The Sorceresss Duty
THE SORCERESS”S DUTY
Cassia turned toward thesound of his voice. But as far as her immortal eyes could see, there was nothing but empty fields and dark sky.
She clung to their Grace Union, the one law of magic that prevailed in this place. I’m here. I’ll find you, I swear.
She ran to the edge of the circle, but careened to a halt just before she left the ring of stones. If she set foot outside now, would it only make matters worse? Gazing out at the horizon, she feared she might go spinning out into yet another world even farther from Lio.
She directed her Will at the Lustra, at the silent stones.
He is my mate. Let him in!
The strange world wrapped closer around her. Power soaked her like a sudden rain, running through the arcane paths inside her and slipping over her skin, dragging her into the rhythm of this season out of time.
She gave her head a shake, pushing back at the magic with her Will. No! I am not yours. You are mine.
If this place was so hungry for a sorceress, it would have to take her on her terms. She dragged her fang across her hand and flicked her blood onto the ground.
I am your Silvicultrix. He is my mate. Let him in.
Lio flickered into sight. He seemed disoriented for a moment, then snatched her into his arms. There came an echo from the stones, and the magic around them waxed.
Mate. Cassia didn’t know if the word sprang from her own mind or the ground where she stood.
She pulled Lio’s mouth down to hers. The world disappeared a second time. She kissed him hard. He surrendered to her in an instant, parting his lips, and their tongues clashed.
Mate. On instinct, she drew magic up from the earth and into their bodies. Yes, this was right. She marked the arcane paths inside him with her power.
He groaned and grasped her buttocks, holding her against him. He was already hard for their ritual, the ridge of his erection pressing into her belly. Hunger burned from her tongue to the core of her body.
Distantly, another shout reached her ears. Someone calling their names.
Lio pulled his mouth back with a gasp. “We can’t. My blood isn’t safe for you yet.”
She slid down his body to stand flat footed, her canines throbbing. She couldn’t make herself let him go.
He stared down at her, dazed, his fangs out and a trickle of blood trailing from his lip. “What just happened?”
“I think the circle needed me to demonstrate my claim on you.”
The magic around them flared and ebbed in time to their heartbeats. Images flashed in their shared mind’s eye. Naked skin, bared teeth. Her on all fours, him covering her. Them mating on this ground, here and now, forever.
Cassia pulled out of his arms and took a step back. “This part of the Lustra acknowledges you now.”
He rubbed his mouth. “It seems to have a very clear idea of my role, yes.”
“Lio! Cassia!” Lyros’s voice drifted into their hearing.
“Just a moment,” Lio called back.
“Don’t you dare leave us behind!” Mak’s shout sounded far away. He gave no sign he had heard Lio.
Cassia put the breadth of the circle between her and Lio to stop herself from pulling him down to the grass with her. She gulped at the cool air, trying to close her arcane senses to the Lustra.
He turned away from her and adjusted himself. “Bleeding thorns.”
“Sorry.”
When he faced her again, his fangs were somewhat tamed, but there was still heat in his gaze. “Don’t apologize.”
She tried communicating with the stones’ magic again, holding Mak and Lyros’s arcane signatures in her thoughts. She had taught the Lustra passages to recognize other Hesperines besides her Grace. Would these even more ancient stones understand the same?
Nothing happened. Mak and Lyros’s shouts grew more urgent. Cassia was out of options. She fingered Rosethorn, her artifact that held both Mak’s and Lyros’s magic, as well as hers and Lio’s.
She drove the dagger into the ground. They’re my pack. Let them in.
There came a shift, not one she could see, but one that made her arcane senses spin. And there were their Trial brothers, Knight, and the horses, right where they had left them, a few paces away in another time or place.
Knight trotted to her side, wagging his tail and nudging her for attention. He did not appear troubled by the Lustra’s tricks.
She rubbed his ears. “You liegehounds have something of the Lustra in you, don’t you?”
He looked into her eyes with his earnest, honest ones. On impulse, she reached for that sense she’d once had as a human. As if she could speak to him without words. As if he might speak back.
