Blood Solace (Blood Grace Book 2)

by Vela Roth

  Zoe came to stand a little to the right of Cassia and her hound. “Oh, he’s so big! He seems even bigger in real life than your illusions of him, Lio.”

  Knight stared at the little girl, his attention riveted on her. Cassia stood close beside him, ready to reach for his ruff if he broke out of his stay. But he lay flat on the ground, sniffing ceaselessly at the air.

  What strange signals must Zoe send to him, a child like he was bred to protect, a Hesperine like he was bred to fight? Did it distress him for the safe and dangerous parts of his nature to clash so?

  Or did he too, in whatever way an exceptional animal might, connect this moment with his own past? Could he remember that day when he had met a little girl in a kennel yard, and she had taken him in her arms for the first time while her elder sister looked on?

  I am your new loma kaetlii, Cassia had told him, carefully pronouncing the new words she was learning. You get to baat with me.

  Cassia echoed her past words now. “This is our new kaetlii. We get to baat with her and her family tonight.”

  Knight made his softest, sweetest whimpers deep in his throat.

  Cassia smiled in relief. “That’s a sound of affection. Oedann, Knight. Let’s greet Zoe. Obett.”

  With her permission to break his stay, Knight lumbered to his feet and went toward Zoe. The child’s eyes widened, but she did not back away.

  He sat down in front of Zoe and raised a paw. She giggled.

  The silly hours Cassia had spent teaching him that frivolous trick one long, empty winter had been more worth it than she knew.

  Zoe carefully set her goats down beside her. They did not back away either, a sure sign Knight was not a predator in their eyes. They wandered off to graze. Zoe carefully shook Knight’s paw in a mimicry of the Hesperine way, with her fingers upon his ankle. Orthros was truly a blessed land, where liegehounds and sucklings were not enemies.

  “Oedann!” Cassia said again. “What a good dog.”

  Knight put his paw down and smelled Zoe all over, which made her laugh and wiggle when his muzzle found a ticklish spot. His tail swiped back and forth in the scrubby grasses so hard his whole rump swayed.

  He proceeded to make his rounds in the paddock and the barn, investigating every corner of Zoe’s world as thoroughly as he inspected any room before Cassia entered it. Knight even subjected the goats to his scrutiny, nosing the tiny things until he lifted their little hooves off the ground and they bleated in protest. But when they showed him their tails and trotted away from him, it was not in panic, but haughty caprine disapproval. Zoe followed along with Knight, occasionally putting a hand to his shoulder with the fascinated urge to touch that Cassia remembered feeling as a child.

  Lio watched, and Cassia could see the same wonder in his eyes that she felt. Zoe might consider Lio her hero, but Cassia could see the truth all over his face. It was Lio who was smitten with the child.

  We call this the Solace, Cassia remembered him saying, for we offer refuge and comfort to suffering children. But my mother once said to me the real reason for the name is that children are the solace of all Hesperines.

  Bedtime Stories

  Lio leaned against the fence, content to watch Cassia and Zoe play fetch with Knight. To think, only a few nights ago, he had wondered if Cassia would make it safely across the border to join the children for whom she had sacrificed so much. A mere month before that, he had not been sure how he would ever see her again. Bringing her together with his sister had seemed like an elusive dream.

  Goddess, I will never take this for granted.

  A soft gasp behind him told him his mother had come back outside.

  “It’s all right, Mother,” he said quickly. “We introduced them very carefully, and Knight’s behavior has been exemplary. When I brought him to Waystar, it changed how he responds to Hesperines—and when Cassia commanded him to protect Zoe, he rose to the occasion.”

  “I can see that.” His mother came to stand beside him, leaning on the fence from the other side. “Ninety years I have been a Hesperine, and yet I still behold new wonders all the time. So many of them lately have been Cassia’s doing.” She reached up and put a hand on Lio’s hair, tugging him nearer. She levitated a bit and gave him a kiss on the cheek before she let him go. “You are feeling much better.”

