by Vela Roth
“My own magic exacted justice upon me,” said Uncle Argyros. “My power trapped me in their minds, as surely as I had trapped theirs. Tossed like baggage between the thoughts of madmen, I descended upon Lyta’s village with them. I felt their bloodthirst and their lust. Had I lived within them as they acted upon it, I would have gone mad and, I am certain, never survived. Like a mortal unworthy of the Gifting, I think I would have died from the terrors of my own conscience.
“Lyta saved me. Her mind drew me like the Harbor Light, and I slipped into her thoughts as into Sanctuary itself, and she carried me away from that devastation. This was how she repaid me for taking everything from her. She rescued me.”
Lio found words at last. “Did she know?”
“No. When we met later in a Sanctuary for refugee Hespera worshipers, I knew her, but she had no idea of the role I had played in the destruction of her home. And I did not tell her. Privately, I vowed to atone as best I could by supporting her in every way possible. As she struggled through her anger and grief, I devoted myself to her. Imagine my own grief, when I discovered that the one person in the world more precious to me than any other was the one who could never love me.”
“But she does.”
“I could not bear to keep the secret from her any longer and confessed, certain it would destroy what we had. Do you know how she replied?”
“Yes, Uncle. I do.”
A smile glinted through Uncle Argyros’s stone expression. “She forgave me.”
“You have never told anyone this. It is not in the histories.”
Uncle Argyros shook his head. “That is how Lyta wants it. The fate of her own people is her history to write, and she has rewritten it between us. By forgiving me, she taught me by example to forgive myself.”
“I am so sorry either of you had to endure that.”
“I am sorry you had a taste of such war, after all we did to ensure that would never happen. But your response to it did not cost innocent lives. Thank Hespera for that.”
Innocent. That one word sent a chill through Lio.
His uncle had said innocent lives. Not that his reaction hadn’t cost any lives at all.
Lio got to his feet. “Am I supposed to feel comforted that only the enemy died in Martyr’s Pass? Even if I were the one who slaughtered them? Is that why you told me this? Because you believe I made a mistake?”
“Lio, I did not say that.”
“There was another thelemancer at work within them—a mage of dreams.”
“Right now, I am only concerned about you.”
“I know I have been half-mad with Craving, I know it renders my power unstable. I know you are the foremost mind mage in Orthros’s history, and all the signs which you are most qualified to interpret seem to contradict me. But…”
But he was Lio’s uncle. Lio had expected Uncle Argyros to know him better.
“…but Cassia, who suffered most at the heart hunters’ hands, has expressed her confidence that I was not responsible for their deaths. You understand, Uncle, after what you and Aunt Lyta went through. Now if you will excuse me, I will join Cassia and the Annassa.”
Lio did not wait for his uncle’s reply or dismissal. He stepped to his Grace.
The New Plan
“We are about to be discovered,” Queen Alea warned with a smile.
Cassia looked around. Queen Alea must have opened the little otherworld into which she and Queen Soteira had swept Cassia, for Lio came out into the courtyard and approached the fountain.
“Lio,” Queen Soteira welcomed him. “Please join us.”
He gave a deep heart bow. Then he took a seat on the bench with Cassia and took her hand in his, right in front of his Queens. “Annassa, I am so happy to see you have met Cassia. I would apologize for not properly introducing her to you, but I think she needs no introduction, in truth.”
Queen Alea shook her head. “None other than the one you so eloquently gave her before the Firstblood Circle, when you proposed the Solstice Summit and made such a compelling case to win our support for it.”
Cassia tightened her hand on Lio’s and looked at him. He gave her one of his self-effacing smiles, but the determination in his gaze was anything but modest.
“My Grace,” said Queen Soteira, “I sense the young people have some things to discuss. Why don’t we give them a little time before they join us for tonight’s circle?”
“Yes, I think so.”
Before either Lio or Cassia had a chance to stand and bow again, the Queens were gone.
“I suppose it’s time to talk about politics,” Lio said.
“Lio, you made the Solstice Summit happen? All of this was your plan?”
“Yes.”
“The Firstblood Circle…does that mean all your elders?”
“That’s like our council, which advises the Queens and debates decisions affecting our people. The head of each bloodline in Orthros—everyone gathered in the hall here—has a vote, although their descendants can attempt to influence outcomes with statements of partisanship. The Queens have the final say and the power to veto decisions they deem unwise.”
“You managed to convince all of them to take this risk? After what you said when I arrived, I knew you were responsible for inviting me, but…everything else, too? This is an incredible accomplishment in your career. You must be so proud!” She ran her free hand over his cords and medallion, caressing his chest.
The silver disk was engraved with two crescent moons overlaying a shining sun. It made the celestial bodies appear as one. A fitting symbol of the Equinox, when night and day were equal. A true tribute to the ideals Lio believed in with all his heart.
“I didn’t do it for my career,” he said.
She lifted her free hand to his stubbled cheek. “Of course not. You did it for the common good. For peace.”
“If peace were my only goal, the idea would never have come to me. The only way I could keep my promise to come back for you was to make a way for you to come to me. But I knew that in doing so, I must aid your plans, rather than force you to abandon them.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Yes, you do.”
