NO.
Was that answer worth what she had traded him?
Pushing herself out of bed seemed too difficult. Cassia felt as if she hadn’t slept. Perhaps she
hadn’t, in the scant hours between that moonlit conversation and the dawn that now threatened through
the crack under her door.
So. She had her answer. After all she had wrought and risked to be in the right place at the right
moment to stand in the dark with a Hesperine and ask it of him.
The answer was no.
She had given in to her compulsion to ensure she was at Solorum during the Summit. She had
indulged her preoccupation with the Hesperines. Now she must be satisfied—and stop making trouble
for herself, when there was already enough. Time to raise her shield and face another day.
It wasn’t until Knight wallowed out of bed that Cassia heeded her self-admonitions. He went to sit
at attention by the door, clearly ready to maul any intruders, but especially his breakfast.
Cassia disentangled herself from her blankets and dragged herself to her feet. She set the bed to
rights, as she always did. If Perita tended the place where Knight slept, her resulting illness would
render her of no use at all. As Cassia pulled the linens tight, she caught sight of a black speck on the
undyed fabric. The dark spot hopped. She sighed.
Once the blankets were tidy, she snatched the floral wreath off the wall above the bedstead. The
charm had clearly reached the end of its life. That was another thing she could see to today, and not a
day too soon.
In the hearth room, Perita had a fire burning and a lid on the pot to keep their porridge from going
cold. One of the kennel masters had been here, for Knight’s meal awaited in a dish just inside the
door. Cassia saw her hound settled with the bloody hunk of venison, then settled herself by the fire.
She noted only Knight had any energy this morning. She and Perita both shuffled about as if they had
engaged in too much exercise the night before.
It was not hard to understand why Perita’s lover was so attentive or why she had held his interest
since the court’s stay at Namenti. Perita was clever about what men liked. She took pains over her
appearance with every tool allotted to a girl of her rank and exploited a few her proximity to Cassia
afforded. She tied her apron just so to create a desirable shape and let as much of her wavy, light
brown hair escape her kerchief as a woman might appropriately do. She invested considerable effort
in combining Cassia’s unwanted scent oils for the greatest effect.
Men committed many foolish deeds over women less pretty than Perita, and Perita was pretty. But
inciting them to such acts was a dangerous game, one that could easily backfire. Cassia wondered
how skilled Perita was at managing her lover.
Cassia remained grateful for her own dull brown hair, flat figure, and especially the freckles that
marred her skin from scalp to toes. Her complexion was a prize that could not be bought, too brown
to be fair like lovely Solia’s, not brown enough to remind anyone of Cassia’s beautiful Cordian
mother. Being so plain made her half-royal blood the only threat she must deal with. For now she had
some reprieve even from that, while domestic affairs occupied Lord Adrogan, and Lord Ferus rode
east, discovered Cassia was not there, and then toiled the long way back.
Cassia set her spoon down in her empty porridge bowl and eyed the hearth room’s single window,
whose open shutters let in gray morning light. Her plants could not thrive in her windowless
bedchamber, but they would not do badly out here. The small window in the dressing room was of no
use, for she must keep herself and her hound’s fur out of Perita’s domain.
At the moment, Cassia’s containers of evergreens and dormant perennials sat about where the
pages had dropped them upon the court’s arrival. The barn troughs she’d salvaged had shed a few
nails, but at least none of the pots had cracked. It was harder to finagle replacements for ceramics.
She could fill some hours moving her plants into optimal positions and helping them recover from the
upset of the journey. But not all her hours.
Carefully installed in the path of the window’s light, the loom threatened. Cassia must find a
garden to work in immediately. She would not end this day without a hoe to occupy her in place of a
shuttle.
“I laid out your sturdy green gown, Lady. The one you always wear for gardening.” Perita hid a
yawn behind one hand.
“I see that. After I work on my plants, I’ll start in the kitchen gardens, then try the Temple of
Kyria.”
“Very good, Lady. I’ll see to the rest of your unpacking and the mending we hadn’t time to do
before we left Namenti.”
The constant repairs Cassia’s few, well-worn belongings required certainly offered her
handmaiden plenty of occupation. Cassia left Perita to her work and set about her own. The morning
eased by, not in hours, but in the scrape of wood and ceramic across the stone floor, the seep of water
into soil, and the snap of stems as Cassia sliced off lost causes with the sharp edge of her spade. She
was rotating the same pot of sage a tiny amount for the fourth time when Perita interrupted her with a
bowl of reheated porridge and the news that it was midday.
