UNCLE ARGYROS SET DOWN his cup and looked across the table at Lio.
Lio did not look away. He knew how to withstand a thorough scrutiny from Argyros.
How could his uncle know? Lio was no uninitiated newblood. Surely he would have sensed his
mentor’s aura if Uncle Argyros had checked on him from afar or, worse, come out to the grounds and
discovered him in Lady Cassia’s company.
Lio felt the veil he wore as close as his own skin, weightless as light, strong as stone. There was
not so much as a flutter of disturbance in his working.
He did not break his uncle’s gaze, only the silence. “I know more is at stake than what any of us
want. I know this journey has already proved to be even more dangerous than we expected, and no
one of my youth has ever been allowed to participate in the Equinox Summit. I do not take for granted
what an exception the Queens have made for me under these extraordinary circumstances.”
“I have never known you to take anything for granted.”
“The first Summit in four hundred years, Uncle! As long as I will live, as many embassies as I may
yet have the honor to serve, there will never be another like this. This is what I have trained for. This
is the history I have waited to be part of, the opportunity I have longed for to commit all my power to
the benefit of our people.”
“You have always worked diligently for our good. Your work at home has not been wasted.”
“My work on Tenebran history and politics. At last I have a real opportunity to put it into practice.
I would be of no use in Orthros at a time like this. It would do no good for me to spend the Equinox
Summit tending your scrolls and awaiting your return.”
“You’re wrong, Lio.”
Disappointment threatened to sink him. He braced himself. “Am I?”
“Someone much younger than you once participated in the Equinox Summit.”
“What?” Lio frowned. “Who? I have read the transcripts of all the Summits. I would have
remembered.”
“I wasn’t always this old, Nephew.”
Lio stared at his uncle. “You’re speaking of your first Summit. Forgive me—of course. I should
have realized.”
“No apologies necessary. Your generation is taught to think of us as elders. I cannot fault you for
your education, when I am the one who gave it to you. I cannot blame you for not knowing what I do
not have the heart to teach you.”
“Uncle...” Lio leaned forward, closing some of the distance between them. He observed another
moment of silence before he spoke further. “I know how it pains all of you to talk about the Last War.
Even the first Equinox Summit that ended it. You needn’t now, if you do not wish to.”
“No. We must.”
Uncle Argyros took up the coffee pot and poured himself another cup. He held out a hand, and Lio
slid his own cup across the table. It was not until they had both taken one, two more sips of coffee that
Uncle Argyros spoke.
“I had been Hesperine for fewer years than you, Lio, when I stood with the Queens at the first
Equinox Summit, and they personally swore the Oath with the best king and queen Tenebra ever had.
That was the only reason the Last War with Cordium ceased.”
“It must have been terrible and wonderful to witness that moment,” Lio said. “If the Mage King
and the Changing Queen had not reached a truce with us and let the Queens take our people safely out
of Tenebra, this place would still be a battleground in the Mage Orders’ attempt to destroy us.”
Uncle Argyros nodded gravely. “In the name of all we had lost and all we prayed would never
happen again, I pledged myself to the preservation of the treaty before the Queens, and they bestowed
upon me the duty of returning here to reenact the Equinox Summit with each successive ruler of
Tenebra. Our Queens had forethought. They envisioned and built toward a future for us in a time when
most of us could scarcely believe tomorrow would come. Hespera’s temples lay in ruins. Her
worshipers’ villages had become their funeral pyres. Lyta...” Uncle Argyros, never at a loss for
words, faltered. “She could still feel the blood of her vengeance on her hands. I could still feel the
blood of all those my words and my magic were insufficient to save.”
“I understand,” Lio said for the first time.
“Do you?” Uncle Argyros let out a long breath. “Your father was young then, as well. We were
both men in our prime...or perhaps a little past it...when we became Hesperines. Neither of us
realized how young we were.”
“I do understand, in a way I didn’t before tonight.”
That was all Lio could say. He had seen suffering he had no power to prevent. One life lost. It felt
enormous. And yet it had been only a small taste of the catastrophic suffering the Last War had
wrought.
“For the sake of all those you lost, Uncle, I wish to remain in Tenebra.”
“That’s precisely why I wish to send you home. That and the fact that your mother will certainly
curtail my immortal existence, if I allow this place to scar you. Not to mention your father may set his
mind on joining us, if things grow too dangerous—for your safety, he’ll say. Then my dear brother and
our restive prince will be together on this side of the border and free to tempt you, my initiate
ambassador, into their undiplomatic ways, and any members of the embassy who survive your
mother’s ire may give up all hope of peaceful negotiations.”
“I had no idea I might be such a detriment to the embassy.”
“I never said you are. You are an invaluable asset. I need all our best assets, Lio, if I am to make
anything of this disaster.”
At last. Those were the words Lio had hoped to hear. The only response he could give felt
insufficient. “Thank you, Uncle.”
“As the Queens’ Master Ambassador, I would have my initiate on hand to assist me in this
impossible situation. As your mentor, I would not deny you this opportunity to advance your career.
As your teacher, I would not deprive you of education by experience. As your friend, I would have
your company over my evening coffee. But as your uncle, I regret asking this of you.”
“You never asked. I volunteered. And I would do so again. I will do so again, should I be blessed
with the opportunity.”
Uncle Argyros’s eyes gleamed, not with thelemancy, but with pride. “Very well, then. There will
be no more talk of sending you home. For now.”
