“FOR MY PART, LADY Cassia, I’m delighted you are here at Solorum, and I’m sure our own discussions will
prove much more fruitful than the debacle at the negotiation table tonight.” Lio waited for her to ask,
but she said nothing about what had happened at the Summit.
Surely Cassia had heard that right in the middle of Uncle Argyros’s most pivotal address, Lord
Severinus had called forward a witness against the embassy. The mage from Severitas had filled the
embassy’s entire speaking time with overwrought tales of Hesperine atrocities, and the Council had
lapped up his gory lies. The display had been so excruciating, Lio was sure gossip about it had
escaped the secrecy of the ward around the pavilion to take the court by storm. But Cassia showed no
signs of awareness or interest regarding the event.
So Lio proceeded to reach into one of the deep pockets of his robe and draw out what he had
brought for her each night, just in case. Not such a foolish notion after all. “Every beneficial and
promising agreement warrants an exchange of gifts, don’t you think? Here is a token of good faith.”
She stared at the round, paper-wrapped package on his palm as if she’d never seen a bar of soap
before.
“I’ve noticed you prefer soap to scent oils,” he felt the need to explain.
Still she looked at his gift with furrowed brows. “It’s...very fine.”
“The finest from Orthros. The embassy brought a crate and presented them at the Summit, among
other gifts that promote good health. I took the liberty of reserving one for you.” He shifted on his feet.
He was not making a romantic gesture, he reminded himself. There was no reason to feel so unsure
standing here before her with his offering in his hand. “The soap does have a fragrance, but I believe
you’ll like it.”
“I thank you.” She held out her open hand to Lio while she cast her gaze toward the ground,
dipping her lashes with every appearance of humility. The gesture did not befit her any more than her
affected laugh. She was clearly accustomed to receiving gifts on her best behavior, probably from
men who thought they could buy and own her.
Lio glanced at her hound. “Do you suppose Sir Knight will allow me to hand this to you?”
Now a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Perhaps if you allow him to sniff it first.”
“And present him with an opportunity to take off my hand?”
Cassia clucked at Knight and said a word to him. He looked up at her, eyes wide. Woman and dog
gazed at each other, communicating through what must be their own sort of Union.
“Ckuundat, all is well.” How could her voice sound tender and commanding at the same time?
“Hama.”
Knight backed into a position right at her side. The hound no longer stood between them, but if Lio
came much nearer Cassia, he would be within easy reach of the beast’s jaws.
With his eyes on the dog, Lio took one step closer. Knight peeled his lip back. Lio waited. The
hound stood still, glaring at him.
Slowly, carefully, Lio reached out and placed the soap in Cassia’s hand.
They both watched Knight. He watched them.
“I think he has given you leave to proceed, so long as you do not push your luck.”
Lio angled a slight bow in Knight’s direction. “I will not forget I am on his sufferance.”
He let the soap rest in Cassia’s hand for a moment, his hand still on the soap. A connection
between them, one he allowed the Blood Union to embellish for his senses. Her deep sense of
hesitation told him she had no intention whatsoever of using such an intimate gift.
She took the soap and withdrew her hand all too soon. But she did lift the bar to her nose. Lio
listened to her take a breath and watched the groove at the base of her throat deepen. She hesitated.
Then she took a deeper breath.
“It is very fine,” she said again.
“The oldest soap known to civilization and still one of the best. You will never guess what it is
made of.”
“No, I shall not, for I have not smelled anything like it before.”
He smiled at her. “Cassia oil.”
She took the soap away from her nose. “Cassia is an oil?”
“Not at all. It is a tree.”
Slightly, but visibly, she relaxed. “I have never heard of a cassia tree.”
“What is your namesake, then?”
“Cassius,” she supplied, “a past king’s bastard son. All I know about him is that he was
notoriously vain, and his name became tradition.”
Lio tried not to grimace. “Cassia is an ancient and exquisite tree, whose fragrant bark supplies the
world with soaps, delicacies, and medicine.”
