration and, I take it, the cause of our son’s melancholy.”

  As Lio had suspected, that one revelation on his part had been sufficient, and now they were making all the connections between his own behavior and the Lady Cassia who had been on the periphery of the Hesperines’ political awareness. The center of Lio’s world.

  “May I ask if she was the reason for your discreet visits inside the palace?” Mother inquired.

  Lio folded his hands behind his back. “She was.”

  Mother let out a long sigh, and her relief washed over him. She slid her arm around Father, and he pulled her close.

  Lio’s jaw tightened. “I fear this is not cause for relief.”

  A low rumble emerged from Father’s chest. He was laughing. “That nothing worse afflicts you than pining for a young lady? It certainly is cause for relief.”

  Now Mother’s suppressed amusement revealed itself in a smile. How long, while Lio attempted to deliver dread news, had they been struggling to keep straight faces, as surely as they did over Zoe?

  “Here we were, imagining you haunted by the violence you experienced in Tenebra,” his mother said. “Fearing you might struggle for years with the scars you brought home. Worst of all, you wouldn’t talk, which is the only sure way to heal the marks death leaves on the mind. Not even I could coax you to speak. To learn you are troubled by love, not death, is the greatest relief we have experienced since your safe return.”

  Lio should have presented the truth in a different order. He didn’t want to rob them of reassurance as soon as he had given it to them. But he must make it clear how serious this was.

  “Well,” his mother observed, “now we have the context for your constant vigilance regarding the situation in Tenebra.”

  “And your repeated requests to return.” Father shook his head. “When you asked Ioustin for a place in his Charge, you should have told him why. He might have actually hesitated before saying no.”

  Lio rubbed his temple. “Rudhira wrote to you as well, I see.”

  His father grinned. “You are a Hesperine after my own heart, Lio.”

  Lio tried to take consolation in hearing that, but his frustration remained too fresh. “And yet no one will heed my requests.” Not even his father.

  “I did not have a mother waiting at home to worry about me,” his father reminded him.

  Mother pressed her lips together as if to hide a smile. “I accept any blame you wish to lay on my worries, love. I shall not repeat all the things you say to me when you fret over our son.”

  It was easier, an
d yet so much harder to tell his parents than to tell Mak and Lyros. With his mother and father, his immediate bloodline, he could say the words aloud without invoking a binding commitment…but he would invoke something much worse. If his Trial Brothers were afraid for him, how much greater must his parents’ fear be?

  But he had charted his course. Now was the time.

  “Only wait until you’re older,” his mother advised, “before you follow your father’s path. If not for our peace of mind, then for Zoe’s. At least another eight decades, until she is of age.”

  “I don’t have decades,” Lio said. “Nor even months. I must act now.”

  “Such feelings are natural at a time like this,” his mother said. “When you love, you love very strongly. It is in your nature to feel a great sense of devotion—something we admire about you.”

  “You’ve drunk nothing but deer this season, have you?” his father asked.

  “Lio! You might have made an impersonal arrangement with one of the human guests, at least. Everyone knows it will take you some time to move on from her, but half a year on deer?” His mother rounded the Ritual Circle and pressed a hand to his forehead, then his wrist, measuring his pulse. “It’s a wonder you aren’t ill.”

  Lio was glad his veil was strong enough to spare his mother the truth of just how ill he was, not to mention to fool Javed during the physical exam required to begin battle training.

  His father fixed him with a level gaze. “Tonight, his training injuries would not heal without a drink from me.”

  “Father—” Lio protested.

  “Zoe is a child who must be protected from the truth. Your mother is not.”

  His mother reached up and brushed his hair back from his forehead. “When I guide newcomers to Orthros on the path to healing their minds, I confront everything in the harrowing pasts they left behind. I survived my own past. I may have a mother’s tender heart, but there is nothing you can do or say that will break me.”

  The speech Lio had planned out deserted him. He did not build up to the momentous announcement or make any eloquent remarks worthy of the occasion. The truth just came out of his mouth. “Cassia is my Grace.”

  He wasn’t sure what he found more overwhelming. The depth of their emotion flooding the Blood Union, or the way they embraced him like a lost son who had only just now returned home. When he lifted his head from his father’s shoulder, he realized something that made this entire wretched situation that much more bearable. His parents’ happiness was stronger than their fear.

  “I will take you to get her,” Father announced.

  Goddess bless. It sounded so easy.

  Father turned to Mother, taking her hands. “You know I will bring our son home without a scratch—along with our Grace-daughter.”

  She looked down at their joined hands, giving his a squeeze. “Lio and Cassia could not ask for a better protector.”

  “We can be in and out of Solorum before Zoe has time to get thirsty. You needn’t do without me for long.” Father’s gaze softened with amusement. “I’m sure Lio requires even less time than it took me to persuade my Grace to return with me. I’m much less diplomatic, after all.”

  “You know what I think of your methods of persuasion.” A grin eased her worried expression. “As surely as you delivered Lio and me from Tenebra, I know you and Lio will now deliver our Cassia.”

  How quick they were to speak of Cassia as one of the family. They were already making plans to rescue her, just as they would Nike, if they knew where she was.

  How wonderful it would be to let go at last, to lay down his sword and let his elders take care of everything.

  “It’s not that simple,” Lio said.

  “Sit down,” his father replied. “We shall decide our course of action.”