Cassia could dally no longer. She covered her hair and ventured out with Knight. As they entered
busier parts of the palace, heads turned, but the gawkers quickly resumed their chores. Other people
turned their backs instead and continued their conversations about gowns or horses. It wouldn’t be
long before these folk lost interest in the king’s bastard, just like their fellow servants and courtiers
who had been at Namenti. Cassia looked straight ahead and did not change her pace until she and
Knight walked through the door of the main kitchen.
It would take more than her presence to halt the swell of activity here. She received glances only
over sudsy pots and between stages of a carrot’s dismemberment. The head cook closed in, issuing
commands and a couple of swats on her way. She fixed Cassia with the same gaze she gave everyone,
one that assured them she respected her betters and was the absolute divine authority this side of the
kitchen threshold. The curtsy she gave, just deep enough but hardly deep at all, said much the same.
Cassia had never met her, but had certainly encountered her sort. After her experiences in many of the
palaces to which her nomadic existence had brought her, Cassia already knew how this conversation
would end.
She need not identify herself. Knight at her side was evidence of her blood, and her presence here
among the servants was proof of her status. “Good day, Mistress. What a fine kitchen you keep. An
equally fine garden is certain to lie without.”
“Aye, the finest in Tenebra, Lady, make no mistake. This is Solorum. If it grows, we grow it here,
and account for every stem and leaf. All requests go through the king’s chamberlain.”
“In such an impressive garden, there can never be enough hands to give it the attention it deserves.
I have come to assist in the tending.”
“How generous of you to offer, Lady,” the cook said immediately. “We’re honored by your interest,
but we know your time is more valuable elsewhere.”
They exchanged the remaining appropriate complements and farewells between a virtuous cook
and a fallen woman’s daughter, and Cassia led Knight out again.
She always started with the kitchen gardens, on the chance the cook might be like Agata at
Paradum, who saw little enough of the king’s household and had been grateful for the help. Cassia had
spent a fine season up to her shoulders in pea plants as a result.
“I suspect they will be in greater need at the temple,” Cassia remarked to Knight.
Time to try building her bridges with the mages of Kyria. It was just as well. Ladies of the
household were to make themselves useful, and bastards were to make themselves unexceptionable.
Performing good works at the temple, even more than lending a hand in the palace, was optimal to
achieve both, while affording Cassia’s thoughts ample time to do their own work.
Cassia made sure to catch plenty of gazes and snubs on her way out. At a minor gate on the east
side of the palace, she spoke to the guards loudly enough that every man in the gatehouse would
remember precisely when she had left.
The road to the temple proved well kept, certainly one that received frequent attention under the
king’s rigorous program of repairs. She walked against the modest traffic of wagons and riders who
were joining the court a couple of days late. Sun shone down on all of them, for last night’s clouds
had blown out already, and the bare groves that lined the road offered no respite. With any luck, this
weather would make Cassia’s freckles even more unsightly. The outdoors enhanced her undesirable
qualities to great advantage.
Today was a rare day for winter, the god of death’s season. The frigid month of Hypnos’s Shroud
that descended at Solstice had now lifted, only for the land to feel the icy touch of Hypnos’s Hand.
Even when Hypnos’s Dream came and went and spring arrived at last, the Mourning Goddess was
certain to usher in the new year with rain in her first namesake month of Chera’s Tears. But today it
seemed Anthros rode the sun chariot across his celestial domain, determined to drive out Tenebra’s
usual wet weather and remind deities and mortals alike he remained lord of all he surveyed.
A large party of riders appeared ahead, traveling toward the palace. Cassia wove closer to the
trees to make way, although not close enough to mire herself in the muck on the edges of the road.
Knight positioned himself between her and the oncoming travelers. In a moment they were upon her,
and as they passed by, she tucked her cloak closer about her to shield against the mud the horses’
hooves flung about. Bridles and mail clinked, and sun glanced off swords and white drapes that
protected the horse litter in the center of the party. A lady of high station was joining the court. Behind
the unseen noblewoman’s conveyance, a young lady, perhaps a daughter or sister, rode in the open air.
Her palfrey was delicate and white, its legs encased in the filth of the road. The young woman’s
attendant rode alongside her, offering some murmured jest or gossip that made the lady laugh.
Cassia let them pass, then walked on with Knight, who needed no sword to defend her, nor
expected her to laugh at cruel jokes. As soon as the two of them were out of sight of other travelers,
Knight bounded a bit ahead, then behind, but never far enough that he was out of sight. A few times he
pricked his ears and glanced away, surely at some small animal under the trees. But he never left her
side to pursue them.
