Blood Solace (Blood Grace Book 2)

by Vela Roth

  She went all around the chamber to throw back the drapes and let in the beacon’s light. The tall, narrow windows stood in trios on three sides of her room. Such was the Hesperines’ wealth in luxuries and protective magic. They could put glass windows in the fortress that was their first line of defense inside the ward.

  Cassia came to a standstill at the window that faced due north. Four moons greeted her, two bright and clear in the sky, two amorphous and sparkling upon the surface of the sea below. The Blood Moon had reappeared, a slender crimson crescent. The waning edge of the Light Moon looked like Hespera’s dark lashes.

  Waystar perched at the tip of a bluff, light as a bird, yet unmoving as the dark rock that was its foundation. The cliff dropped sheer, and beneath it the sea rose and fell, cradling the land in its tide as it did everywhere. But Cassia had never beheld a sea like this. She had stood on Tenebra’s craggy western coast and walked the golden beaches of Namenti to the south, but they had only been rocks and sand.

  Only hours ago, Cassia had been snowbound in Tenebra’s northern mountains, miles from any sea. How could she now have eyes on these enchanted waters? It was all a mystery, everything that lay on this side of the mountains, hidden from humans under the cloak of Hesperine magic for nearly sixteen hundred years and by the forces of nature for even longer than that.

  Cassia crossed the room and took in the view to the south, back the way they had come. Behind the fortress lay the bulk of the mountains, wreathed in the clouds of snow the embassy had just braved.

  This was not the end of the pass. It was the other side of the range. In a single night, the Hesperines had not only brought them through the ward, but all the way across the mountains. The border was well behind her now.

  Tenebra was well behind her.

  She fisted her hands on the glass. “You lost. You did not have the power to stop me. I escaped you. Let your mages exhaust themselves traversing to Solorum with the tidings. Let your useless ire be heard all the way to the border, for there your power ends. I am on the other side, and you cannot touch me. Do you hear me? I will never be defenseless against you again.”

  The shivers had overtaken her once more. She could feel the glyph stone slipping from her hands and see Knight dragged away from her.

  “Never again.” She slammed her fists on implacable Orthros glass, then turned her back on the south.

  She went to where she had set her satchel on the side table. When would her hands stop shaking? She unbuckled her pack and found her spool of gardening twine, which had held charms against bad dreams around the necks of Eriphite children and one grown Hesperine. Cassia drew her spade, then freed the glyph stone from her sister’s garments and lifted the relic in both hands.

  The sensation that shot through Cassia made her gasp. If the stone’s first response to her had been a veiled moon, this was Hespera’s full and open eye. Cassia carried the artifact to the northern windows and set it down in the moonlight, kneeling before it. She could almost hear the glyph stone throbbing. She realized it pulsed in time to the rhythm of the waves below.

  She set her tools aside and ran her hands over the relic, testing the strength of each groove and corner. Crumbly mortar came off on her hands, but the integrity of the stone was solid.

  Would the Sanctuary give of itself once more? She was loath to put it to the test, but she must. She needed the shrine’s protection at all times. She must have her own defenses.

  She took up her spade and held her hands over the glyph stone. With the sharp edge of her spade, she retraced the cut she had once made to feed life-saving Hesperine magic at the Equinox Summit. Her libation bloomed on her hand and pooled in her spade. She let it drip onto the glyph stone.

  Something she could not name coursed through her, exhilarating, frightening, beautiful. Her heartbeat altered in her chest. She doubled over the glyph stone, her mouth dropping open.

  Air still filled her lungs. Her head was clear. In the hush, she listened to her own breathing and felt her pulse in her head. The rhythm of her own heart had fallen into step with the glyph stone’s.

  Gazing at Orthros’s sea below, she thought she could feel the ocean’s rhythm rising and falling within her, as if this were the tide that set the pace for the whole world. It was so vast she did not think she could hold it all.

