by Vela Roth
The flakes of snow seemed to gather together into one great wall of white. The sky itself appeared to be falling toward her. There was nowhere to flee.
“Avalanche!” cried Lord Severin.
The snow pummeled Cassia’s body and tore her grasp from the glyph stone.
Ckabaar
The embers of the king’s hearth were collapsing under Cassia’s feet, and she didn’t know which way she was falling. Only this time, the fire was cold, so cold.
Heart hunters have their uses.
The power of the snow was immense. She was so small.
They can be brought in line, if necessary.
Suddenly the world was still again. Still and massive, its entire weight upon her, crushing. She could not get her breath. She was blind in the darkness under the snow.
Her heart raced, and she fought to move in her prison. Her legs were pinned. She could not flee. She felt as if a fist were closing around her ribs. Her left arm was trapped, useless. With her right, she tore wildly at the snowpack, her hand burning with cold through her mitten.
No. No, it could not end like this. She could not die within sight of Orthros. All her efforts, wasted, lost beneath the snow. Her entire life, a tiny speck in the vast mountains, a blink in Tenebran history whose marks the wind was already erasing.
She could not let the king win when she was so close.
Cassia went still. She labored to bring her breathing under control. This was no way to behave in a crisis. If she was smart, she might not run out of air before she got herself out of this—or rescue came.
The Tenebran embassy’s Hesperine escort had been on the way. Hippolyta’s Stand patrolled the Queens’ ward, ready to rescue mortals from the snow. Were they even now charging head-first into an ambush?
Be safe. Please, be safe—and be our rescue.
With her one hand that had any leeway, Cassia wormed her mitt in front of her mouth so she could carve out more space to breathe. Her hand was about as effective as a gardening spade against a mountain. But she had achieved astonishing feats with only her little spade.
Cassia dug methodically at the snow with the slightest motions possible and made herself think just as deliberately. She had to keep her mind sharp. She must not fall unconscious.
She should have seen this coming. The way Chrysanthos had separated his and the king’s chosen few. Those eerie horns, their only warning, but a warning nonetheless. She would wager the kingdom that Lucis had arranged for the heart hunters to rid the Dexion of those the mage did not want to take with him to Orthros.
Perita and Callen. The Semna and Lord Severin and… At least Benedict had been safe near the mages. But what had become of everyone else?
Cassia had to breathe slowly. No tears. She had to think.
Knight. Try as she might, she could not keep herself from getting her hopes up. Had her mighty liegehound managed to escape or surface from the avalanche? If he was on his feet, he would surely find her.
She spared some of her precious air to call out to him, although she had no idea if his ears, as keen as they were, could hear her through all that snow. “Knight? Ckuundat, Knight, I’m here! Dockk. Please, dockk!”
She kept worrying at the space in front of her face, but her hand was almost completely numb. That numbness crept through her bit by bit, deadening the hurt in every part of her body, tempting her to dreadful ease. She felt like her head was lifting, floating upward, as if it alone were free of her prison.
She had to stay alert. There was still hope. She had faced death twice before, and both times, Hesperines had saved her. Surely she would be so fortunate a third time, here on their doorstep. She kept digging.
As her senses hazed, the snow felt looser against her hand. No, no, it was not her imagination. It was coming loose more easily.
She sucked in a breath and dug harder, faster. Then the snow was flying, torn away from her. Her hand met a broad paw.
“Knight!”
She could breathe. She heaved at the air. The snowy night glared in her eyes. A shaggy face filled her vision.
“Knight, my wonderful Knight. I knew you’d find me.”
He dug, diligent and frantic, while she squirmed. Together they got her upper body free. Then he sank his teeth into the layers of her clothing and starting pulling. His powerful jaws and the strength in his body slipped her out of the snow.
Gasping, she wrapped her arms around his ruff. He went into a down-stay, burrowing them against the ridge of snow he had flung up while digging her out. His warmth began to bring feeling back into her body.
“We have to find the others.” Cassia made to get up, but Knight pushed her back down with his weight.
She went silent, listening. The fur on the back of his neck rose. He let out a low growl.
She heard it moments later than he did. The sound of sniffing and paws racing across the snow. Then howls—the bays of a pack on the hunt and closing in on their prey.
She knew whose hounds those were. And Knight was outnumbered.
But had the king forgotten? Those mongrels were nothing compared to a pedigreed dog from the royal kennels.
For the first time in her life, Cassia issued a command she had only ever used in training. She spoke the ancient word warriors said to their hounds as they readied to charge onto the field of battle.
“Ckabaar!”
Knight transformed into a dog she had not known she had. He took up a fighting stance on all fours over her. She rolled onto her belly and faced the oncoming pack.
Three massive, pale shapes charged out of the storm. Against the brightness of the snow, she saw that the dog on the left was closest. The heat of battle turned thought into a command on Cassia’s tongue, and she called out the order for a left forward attack without needing to remember the words.
Knight shot out to meet the oncoming hound. Their bodies collided midair, then spun to the ground with a force Cassia felt in the snow beneath her. The hounds rolled, and the snow blew down and spewed up around them. Amid their growls came a pitiful whine, and then Knight’s dark shape came out on top.