Cassia drew back, gazing down at her new soap. She cradled the bar in both hands as if the design
of yellow flowers on the wrapper were as fragile as real blossoms. “I am sorry. I have brought you
nothing.”
“Isn’t it more appropriate for a guest to offer his hostess a gift to thank her for her generosity?”
Somewhere behind him, the underbrush rustled, preempting whatever comment she might have
made. Her gaze shot toward the sound.
“A badger,” Lio reassured her without looking that way. “She’s dragging fresh nesting materials
into her den to keep her two cubs clean and warm.”
Now Cassia was looking at him. “How can you tell?”
“It seems we’ve finally returned to your questions about Hesperine life, and I’ll have a chance to
answer them properly. Shall we walk and talk?”
She gave him one of her level gazes that meant she was thinking. Debating, probably, what was
safer: to sit by the familiar, neutral fountain, near where the mage had appeared the other night, or to
wander the wild unknown of the grounds and present a moving target.
Lio would do whatever he must to reassure her it was safe to stay here awhile, with him. “You
need not fear someone will find us. My senses would give us plenty of warning. As you have seen, I
have the power to conceal us both, if you will be so kind as to stay near me.”
She stood there for one awkward moment, turning slightly toward the center of the clearing. “Very
well.”
Lio extended an arm and started walking, so she might fall into step beside him. Knight imposed
his bulk between them, and Lio found it necessary to put more distance between himself and Cassia
than he had anticipated. They wandered past the fountain and into the trees on the other side.
“You grow cassia trees in Orthros?” she asked.
“Alas, it is too cold. We import the oils and spices made from the tree.” Lio resisted the urge to
tell her cassia tasted even better than it smelled.
“Import?” She blinked at him. “No one trades with Orthros.”
“Tenebra and Cordium do not. In any case, cassia does not grow here. The tree must have a kinder
clime in which to thrive.” He studied her chapped hands that held the soap so gingerly. “The Empire
is such a place. The Empress herself cultivates prize groves of cassia. Her gardeners have tended the
same trees for thousands of years.”
“You mean the Empire across the sea, which the Orders claim they once reached in bespelled
ships? I thought all that was a tale they spun to impress foolish folk. They expect us to believe the
cities are made of sunlight and the people’s skin is burnt dark.”
“The Empire is as real as the soap in your hands. It is a complex area of the world that comprises
countless lands and peoples, each with their own language and traditions. Together, they have built
cities out of the light of educated minds, effective governance, and a prosperous economy. There are
people in the Empire of every color, for the same reason that here, some people have blue eyes and
others have freckles.”
She fingered the soap. “You must have actually met people from there.”
“So have you. Master Healer Javed and Master Envoys Basir and Kumeta.”
Her face lit up. “Now I understand.”
“Many Hesperines begin their lives as mortals in the Empire,” Lio explained. “‘Orthros has two
hearts,’ in the words of Prometheus, one of Orthros’s greatest heroes, who was of Imperial origin.
Our kind came to be in Tenebra, but the Empire is no less our motherland. The Empress and my
Queens keep our alliance strong.”
“Favorable relations between humans and Hesperines,” Cassia marveled with an expression of
mock surprise. “The mages here would get their robes in a mighty twist if they knew.”
“Guests from the Empire are a permanent community in Orthros. They visit for trade, education, or
leisure and stay for months or years at a time.”
“Humans living among Hesperines? Imagine that.” Astonishment escaped Cassia’s reserve, but no
aversion.
“Our human guests may choose to provide for us with their blood. We honor their generosity with
our hospitality, goods, knowledge, and all that Orthros has to offer. Often, our guests decide to stay.”
“Forever?”
“It’s the pie. We have the most delicious meatless mincemeat in the known world. Oh, and
immortality is rather nice, too.”
Her half grin seemed far more genuine than her laughter. “With so many people from the Empire
happy to give you their blood or become Hesperines, you’ve no need to kidnap folk from Tenebra to
feed on and force convert, do you?”
