Blood Feast: A Fantasy Romance

Winter Solstice

SALT AND BONES

Cassia began her firstWinter Solstice as a Hesperine by saddling her warhorse. She should have been home, celebrating Lio’s Gift Night and going to House Annassa for Ritual with the Queens. She had only herself to blame for the Black Roses being on the run in wartorn Tenebra instead.

She and Mak rode out of the circle to meet Lio and Lyros where they waited. She couldn’t bring herself to wish her Grace a happy Gift Night when there was nothing happy about it, and all thanks to her magic.

Lio sat astride Moonflower in his midnight-blue battle robe and Imperial trousers, his hair windblown. He looked unfairly handsome and infuriatingly unrepentant about having his way the night before. But she was more grateful than she would ever admit for that drink from him. She didn’t know how she would have made it through the day otherwise. The circle’s magic had plagued her Slumber with dreams of dragging Lio into the ring of stones for a more intimate sort of ride.

The smile he gave her suggested that if she never confessed any of this in a hundred years, he still knew.

Mak cleared his throat. “So, where’s our next stop? Anyone know what Miranda could have meant by ‘salt and bones?’”

“I might,” Cassia said. She’d had a lonely time in the tent to mull it over. “I think I know where to find Miranda and probably another Lustra portal. There is a forsaken place where the fields are sown with salt and the bones of the defeated were left where they fell.”

Lio’s eyes widened. “You mean…”

“Traitors’ Grave,” she told them. “That’s what they call it sometimes. The site where Castra Roborra once stood.”

She hadn’t wanted to discuss her theory last night with Ben nearby. His father had died there. Bellator’s remains still lay among the rubble with those of the other lords who had kidnapped Solia and revolted against Lucis.

“Thorns,” Mak said, “I wouldn’t have expected that. But it makes a twisted kind of sense.”

Cassia nodded. “Given Miranda’s personal vendetta against me, she might be drawn to such an important place from my past. She knows it’s where Hesperines saved my life—the reason I refused to join her in service to Kallikrates.”

“She’s devious,” Lyros said. “That would make a good hiding place for any renegade. I doubt anyone goes there, not after the king leveled it and left it as a warning to would-be rebels.”

“It’s still under royal control, though, isn’t it?” Lio asked.

Cassia nodded. “All of Roborra, Lord Bellator’s domain, reverted to the crown upon his defeat. We’ll need to watch out for royal forces and Gift Collectors.”

“So we might be stepping into another battle,” Lio said.

“I hope to avoid that. Lyros, let me check something on the map.”

He handed it to her. “Is there somewhere you’ve been in that region that would be a safer arrival point?”

She ran her finger along the eastern edge of the kingdom, where the settled areas gave way to the wilds of the eastern Tenebrae. “Stepping blindly to Castra Roborra and possibly into Miranda’s traps would be the most dangerous thing we could do, yes?”

“Like Paradum all over again, I fear,” Lio said.

She tapped a point northeast of Castra Roborra. “The lesser evil would be to step to a small keep guarded by a few of Lucis’s soldiers.”

Mak nodded. “Good idea. Only thick mortal heads to knock together.”

“How many soldiers?” Lyros asked. “Are they likely to have mages with them?”

Cassia considered this. “It’s a remote fort for guarding against wild animals and brigands coming out of the east. It was one of Lucis’s favorite places to stash me when he wanted me out of the way. I doubt he’ll bother with it at a time like this. He may even have recalled the garrison to the warfront.”

Lio drew Moonflower closer, looking at the map. “Stepping there could give us a real advantage.”

“Yes, the Lustra will be stronger in the eastern wilds, won’t it?” she speculated. “We’ll have a higher chance of finding a Lustra portal there.”

“Only one way to find out.” Lio held out his hand to her.

He could step her without touching her. But she gave into his game, letting them both have this excuse to touch each other. She allowed herself the brush of his palm against hers, the grip of his fingers.

“Focus on another memory for me,” he invited.

Cassia reached into her mind for a clear image of their destination. Her memories from before her Gifting were amorphous things, she’d found. Some were crystal clear treasures she had brought with her into eternity. Others were phantom pains, left behind on the other side of a veil of stars.

This one felt distant, but she dug deep and brought the bare tower to her mind’s eye. The emptiness. The feeling of being forgotten on the edge of the world. Lio’s magic pulled at her, and they stepped into her past.

Lio didn’t let goof Cassia’s hand, even after they arrived outside the keep. Snow topped the walls, bright in the moons’ light. The four of them held their horses back in the darkness under the dense trees that surrounded the outpost.

Do you sense anything?Lio asked her.

I’m not sure yet.

Of course she was unsure. She wasn’t even stretching her senses, he could tell. He tried to keep his frustration in check.

