Blood Feast: A Fantasy Romance

The Burden of Violence

Cassia stood there, shaking.

Lio came instantly to her side. “Are you all right?”

She tried to answer. But her grasp of words slipped. Sensations, impressions buffeted her. Anger. Humiliation. Pain. The beds of her fingernails burned. Her leg gave out from under her, and she staggered against him.

Dimly, she was aware of him catching her, of his blood soaking into her robes. Images of the battle flashed across her vision. All she could hear were those heartbeats, stopping over and over in an endless echo.

She longed to slip into oblivion, but few things could make a Hesperine faint. This torment was not one of them.

Then he was there. She saw Lio in her mind’s eye, standing still in the chaos of the battle. He was a steady presence in her thoughts. Another heart, bearing the suffering with her.

The Blood Union has overwhelmed you. You’re empathizing with everyone who was in the battle. Violence is always hard for Hesperines.

His calm, sympathetic voice was her lifeline. These weren’t her emotions. She focused on that knowledge, fighting to break free of the ghosts of the fight.

I wish I was a mind healer,he said. I can’t make this stop. But I can make it easier.

He waited with her, letting the horrific scenes wash over them both. His presence, a clear light in the whorl, drew her slowly back to herself.

The world came into focus again. She found herself lying across his lap with three concerned, fanged faces looking down at her and one big, furry form pressed close.

Lio stroked her cheek, his eyes dark with regret. “I’m so sorry, my rose.”

Lyros grimaced. “Tenebra isn’t easy on newgifts.”

“How many fingers am I holding up?” Mak held up Knight’s paw and pulled a face at her.

She couldn’t find a laugh or a smile, but the gratitude she felt to them was an antidote to the shadows in her mind. “You shouldn’t be fussing over me. I’m not the one who’s wounded.” She reached toward Lio’s shoulder, then stopped, unsure where to touch him without hurting him. Fresh blood still oozed from the injury. “This should be healing faster.”

“It will,” Lio reassured her.

“These are flesh wounds.” The gash on Mak’s arm was still red and angry. “Sunbound nasty ones, but we’ll live.”

Lyros kept his hand pressed to his waist. “You rest a minute longer. We’ll burn the Gift Collectors’ bodies.”

“Burn them?” Cassia echoed in surprise.

Mak got to his feet and helped Lyros up. “Gift Collectors can’t receive the Mercy. I think the Queens would have us give it even to these carcasses, if we could. But the magic doesn’t work on them.”

“We can’t leave them like this, though,” Lyros said. “They have an unfortunate tendency to revive if not properly destroyed.”

Mak shook his head. “Now that we know they’re Kallikrates’s Overseers, who place their loyalty to him above the Mage Orders, their uncanny abilities make more sense.”

“He said that,” Cassia recalled. “When someone gives him their magic willingly, as long as he holds their power, they can’t truly die.”

Mak shuddered. “Best leave him only ashes to work with, in that case.”

As their Trial brothers returned to the corpses, Cassia reached up and touched Lio’s cheek. “Are you all right? In your mind? That’s the first time you’ve ever broken a Gift Collector’s dream wards on your own.”

His gaze grew remote. “When he struck his head, his control slipped. That gave me the upper hand for an instant.”

That didn’t answer her question. “I felt how hard it was for you. I don’t mean magically difficult.”

“I’m sorry, my Grace.”

He was spiraling into apologies now. Never a good sign. Clearly this was not the time to press him about his own well being. “I’ll help you all burn them. Then we need to signal for help—one of the men told me how. The mortals need a healer.”

“I can do that.” He brushed her hair back from her face. “You need to recover.”

“You all spent our entire time at Patria dragging around my ailing human body. I’m a Hesperine now, and I refuse to be carried. We all promised to bear the burden of violence together, remember?”

He sighed. “I will not let my protectiveness interfere with your honor.”

She made it to her feet, but she couldn’t help leaning on Lio and Knight until her dizziness faded. They joined Mak and Lyros by the nearest Gift Collector’s body. The roses had disappeared, leaving behind black petals scattered across the corpse. The stone dagger lay in fragments at his side. Had his death shattered it?