“Ah, the powerful magic of common sense.”
“That’s certainly not the kind of magic the Orders teach.”
Lio guided them onto a deer trail he was wont to follow. Cassia accompanied him deeper into the
woods without a glance backward.
She scuffed her slipper in the hoof print of a deer. “Speaking of magic...something occurs to me.”
Lio caught himself looking at the dainty, threadbare toe of her shoe and removed his gaze before
she caught him at it, too. “What’s that?”
“Unlike badgers, deer don’t come out at night.”
“They will for me.” Lio gave her his most innocent smile.
“Hm. Can you tell where they are and what they’re doing, like the badger? Even when they’re
asleep?”
“Yes. I hear their hearts beating.”
She was quiet for an instant. “I suppose you knew I was on my way here.”
“And I was very glad for the warning. I would have hated for you to catch me before I’d had a
chance to wash after dinner.”
Amusement hummed in her veins. “So is it Hesperine magery that allows you to hear so well?”
“Not anymore than your eyes and ears and thoughts are magery. It is the Blood Union.”
“The same Union that causes you to share the experiences of those from whom you drink?”
“Yes, and it also binds us to every living creature around us. It is through the Union that the
Goddess teaches us. We live attuned to the lifeblood of others, so we may understand the world as
they understand it. It is a way of knowing, which comes with the Gift.”
She shot him a curious glance. “The Gift?”
She knew the Mercy, but not the Gift? “Hespera’s Gift is what makes us what we are. That is our
name for her blessing of immortality and the ability to survive on living blood, rather than dead
flesh.”
A small smile appeared on Cassia’s face, and he did not miss the irony in her eyes. “Ah. So your
Gift is what humans call your curse. Insatiable bloodlust, banishment from the sun, and eternal exile
from the afterlife.”
“Yes, that’s right. It’s quite terrible. I lament my pale complexion more and more with each passing
night.”
Her snort was definitely a chuckle in disguise. “But worst of all, you shan’t be allowed to die
gloriously in battle, so you may throw spears with Anthros for all eternity and be waited upon by
willing maidens.”
“That sounds rather unfair. Aren’t there any willing knights serving in the afterlife?”
“Oh no, no knights to wait on me once I get there. I am expected to be a maiden, and willing. But
perhaps I shall escape such an exalted destiny, compliments of my mother, for she was not a wife.”
Lio refrained from making another jest. If he asked about her mother, would he push their Oath too
far? Would Cassia begin to watch her words with him again?
Perhaps a careful, undemanding comment was worth the risk. “I haven’t had the pleasure of
meeting your mother.”
“Me neither. She died.”
Regret stung him. “I am so sorry.”
Cassia shrugged.
That shrug was so foreign to Lio he knew not what to say. They walked several steps in silence.
He could not imagine speaking so dismissively if he had lost his mother, even if he were not as close
to her as he was. But then, he had never had to protect himself every waking moment, as Cassia did.
Where he came from, an open display of grief was not a sign of vulnerability that could be exploited
by an enemy.
Perhaps offering up more details about himself was the most tactful way to invite her to say more
—and the only way to make her feel safe in doing so. Lio waited for her to pose another question.
“Did you have kin?” she asked. “Before you...received the Gift?”
“‘Received the Gift?’” he said with appreciation. “Not, ‘turned from the gods,’ or ‘transformed
into the monstrous spawn of Hespera?’”
She peered up at him, leaning one way, then the other so she could see all sides of him. “No horns,
wings, or other bestial features. You don’t appear monstrous to me.”
“My parents will be reassured to know that, thank you.”
He was gratified—immensely so—to see curiosity on her face. Her mask was slipping.
“Your...human parents, or do you have...?” She trailed off.
“For those of us who become Hesperines as children, the ones who rescue us and give us the Gift
are our parents. Take my cousin Telemakhos, for example. His is a classic story. Mak was born with a
club foot and abandoned on a cliff as an infant. My aunt and uncle found him and brought him home to
Orthros.”