  Tears filled her eyes, making her vision swim, but when she blinked the tears away, the ocean was still there, ready to embrace her. She recalled the night of the Spring Equinox, when she had felt the Queens’ magic summoning their people home.

  She lifted her spade high. Moonlight gleamed on her blood. With all her strength, she brought the spade down and struck one corner of the glyph stone.

  Power shot up her arm and into her heart. The ancient marble gave way beneath her blade. A single piece of the stone broke free and rolled onto the carpet before her.

  Panting, she let her spade fall to rest and pried her fingers off the handle. With her bleeding hand, she reached for the chunk of marble at her knees and took hold of it.

  The shard fit perfectly in her hand. She lifted it, studying it in the moonlight. She could feel it throbbing against her skin with a warm echo of the Sanctuary’s magic. It had worked. The glyph stone had yielded her a talisman that carried the power of the shrine.

  Cassia wrapped gardening twine round and round the glyph shard. When she was done, she had fashioned a pendant out of rough string, fine white marble and bloodstains.

  She lifted her talisman over her head. The shard came to rest over her heart. With them throbbing in time, she could not tell one from the other. She could only feel a single, stronger beat.

  Blood Shackles

  The breadth of Waystar and the walls of Lio’s room were not enough to close out the sound of her heartbeat. The mortals’ pulses had scattered through the fortress and faded to the rhythm of sleep. He barely heard them.

  The longer he listened, the stronger Cassia’s aura grew in his senses. She was breathtaking. After all she had been through tonight, she rose from the ashes and blazed like a star. The whole fortress throbbed with her heart.

  Lio put his head between his knees and gritted his teeth on a growl, holding back a wave of power with all his might. But his might broke. His Gift erupted into the air around him, and every piece of glassware in the room shattered.

  Mak dodged a shard of flying glass as he stepped into sight. “We came to ask if you’re all right. I’ll take that as a no.”

  Lyros levitated over the slivers on the floor. “It’s a good thing the windows in this old place are warded, or I daresay you’d have broken those too.”

  Mak glanced out the modest windows of Lio’s chamber. “Not a very romantic view. You’re going to her room, I hope.”

  “I can’t go anywhere near her like this,” Lio snarled from where he sat on the edge of the bed. “I can’t even look at her.”

  “Well,” Mak reassured him, “we checked on her for you as soon as your mother and my Grace-brother finished clucking.”

  “Thank you, my friends. Please tell me how she is.”

  “Ferocious,” Mak declared. “I can’t wait to welcome her into our family.”

  “Such an endearing destroyer of kings for you to carry over the mountains,” said Lyros.

  Lio groaned. “In truth, I almost carried her off the moment she was safe in my arms.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Mak asked. “Why are you in here? Why did you let your mother take her to her rooms?”

  “To be fair,” Lyros said, “if he had escorted her, it would have caused a scandal. But now is your chance, Lio. Kadi is right outside the door, but will gladly yield her watch as soon as you’re ready.”

  “I am the last thing Cassia needs right now.”

  He, her Grace, could not be what she needed tonight.

  “That’s not what your physician says,” Mak informed Lio. “I volunteered to deliver Javed’s orders for him to spare you the embarrassment. Allow me to paraphrase. Drink her bl
ood already. Your body’s healing power will set her to rights, too. Just let her set the pace.”

  “I will not burden her with my needs tonight.”

  “Didn’t you feel her aura glowing at you through the Union?” Mak demanded. “She might as well have been waving a banner over her head that said ‘I need you.’”

  “Of course she needs me!” Lio roared. “She needs the one who loves her to hold her without a lustful thought in his head and help her feel safe again. And I cannot do it. Because one man with a broken mind in the dungeon at Castra Justa may be all that’s left of my self-control.”

  Mak and Lyros caught the next blast of Lio’s power in a ward and eased it back at him. He remembered the impact of his magic returning to him after death had released his power from hundreds of minds. But his Trial brothers had had his back then too.

  Lio put his face in his hands. “Forgive me.”