Cassia looked away from the thorn punctures on the Gift Collector’s face. Her gaze fell on a barrel of unlit torches beside the brazier.

From her ancestors’ fire, she lit four brands and placed them in Hesperine hands.

The magefire atop thelighthouse now burned Hadrian blue. In the shadows cast by the enchanted signal fire, it was easy for Lio to make four Hesperines and a hound disappear into the shadows. But not completely. Their plan to draw the threat away from mortal bystanders would only work if the enemy could detect them.

Their Warmbloods carried them fast and far away from the sea, out onto the moors. Knight wove among them, on guard. Lio prayed any Gift Collectors lingering in the area would follow, as much as he dreaded another confrontation.

Even the Warmbloods’ smooth gait prodded the dull ache in his side. With every mile, pain shot deeper into his shoulder. Then his chest. Flashes of the battle kept playing on his mind, amplified by Cassia’s response to the conflict.

Eventually Cassia pulled close alongside him on Freckles, reaching out to take hold of Moonflower’s mane and slow Lio down. They all drew to a halt around her. Suddenly still, he realized how much effort it was taking to stay in the saddle.

“We’re stopping here,” Cassia announced. “Your wounds need tending.”

“I agree,” Mak said. “The weapons must have been poisoned. If we leave our wounds too long, they’ll fester.”

“This isn’t a defensible location,” Lyros protested.

Lio scanned the lonely landscape. There was no shelter, only a field of grass and thistle broken by jagged boulders and cleaved by a narrow stream. Knight sniffed the wind, his body tense and ears perked.

“If Gift Collectors were following us, they would have attacked by now,” Cassia reasoned.

Lyros’s tan complexion looked sallow in the moonlight. “They might be waiting for our condition to worsen so they can take us by surprise closer to dawn.”

“That’s why we need to treat your wounds,” said Cassia. “We’ll find somewhere safer before daybreak.”

“But if they ambush us here—” Lyros began.

Mak dismounted and reached up to his Grace. “You’re overthinking everything because you’re in pain. Stop being General Lysandros for a minute and let me take care of you.”

Lyros pressed his lips together, but let Mak half-lift, half-levitate him out of the saddle. Mak eased him down onto the grass against one of the boulders and untied Lyros’s bloodstained sash. Lyros let his forehead fall to rest on Mak’s shoulder.

“I wish I could levitate you,” Cassia said to Lio, along with a few of the Ashes’ favorite Imperial curses.

He suppressed a laugh, knowing it would hurt. “Levitation isn’t the sort of help I’d most enjoy from you at the moment.”

She shook her head at him. “How are you the only person who becomes sweeter and more flirtatious when you’re in terrible pain?”

“I drink the sweetest blood every night.”

“You’re incorrigible, Glasstongue.”

She guided him to sit near the stream and set out some of Tuura’s supplies from their pack. While the horses took a drink, Knight patrolled around their party incessantly. His hackles were up. With an effort, Lio focused on strengthening their veil spells.

“Stop that,” Cassia scolded. “Your wound bleeds more every time you use blood magic.”

“Oh.” He looked down at her short, freckled fingers peeling the soaked fabric away from his shoulder. “So it does. This mess is resisting my cleaning spells, too.”

She swore again. He could feel her mustering all her anger as a defense against her fear for him.

“I’m all right,” he said.

“You’re not all right. Lyros isn’t this ill. That relic dagger must have put some kind of malign enchantment into your bloodstream, and this wound is too close to your heart. I need to cleanse it before I give you blood to speed your healing.”

She tore what was left of his robe, the new strength in her hands quickly opening a gap between his shoulder and abdomen. She eased his sleeves down his arms, fast and careful. Her Hesperine hands were so agile, he barely felt the movement. She made a quick examination of the shallow cut on his side before focusing on his shoulder.

“You’re good at this,” he said. “I can tell you assisted in the infirmary at the Temple of Kyria.”

Her frustration only intensified. “I had hoped to spend more time in Orthros’s Healing Sanctuary by now.”

He fell silent, unsure what words would land wrong amid her fraught emotions.

With a rag soaked in the stream, she washed the tainted gore from around his shoulder wound. Her gentle strokes on his chest mesmerized him. He should be concerned about the lethargy spreading through his limbs, but it was so pleasing to sit here and watch her hands.