  “Cassia has put me entirely to rights.”

  His mother smiled at him, then propped her chin on her hand to watch Cassia and Zoe. “I can lay down my worries about all my children.”

  Rudhira had been right when he had told Lio there were many moments when he would wonder if he had done the right thing. But there were also moments like these, when he regretted nothing.

  His mother chuckled at Cassia and Zoe’s game with Knight. “I hate to interrupt them. But Zoe will Slumber in the paddock if we don’t bring her in for bed soon. Even sucklings may not sleep much during polar night, but when they do—”

  “Their parents should make the most of it.”

  His mother gave him a rueful look. “I admit, it has been a busy two nights.”

  Finding his Grace had given Lio new appreciation for Hesperine parents’ stamina. Lio wasn’t sure if his parents had had a single moment alone since the embassy had made harbor, and they’d been feeding Zoe in all that time.

  “I gave Zoe a drink while we were in the barn,” Lio said. “She shouldn’t need anything else before bed.”

  “Thank you. We made sure she was full before you two arrived, but she still gets so hungry whenever she is anxious.”

  “Cassia and I can put her to bed, if you and Father would like.”

  “I should probably accept your offer, but I can’t bear to miss a single bedtime. I’ve waited so long to get to enjoy them.” The gate opened before her, and she came inside the paddock. “Zoe? It’s almost time for bed.”

  Father joined Lio at the fence. They watched all the ladies they loved. Mother was soon drawn into Zoe and Cassia’s game.

  “Rudhira should be here,” Lio said. “Hasn’t he arrived yet?”

  “He was delayed,” Father answered. “Konstantina wanted a word with him.”

  Lio winced. “I hope the Summit has not become a point of contention between him and his sister.”

  Father shook his head. “The contention between them is older than you are, and their love for one another far older than that. If your Summit were not one more foil in their debate, something else would be. And that is all I can say without crossing the veil.”

  Lio shook his head and asked no more questions. He tried to hold on to the moment, but thoughts he had allowed himself to forget now returned and wore away at his contentment.

  “Father,” he began.

  “Yes, Son.”

  “When I spoke with Mother at Waystar about what happened in the pass, she did not tell me what she thought. She just listened, as she does.”

  “That was what you needed.”

  “Then she asked me one question. Have I ever thought it was wrong of her to murder a war mage to keep him from hurting anyone else?”

  “How did you answer her?” his father asked.

  “Of course she did the right thing.”

  Lio and his father stood together in silence for a moment.

  “Mother also did not tell me what you thought,” Lio said at last.

  “I told you what I thought when you introduced Cassia to me.”

  Lio took a deep breath. “My conscience is at peace about that night. But I would still like to know if you were proud of me because you believed I had killed them, or because you knew I hadn’t.”

  “I am proud of you because I know whatever decision you made in that moment was the right one.”

  Lio turned to look at his father. “Thank you.”

  “You were there in the middle of that crisis. We were not. We must have confidence in your judgment. Why else did we raise you to have a conscience, if not to let you act on it? Why teach you to make good decisions, if we never give you
the freedom to make them on your own?”

  “I am grateful for your trust.”

  His father put an arm around his shoulders. “My only regret is that I was not there to fight at your side. I never imagined a child of mine facing war without me.”

  “Zoe and Mother need you here, safe in Orthros. I am glad one of your children is too young to confront what’s happening.”

  “I wish neither of you had to. So much for my relief when you became a diplomat instead of a warrior.”

  Lio laughed. “I know. I hope we don’t have to fight any more battles. But if we must, charging into one with you would be a great moment.”

  “Let us charge into the one before us. Only the full force of our family will succeed in getting our precocious suckling into bed.”

  Lio and his father joined Mother and Cassia in their noble efforts. There ensued Zoe’s usual procrastination, her plaintive requests to sleep among the goats for just one night, and the drawn-out ceremony of putting her pets to bed and making sure they had everything they needed.