A victorious laugh threatened to tear out of Lio, but he caught it just in time. Instead, he gave his
uncle a bow of gratitude over their cups.
Uncle Argyros sighed. “Since our Queens have authorized me to take the youngest member of
House Komnena, Apollon’s only heir, out of their sight, I shall trust them to keep the consequences
well in hand. I am sure Komnena will refrain from plotting my demise, Apollon will behave himself
in Orthros, and the prince will show neither pale hide nor blood-red hair of himself during our entire
stay in Tenebra.”
Now Lio did laugh. He could scarcely contain his relief. “I should like to see Father and Rudhira
try to sit through the Summit with the king and Council.”
“Goddess preserve us. That is something I hope I never witness.” Uncle Argyros drained his cup.
As he brought it to rest on the table, his gaze fixed on something over Lio’s shoulder—no,
someone. Lio hadn’t even felt his aunt approach, but now her lively aura filled the room as she
rounded the table and went to Uncle Argyros’s side. She wrapped her arms around her Grace’s
shoulders, and with the ease of reflex, he reached up to rest a hand upon her sleeve.
She gazed across the table at Lio. “How is our nephew?”
“He is well,” Uncle Argyros said firmly.
Aunt Lyta smiled, and Lio could easily sense her relief. She was not one to keep her feelings to
herself, nor her opinions.
Uncle Argyros’s hand had relaxed around his coffee cup, while the other tightened ever so slightly
upon Aunt Lyta’s arm. “You and Kadi have finished the ward?”
“Indeed. Our daughter does us proud. As does our nephew.”
“Indeed.” Uncle Argyros smiled.
Lio returned the smile, into his coffee cup. “Thank you.”
“For my part, I am glad you are here, Lio. With you near, I miss Mak and Lyros a little less.” A
shadow crossed Aunt Lyta’s aura. “And I have spent too much time missing my children.”
Uncle Argyros raised his hand to his Grace’s hair, fingering the braid of his own hair she wore
across her brow. Whatever he said to her, it was not for anyone’s ears but hers. In the privacy of their
Grace Union, perhaps he reminded her that on this side of the border, they were that much closer to
Nike, wherever she was in Tenebra. Or maybe they only shared a moment of silent grief for the long
years since they had last seen their first child.
“Well, I dare any of the mages across yonder green to disturb our sleep.” Aunt Lyta’s smile
reappeared, as swift and sharp as her reflexes. “It will not go well for them.”
Now that Lio was no longer engaged in a contest of Will with his uncle, he could sense Aunt Lyta
and Kadi’s ward around the embassy’s grim quarters. Their shield rang of Orthros. Home.
It felt discordant with the tight veil he carried over his heart.
“At least our hosts agreed we should sleep under protective magic,” Lio remarked. “In fact, the
Tenebrans seemed to expect us to take such a precaution. It troubles me to think what strange
superstition we might be confirming.”
“They must think what they will,” Aunt Lyta said. “It is out of the question for us to surrender to the
Dawn Slumber in this place without a proper ward to ensure our safety until we wake.”
“Speaking of which, I believe it’s time to excuse myself, if I may.” Lio set his cup back on the tray
of the coffee service and counted himself fortunate he didn’t knock anything over.
Aunt Lyta gave him a smile he often saw directed at him and his cousins. “The sun draws nearer
under the horizon. You must be sleepy.”
At this moment, the weariness merely lapped at him, making his limbs feel sluggish and his fingers
clumsy. But it wouldn’t be long before the Slumber dragged him under and took the power of his Will
with it.
Before that happened, he had to be out of his uncle’s presence.
Fear Lio had not felt since his childhood now overtook him. The dread of losing control. His uncle
would be wide awake until sunlight broke the horizon, while Lio’s power waned and his veil slipped.
“Good veil,” Uncle Argyros bade him, “and easy dreams.”
“Thank you, Uncle.” Lio stood. His legs felt heavier already. “Good veil, Aunt Lyta.”
“Sleep well, Lio.”
He escaped to his room at last. As soon as he shut the door, he leaned back against it, closed his
eyes, and devoted all his concentration to weaving a veil over his chamber.
He did this every night, he told himself. What Hesperine didn’t? Living in Blood Union, they all
learned to draw a curtain between what they wished to share with others and what they didn’t. And
they learned to do it in their sleep. All newbloods mastered the art of weaving veils over their
sleeping quarters that would persist without constant tending.
But this time Lio felt like a thief in the night, next door to his own people. He was not merely
ensuring his privacy. He was hiding something that could change the course of the negotiations.
Or get him sent home. Which would mean he had no chance to discover precisely what it meant for
his people that the king’s own daughter spoke of Hesperines’sacred rites with respect.
Lio would be as good as his word to Lady Cassia. He would tell no one she had spoken to him. He
would keep his own counsel. That would have to be enough as he tried to decide how to proceed.
But he could make no monumental decisions tonight. Lio shuffled toward his narrow bunk,
shucking his formal robes on the way. He had the presence of mind to send them into his trunk with a
wave of his hand. Any more power than that was too much effort. Without the aid of magic, he tossed
back a wool blanket that had seen better days, then fell onto his pallet. At least it was stuffed with
straw, and there were no furs.
Lio could feel it, a behemoth beneath the horizon, rising up to bury him. The sun. He’d be under
before its light entered the sky.
Aunt Lyta and Kadi’s ward would ensure all of them survived the day. Lio’s veil would protect
Lady Cassia’s secrets...and his own.