“Poor Knight,” Cassia said. “Never free to go on such a merry chase. We’ll have a game before
the day is over, I promise.”
A liegehound needed more than just frequent walks to stave off restlessness and keep his skills
sharp. But she would see to his regimen later. For now he simply relished being outside, and that
reassured Cassia she need not be on her guard for the moment.
She must now give thought to how, in the short term, she would present herself to the Prisma of the
Temple of Kyria and, in the long term, give the king every reason to forget her presence at Solorum.
But her thoughts kept turning to a simple word delivered by a pair of marble lips polished with
moonlight.
No.
Cassia had waited most of her life for that no. She might now go the rest of her life without ever
again beholding a Hesperine.
She would certainly go the rest of the Summit out of sight at the palace, traipsing between her
rooms and the temple, if the Kyrians would have her. Deukalion would see no more of her. This Lio,
as he insisted she call him, would be left to wonder at her cryptic question, and no more would come
of it.
As they had acknowledged openly, a Hesperine had nothing to gain by telling the king his daughter
had transgressed. Knowledge of her midnight whereabouts would be of great use to some, but not to
Deukalion. Such a detail was worth nothing upon a negotiation table where the fate of Tenebra’s
children and the treatment of the human dead were at stake.
As Cassia approached the temple, she encountered some of the castoff children who would be a
subject of debate at the Summit. Orphans worked the fields on either side of the road. These were the
lucky ones whom the Kyrian mages sheltered, but it was not as if anyone wanted them except the
Hesperines.
The children sang in the Divine Tongue while they broke the soil, sending up prayers or praises to
Kyria in their clear, high voices. Cassia wondered how many would one day prove suited to magery
and learn to understand the hymns. Would the other orphans, when they set out into the world to make
their fortunes, still wonder what those words meant, which they had sung as children? Words that
eluded even the king on his throne.
Bluestone walls stretched far to the left and right. The Temple of Kyria at Solorum shielded the
children and the maiden women who reared them, as well as the women’s magical secrets.
Forbidding double doors of solid oak halted Cassia at the entrance. But a smaller panel in one door
swung open right away, and a mage in robes the color of the clear sky welcomed Cassia inside.
“How can Kyria’s handmaidens assist you this day, Lady?” Only the woman’s cheerful eyes could
be seen above her veil, a cloth of the palest blue that wrapped her hair and face. She even had a
benevolent gaze for Knight, smelly paws and all.
“I have come to offer something to the goddess,” Cassia replied. “These two hands.”
“Praise our Mother of the Harvest for extra hands!”
“Mine are most useful in the garden, and they shall be available to you till sometime after the
Spring Equinox, should you have use for them.” Cassia patted the basket she carried over her arm. It
never hurt to emphasize pleasing words with bribery. “I would also make a small offering of seeds
and cuttings from the south, which might enrich your gardens. With faithful tending from your power, I
know they will grow, even in Solorum’s clime.”
“Bless you for your generosity, Lady. Who shall I say is here to see the Prisma?”
“Cassia Basilis.”
The light of interest, rather than censure, appeared in the woman’s gaze. “If you will please follow
me, Lady. I am Deutera, and I will show you the way.”
Excellent. Cassia would go home with dirt under her fingernails today.
She and Knight followed Deutera across a courtyard, past archways through which came the scents
of water and soil. The temple must have male guests today, for Deutera did not remove her veil.
The mage led Cassia to one of the structures built up against the inner wall, which towered above
them, a bulwark within the bulwark of the outer walls. With any luck, Cassia would be allowed
through that boundary today, where only women were permitted and the real work of the temple took
place. For now, the mage ushered Cassia into an antechamber for strangers and visitors from all
walks of life.
“Please make yourself comfortable, Lady.” Deutera disappeared through a door that must lead to
the Prisma’s vestibule.
Cassia sat on a bench facing the vestibule door, and a beam of light fell on the crown of her head
from a window near the ceiling. The panels were small, their glass thick and plain, but stained in
shades of blue that made the room seem full of cool water. Knight relaxed beside her. She heard no
voices on the other side of the door. If any conversation was in progress within, strong architecture
and magic shielded it from listening ears.
It wasn’t long before the door swung open, and Cassia stood, ready to present herself. She found
herself face-to-face with the new royal mage.