Oh, she understood his plan. Perfectly. The flawless plan that had dropped in her lap in her time of need after Autumn Equinox. How she had marveled at the opportunity. Lio had made it for her. How could she not have seen his hand in it?
She stared at their intertwined hands. “I don’t understand how you could do this—move the sun and stars—for my sake.”
“Then I’ll just have to keep showing you.” He pulled her close to him and wrapped his arms around her.
He, the son of Apollon, the future of Blood Komnena. The bearer of Anastasios’s blood, the triumph of Hagia Boreia, the student of a Queen. He had changed the course of his people’s history. “You did it for me.”
“I did it for you,” he confirmed. “Is it what you needed me to do, Cassia?”
She pulled back so she could look at him, but held fast to his hand. “This was exactly what I needed.”
He let out a breath. “I told you that’s what I would do. Whatever you needed.”
“If you wore a braid for that promise, I would undo it now.” She touched his hair, then lowered her hand. Her fingers tightened.
She didn’t want to admit defeat. It grated on her down to her bones. But that’s not what she was doing. She was telling Lio the truth. Discussing the situation, so they could rescue it. So they could win.
“I was at an impasse,” she confessed.
“I feared so.”
All her anger and frustration returned to her, and it was all she could do not to shake her fist at the king who was not here. “I was succeeding in stalling Lucis, but I could. Not. Move him! He would not cave. It was a stalemate.”
And how she had feared what she must do to break it.
“Then Chrysanthos arrived,” she said. “I knew we were out of time.”
Lio nodded. “That was the
turning point for us here, too.”
“Meanwhile, I’m afraid Solorum was becoming rather too hot for me.” Cassia looked at the fountain. “The king was having me followed even then.”
“He suspects you? Goddess, Cassia—”
“I’m not sure how much he knows. But what he gave me on the Autumn Greeting made it clear he was closing in. I don’t suppose the envoys reported on what I wore to the dance.”
Lio shook his head.
“The king gave me Solia’s gowns, among them the very one she wore when she danced the Greeting.” Cassia set her jaw. “I chose that one. To show him that when he twists the knife, I take hold of the hilt. But I could not ignore the possibility that the dresses might be a message to me that I had expended my usefulness to him.”
Lio let out an exclamation in the Divine Tongue that sounded like a potent curse.
“Then there was Chrysanthos to watch out for,” Cassia said lightly. “He started a witch hunt in search of a Hesperite sorceress at Solorum. As if I didn’t have enough problems.”
“What?”
“Imagine him finding evidence of a Hesperine sympathizer in the capital and coming to the conclusion she must be a powerful blood sorceress. It’s rather amusing, really, that he imagines I am some sort of wild-haired harpy chopping animal sacrifices into bits. What would he say if he found out it was me, the plain bastard who putters about in her gardening pots?”
“Hespera’s Mercy. Cassia.”
She was suddenly in Lio’s arms again, and he was holding her so tightly. She clung to him.
“He almost found me out.” She had been so frightened. Just how much, she hadn’t realized until now.
Perhaps because the way Lio held her told her how frightened he was. How furious. “That was too close.”
“But not as close as the pass.”
She didn’t want to say it. The pass. Like a curse, the words conjured all that had happened there. But that dark working was no match for the spell of Orthros all around her.
“It’s all right now,” Lio said. “You’re safe here. I will keep you safe.”
“I—I was so frightened,” she admitted for the first time.
“I know.”
“You do know. You could feel it in the Blood Union. You understand.”
“He didn’t win, Cassia. Everything you’ve dreaded didn’t come true.”
“All I could think in that moment was—” Her breath hitched. “—I still don’t know what the rebels did to my sister while she was at Castra Roborra.”
Lio rocked Cassia in his arms. “You will never, ever go through that. It’s over now. You’re safe.”
Horror overtook her, horror like she’d seen in Lio’s eyes when he had confessed his worst fears about the pass. Her stomach burned and soured as if she had never overcome her fear of the king. Lio held her shaking body, his hand cool on her forehead, and his gentle touches calmed her.
“It’s all right to be afraid,” he soothed.
“Yes.” She swallowed. “If we don’t let our fears out of their cages, how else can we banish them together?”
“You saved me from mine. Let me help you with yours.”
She tucked her feet up onto the bench. He looked ready to pull her onto his lap, but she reached into her bespelled silk shoe and drew out what she had been keeping wrapped around her ankle, where no one would discover it.
She held out his handkerchief, which bore the brown remnants of Knight’s blood. “I still have the first one you gave me. I keep it wrapped around the soap.”
“I still have the one you bled on, the first night I smelled your blood.”
“Let us not enshrine this one.”
“Agreed.”
The scent of his cleaning spell mingled with the fragrance of the Solace roses. The stains of Martyr’s Pass disappeared from the white silk. He took the handkerchief from her, folded it, and put it away in his pocket where he kept all the rest.
“I haven’t even said thank you, Lio. I would give you my gratitude for saving me, but you have all of it already.”
“We have bled for that Ritual before, haven’t we?”
“We did, at our shrine, and it saved me from Chrysanthos.”