But his advantage was spent. The other two hounds had closed the distance.
“Hridh! Right! To your right!” Cassia rolled, gained her feet, and scrambled out of their way as best she could in the thick snow. Her feet sank, but strength came to her like the war commands, and she managed to position herself behind Knight once more.
Knight left the first hound unmoving on the ground and pivoted to his right. He leapt out and stood like a bastion between her and the other two dogs, launching booming barks at their faces. They hesitated, side-stepping and posturing before him.
Cassia pressed her and Knight’s advantage. “Hridh ckabaar!”
With an eager snarl, Knight charged the dog on the right. He sank his teeth into its jugular. Red splattered on its white coat and the snow.
“Adhin ckabaar! Adhin ckabaar!” Cassia cried. A left attack now!
But the third hound was already on Knight. She screamed at the beast as it fastened its jaws on her hound’s shoulders. Knight shook himself, and Cassia’s tears hit the snow with his blood.
Then the enemy hound hit the ground, too. Knight had tossed it clear over the mound of snow where he and Cassia had sought warmth.
The beast regained its feet just as quickly, but Knight was in battle-stance again, ready for it. The heart hunters’ dog charged, and Cassia called Knight off. She rolled, and Knight followed, and together they dodged to one side.
The enemy dog swiveled to catch up with them, but Cassia’s idea had worked. Its back legs ran afoul of the hole in the snow where Cassia had been buried. By the time it scrambled out, Knight was upon it.
The snarls went silent. The other dog’s body was still. Cassia had to look away. But in that direction, she saw another mangled liegehound.
Knight limped to her, blood and spittle dripping from his jaws. She sat up on her knees and cupped his face to ease him close to her and exami
ne his wounds.
“Oedann. Oedann, oedann.” It was all she could say, and no other word was enough but that one, the praise for a battle well-fought.
“Oedann is right,” came a man’s voice.
Knight answered with a furious growl. Cassia snapped her head up, trying to get eyes on the speaker.
Fog and billowing snow closed around her and Knight. She couldn’t see farther than the end of his tail.
Footfalls shuffled all about them, and rough male voices spoke back and forth, their accents strange and their dialect stranger. She strained to understand. She seized on words she had learned from old men in the kennels and gained impressions of what the heart hunters were saying.
“To Hypnos with that cur,” said a second man. “He killed my best stud.”
“So your stud wasn’t the best,” said the first man. “Only survivors are worth breeding.”
A third man laughed. “This one’s no cur, all right. He made pretty work of our test. Royal blood’s as fine as they say after all.”
“When it comes to dogs, anyway. The king’s little bitch doesn’t look so fine.”
“Call me that again,” Cassia challenged, “and my hound and I will put you on the ground with your mongrels.”
“I wouldn’t try that, little bitch,” the first speaker advised.
Strange lights loomed close. Into sight came a crossbow, its bolt aimed at Cassia’s heart.
Blizzard Wraiths
Battle commands ran through Cassia’s mind, but none were any use against a bolt to the heart. Except one.
“Het baat,” she said.
Knight growled again, but he obeyed the finality in her tone and went into a down-stay.
She put up her hands for whomever stood on the other end of that crossbow. “My hound is worth more to you alive. He deserves better than a bolt in his side after he managed not to go down fighting.”
“He’s worth more than you,” said the voice behind the weapon. “In fact, he’s our payment.”
The crossbow came nearer, and the fog wafted away. She saw the white-gloved hand that held the weapon, then an arm clad in white, threadbare wool. Then a broad chest wrapped in white fur, crossed by a white leather bandolier. A rough-hewn light stone was strapped there, illuminating blades, bolts and pouches full of who knew what.
From one buckle on that bandolier hung a pair of long, sharp canines tied on a string. Their roots, not their tips, were bloodied.
Had a Hesperine once smiled at her with those fangs?
Was she looking at the fate of the embassy’s escort?
There had been so many horns… Only a powerful force could defeat a group of Hesperines. She didn’t know how long she had been trapped in the snow… Long enough for the heart hunters to collect trophies.
She didn’t know if Lio had been in the escort.
Had he once feasted on her with those fangs?
Cassia longed to shut her eyes at the sight, but she dare not. A dozen heart hunters appeared around her like spirits out of the storm. But their crossbows and clubs, swords and daggers were all too corporeal. Even the snowshoes strapped to their heavy boots had bladed, upturned tips.
“We do exactly what the king wants,” the lead crossbowman ordered. “That fat rat in the palace is fickle as they come, and I don’t want to give him any excuse to keep the dog and the gold after all. If we keep the boss happy, he’ll see to it the king lines our pockets.”
One of the men lifted a reed pipe to his lips. When not a note, but a dart flew from the end of it, Cassia jumped. When the dart struck Knight’s shoulder, she gasped.
“You said he would live!”
“He’ll wake up after it’s all over,” the piper said. “Too bad you can’t have one of my darts too, little bitch. You have to stay awake.”
Knight let out a groan, looking up at Cassia. She could not bear the confusion in his eyes. She held him, murmuring reassurance after reassurance to him as he finally closed his eyes.