  This last compulsion of Zoe’s, their mother indulged with utmost patience, showering her with reassurances. They hoped that, in time, they could convince Zoe no one under her care was in danger of starving if she took a moment’s rest. Cassia joined in with the words of someone who knew what Zoe needed to hear.

  It was Cassia who managed the impossible and made Zoe excited for bedtime. “Can I stay and listen to Lio’s stories tonight?”

  Zoe looked at him, tugging on his robe. “Will you tell a Brave Gardener story? With the real Brave Gardener right here?”

  “Of course. She can even help me, if she likes, and fill in any parts I leave out.”

  Cassia’s awkwardness with her legend tinged the Union again, a kind of auric blush. “I’m not as good at telling stories as Lio, but I have had a lot of wonderful stories told to me. I’m sure I can help.”

  Zoe headed for the house without further prompting. Cassia and Lio paused to collect her betony seedling from the barn, then joined his parents in following Zoe inside. As they traipsed into Mother’s study, she caught them all in a cleaning spell that lifted away the smell of goats and filled the room with her familiar plum-blossom scent.

  In response to everyone’s voices, there came the sound of ruffled feathers from the corner where Mother’s familiar slept on her perch. The eagle’s crest rose in disapproval before she settled back down to roost. Both Cassia and Knight cast the bird glances, hers impressed, his wary of a fellow predator.

  “Can Hesperines be falconers?” Cassia asked Lio’s mother.

  “No, we could not bear the birds’ natural hunt. Anna is my familiar, bound to me by blood. She does not need to eat.”

  “But we must still put food out for my goats,” Zoe said. “They get scared if their troughs are empty.”

  Father picked up Zoe, and she rested her sleepy head upon his shoulder. As Mother closed the stained glass door and shut out the cold, the hues of spell light in the panes slid across her scroll racks and writing desk.

  Cassia smiled at Lio. “Have you made all the stained glass in House Komnena?”

  He took her cloak. “Yes, but there are still a lot of empty window frames to be filled and windows of plain glass waiting to be replaced.”

  His mother paused to tell how he had surprised her with the door as a Gift Night present one year. Lio got the impression Cassia’s rapt attention was not merely for his mother’s sake. Thorns. If his parents talked about him out of his hearing, how many things must his mother and his Grace have to share with each other? Thinking of the awkward moments of his childhood, he felt a little warm under the collar.

  As his mother had said, though, she had waited so long for the joys that children brought. Talking to her Grace-daughter about her son was clearly one of them. Lio also recalled a night in Tenebra when Cassia had extricated from him all the embarrassing truths about himself he’d had no intention of sharing. As he had reminded himself then, he should not regret her voracious curiosity about him. He smiled to himself. It had its benefits on other occasions.

  When they reached Zoe’s bedchamber, Father set her gently in her bed, then sat down on the edge of it. Cassia lingered at the periphery of the room, studying the wall hangings. She eyed the constellations on Zoe’s Gifting chart and his sister’s Ritual tapestry from Kassandra. Lio could sense Cassia trying to stifle her uncertainty.

  He slid closer to her and put an arm around her, speaking quietly for her ears alone. “Stomping your feelings back down inside you will only serve to make you uncomfortable, my rose. It won’t hide them from the Blood Union.”

  She flushed, her aura humming with unbearable tension. “Oh, Lio, I don’t want your parents to think me uncomfortable in their house. It might seem as if I find their hospitality lacking.”

  “No one will think anything about however you feel. My parents are very kind and patient people. You know they must be to put up with me.”

  She nudged him in the side. “That’s nonsense and you know it. You were probably a perfect child.”

  “Well, I suppose. But giving birth to and raising a Hesperine suckling with two heaps of unruly magic was probably a handful on at least some occasions.”

  “A ‘conscientious and well-behaved’ suckling born under two full moons and blessed constellations.”

  He rubbed her back. “Cassia, everyone needs time to get used to new situations. When you have a chance, ask my mother to tell you more about her early years in Orthros. Although she came here with my father, there were still challenges she had to face.”