“Ah yes, the time-honored Tenebran practice of exposure, in which loving parents leave their
children to freeze to death or be eaten by bears. If a child is born sickly, lame, out of wedlock, or to
parents too poor to feed it, it is a sure sign from the gods they want the babe right back as a sacrifice.”
Spoken like someone born out of wedlock herself. “I see I needn’t mince words with you. At the
Summit we struggle to address the issue without implying Tenebran traditions are barbaric or making
our own appear so.”
“So you really do transform abandoned children into Hesperines?”
“We cannot create life on our own, you understand...we do not conceive children, as mortals do.
But we have the power to restore and preserve life as no mortal healers can. To do this for children is
one of the greatest callings and greatest privileges of our kind. We call this the Solace, for we offer
refuge and comfort to suffering children. But my mother once said to me the real reason for the name
is that children are the solace of all Hesperines.”
“What is it like, when you change them?”
“Hesperine parents nurture the child on blood, as humans nourish their own with milk and food.”
Cassia did not follow with another question this time. Lio clasped his hands behind his back. Was
he about to discover her limits? It was not an easy thing for most mortals to consider. But he would
not present his people as anything other than what they were. Especially not to her.
“Admittedly, these children do not have a choice,” he said. “But many are so far gone by the time
we rescue them, only Hesperine blood has enough healing power to save them. Although we make
such a vital decision for them, and they have no opportunity to consent, I must believe the succor we
give them is preferable to starvation, illness from the elements, or violence by wild animals.”
“Choice?” Cassia shrugged again. “I never had a choice to be born a king’s daughter, nor Knight
here to be born a hound. What does it signify, choice?”
It seemed her observation saddened him a great deal more than it did her. “Every person’s Will is
sacred. It is forbidden for any Hesperine to take the blood of another living creature without their
consent.”
Another moment of silence. Then, “Yet you transform children. Doesn’t that require that you drink
from them?”
“What? No!” Before he knew it, he had halted in his tracks. Did she actually believe that? Perhaps
he should have been more prepared for the question, but it made his stomach turn. “Parents only give
blood. To...drink...from a child. That’s repulsive.”
“I see.”
He saw the shading in her cheeks and realized it was she who felt uncertain now. “It’s
understandable you wouldn’t know. But none of us would ever take the Drink from someone so young
and helpless. The very idea goes against everything that is Hesperine. It’s hard for me to imagine
anyone would think that of us.”
“Tenebrans don’t know what is Hesperine. They only know what they fear.”
He remembered he was still standing there and started moving again. There remained such gaps in
her knowledge of his people, more than he had assumed there to be after she had called the Mercy by
name. And yet here she was, willing to listen. To take a risk. That only made him more determined to
find out why. “You often seem to know what is and is not Hesperine.”
“That’s because I know better than to trust what I hear.”
If that were the reason, every mistrustful courtier in the palace would be a potential ally. No, there
was certainly more to it than that. Lio resisted his desire to ask her directly. If he appeared too
curious, she would feel threatened.
“Since humans from the Empire are not frightened of you,” Cassia said, “they must drop their
unwanted babes on Orthros’s doorstep all the time. But I suppose you have no trouble feeding them
all.”
“Actually, exposure is not practiced in the Empire, and extended families or Imperial institutions
provide for orphans. Most children in Orthros are of Tenebran origin, and most humans who choose
the Gift as adults are from the Empire. Of course, we are always happy to offer Sanctuary to adults
from Tenebra, too. You might be surprised there are people from this part of the world who are
willing to brave Orthros for the hope of a different life.”
“Rather than endure the fate their fellow humans have in store for them here? No, I should not
wonder.”
“Every life the mortal world casts aside is a treasure to us. All can come to Orthros for a second
chance. We are Hespera’s Sanctuary in the world, and it is a matter of sacred principle that we never
deny anyone, just as she never denies us.”