  “No one needs to apologize for tonight,” Mak told him.

  Lio shook his head. “No one seems to want to let me apologize.”

  “That’s because no one blames you,” said Lyros. “We all took lives tonight.”

  “I know,” Lio replied. “Every Hesperine in Martyrs’ Pass died with those men in Union. I am so sorry.”

  “No, that’s not what I meant,” Lyros clarified. “In some cases, the Stand and the Charge could not stop the danger by merely incapacitating a heart hunter. We killed a number of them before you did.”

  Lio lowered his hands. “This is the first time you’ve killed.”

  Mak sat down in the room’s one chair. “Yes, it is.”

  Lio looked between his Trial brothers. “Are you two all right?”

  “We will be.” Lyros sank onto the arm of the chair.

  Mak put an arm around his Grace. “We did our duty tonight, in accordance with our training and our oaths. And we survived. I think everyone should stop wilting and sobbing, because I’m proud of all of us.”

  Lyros laughed and rubbed a hand over his face. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” Mak answered. “All right, Lio, that’s enough. Now go tell Cassia you love her.”

  “I don’t dare. Cup and thorns, I can’t promise what I’ll do as soon as I’m in her presence again. Annassa Soteira healed me only last night, and I drank an embarrassing amount of my parents’ blood in preparation for meeting the embassy in the pass and it’s not enough.”

  Mak and Lyros both sighed and tossed another ward in front of Lio’s unruly power. He shuddered, but felt a trace of hope.

  “Ward me,” he said. “That’s my only recourse. Cast the blood shackles on me.”

  “You’re jesting,” Mak protested.

  “Not in the least.”

  “Lio,” Lyros objected, “that’s worse than the thirst suppressant.”

  “I have to get through this night without going to her room, and tomorrow I have to survive introductions and have a diplomatic conversation with her. I’ll never get through that without something to keep me in line.”

  “Blood shackles are what we use on criminals.” Mak scowled. “To keep them from repeating their crimes. We ward them against committing theft or murder.”

  Lyros shook his head. “It’s a binding of the Will that is not to be undertaken lightly. We never place the shackles on an innocent person.”

  “And don’t you dare mope about having lost your innocence,” Mak warned.

  Lyros frowned. “I’ve never heard of casting that spell to prevent someone from the Feast.”

  “Will it even work on the Feast?” Mak wondered. “For all we know, the kind of bond Lio isn’t saying he has with Cassia can’t be shackled.”

  “Please try,” Lio pleaded. “It cannot be a violation of the Will if I am asking you to do it. Ward me so I won’t take a drop from her until she’s ready.”

  “What for the key?” Lyros asked.

  “A kiss,” Mak suggested. “A sure sign she’s ready.”

  Lyros grinned at his Grace. “You won’t hear any complaints from me.”

  “It ought to be a kiss from her,” Lio said. “Not one from me.”

  Mak nodded. “As soon as she kisses you, it will break the blood shackles and you will once more be free to do as you please.”

  “Thank you,” Lio told them. “I owe you for this.”

  “You’ve been spending too much time among humans,” Lyros said. “Debts are un-Hesperine.”

  “Especially between Trial brothers,” Mak agreed.

  Mak and Lyros dragged Lio to his feet and stood him in the middle of his room. When they were certain he would remain upright, they retreated a few paces away on opposite sides of him. Breaking the skin on their palms with their fangs, they dripped blood upon the flagstones until Lio was surrounded in a ring of red droplets.

  His Trial brothers met where they closed the circle and joined their bleeding hands. Their power rose in Lio’s senses, a mighty force that bore him up. They too had tested their limits tonight, and yet they also had strength to spare and the generosity to lend it to him.

  The drops of blood on the floor ran together until the circle was a solid red line around Lio. At that moment, the fortifying power closed around him and became something else. A vice on his heart. It knocked the breath out of his chest.