“A dozen auras,” Mak commented. “No mages.”

“Can you sense any hidden minds?” Lyros asked Lio.

He kept his veils about them and let his thelemancy slip uninvited through the gates. The fort consisted of a small bailey and keep built around a derelict tower that appeared much older. The twelve mortal minds in the garrison were preoccupied with their dice game and how long it had been since they’d touched any women. At his glimpses of their fantasies, Lio hoped they got frostbite on the relevant appendages.

His lip curled. “No one but Tenebran boors who deserve to be banished out here for the winter. These soldiers won’t pose much of a threat. They don’t even have liegehounds.”

They all paused. Mak was the first to ask, “Is anyone else having a moral dilemma?”

“Yes.” Lio hesitated. But someone had to say it. “It would be very easy for us to make sure these soldiers never fight against Solia’s forces.”

Mak’s breath clouded in the cold. “If we leave them be, who’s to say they won’t drive a sword through one of our friends?”

The snow crunched softly as Freckles pawed the ground. Cassia stroked her neck. “What if they don’t want to serve Lucis? What if they come from a village that welcomed Hesperines and killing them will only hurt people who were kind to us?”

“Spoken like a true Hesperine,” Lio said.

Her aura softened a little at those words.

“Twelve mortal warriors are no match for us,” Lyros said. “There’s little risk in confronting them and giving them the opportunity to choose their side.”

Mak cocked his head. “Is it really a choice, when confronted by fanged heretics likely to make them piss themselves in terror?”

Cassia smiled, her fangs pale in the darkness. “I have no objection to encouraging them to make only good choices.”

“They need some encouragement in that area,” Lio said darkly. “I’d like to scrub out their brains. But I’ll settle for humbling them.”

Leaving the horses in the woods, they stepped through the closed gate of the fort and trod lightly across the bailey under veils. Entering the garrison, they found the men gathered around a trestle table. A roaring fire drove back the winter cold and cast their unshaven faces in brash light. The place stank of stale beer and staler sweat.

Lio, Cassia, and their Trial brothers fanned out to surround the mortals, careful to keep their distance from the fire pit. Knight stalked at Cassia’s side.

One soldier rolled a high score to the guffaws and curses of his comrades. Lio bared his fangs and dropped his veils in unison with Mak and Lyros. The men’s outbursts turned to shouts of terror.

The scent of sweat intensified. True to Mak’s prediction, one of the mortals would need a clean pair of breeches. The men put their backs to the table, swords out in every direction.

Cassia gave them a fanged smile. At her side, Knight snarled, a fearsome sight with his hackles up and spittle dripping from his jaws. The slurs the men spat at her made Lio discard the idea of scrubbing their brains. He would rather twist their minds into painful shapes. But at their insults, Cassia’s smile only widened.

You’re enjoying this,Lio said.

These are the very men who used to leer at my handmaiden and me whenever I had to stay here. It is a delight to watch them cower.

“Hello, Commander,” Cassia said to the drunkest of the men. “Do you remember me?”

He signed a glyph of Anthros over his heart. “You’re the king’s bitch. No lady now.”

“I am no one’s bitch, and he is not the king any longer. You will address me as Ambassador.”

A smile spread across Lio’s face as he watched her. This was his blood sorceress, his witch of the wilds.

She took a step closer to the man, fluttering her fingers in a spellcasting gesture.

He cowered back against the table. “As you s-say, Amba-bassador.”

“Her Majesty Queen Solia the First is now the rightful monarch of Tenebra, and you are aiming that sword at the wrong side of the war. But we, her Hesperine allies, are prepared to grant you clemency.”

One of the other men laughed. “Dead princess Solia back from the grave? Hesperines fighting a war in Tenebra? She’s a heretic and a seductress, playing with our heads, men. Don’t listen to her.”

Mak rolled his eyes. “So that’s what you meant by a remote garrison.”

“Unfortunate,” Lyros said. “It seems word hasn’t traveled out here yet.”

“It falls to us to bring tidings from Patria, then.” Lio joined Cassia in a bit of theatrics. With a pull of his light magic, he cast the entire room in dramatic shadows, obscuring even the firelight. At the soldiers’ fearful gasps, amusement danced in Cassia’s aura.

Lio painted Solia’s coat of arm above their heads in blue and gold light. “What we say is true. Solia’s tomb has been empty for fifteen years. She has returned to her people, and the Full Council of Free Lords has given her their mandate. Hadria and Segetia fight side by side under her banner.”

“Lucis will fall.” Cassia’s voice filled the room with quiet menace. “When he does, where will your fealty lie?”

One of the men tried to bolt for the door. Lio didn’t see Mak move. The man ran headlong into Mak’s grasp, and he tossed the mortal back at his comrades like a sack of potatoes. They dodged aside, managing not to impale any of their own men on their tangled blades.

