Blood Feast: A Fantasy Romance

As A Circle

The ruins of MederiVillage were not where Lio had expected Lyros’s aura to lead him. Lio stood still by the village gate, keeping himself and Dame shrouded in thelemantic veils. She gave herself a vigorous scratch, as if his blood magic itched.

Lyros was the only Hesperine he sensed. The war truly had left Patria behind. Lio might be able to reach him before he reached the Charge.

Lio bit his hand and pressed it to the pendant. The portal that had been their escape the night of the attack opened for him again. He levitated down, but Dame paused on the threshold.

He held out a hand to her. “Docck docck. It’s safe down here, I promise.”

She picked her way down the stairs and pressed close to him. As he hurried along the passageway, she had no trouble keeping pace.

He huffed a laugh. “A liegehound might be the only creature fast enough to join me on my nightly runs. I suppose it’s for the best that I didn’t end up with a feline familiar, after all.”

He caught the scent of blood, and his humor died. Lio tightened his veils and ran.

Around the next twist in the passage, Lyros sat against the wall, tightening a bandage around his thigh. The odor of burned flesh mingled with the blood.

Dame froze, sniffing in Lyros’s direction. Lio rested a hand on her and swallowed. “Now isn’t the time to have a relapse of anti-Hesperine sentiment. He’s my Trial brother. Our pack.”

She trotted a little closer to Lyros, then back to Lio, looking up at him. This must be so confusing to her.

He held out his blood-streaked hand to her and said firmly, “Barda acklii.”

There was still puzzlement in her aura, but she relaxed. Lio let out a breath. Lifting his hands, he approached Lyros and dropped his veils.

Lyros jumped, then grimaced. “Hypnos’s nails.”

“Don’t run, please. I’m not here to fight.”

“Do I look like I’m in any condition to outrun you?”

Dame peered around Lio, then prowled forward.

Lyros backed closer against the wall, averting his gaze. “She’s alive. That’s nice. But are you the only Hesperine she doesn’t see as food?”

“No.” Lio dropped down and put an arm around Dame. “It turns out she has a sweet temperament.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

Dame leaned forward, nearly nose to nose with Lyros. He sat very still. Then she began to lick his chin.

Lyros grimaced. “Aw, thorns. Her breath smells like dead rabbit.”

“Er, yes, that is what she had for breakfast. Sorry.”

“Where’s Cassia?”

“She left me to turn herself in. What happened to you?”

“A raiding party interrupted me on my way to find Rudhira.”

“You defeated an entire raiding party alone?” Lio didn’t want to think about what could have happened to Lyros tonight.

“More or less. Came down here to Slumber and heal. The deserted passages seemed my best bet.”

Lio examined his bandage. “This is magefire wound. How bad is it?”

“Not particularly good. It hit the deep vein in my thigh.”

“Hespera’s Mercy, you need healing. Now.”

“I’ve got another couple of hours before the magefire permeates vital organs.”

“That’s not enough time to fight your way to Rudhira.”

Lyros’s gaze dropped to his wound. “It’s enough time to re-examine my decisions.”

“You can do that after you get some healing.” Lio pulled Lyros’s arm around his shoulders. “Come on. I’ll get you there in one piece.”

Lyros made no attempt to stand. “You’ve decided to follow Cassia and me into Charge custody, have you?”

“No. I’ll take you to Mak if you’d prefer his blood over the healers. You tell me where we’re going. Wherever it is, I have your back.”

Lyros swallowed. “You don’t have to take me anywhere, Lio.”

Lio sat back down. “I would rather have this conversation when you don’t have magefire seeping toward your heart, but if you need me to make amends now, I will. I owe you an apology, and I know words aren’t enough. I’ll try to make things right between us with my actions.”

“What are you apologizing for?”

Lio wouldn’t shy away from it anymore. He looked Lyros in the eye. “I’m ashamed of what I did in the temple. I feel such remorse for causing those mortals unnecessary pain, and for subjecting you and Mak and Cassia to that.”

Lyros gripped Lio’s shoulder. “It’s all right.”