  The next thing Lio knew, a chair was behind his knees. He resisted the urge to sink into it until he saw his mother and father had pulled up chairs for themselves as well. If it was only a gesture to soothe his pride, he didn’t question it and gratefully took his seat. It was harder to resist the urge to put his head in his hands.

  “When I asked her to come back to Orthros with me, she gave up the chance so she could stay and work against her father.”

  It surprised Lio to discover it was not as difficult as he had expected to explain their situation. All the stories of the Brave Gardener had prepared him, as well as his parents. It was a relief to talk with them about the real Cassia at last. In fact, it was a rare pleasure. Despite his best efforts, he probably sounded like a lovestruck fool eager for them to like her.

  But he knew he didn’t have to try. He had seldom been more proud than in this moment, when he could tell them that his Grace, their Grace-daughter, was necessary to the safety of Tenebra and the Hesperines who were still secretly at work there.

  What was more difficult than he could have imagined was pushing away his best source of aid, as he worked to convince his father they could not do precisely what Lio had longed to do for months: go to her.

  “Of course you didn’t tell us.” His mother sighed. “You are just like your father…and me. Always taking matters into your own hands. We’re proud of you.”

  “We are indeed.”

  “Thank you,” Lio blurted.

  The Craving really had affected his judgment. All his predictions about their reaction had been wrong. Then again, his parents were extraordinary, often surprising people. They had not achieved so much by fulfilling expectations. In fact, they had spent most of their immortality defying expectations at every turn.

  “You should be proud of yourself for how well you have coped with the last four months,” his mother said.

  “I’m not sure I am.” Once more, the confession came out in spite of him. “It has been so hard to be sure of my course.”

  “There are many paths to the top of the Hilt.”

  The Hilt, where Tenebrans left their unwanted children to die and staked out heretics. The site of many of his people’s greatest rescues. The symbol of every Hesperine’s effort to do the right thing.

  “But how am I to bring my lady down from the cliff without causing the mountain to crumble beneath us all?”

  “That is not a concern,” his father said simply. “Cassia must not remain in Tenebra. We are bringing all our people home and closing the borders. We are doing what we have always done when Cordium stirs restlessly, what every person, Hesperine or mortal, does in times of trouble. We are holding our kin close and barring the gates. Cassia is one of us now, just like her three anonymous rescuers and Nike and all the others for whom we are still searching. Rejoice that we know where Cassia is, and that she is safe. For now.”

  “But Cassia has the power to protect the others, to buy us time to find them. That is what she would want, on behalf of the Hesperines errant who saved her life and gave the Mercy to her sister.”

  “That is not her duty. It is in Ioustin’s hands, and there are none better. Cassia must be home with us as soon as possible.”

  “What if that isn’t what she wants?”

  “She heard your message,” his mother reminded him. “She knows you are coming back for her.”

  “But when I do, what if her answer is the same as it was last year?”

  “It won’t be,” his father said.

  “Lio.” His mother leaned forward. “Have you considered the possibility that she changed her mind long ago but has had no way to tell you she is ready to leave Tenebra?”

  Lio’s chest tightened, and for a moment, he had no words. He hadn’t considered it.

  He had not wanted to. That would mean he had failed in the worst way of all. She had been awaiting rescue all along, and he had not lifted a finger to help her.

  “Do you imagine she does not feel your bond, even as a human?” his mother asked.

  That was the very question that had taunted Lio most of all during the long, hungry nights, when he felt like only half a living thing without Cassia, and she was in Tenebra,
fighting the good fight. What if she needed him? What if she didn’t? “You think she feels the separation as much as I do?”

  “I know she does.” Mother twined her fingers in Father’s. “My need for your father was profound even when I was human. Grace does not begin with the Gift, although only through the Gift can it reach fulfillment. The Craving is more than thirst—or even hunger. Cassia needs you.”

  “Tomorrow night, I will know for certain,” Lio said. “You must have already heard the news Basir and Kumeta brought.”

  “Yes,” his father replied, “all the elder firstbloods have been discussing the Anthrian mages who arrived at Solorum. Would that I could do more to them than discuss them.”

  “Are they a threat to Cassia?” Lio’s mother asked. “Is there a possibility they suspect her of assisting our people?”

  “I believe the king’s plans remain the greatest threat to Cassia,” Lio answered.

  He had now spread his fear for her safety like a wildfire. He had no choice but to fan the flames and tell his parents about Flavian’s courtship.

  “If she dances with him,” Lio concluded, “I must take it as a sign she has not found a way to avoid the betrothal and that she needs my help. I will know it is time to act.”

  “It is time to act,” his father said, “whether she dances or not.”

  “Father, I will not risk destroying everything she has worked for. I will not take the sword from her hand and drag her to safety in a tower while her enemy—her father—scours the land unhindered. She would never forgive me, and she would have every right not to.”

  “You need her. We are bringing her home.”

  “I must do this according to her way. Nay, our way, as we worked together in Tenebra. Those efforts were not in vain. I know we did the right thing then, so that path must still be the right one now.”

  “Do you have a plan?” his father pressed.

  “I promised her I would find a way. I will. Only give me until after the Autumn Greeting to reassess her situation. Then I will tell you what I have in mind.”

  His parents were silent for a moment, surely having one of their many discussions about him. He had no doubt this was in the same category as offering him the Drink. He would never be too old for them to discuss his well-being out of his hearing.