  Thoughtfulness stemmed the tide of Cassia’s anxiety, and she leaned closer to Lio. “Do you think she would mind if I asked her about it?”

  “Not at all. But right now, I think we are called upon to tell our own stories.”

  Lio took up his customary position at the end of Zoe’s bed, crossing his legs, and patted the covers beside him in invitation to Cassia.

  She eyed the place next to him with a smile, but passed him by, giving his shoulder a squeeze. Her gaze came to rest resolutely on the empty place by Zoe, on the other side of her from Mother. A sense of confidence came over her that Lio found beautiful to his senses.

  “As I mentioned,” Cassia said, “I am no great storyteller, but I did learn a thing or two about it when my elder sister used to tell me bedtime stories. There is a special way you have to sit to make the tales even better.”

  “There is?” Zoe asked.

  “Yes. Would you like me to show you?”

  At Zoe’s nod, Cassia rounded the bed and put Knight in a sit stay beside it. She set her potted betony on the bedside table, pausing to admire the identical plant Zoe always kept beside her during the Slumber. Then Cassia pulled back the covers and crawled right in beside Zoe. Stretching out her legs before her, she patted her lap.

  Zoe gave her a look as if Cassia had just invited her to finger paint a votive statue of Hespera.

  Cassia waited, her expression inviting. “The stories are always more magical if you sit on the storyteller’s lap. It’s true.”

  Lio forgot to breathe as he watched his little sister crawl into Cassia’s lap.

  Cassia’s arms came around Zoe as if she were embracing that Hespera statue. But then she hugged the little girl closer and planted a kiss on her hair. Zoe rested her head on Cassia’s shoulder and did not see the sheen in Cassia’s eyes. But Lio felt it all the way to his Grace’s heart.

  He wanted to catch this moment in glass, capture it forever, beautiful and clear and flawless. But that would not be enough. He wanted them all to get to live it every night.

  “You have a sister?” Zoe asked.

  “I did. Her name was Solia, and she was a wonderful sister.”

  Zoe’s voice went quiet. “What happened to her?”

  For the first time, Cassia hesitated, and the Union stuttered with the return of her uncertainty, her worry she had chosen the wrong words.

  “Zoe u
nderstands losing people you love,” Lio reassured her. “Her mortal parents were wonderful, too, and when they left her, it was only because they had to go and find food for her and the other children.”

  “They never came back,” Zoe said. “We aren’t sure what happened to them, but if they were alive, they would have come back for me.”

  Cassia stroked Zoe’s hair. “That’s exactly what happened to my sister. She had to leave me, although she did not wish to, and some dangerous men never let her return.”

  “Would you tell me a story about her?”

  “I’d like that. How about I tell you the story of the first garden I ever planted, which was for Solia?”

  The Ritual Circle

  Cassia had never held a child. Neither a preening lady’s new babe, a palace servant’s restless tot, nor any of the young apprentices who worked in the kennels. Parents kept their legitimate children away from bastards, and women in trouble kept their bastards away from other women they didn’t trust.

  The feeling of Zoe falling asleep in her arms was completely new.

  The child’s hair smelled good, like beeswax soap. Her legs and arms were sharp and bony, but somehow she was a soft bundle in Cassia’s arms. When the little girl finally slipped into Slumber and stopped breathing, it startled Cassia. But she could still feel the warmth in Zoe’s body and knew her Hesperine heart beat strong.

  “You have made her night, Cassia.” Komnena beamed, reaching for her daughter.

  Cassia handed Zoe to her mother so Komnena could settle the child under the blankets. When Cassia got out of the bed, she found Lio right behind her.

  He wrapped his arms around her, leaning down to rest his face against hers. “Are you all right?”

  “I think so, actually. It was…well, I think it was good to talk about Solia. I’m glad to discover it’s better to talk about her now than to stay silent.”

  Komnena tucked the bedclothes under Zoe’s chin and straightened. “That’s an important change. A sign of healing.”