Blood Feast: A Fantasy Romance

54 Nights After Winter Solstice

THE MOST POWERFUL MAGE OF THIS EPOCH

He had never knownsuch silence. But she broke it, calling. Or was she a dream?

He drifted. She kept trying to show him the way back. At last, his mind followed her.

He opened his eyes, and they came gradually into focus. There were flowers everywhere. What were they called? He only knew they meant he was somewhere safe. The furred beast beside him meant protection, too.

Familiar faces surrounded him. Their auras inundated him, but he couldn’t put a name to the shades of power flowing across his senses.

They were everything to him. Where were their names?

He dug into the depths of his memory. Pain shocked through his throat, and his mind went numb.

She brought him back again. She stroked his face with a freckled hand. She was real. His other heart.

His life depended on her name. He dug deeper, gritting his teeth.

There was nothing but the pain.

He had once known words. He knew they should come easily to him. Why couldn’t he find them?

She flowed into his mind. The emptiness filled with her voice. Lio.

That was his name?

He groped desperately for her thoughts. Her lips parted, and she rested her forehead against his.

Words rushed into his mind. All his words were still inside her, safe, true. She had guarded them for him.

Cassia, he cried in relief. My Grace.

She heaved a sigh. You know me.

I always knew you. But I… Shame halted his confession.

No, Lio. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Someone did this terrible thing to you, and it isn’t your fault.

She had kept this memory for him too, protecting him from it. The Collector’s shrouded face, his clawed hand. The inevitable blade. Pain so unimaginable, no words for it had ever existed in his mind.

He squeezed his eyes shut. I lost your name. Until you gave it back to me.

I will give everything back to you.

The words in her thoughts took shape in the air, and he relearned the sound of speech. “He knows me. He was so confused at first, but he’s speaking in our Grace Union now.”

Lio looked around him again, letting their names run through his mind. Mak and Lyros, his Trial brothers. The great, drooling lump on the bed was Dame, watching over Lio in his sleep as surely as he had done for her. Knight sat just as faithfully beside Cassia.

A strong hand squeezed his shoulder. “Son?”

There were many names for the blond lion sitting beside his bed, but the one he cherished most was Father.

The Blood Errant were here. Nike stood sentinel by the window, and in another chair next to Lio’s bed sat Rudhira.

When he saw his Ritual father, more memories came flooding back. Did I dream it…or did he bring us to Castra Justa?

You remember.

He gripped her hand. They had turned themselves in while he lay helpless to defend them. I won’t let you pay this price for my healing. As soon as I have the strength, I will fight our way out of the First Prince’s own fortress, if that’s what it takes.

Amusement glinted in Rudhira’s eyes. “You can stop staring daggers at me. Stand down, Hesperine errant. No one is under arrest.”

Cassia smiled and shook her head. We are pardoned in all of Orthros Abroad because of the children.

The tension drained out of Lio. They could stop running. All because of the young mortals she had saved. She had saved everyone. But she had fought hardest of all for him.

He opened his mouth to say her name aloud, but no words came from his throat. He sucked in a breath, then let it out in a shout that made no sound, only sent his frustration blasting through the Blood Union.

Cassia put her hands on his shoulders to keep him from sitting up. “Easy. Be gentle with yourself, my love. You need time to heal.”

He didn’t need words to understand the fear creeping into her heart.

How long was I unconscious? he asked.

You’ve been in and out for eight nights.

Shock jolted through him. Cassia, your Craving—

Whenever we woke you to give you my blood, Rudhira drew some of yours to keep me well and cycle your healing faster.

Lio grimaced in disgust. His Grace, drinking out of a tube for a week.

Cassia straightened his blankets. Rudhira has barely left your side. Nike and your father visit every night and take news of your progress back to Orthros.

Eight nights of his Grace’s blood and the First Prince’s healing, and Lio still couldn’t speak. What had Kallikrates done to him?

Lio took another deep breath, drawing in Cassia’s scent. He had to calm himself for her sake.

No you don’t, she replied to his unspoken thoughts. Be as angry and frustrated and sad as you wish. I’m here for you. Anything you need.

I need to understand what’s happening to me. Can Rudhira tell us what’s wrong with me and how long it will last?

“Rudhira, he’s asking for you to explain his wound and give him a prognosis.”

Mak quirked a smile at Lio. “Such a scrollworm, even after getting your brain turned to jelly by a necromancer having a tantrum about his broken toys.”

Lyros crossed his arms. “You should hear the other fellow’s voice. Kallikrates is screaming into his own void after that defeat.”

Lio cracked a smile.

Rudhira exchanged a glance with Lio’s father, who nodded. Rudhira pulled his chair closer to Lio’s bedside. When his father clasped his wrist, bracing, Lio realized he was not about to hear good news.

This couldn’t be right. There was nothing the Gift couldn’t heal.