He observed her with bland brown eyes. He had the olive complexion and dark hair that were
common in Namenti. But there was nothing bland or common about his red-gold robe denoting his
honored mastery in the Order of Anthros and the bronze chain of office around his neck, which every
royal mage before him had worn. Cassia dropped him a curtsy. He folded his hands into his sleeves
and nodded to her.
Amachos’s lapdog stepped out behind him. Like his master, the apprentice appeared to hail from
southern Tenebra, but there the similarities ended. The young man’s sunny yellow robes turned his
tawny face sallow, and his slouch made him look permanently abject. He dipped his head in a further
gesture of deference, which made his apprentice cap slide forward and push his limp black hair into
his eyes.
Deutera had escorted the men out of the Prisma’s vestibule. “I am sure I need make no
introductions.”
Amachos’s smile was like his voice—pleasant, except for the undertones. “Lady Cassia, I
believe?”
Her name and identity were not beneath his notice? Perhaps the stain of shame never escaped his
attention. “Indeed, Honored Master Amachos.”
“To what do I owe the delight of seeing you in this holy place?”
“It is my custom to devote my time to Kyria whenever I am near one of her temples.”
“What a worthy endeavor for a lady of your station.” His nasal tones made the remark sound even
more patronizing.
Bright gold light flashed in Cassia’s eyes. The hair on the back of her arms stood on end, and a
host of tiny pinpricks stung her skin. She glanced up to see a glyph of Anthros hovering over her head.
The image faded as quickly as it had appeared.
“May Anthros make your efforts fruitful,” Amachos intoned.
Cassia bowed her head and spared him her response. If he hoped to scrub the stain from her, it
would take a great deal more than a glyph. She doubted Anthros cared about her parsley, but if his
mage’s tracings in the air could make it grow faster, so be it. She resisted the urge to fidget at the
tingles that still ran over her, although the symbol was gone from the air.
Amachos spoke to Deutera with the air of concluding a discussion. “Rest assured, as I told the
Prisma, should there be so much as a hint that Eriphites draw near, you shall not want for my
assistance.”
Deutera clasped her hands together. “I’m sure the children will rest easier tonight. We have heard
the tales of the dissenters’ violence against obedient temples. They seem bent on revenge upon all of
us who would cleanse their corruption from the land.”
Amachos lifted both hands in a gesture of reassurance. “No such thing shall befall this holy house
while I am near. Fear not, for the Eriphites’ wild, false cult dwindles to mere remnants. They are little
more than bandits now. Had they gracefully accepted Anthros’s rightful authority over their lesser
god, they might have remained a proud and prosperous people.” Amachos sighed. “Their misguided
ways have been their own reward. We must pity what has become of them. But most of all, we must
ensure their disobedience brings no harm to the faithful.”
“What a relief to have you near, Honored Master Amachos, one of Tenebra’s very own from
Namenti. Our brothers and sisters in Cordium shall see how fortunate we are to have the strength of
your magic to protect us.”
Amachos exchanged a sympathetic look with her. A knowing look. “We certainly would not wish
the supreme Cordian Orders to trouble themselves over our little problems, would we?”
“You have our thanks and our prayers.”
“Do not hesitate to call upon me, should there be a need.”
“Honored Master, Apprentice, allow me to see you out.” Deutera nodded to Cassia again, holding
open the door. “Lady, the Prisma will be glad to see you now.”
Cassia entered the Prisma’s vestibule with a new harvest of words. One never knew what fruit
they might bear later.
The temple’s watery light bathed the two occupants of the room, a votive bluestone statue of Kyria
and a figure hooded and robed in white. When the door shut behind Cassia, the goddess’s attendant
rolled up her bell sleeves above ropy forearms and wrinkled elbows, then put back her cowl to
reveal a gray head and a smile. “Welcome, child. How glad we are that you have come.”
“Thank you, Prisma. I hope I can be of service to you.”
“Of course! This is the place for any woman who wants to discover her gifts and enjoy the fruits of
her labors. And escape the confusion of the outside world for a little while.” The Prisma reached
beneath the ceremonial drapery at the goddess’s feet and retrieved a wad of fabric—an apron stained
all shades of green, apparently stowed in haste, which she now donned over her immaculate robes of
office. “Poor Lady Cassia, trapped at Solorum, surrounded by men’s foibles and a pack of foreign
heretics.”
Cassia returned the Prisma’s secret smile. It was good the mage did not know just how different
their secrets were.
The Prisma was brazen to imply she disapproved of the king and his Hesperine guests. But it was
no wonder she had the confidence to make her opinions clear, especially when very human Eriphite
heretics among Lucis’s own subjects raided about and threatened those in her care. The lives of her
mages and the children depended on every single decision she made throughout the day.