“So how did you come to be a Hesperine?” Cassia asked. “How old were you when you received
the Gift?”
He had promised her honesty. Now was not the time to dither. But he found himself doing precisely
that. “If we are talking about life in Orthros in general, my case would hardly be a good example.”
“Oh? In what way are you such an exception?”
She was asking him to push her still farther from what was comfortable for her. He did not want
his own family history to be what finally drove her too far...perhaps even away from him. If he was
finally to witness her disgust, he would hate for it to be directed at him.
She cleared her throat. “Ah. Perhaps it is painful for you to speak of. I beg your pardon.”
“No, far from it. It is the best thing that could have happened to me. My father rescued my mother
and me from her husband and gave us both the Gift.” He paused, listening again to Cassia’s silence,
and realized how confusing that must sound to her.
“You do not think of your mother’s husband as your father?”
“No. I have only one father, Apollon.”
“Her husband...sired you...but your father gave you the Gift.”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember him? Your mother’s husband.”
Lio looked ahead into the forest’s welcoming dark, but that was cowardly. He met Cassia’s gaze.
“No. My mother, Komnena, was with child when my father transformed her.”
“Ohh.” Cassia turned toward him, walking a bit sideways as if the better to observe him. “So the
tales are true, and Hesperine males do kidnap pregnant women to increase their numbers.” She
looked him up and down again, her gaze teasing. “You are one of their unnatural brood.”
Lio laughed with relief. She hadn’t screamed at him in horror or even insulted his mother with
accusations of adultery. She mocked her people’s ghastly legends. “We hardly make a habit of it. I’m
the first in a long time to be born Hesperine.”
“Do your people view that favorably?”
A question that would occur to her to ask, after a lifetime of dealing with the consequences of her
birth. “Hesperines love all their children with all their hearts. It makes no difference if we are
foundlings like my cousin or bloodborn like me.”
“Yet you admit you are not a typical case.”
“Well, the seven bloodborn who came before me have the gratitude of all our people, but I think it
only right that I hold myself particularly bound to them in gratitude. They are legendary for their
deeds, especially Prometheus. I am thankful to have such an inspiring example to guide me.”
“You are the eighth bloodborn in Orthros’s history? Eight is the number of Hespera, which is
considered ill-fated here. I am sure among your people, it is a sacred number.”
“Yes, a symbol of eternity.” He pulled a face at Cassia. “What’s more, I was born on the Winter
Solstice, both the moons were full, and some very meaningful constellations were in portentous
positions.”
“No expectations, then.”
“None at all.”
Cassia glanced up between the trees at a patch of overcast sky. “It makes sense astrology would be
important to your people, as you spend all your lives gazing at the night sky.”
“We love Hespera’s sky like nothing else.” Lio followed Cassia’s gaze to the hazy cloud cover. At
the moment, he could read none of the weighty messages the Goddess had written him in the stars
since the moment he had arrived in her world.
Cassia gazed at him again, as if trying to read portents on his face. “So you were born a Hesperine
in Orthros. You really aren’t Tenebran at all and never were.”
“No, but both my parents spent their human years here before they became Hesperines. For the
record, Father didn’t kidnap Mother. She was delighted to run away with him.”
“Her husband was a cruel man?”
“He committed the cruelty of neglect, an abuse second only to the misery he put her through when
he bothered to come home. My mother has often said he broke their vows first. The eternal vows that
bind her and my father now are far more powerful than mere marriage. I intend no offense against a
cherished human institution,” he added.
“It is neither mine nor particularly cherished by me. There is no such thing in Orthros?”
“No, Hesperines do not marry. We avow one another, and a Hesperine’s partner is not a spouse,
but a Grace.” There. That did not qualify as revealing too much. He guided the conversation in a
different direction. “I gather you are not fond of the idea of marriage.”
“Its lack was a great inconvenience to my mother, yet the threat of it is a great inconvenience to
me. With or without it, it seems but a bane to women.”