“It is not, in any way, all right. Neither are the times when I failed to listen to you in battle. I went my own way, instead of fighting with you as one of a circle. I will endeavor to earn your forgiveness.”

“None of us judge you for what you did to those mages. Of course our empathy made Castra Augusta torture for all of us, but none of us are thelemancers. We didn’t walk through the minds of the dead like you did. All that pain has to go somewhere.”

“That wasn’t the right thing to do with it.”

“No, it wasn’t. That’s why we were so horrified on your behalf. We knew how you would feel after you realized what you’d done, how you would torture yourself. Just as you’re doing now.”

“Oh,” Lio said.

His circle had forgiven him before he had forgiven himself.

He tried to clear the lump in his throat. “I’m grateful for you.”

Lyros gave his shoulder a squeeze before letting his hand drop. “Surviving a raiding party on my own made me more grateful than ever for you, too. That battle certainly showed me what I’m capable of. And what I’m not. So did the temple.”

“Your strategies in the temple were faultless,” Lio reassured him. “You planned for everything.”

“Yes, I did. We still lost.” Lyros sighed. “So I gave up.”

“I can’t blame you.”

“I was an idiot.” Lyros gestured to his leg. “While I was fighting this mage alone, there were so many moments when I remembered decisions each of you made in battle. That’s what saved me.”

“I can’t imagine how any of my fumbling with my staff and throwing my magic about helped you tonight.”

“Your faith in me helped.”

Lio slid his hand into Dame’s ruff. She lay down between him and his Trial brother. After a moment, Lyros ran a hand down her back.

“Mak and Cassia and I have been mired in self-doubt on this entire journey,” Lyros went on. “You’re the only person who had any confidence in us all. All along, you’ve been telling us to have faith in our power and use it to the fullest. You encouraged us to be our greatest selves. I wish I had trusted us as much as you did.”

Lio frowned at him. “You’ve been the most confident of all. Your leadership has kept us going.”

Lyros shook his head. “That wasn’t confidence. That was fear. I’ve been terrified that a surprise I didn’t plan for would get one of you killed out here. So I tied you all up in so much strategy you could barely move.”

“We know you were trying to keep us safe.”

“But I’m only one of the people keeping us safe. I shouldn’t have fought like a general, but as one of a circle, just as you said. I’m equally sorry I didn’t listen to you.”

Lio clasped Lyros’s wrist and held it. This journey had destroyed so much, but it hadn’t cost him and Lyros their brotherhood. “Let’s decide together if this ends in a prison cell or on the battlefield.”

“All four of us.”

Lio nodded. “I’m with you.”

“We may have to start by breaking our Graces out of prison—again.”

Cassia concentrated on Mak’saura. Since they had a close bond, it shouldn’t be difficult to step to him, but she would have to aim just right. She didn’t know what she and Knight were heading into this time.

She stepped, landing in knee deep in snow on a narrow ledge. Knight’s broad paws didn’t sink so far, but his back legs slid down the snow bank toward the edge of the precipice.

Cassia threw her arms around him and levitated them both away from the long drop. They tumbled to the ground in a pile of slush and rocks. She looked up into the mouth of a cave.

“Cassia?” Mak hissed from the darkness inside.

At the sound of her Grace-cousin’s voice, Knight began to wag his tail.

“I found you,” she said with relief. She hadn’t even bruised her head on his wards.

“Get in here before a Stand patrol sees you!”

He hauled her deeper into the crevasse in the rock, and Knight squeezed in after. Her eyes instantly adjusted, revealing the weapons in an undignified heap in the back of the cave.

She rubbed her bruised hip while it healed. “Are we in the Umbral Mountains?”

“Yes.” Mak peered out, then rolled a heavy rock over the entrance. His veil spells sealed their hiding place. “You can’t be here. I have to reach Nike’s forge, and now it will be twice as hard not to get caught.”

“You’re trying to sneak back to her forge?”

“It’s the only place you can melt down adamas,” he said, as if she were dense. “But I can’t seem to step there anymore—the elders must have locked it up. You can’t talk me out of this, and I don’t have time for you to try. Alkaios and Nephalea’s patrol of this area ends in half an hour, and then I have to move.”