“No one leaves until you choose your side.” Lyros had shifted to block the doorway.

“We will show you Mercy if you do exactly as we say,” Cassia declared. “Leave this place and ride for Patria, stopping only to rest when you must. Find Queen Solia at the fortress there and pledge your loyalty to her.”

Lio levitated toward the warriors, letting the shadows gather around him to make him seem even taller. They craned their necks to look up a him.

“Do no harm to Solia’s subjects on your way.” He strengthened his voice with mind magic, and his words echoed deeply through the room. “If you steal from a family, we will know. If you lay a hand on a woman, we will know. And we will find you.”

“What’s our other choice?” demanded the bold one who had called Cassia a seductress.

“Choose Lucis’s side,” she said, “and fight us here and now.”

The commander’s eyes were rimmed in white. “If we do as you say, you’ll let us leave? With our throats in one piece?”

“I have no desire whatsoever to taste your fetid blood,” she informed him.

“We guarantee you safe passage,” Lio promised, “if you adhere to our terms.”

“We have conditions.” The commander drew himself up, wiping sweat from his brow. “We’ll go to Patria to see if what you say is true. That much we’ll do. And we won’t trouble anyone on the way. As long as you leave us be.”

Lio and Cassia exchanged glances with their Trial brothers.

“Good enough for me.” Mak cracked his knuckles, and the men startled. “Once they get to Patria, the Charge can encourage them to make good choices.”

“I agree.” Lyros crossed his arms. “We can rely on Solia’s forces to give them a warm welcome.”

“We’ll be watching,” Lio warned.

Cassia gave the mortals a dignified nod. “As the queen’s sister, I give you my permission to leave our presence. Do not make me regret my kindness.”

They bolted for the exit. Knight snapped at their heels, chasing them. Mak and Lyros flanked the door, making the terrified mortals scramble between them to escape.

Lio made sure they passed through a wave of his mind magic on their way out. They didn’t feel a thing as he worked through their thoughts. He was careful, precise. With so much at stake, there was no room for error.

When he released their minds from his spell, he paused to consider the magnitude of the small act had just committed. He had rewritten a little piece of their lives. He acknowledged the gravity of it. But he did not regret it.

The four Hesperines waited, listening to the commotion down in the stables, then the pounding of hooves. At last the gatehouse shut with a final thud.

Cassia, Mak, and Lyros all burst out laughing.

“The looks on their faces!” Mak’s shoulders shook.

“Nice aim,” Lyros told him, grinning. “You tossed him between those swords like you were playing discus throw in the gymnasium.”

Mak drew nearer to Lyros. “Do I get extra points for human throwing?”

“You won that match, to be sure.” Lyros gave him a flirtatious salute to the victor. “And winner picks the prize, even when we’re Abroad.”

Cassia was smiling like a cat who had caught her mouse. She scratched Knight’s chin, praising him for his performance.

Lio smiled back at her. Have I mentioned that you’re beautiful when you threaten people?

A few times.

Allow me to mention it again, my fearsome Grace. I wonder how they would have reacted if you’d had your roses chase them out of the room?

Her momentary joy flickered out. He cursed inwardly. But no, he decided. He wouldn’t apologize for reminding her of her power.

“The keep is ours,” he said. “There are no mortals at risk anywhere near. We can disappear here without putting anyone at risk.”

Lyros righted one of the spilled mugs. “This will make an excellent base of operations while we continue searching for Miranda.”

“Yes.” Mak examined a bow the mortals had left behind. “We should cast thelemantic wards around the fort before we do anything else.”

Lyros nodded. “If the mortals carry tales and Gift Collectors come looking for us here, we need to be prepared.”

“They won’t carry any tales,” Lio said.

Cassia gave him a questioning look, her brow furrowed.

“I was gentle,” he assured her. “I simply made sure they are confused about a few key details. If anyone asks, they’ll recall us ambushing them not far southeast of Patria. If they mention that to any Hesperines, the Charge will look for us in within their own perimeter. And if Kallikrates raids any minds to find us, a false location is all he will see.”

Cassia looked stricken. “Lio. I’m sorry you had to do that.”

“I am not. If I must cost them a few thoughts so we can spare their lives, I will.”

“That was…” Lyros hesitated. “Necessary, I think. We can rely on their superstitions to make them obey our commands. But we can’t trust the Collector not to exploit them.”

Mak nodded. “The less they remember about us, the safer they are.”

But everyone’s amusement had died.

Lio looked at Cassia. “After we’ve veiled and warded the place, we can start looking for Lustra portals.”

She made no promises about using her magic. Avoiding his eyes, she looked down at Knight again. A useless evasion, when their Grace Union was his window on her soul—and her regrets.