His eyelids grew heavier, and the world tilted. She caught him, easing him down onto his back.

“Lio?” Her voice was sharp, echoing through their bond. “Stay with me.”

“I’m here.” He forced his eyes open.

“This will sting.” Cassia uncapped one of Tuura’s cleansing potions, then offered him her wrist. “You may want to bite down on something.”

She wouldn’t get a protest out of him. He opened his lips on the inside of her wrist. Her skin was so soft.

She tapped a few drops of the potion into his open wound. Fire shot deep into his shoulder. With a hiss, he sank his fangs into her flesh. The flavor of her blood soon eclipsed his pain.

She tasted of regret. The battle plagued her, endless imaginings of it that had never come to pass. Her wielding her dagger a moment earlier and preventing his wound. Using her magic a moment later and watching him die.

Her power engulfing the entire lighthouse, taking mortal and immortal lives.

He wanted to wash all those thoughts away and give her comfort from his veins. He cursed the stone dagger. It wouldn’t be safe for her to drink until they were sure his blood was pure.

He wrapped his good arm around her and pulled her down against his chest. Stop. Don’t torture yourself. Your magic is what turned the tide in tonight’s battle.

No. It’s what caused the battle in the first place.

We all expected our first encounter with Gift Collectors to go much worse. Thanks to Mak’s weapons and your roses, we survived.

Despite his attempts at reassurance, her pain only cut deeper into their Union. You’re a fugitive. You’re wounded, mind and body. Because of me. Why aren’t you ever angry at me?

I…I’m afraid if I answer that question, it will only make you hurt more. Goddess help him. For once, he didn’t know what the right words were.

A silence fell between them. She turned her face away, but he kept holding her. The sting in his side disappeared, and he felt his shoulder knit back together. The silence remained, a wound on their vows.

Cassia helped him sit up and examined the new skin on his shoulder. A chill crept over him.

“You all right?” Mak was watching him.

Lio rubbed his chest. “Cassia stopped it before it reached my heart.”

“He’s still tired and weak,” Cassia said.

“That will pass,” Lio said. “How is Lyros?”

Lyros sat with Mak’s arms around him. Mak wiped a stray bit of blood off the corner of Lyros’s mouth.

Lyros’s cheeks darkened. “I’m excellent.”

Cassia pointed to the bandage on Mak’s arm. “What about your gash?”

Mak flexed his arm gingerly. “Not bad. I’ll let Tuura’s poultices work on it a while, then have a drink at our next stop.”

Cassia glanced up at the night sky. “We still have hours of darkness. After Lio and Lyros rest a bit longer, will they be in any condition for us to step onward tonight?”

“We’re right here,” Lio protested.

“And still denying how serious your wound was,” Cassia said crisply, “which is why I’m asking Mak.”

“I think they’re safe to step.” Mak gave Lyros a stern look. “But no unnecessary exertion.”

“Belly wounds aren’t as serious for us as heart wounds.” Lyros lifted his hands to ward off Mak’s scolding. “But I’ll save my strength for our next battle.”

Cassia pushed her hair out of her eyes, then appeared to notice the blood on her hands. She scrubbed them in the stream. She seemed tired. The sort of tired that could affect immortals, a weariness of spirit.

Lio didn’t want that for her. “That was more than enough violence for one night. We need to find another refuge and recover until tomorrow.”

Lyros nodded. “We won’t survive four Gift Collectors again without time to prepare. Now that we know they’re hunting us in groups, we need to rethink our tactics.”

“Four!” Mak said. “One is deadly enough, but we get a party of four.”

“I can scarcely believe it,” Lyros said. “They’re usually at each other’s throats too much to cooperate like that. It seems the Collector isn’t taking any chances against the four of us.”

“But we still managed to take his Overseers by surprise,” Lio said.

Cassia’s hand came to rest on Rosethorn. “We won’t have that advantage again. The Collector is always in the minds of his Overseers. He knows what we can do, now.”

Lio was silent, unwilling to confirm her fears. But he knew she was right.

The next battle against Kallikrates would be harder.