“Get him back to camp right away and see to his wounds,” the leader ordered. “We’ll follow with the girl.”
The piper and another heart hunter closed in. Their leader gestured with his crossbow, and only that threat was enough to make Cassia let go of Knight and move aside.
She watched them tie her hound to a litter and exchange their snow shoes for the skis strapped to their backs. They took off across the snow, sliding him behind them. Her dearest friend, her last defense, disappeared into the storm.
The lead crossbowman gazed at her from under his hood of fur. Liegehound fur. His face looked no older than Callen’s, and yet many years older.
He looked her up and down with a leer that made her skin crawl. “So this is what a king’s daughter looks like. Not much, really.”
“Speak for yourself,” said a swordsman. “Her mother was a real professional, I hear. No telling what the daughter can do.”
“Keep it in your crotch,” the leader warned. “We have our orders. She belongs to the boss. No hands, no darts, nothing—right to the boss, untouched.”
They had orders not to kill her, and Knight was out of harm’s reach. She could make a run for it without fearing a bolt in the back. But to what end? She would land in a snowbank, and they, in their snowshoes, would be upon her in an instant.
“He could at least let us have her when he’s done,” the swordsman complained.
“Not on your life. She’s to die after he’s gotten his use out of her—if she survives it. That’s what the boss and the king agreed on.”
They had orders not to kill her—until after it was over.
Cassia’s thoughts became cold and clear, but her heart seemed numb. A war mage’s spell. The headsman’s axe. She had considered so many likely ways the king might finally deal death to her. But never this.
Had Solia listened to the rebels in Castra Roborra talk like this over her? What had she endured before the catapults fired?
Anger burned through Cassia’s numbness. The injustice made her want to howl right back at the storm.
She didn’t know what her sister’s final moments had entailed, but she could imagine how Solia had faced her end.
Cassia put on the stone face she wore before the king, when she showed no fear, and looked into the eyes of the heart hunters’ leader. “Very well. Take me to your ‘boss.’ We shall see if he survives me.”
A chorus of whistles and catcalls went up around her.
“The boss has his work cut out for him,” said the swordsman.
“But he always has his way, in the end.” The leader stowed his crossbow on his back, only to unfasten a length of rope from his belt. He reached for her with one grasping hand.
Her gaze lit upon on the hunter’s trophy fangs once more. She would never know if Lio was safe.
Lio? Can your mind magery reach across death? If you can hear me, wherever you are, I want you to know. All my final thoughts are for you. You are my Mercy and my Sanctuary.
The heart hunter’s hand froze midair.
His jaw went slack, and white rimmed his eyes. He stared at something over Cassia’s shoulder.
Before she could look behind her, an apparition appeared before her very eyes and loomed over him. It was night itself, a fissure in the snow and the sky and the world. But gazing into it, she saw no stars, only two red eyes and two white fangs.
The specters emerged from the storm all around her, impossibly tall, horrifically fast. The heart hunters screamed and cursed, brandishing their weapons in every direction. Their crossbow bolts flew right through the living shadows and were swallowed by the snow.
The towers of darkness lunged at the men. The panicked hunters charged them, only to be driven back. They fled, only to be hemmed in.
The circle around Cassia widened. The specters were driving them away from her.
The snow shifted before her eyes again, as if the storm itself parted. She found herself face-to-face with a fine black robe that whipped in the wind like dark
ness woven into fabric. From a bell sleeve, a hand as pale as the snow emerged and reached down toward her.
Cassia looked up and met the gaze of the only wraith who had blue eyes.
A wordless cry escaped her. She reached for him. His beloved hand took hold of hers, and he helped her to her feet.
No sooner had she stood than his arms came around her, strong and gentle. He scooped her up and held her close in the warmth of his cloak. She flung her arms around his neck and held fast to him, burying her face in his high collar.
She was finally holding him.
His voice was deep as night and smooth as velvet, as magical as she remembered. “My mind can always reach yours. I will always be your Sanctuary. Close your eyes, let all your thoughts be for me, and do not dwell on what is about to happen.”
She had no desire to open her eyes or spare any thought for what lay beyond the shelter of his arms. She nodded against him.
She felt his power rise out of him like a whisper. A shadow passed over her mind, leaving her safe in its wake.
Suddenly the screaming ceased. The only sound was the wind. Then she heard the bodies hit the snow one by one.
Thelemanteia
It was shockingly easy. Lio’s power swept out of him, eager as a bird that had never flown beyond its cage. He took hold of ten minds at once.
His fastidious exercises with his uncle had taught him what to expect, but this was real. Lio grasped the morass of the heart hunters’ thoughts, every jeer they had hurled at Cassia, every pleasure they had taken in her fear. Their threats silenced. Their lusts died. Their Wills gave way to his power.
He pressed his advantage all the way through the gorge, and the two who were fleeing fell to his control and halted in their tracks. Twelve no longer a threat, and he felt he had only just begun.
How much danger could he spare the Stand thus? How many heart hunters could he deliver to the Charge’s custody, rendered harmless and ready for questioning?
Lio held Cassia close and pushed his power beyond all the limits he had yet tested.