So that was all the time she had to change his mind. She held up her hands. “Hear me out. That’s all I ask. In half an hour, if you still feel that destroying the weapons is the right thing to do, then I’ll let you go.”

“I’m too tired for diplomatic games, Cassia.” He sat down and leaned back against the wall. “But I know you’re going to say your bit anyway, so get it over with.”

“It’s not a game, Mak!”

He sobered. “I’m sorry. Poor choice of words.”

“We aren’t playing with people’s lives. We’re trying to save them. That’s what I’m trying to make you see.” She propped her back next to him. “I know how you feel right now. If you’re giving yourself a beating for your mistakes, wait till you hear mine.”

One side of his mouth lifted. “Is that actually why you came out here? So we could moan together about how we’ve ruined everything for our Graces again?”

“And to commiserate about our terrible Craving and how our suffering is our own fault.”

“Well, I won’t say no to some sympathy.”

She leaned her shoulder against his. “Would you like to know why the temple went up in flames?”

He raised his eyebrows.

“I mucked up the spells in it,” Cassia admitted.

Mak let out a low whistle.

“And while I was blowing it to pieces in my own face, I saw all the other spells it’s connected to. The lighthouse, the stone circle, and the tower are all leveled, too. All Lio and I could save were the dogs.”

Mak’s face fell. “Oh, Cassia. I’m so sorry.”

“Oh, that’s not the worst part.”

“How could it possibly get any worse?”

She wrapped her arms around her knees. “All of those sites were nodes in the spell that’s keeping the doors shut. There’s only one portal left.”

He stared at her, his eyes wide. Then he said a curse that was illegal in ten sister states of the Empire.

“Agreed,” Cassia replied. “But it’s all right.”

His voice cracked as he laughed. “How is any of this all right?”

“Think about what happened at Paradum.”

He paused for a moment. “It’s a node, too, isn’t it?”

Cassia nodded.

“Kallikrates broke it already. So that should mean there’s only one site left out there somewhere, holding the third door closed. Except…”

She smiled at him.

Slowly, he smiled back. “You healed Paradum.”

“With the dagger you forged for me.”

Mak rubbed the back of his head and blew out a breath. “Well, it’s good to know untold destruction won’t come pouring out of the door in the next hour. But that doesn’t change anything about the weapons. I could have reforged yours as an innocent garden spade instead, and it would have worked to heal the letting site.”

“Miranda would still have it right now, and you already know how much damage she can do with innocent gardening tools.”

He shuddered.

“It’s not about the weapons, Mak. It’s about what we do with them.”

“Thorns, you’re going to get as philosophical as Lio now, aren’t you?”

“No. I don’t have answers for any of the great questions about violence that we’re wrestling with. But I know this. Hesperines are the heretics who always keep questioning.”

He didn’t reply. She thought he was listening, now.

“As a Steward, you’ve been carrying those questions for our people your entire life. You keep fighting, even though we don’t have answers. You still believe in Mercy on a merciless path.”

“Fighting without answers. Good description of us blundering around Tenebra in the dark.”

She pointed to his heart. “Lyros, Lio, and I certainly got our heart wounds from blundering, but you didn’t. Why do you think the Lustra gave this to you?”

He rubbed his chest where his scar lay hidden under his battle robes. “They’re your ancestors. You translate for me. Was Lio right when he said it’s a mark of honor?”

“Yes. I think they gave you a sign that you did the right thing.”

He looked thoughtful. “The Lustra does seem to have some wisdom about bloodshed that eludes us immortals. Wolves don’t commit violence for pleasure or cruelty. Only survival. And somehow, rebirth.”

Cassia thought of the reborn letting site at Paradum. The magic was now more powerful than it had been before its wounds. Just like her. “Now who’s getting philosophical?”

“Sunbind it, you scrollworms are rubbing off on me.”

“And you warriors have certainly rubbed off on us.” She pulled Lio’s staff across her lap. “What do you say we liberate Rosethorn from Miranda so my blade can once again serve the side of right? I have an idea.”

Mak ruffled her hair. “Then let’s give one more Cassia scheme a try.”