Lio held her face in his hands, stroking her. “What happened?”
“I was observing a magical demonstration the Dexion gave the king on the palace grounds. Chrysanthos grew suspicious that the so-called blood sorceress might be nearby.”
“Solia’s artifacts can’t keep you safe beyond the palace walls! You were spying on a mage of his skill without any protection? You could have been—”
“He cast a revelatory spell right upon me, but he couldn’t even tell I was there.”
“How?”
“I’ve spent a lot of time at the shrine since you left. I couldn’t stay away.” It wasn’t a lie. It was all true. But if she left out the details of that last day and never spoke of it, then that wasn’t true, at least not for Lio. “I had no idea, but Queen Alea has told me it is so. The Sanctuary ward from the shrine. It’s on me now.” Cassia touched the glyph shard.
Lio ran his hand over hers with an expression of wonder. “You did that! Awakened a Sanctuary ward and took it upon yourself. That is a feat of sorcery unlike any I have known in my lifetime.”
“Queen Alea says it will keep me safe from Chrysanthos and his suspicions.”
“I should say so. That is old, rare magic, Cassia. Few of us have ever had a taste of it, except when we come near the Queens’ ward.”
“You have had a taste of it. Your blood was on the glyph stone too. Our blood, from your veins. You are part of my ward.”
He smiled. “I could feel it when we made love.”
“So could I. And I can think of no better way to honor the shrine’s past. Queen Alea remembers the mage who cast the ward on the shrine and was able to tell me what befell her.”
When Cassia finished sharing the tale of Makaria and Laurentius with Lio, he held both her hands in silence for a moment before he spoke. “I feel blessed the legacy of such fine people has touched us. They represent everything that was good about their time, when a mage of Hespera and a warrior of Anthros were free to fall in love. They fought so hard not to see that epoch destroyed. They may not have lived to see peace, but here we are. Still trying to make it a reality.”
“For them,” Cassia agreed. “For everyone lost to Cordium’s hatred and Tenebra’s civil wars.”
“For us.” He leaned over her hands, putting himself on her eye level. “I want to redeem their loss by making sure the Order of Anthros does not destroy us. Shall we try again? Will you help me keep trying?”
“Always.” She kissed his hands. “I cannot save Tenebra without you.”
“I cannot save Orthros without you. I need you here with me. I need your help.”
“You know I will do anything.”
He squeezed her hands. “The stakes have never been so high. There is something you need to know, just between us. I am the only person outside the royal family who is privy to this information, and I am to tell you. The First Prince, the Queens’ eldest, has entrusted this secret to both of us. If it became widely known, it would spread doubt and despair among all Hesperines at an already grievous time.”
“It is a privilege to be so trusted.”
“You have a right to know.” He looked at their joined hands, then met her gaze. “Since our people first swore the Equinox Oath, there has been a plan in place to protect us if the truce with Tenebra went ill. At the time, we could not be sure the Mage King would succeed in keeping the Orders at bay. It seemed the Last War could break out again at any moment. We never had to go through with the plan, thank the Goddess, but the Queens retain the power to invoke it in case of crisis.”
“Could it help us now?”
“No. It would destroy everything we have tried to achieve.”
“What can you mean? Surely the Queens would never order anything so devastating.”
Cassia shook her head. “Isn’t that what the Queens did after the Equinox Summit ended in disaster? They made the Last Call to summon Hesperines home to safety in Orthros until the danger has passed. They closed the border so you couldn’t leave.”
“The Departure would make that permanent. Every single Hesperine would leave Tenebra. Forever.”
The heavy fragrance of the courtyard went to Cassia’s head, and the bench swayed under her. “Hespera never gives up on anyone.”
Lio steadied her in his arms. “That’s why you and I must never give up. We have to make sure the Summit succeeds so there will be no war and no Departure.”
“The Queens wouldn’t go through with such a thing! Hesperines wouldn’t abandon Tenebra to its fate for all time.”
“Can you forgive our people for considering it in the name of sparing Tenebra even greater suffering?”
“No more Mercy? From the fever towns to the battlefields, the dying would lay there in agony with no one to ease their pain, no one to share their final moments.”
He nodded in silence.
“No more Solace? All the unwanted children. They would die, frightened and alone.”
“All I can think of is the Hilt, where so many little ones are left to the wolves. I can hear them crying, and no one answering.”
“My sister.” Cassia’s throat tightened. “Me.”
“I know.”
“So many lost and broken lives. So much suffering. Not a gleam of hope.” She held onto his arms. “Tenebra would be a hollow body without a spirit, if we lost our guardian Hesperines.”
“I will never abandon you.” The look in his eyes left no room for failure. No room for doubt. “We are going to win your fight.”
“Together, Lio, I believe we can.”
The Summit Begins
“We have already accomplished so much.” Cassia’s determination returned to her in full force. “We are so close.”
“Yes, let us begin with what we have achieved so far.” Lio released her and pulled two documents out of the scroll case he carried. He conjured an extra spell light over the bench. “Here is my proposal for the Summit and my record of what I know you have done in Tenebra. If we go over them together, we can resolve the unanswered questions for each other and find a way forward.”