Rudhira leaned his arms on his knees, knitting his fingers. “First, what we know. Your body is in perfect health. Nothing physical is causing your inability to speak. This is a purely thelemantic wound, and the mind is more far more intricate and challenging to heal, even for Hesperines.”

But Hesperines are immune to essential displacement, Lio protested to Cassia. Kallikrates shouldn’t have been able to take anything from me.

“He didn’t possess you or try to take your magic,” she reassured him. “We believe this spell was something entirely different.”

Nike finally spoke. “Essential displacement is only one of the arcane techniques the Old Masters use. They have many more secrets that the people of this epoch have unlearned.”

Rudhira’s jaw tightened. “Which brings us to what we don’t know. I’ve consulted with my mother Soteira, as well as Tuura and her theramancer colleagues. Argyros has convened a circle of mind mages to investigate. Your wound is new to all of us.”

Impossible. The greatest minds of Orthros and the Empire had to come up with an answer. How long long is this research going to take?

Cassia passed Lio’s question on to Rudhira.

“As long as it takes,” his Ritual father said. “This is what I want you to know with absolute certainty. We are all fighting for you. I will make Orthros regret that you and your circle were abandoned in the field, in fear of your own people. I will make this right.”

Lio looked up at the ceiling. This couldn’t be happening. No matter how much of a warrior he had become, his words had always been his greatest strength.

And Kallikrates had known that.

Lio sought Cassia’s gaze. Did you see what I learned in Miranda’s mind?

Yes. But I haven’t talked with everyone else about it yet. We’ve all been focused on you.

Bitterness rose up in Lio. You’ll have to tell them for me.

I don’t care about my inconveniently alive ancestor or Kallikrates’s ill mood about his precious game. My Grace is wounded, and I would tie the whole world up in thorns to make them wait while you heal.

He tugged on his Grace braid in her hair and tried to smile for her. I don’t doubt you would. But can I ask you to do something else for me?

Of course. Don’t you dare try to be self-sacrificing right now. Always tell me what you need.

It’s important to me that you tell them what I learned. He gestured at his throat. So this doesn’t feel like it was for nothing.

Her expression softened. Of course.

Their Trial brothers and the Blood Errant listened as Cassia related the long-sought secrets he had finally managed to pry from Kallikrates. A stunned silence followed.

Only Lio’s father let out a bemused huff. “So Lucian managed to outlive the Last War like the rest of us. Good for him.”

Rudhira raised his ginger brows. “Solia won’t be pleased to hear there’s another contender for the throne.”

“He’s a reasonable man,” Apollon said. “He swore the Equinox Oath with us, after all.”

“That’s what we’ve been fighting for this entire time?” Mak was flushed with anger. “That’s why Lucis made Cassia’s life a misery and Kallikrates wounded Lio? For one sleeping mortal?”

“Yes and no,” Cassia said. “The Mage King isn’t the prize in the barrow. What he’s guarding is.”

Lyros put a hand to his chin. “Yes. This has always been about the Changing Queen’s magic.”

Cassia nodded. “Kallikrates called the barrow the ‘source of the Silvicultrix’s power,’ and he told me that his ultimate goal is unlimited magic. We also know one of Kallikrates’s greatest limitations is that the people he possesses will die if he uses too much magic through them.”

Lio hadn’t had time to analyze the details. But Cassia had clearly been thinking through them all, and the implications sent dread creeping over him.

“He wants what we Silvicultrixes have always had,” Cassia said. “The ability to channel unlimited power from the Lustra without burning out.”

Despite all the things Nike had seen, the color drained from her face. “If an Old Master achieves that, there will be no hope for any of us.”

Cassia straightened, sitting on the edge of Lio’s sickbed with dignity, her aura shining far beyond the small room. “This is why Kallikrates has demeaned and destroyed women like me. He is jealous of us—and terrified of our power. He should be afraid, because I will gain my other two affinities and use them to beat him to that door. When I open the barrow, a Hesperine will become the most powerful mage of this epoch.”

Threefold power pulsed gently in the pendant around Cassia’s neck, the dagger in the nearby weapon rack, and their avowal cup on the table beside his bed. Her magic bled into the roses in the room, and their buds unfurled.

Lio realized why she had surrounded him with her flowers, the evidence of her power. Everywhere he looked, he saw not what they had lost, but what they had gained.

Lio had told her he would get her magic back, no matter the cost. Now he knew what the cost had been.

He wouldn’t trade those roses for his voice. He may have come away wounded, but he had won his duel with the Collector.

Three words were so clear in his mind, and he said them to Cassia in their Union. I love you.

I love you so much, my Grace. I’ll show you how grateful I am that you gave me back my power. I swear I will give you back your voice.

Lio reached out to touch their avowal cup. If anyone could keep that promise, his Grace could. He believed she could do anything.

You will do more than win the game, my rose. You will end it.

Join Cassia on her quest to restore Lio’s voice in Blood Grace Book 9, Blood Ritual.