But that awareness of their bond eluded her now. A sense of loss cut her deeper than she had expected. She had known she had given up her beast magic when she had accepted the Gift. She had meant it when she told Lio she was satisfied with her plant magic and the power of Hespera’s blood.
But looking into Knight’s opaque eyes in the dreaming circle of her ancestors, she caught a glimpse of what she had lost.
Mak and Lyros rode into the circle, leading her and Lio’s horses. Mak leapt off Bear and marched up to Lio. Taking hold of Lio’s shoulders, Mak gave him a shake. “Did you learn anything in the Maaqul? Didn’t you swear to us you wouldn’t charge off on your own anymore?”
“Mak, I didn’t mean—”
“I can haul your ass out of a jinn prison, but not out of—whatever in the Goddess’s name the Lustra just did. We don’t know what we’re dealing with here. You could have been dying a horrible death in front of us, where we couldn’t find you.”
“I’m usually safe in—”
“The Collector is trying to break down a Lustra door. Do you think anywhere is safe?”
Lio fell silent. “I’m sorry, Mak. It was blind instinct to find my Grace.”
“Hespera knows we understand how that feels. But don’t be an idiot about it. Do you think it helps your Grace if you run into the unknown? All of us are safer if we stay together.”
Lio looked stricken. “I’m so sorry. I should have realized I wasn’t only putting myself at risk.”
“For a scrollworm, your brain is full of rocks sometimes.”
“It won’t happen again.”
Mak collared him in a hug, then set Lio away from him.
Lyros came to check on Cassia, and she offered him her own apology. “I didn’t realize coming in here would cut me off from you.”
“You went in as a precaution,” Lyros replied. “You negotiating with the Lustra first made more sense than Lio charging in after we realized what it would do.”
“That wasn’t entirely Lio’s decision.” Cassia avoided her Grace’s gaze, trying to keep the mental images at bay. The Lustra’s demands could so easily make her forget the hurt and anger in their Union. “Once the stone circle realized who he is to me, it was rather demanding about him joining me.”
“I’m prepared for it now,” Lio said.
She arched a brow at him. He cleared his throat into his hand, but she suspected he was surreptitiously rubbing his fangs.
Neither of them was prepared to remain in this circle for hours, fighting the insistent magic. But they didn’t have a choice. “We can spend the Dawn Slumber here.”
Lyros eyed the open sky. “Not under direct sunlight. It would be best if we sleep in the light-resistant Azarqi tents Kella sent with us. But underground would be better. I suppose there’s no chance of finding a portal here?”
Cassia shook her head. “I don’t think so. Not one of the Changing Queen’s doors to her secret passages, in any case.”
“This circle is something much older. More primal.” Lio’s voice sent a shiver over her skin.
“Yes.” Cassia’s mouth was dry. “It almost seems as if it is a portal in some way of its own.”
“A portal to what?” Mak asked. “Where?”
“I don’t know,” Cassia answered. “I don’t know nearly enough.”
When Lio offered topitch his and Cassia’s tent, he expected her to protest. But for once, she didn’t insist on helping. She stayed on the opposite side of the circle from him. That made it only a little less difficult to keep his hands off of her.
Their Blood Union saturated the ring of stones, a churning mix of hurt, anger, and need. Mak and Lyros pitched their tent without commenting, but he noticed their worried glances.
Finally Cassia padded over to join Lio at the tent flap, her eyelids heavy. The magic of the stone circle hummed up through his body, demanding, right. There was still time for him to follow her into that tent and turn her over for a fast, hard feast before she fell asleep.
He shook his head, trying to clear it. He couldn’t let her drink from him, not with the Gift Collector’s magic still in his body. But if he drank from her first, that might finish healing him so his blood was safe for her…
No. With this magic manipulating their minds and desires, could she trust herself to wait? Could he trust himself to stop her?
She looked up into his eyes, and her throat worked as she swallowed. If we give in, I think it could interact with the magic. Even activate it. We shouldn’t do that without knowing the consequences.
She was right to hesitate this time. He knew that. But the sight of her tongue darting out to wet her lips almost undid him.
This is one experiment I’m not in favor of, he made himself say. Riling up prehistoric spells we don’t understand could cause…trouble.