  Mak and Lyros turned to face one another and kissed each other on the mouth. The blood on the floor glowed and became a ring of red light, then was gone. Their power faded. As the spell calmed, Lio staggered to catch his balance.

  Mak held Lyros to him a moment past the end of the working. Finally Lyros pulled back with a bemused expression for his Grace.

  “Well, I can see that was an ordeal for you.” Lio smiled. “Thank you again.”

  Mak didn’t let Lyros go. “I’m glad we’re alive.”

  “So am I.” Lyros rested his face on Mak’s shoulder.

  Lio stood still and waited to see if the Craving would make him buckle again. The next throb of vein-burn overtook him, and his magic crested again. He gasped. “I don’t feel any different.”

  “I’m afraid it won’t ease your symptoms,” Lyros said.

  Mak grimaced. “All the ward can do is keep you from acting on them.”

  This must surely be the most difficult night of Lio’s life.

  47

  Nights Until

  WINTER SOLSTICE

  A lady can walk through fire.

  —Solia’s instructions to Cassia

  Battle Scars

  Cassia woke to moonlight and a rhythm she felt more than heard. It pulsed above her and coursed below her and beat in her own heart. Her hand went to the glyph shard, and she opened her eyes.

  Knight snuffled, and she hugged him closer to her under the covers, careful not to put pressure on any of his injuries. It felt like it had been hours since she had woken briefly to find him climbing into bed with her. She must thank Javed for his healing spell, which had sunk her into a deep rest without nightmares.

  She made her first attempt to get out of bed. It only took one try. She must definitely give Javed her gratitude. She felt far better than any mortal should after last night.

  The cut on her hand from her blood ritual was gone. She would not have minded a scar there. But it was for the best that Javed’s slow healing spell had caught even that fresh wound in its wake.

  “Ah, you’re awake, my lady,” came Perita’s voice from the sitting room.

  Cassia cast one more glance around the bedchamber to reassure herself she had hidden all traces of her blood ritual. “Yes.”

  The bedchamber door swung open, and Perita joined her.

  “How are you?” Cassia asked.

  Perita came to her, and they held fast to each other.

  “The Hesperines didn’t pull me out of the snow in the pass,” Cassia said.

  “What?”

  “The avalanche carried me all the way down to the bottom of the ravine, and there were twelve heart hunters waiting for me.”

&nbs
p; “No!”

  “One of the Hesperines reached me in time. The hunters didn’t hurt me. But they could have.”

  “I didn’t know. They got to you, and Callen and I didn’t even know.”

  “I’m so glad you weren’t there. You already had to endure that with Verruc. I never want you to go through it again.”

  “I wish Callen could have killed the men who tried to hurt you.”

  “I’m glad he didn’t have to go through that again, either.”

  “You were right not to tell anyone what really happened. If they knew you were alone with the heart hunters, and then with a Hesperine, it would be just like the rumors Lord Tyran and his men tried to spread about me.”

  “In the confusion, I don’t think anyone realized I was separated from all of you.”

  “Aye, your secret is safe. I’ll keep it just as you have mine. No one will ever say a word against your reputation on Callen’s and my watch.”

  “I know. I can always rely on you two.” Cassia hesitated. “Perita, do you remember Initiate Ambassador Deukalion from the Summit?”

  Perita nodded. “The one with the pretty face who had all the ladies talking after the dance, as if they didn’t know better. But he did stay and fight Dalos with the others.”

  “It was he who saved my life last night. That makes twice.”

  “A male Hesperine! One you danced with before! Oh, my lady, you were very right not to breathe a word.” Perita took Cassia’s hands and studied her palms. “Your hands are healed. But you wouldn’t let the Kyrians look at them.”

  “Master Javed was very respectful, I assure you, and I was not alone with him. The Chamberlain was there.”

  “You should never have been in that pass where only a heretic could save you, and you shouldn’t have needed a Hesperine’s healing! Just like you never should have been at the Summit when a war mage lost his head! It’s not right, my lady. We shouldn’t be here.”