“You have come to the right place,” the Prisma promised.
Cassia spent the afternoon helping the mages ready their gardens for the coming spring. Knight lay
about at the edges of the beds, accepting pats and accolades from the women while they worked and
he lazed.
Cassia counted herself fortunate indeed. Her recent fraternization with a wicked heretic went
unnoticed by all these mages. Even the powers in the temple could not detect whatever mark her
conversation with Hespera’s disciple had made on her.
But she felt it, as if Deukalion had left some magic on her, discordant with the persistent sensation
of Amachos’s blessing. More than once she smeared her hands and arms with more dirt than
necessary, and she wasn’t sure which she was trying to drive away.
Had she really expected a yes?
She had not known what the odds might be that one of the Hesperines in the delegation performed
the Mercy. Her experience told her nothing so useful as how many Hesperines were usually at large in
Tenebra, how many were responsible for that particular rite, and whether one of them was likely to
offer the Mercy and also be an ambassador.
She was not sure what she had expected, and that alone was foreign and unsettling to her. She
always knew what to expect from such occasions as giving a cloak to a seamstress. But when it came
to negotiating with Deukalion, she didn’t know nearly enough.
That no was not enough.
Cassia froze in the act of drawing and quartering a resistant winter weed. Knight saw her pause
from the end of the row and lifted his head.
Was she really considering making another escape?
She applied herself to the weeds again before anyone noticed her hands shaking.
What a fool she was. She had gone through the forbidden door once already. How dare she attempt
it a second time? It wasn’t worth it. Not when all Deukalion might give her was another no.
She employed this reasoning on herself for the rest of the afternoon. But she knew too much to fall
victim to her own manipulation.
She knew much more than a simple negative awaited her if she spoke with Deukalion again. Even
if none of the Hesperine diplomats had ever performed the Mercy, it didn’t matter. There was so much
more at stake than that one word and the one question she had so far dared ask him.
He was a Hesperine. He had answers to all Cassia’s questions.
Of course their encounter had been worth the risk. Worth so much that she did not even regret
admitting the name she bore.
This was not a simple matter of a cloak she could use to rid herself of a bothersome suitor, no
matter how much she had tried to justify it to herself thus. She would be a fool to fall for her own
excuses in that regard as well.
This was the farthest leap she had taken beyond each day’s careful steps to preserve herself.
Ensuring the king brought her to Solorum contrary to his wishes was more dangerous than anything
she had attempted since fourteen years ago.
Why had she ever allowed herself to walk away from the Hesperine with such a meaningless
answer, after everything she had risked to get it?
It had been, in the end, so easy to meet with Deukalion. Much easier, in fact, than negotiating with
her goal once she had reached him. And far easier than asking one of the questions she had harbored
all this time. She was so accustomed to them being inside her, unanswered. They were thorns in her
heart, but she was used to them.
What would it feel like to know the answers? Would they be sharper thorns? Or poison?
Or an antidote?
Just as Deukalion’s answer had not been enough for her, her question had not satisfied him. She
had clearly surprised him and piqued his curiosity. He would be a fool if he did not try to determine
what she meant for his embassy: a threat or an opportunity. He would appear if she went to meet him
again. If she could get away—if Perita did not stay in tonight to make up for lost sleep. Ah, but Cassia
raced ahead of herself.
She returned to her rooms after dusk rites and a hearty, fresh meal with the Kyrian mages, her back
aching and her basket full of cuttings they had given her in return. The syrupy stench of Perita’s
favorite scent oil filled the room. Cassia tried not to breathe and hoped her handmaiden would use up
every drop so she didn’t have to. She went straight to her bedchamber to hang a fresh and fragrant
wreath the mages had newly bespelled to drive away vermin.
Knight flopped down on the opposite side of the room and began scouring his paws with his
tongue, as if he could lick away the tingle of magic left over from the herbal bath he’d endured at the
temple. Better a day of that than a miserable season scratching flea bites. Cassia told him again what
a good dog he was. Soon she couldn’t smell the oils over his paws.
But she could still hear them. A bottle clinked on the top of the dressing table, and there came the
wet sucking sound of the girl rubbing the viscous liquid over her arms. She always took her time,
obviously luxuriating in the activity with great delight. She would definitely be seeing her guard again
tonight.
Cassia would have her chance.
Tonight she would press Deukalion for the full meaning of that one word, which was all he had
given her, besides his name.