“Not fond of your suitors either, I take it.” Suitors. The word felt foul in his mouth. As foul as the
covetous lords who thought to take on the role and the way they had noticed her at the banquet.
“I’m about as fond of them as I suspect your mother was of her potential husbands. Did she say
why she married him? What made him easier to handle than the other possibilities?”
“That’s...quite like what she described to me.” Lio winced. “Her other option was a man who
became violent when he drank, so she chose the one who merely became lustful in his cups.”
Cassia nodded. “Wise woman.”
“I asked her why she married any of them.”
“How else would she survive?”
“That is what she told me.”
Cassia looked straight ahead, a line between her brows. What did she make of all this? Lio tried to
guess. She was above all practical. She would regard his mother’s decision to leave with his father
as a strategic exit from a bad situation to an improved one. A clever move for her own survival and
that of her child. But did Cassia, anywhere in her thoughts, ponder the magnitude of his mother’s
escape? The magnitude of love and freedom?
Was there no such escape for Cassia?
He thought he already knew the answer to that question, and it made everything they said and did
here suddenly feel confining and aimless. The tide could turn at the negotiation table. The Oath could
be sworn. Peace could be won.
And Cassia would still be here, hemmed in on all sides by these same men, fighting this same war.
There would be no peace for her.
“Must you marry?” he asked.
“It remains to be seen.”
Perhaps he was wrong, and there was still hope. “It would naturally be a pressing question for
you, in your position.”
“It is useful to the king to have an unmarried daughter, such as she is. The promise of her hand is a
powerful incentive in some eyes. Offering or refusing to give her in marriage is a means of
influencing interested lords. But once she is married, she is no longer useful in this way. He will not
grant her hand unless the benefits of the marriage outweigh the usefulness of the promise of marriage.
Just as he will not banish or execute me until the benefits of ridding himself of me outweigh the
usefulness of my continued existence. But I am already one-and-twenty, seven years overdue for
marriage and well on my way to becoming an old maid. Perhaps I shall ride out my eligible years yet.
There.” She gestured with one hand in invitation. “I have explained human marriage negotiations.
Now tell me of the Hesperine alternative.”
Was it his unsatisfied belly that made her calm words so hard to stomach? No. He could not blame
his failure to control his outrage on thirst unabated by deer. Only on reality.
“Come now,” she urged him. “I withstood your tales of infants suckled on blood. I’m sure I can
handle Hesperine mating rituals.”
“I will tell you how different our ways are, but I regret that is a tale for another time.” Lio came to
a halt and turned to face her. The smell of the forest was changing, and the night sky had turned from
one shade of darkness to another. He lifted a finger toward the eastern horizon.
“It still looks quite dark to me,” she said.
A sign she wanted him to stay? He tried to recapture their banter. “My monstrous senses say
otherwise.”
That won back her small, amused smile. “Is the sun really harmful to you?”
He snorted. “No. Sorry to disappoint the mages. Anthros’s holy light doesn’t burn at all.”
“Then why the hurry to return before dawn?”
“First, because my uncle insists on punctuality. Second, because...well, as soon as the sun comes
up, I can’t stay awake.” As if on cue, a jaw-cracking yawn overtook him. He smothered it behind a
hand.
“One of the members of the embassy is your uncle?”
“Yes, my father’s brother. Uncle Argyros didn’t kidnap Aunt Lyta, either, by the way. She told him
she wanted the Gift.”
“Bloodborn and the nephew of the Queens’ Master Ambassador and his lady.” Cassia’s gaze
sharpened. “And you say you’re just an initiate?”
She was all too perceptive. And clearly less ignorant of political developments than she might like
others to believe.
“I am indeed a mere initiate, and I count myself extraordinarily fortunate Argyros himself is my
mentor. I endeavor to be worthy of him. Which is why I really must return to the fortress. I shall tell
you more about the members of our embassy,” he promised. “Next time.”
“Well then. I shall bid you good morning, Lio. Rest well. For I shall exhaust you with more
questions on the morrow.”