He couldn’t think clearly enough to theorize about the possible outcomes. He only knew that the moment she got her fangs into him, the remnants of their self control would break, and he would be inside her in a heartbeat.
Her cheeks flamed. I’ll go into the tent alone. Wait till I fall asleep.
He nodded mutely. She slipped inside with only her liegehound for company.
Lio stalked to the other side of the circle and sank down onto the grass, propping his back against one of the stones. They had made the right decision. Hadn’t they?
Or had she seized on the Lustra’s interference as an excuse to keep her distance?
Lio looked out over the surrounding fields and tried to think who might be out there following them. More Gift Collectors. Lucis’s war mage allies. Some threat from Kallikrates they hadn’t imagined yet. He tried to distract himself from the fact that his Grace was falling asleep alone mere paces away, and he had hurt her.
Mak flopped down beside him, then Lyros sat on Lio’s other side.
“I should have known you two would corner me,” Lio said.
Mak stretched his bandaged arm. “What are Trial brothers for?”
“Don’t bother avoiding our questions. You know we’ll get answers out of you by any means necessary.” Lyros pointed at Lio’s shoulder. “First, how is your wound?”
Lio rubbed it gingerly. “Sore. But the fatigue is getting better. You?”
“Same. Another drink and I won’t feel it anymore.”
“Speaking of,” said Mak. “Next question. Why are you moping out here instead of letting your newly avowed Grace tend your wounds some more?”
Lio grimaced. “Remember the bones we found under the lighthouse? Those rituals involved death.”
“Yes,” Lyros said with a puzzled frown.
“Well.” Thorns, it was really unnecessary for him to blush like this. “I think the rituals here involved, ah, fertility. The magic wants Cassia and me to perform our duties to the Lustra. We’re being stubborn.”
Mak burst out laughing. “Well, that explains why you were in such a hurry to get in here.”
“It wasn’t intentional!” Lio put his head between his knees. “The Lustra has acknowledged I’m the Silvicultrix’s mate, and apparently that involves certain responsibilities. Magical and physical ones. Unless this is the site of ancient Lustri orgies, and it makes everyone who sets foot here mindless with lust. Do you two feel any irrational urges to tear each other’s clothes off?”
Mak laughed harder.
Lyros gave his Grace a warm look. “We don’t need a stone circle for that. All we’re feeling is what we feel every night.”
“Wait,” Mak said, “do any ‘pleasure rituals’ in the circle affect the magic? Or only the Silvicultrix’s ‘duties’?”
Lio sighed. “I believe it’s safe to assume you may do whatever you like tonight. Have fun. Spare some sympathy in your hearts for your poor, hungry Trial brother.”
Mak patted Lio’s shoulder. “If we feel any magical earthquakes through your veils, we won’t judge.”
Lio punched Mak’s uninjured arm.
He recalled the three of them sitting like this in the gymnasium the night they had extracted his confession that Cassia was his Grace. They had all been so full of themselves, the youngest to be promoted from initiates to full rank in the diplomatic service and the Stand.
They had thought their titles made it possible for them to protect their people. That their mentors trusted them to use their power wisely. What did those accolades mean now? Adamas was all that stood between them and the Gift Collectors’ blades.
Lio wanted to ask his Trial brothers a few nosy questions of his own. Was Mak still blaming himself for all of this, or was he listening to Lyros’s reassurances? But hearing his cousin rib him, Lio couldn’t bring himself to banish Mak’s humor. He might only make Mak feel worse. Just like Cassia.
Lio waited until her breathing went silent in Slumber and her hurting aura gave way to fretful dreams. He got to his feet. “She’s asleep.”
“Can we trust you to behave yourself in there?” Lyros teased.
Lio made a face. “With a liegehound sleeping between us, yes.”
“Good old Knight,” Mak said, “an unfailing deterrent against enemy mages and thorny young Hesperines.”
Lio laughed with them and slipped away without them realizing Glasstongue had won this negotiation. They hadn’t questioned him about the real reason for this new rift between him and Cassia.
If they had, he wouldn’t have known the answer.