LIO OBSERVED CASSIA AS she lowered her nose to the bundle of rimelace he held for her. She drew a deep
breath, then exhaled, bringing her scent to him mingled with the fragrance of the plants. The
combination took him aback and uncoiled a new longing inside him, a blend of frustration and
homesickness.
“What do they smell like to you?” he asked.
She glanced up from the herbs, her brow furrowed. “Like a winter snow and a spring morning at
the same time. Impossible.”
“They smell like Orthros,” he said in agreement.
“I’ve never seen rimelace of this quality! How do you preserve them in such a perfect state?” She
studied the herbs in the glow of his spell light. With a gentle touch, she fingered the array of tiny,
fragile white petals on one flower. “They’re bursting with blooms. See what a pale green the stems
are and how the leaves are edged in white? Those are sure signs your people harvested these at their
peak. Even the roots are intact. With all the parts of the plant, we can do great things. And you’ve
brought so much.” She stared again at the basket by Lio’s knee. “You could carry Knight in that.”
“I’m sincerely glad no one’s life depends on me doing that.”
“If you weren’t an illusionist and a mind mage, I would wonder how you ever managed to sneak
something that large out of your quarters after tonight’s Summit, right under six elder Hesperines’
noses.”
“Light and mind magic used together do produce the most convincing results. When I returned to
the fortress last night, after you told me the Prisma agreed and we finalized our plan, I seized an
opportunity when Javed and Kadi were in the common room with my aunt and uncle. I relocated the
basket of rimelace to my room and left an illusory decoy in its place. A very believable one, rest
assured. When I departed for a drink tonight, no one knew I took the real basket with me.”
“I see now why you were not in favor of my plan to take the herbs to the Prisma myself.” Cassia
hesitated. “There are many reasons why it would have been a challenge for me to manage this alone.”
Lio knew what an admission that was, coming from her. Now was not the time to point out that in
addition to crafting illusions, carrying the heavy load was no trouble for him as a Hesperine, even if
he was far from being an athlete of Mak and Lyros’s prowess. “I think it proper for me to carry the
basket, as it is my people’s gift to the temple.” Lio returned the bundle of rimelace to the pile in the
basket, then took the small canvas healer’s satchel from his shoulder and handed it to Cassia.
“However, I would like you to present this to the Prisma, if you would.”
When she opened the flap, she sucked in a breath. “Seeds.”
“So the mages of Kyria can begin cultivating their own from our stock. If they’re willing. I can’t
promise it will grow as it does in Orthros, but it should have a much better chance of survival than
any rimelace from Tenebran seeds.”
“I didn’t realize...this is...it will make a real difference.”
“I’m grateful you think it is enough.”
“It is, Lio. It is enough.” She closed the satchel with careful hands and gazed at the invaluable
cargo, not meeting his eyes. “Thank you.”
The notion overtook Lio to lift his hands and wrap them around hers where she held the satchel.
His wiser self mounted resistance, and she put the bag on her shoulder with her gardening satchel
before he had time to resolve the argument.
He heard her take another breath, as if to brace herself. “I suppose we’re ready to go.”
“Now all we need is a starting point that has its own magical aura to disguise our departure.” He
nodded toward the fountain. “This does hold considerable power, but I know of an even better
place.”
Cassia frowned at the Font of the Changing Queen. “It feels no different from the palace to me.”
“Naturally. You can feel the magical history of the Tenebrae everywhere, especially the ancient
history from the time before the Orders established their laws to restrict magic use.”
At his use of the kingdom’s traitorous name, she gave him a sly glance. “The artifacts from the
Mage King’s time are powerful, then, as legends say?”
“If the fountain feels to you as the palace does, you do not need to ask me that question.”
Cassia shrugged. “They don’t raise the hair on my arms like Amachos’s finger twiddling. They
feel...full. Like rain clouds.”
Now that was a revealing observation indeed. Lio refrained from comment only because he sensed
Cassia’s tension mounting. She turned her face away and glanced into the trees.
Was she worried about what they dared to do tonight? How far they dared go?
“I can assure you, nothing in the deeper woods will trouble us,” Lio said.
“Of course. Knight is more than a match for a few wolves.”
Lio exchanged a look with Knight, his forlorn, the dog’s satisfied.
“Besides,” Cassia added, “if they’re anything like the deer, Knight won’t have to bestir himself.
You will have the predators eating out of your hand.”
Lio smiled at her. She looked away quickly, but he did not miss the change in her pulse, the new
flavor in her scent. Just like the night of the festival, when she could not seem to stop looking at him
across the crowded great hall.
He took a step closer. “I promise I’ll keep you safe, Cassia. Tonight it is my turn to protect you.”
“Well then, champion,” she said lightly, “let’s see this place you’ve chosen for our magical
concealment.” She strode away from him and past the fountain.
Lio paused to secure the cover over the basket and hoist the load onto his back. He and his spell
light caught up with Cassia and entered the woods at her side. “It is an astonishing find. I could
scarcely believe my senses when I first happened on it.”
“Now I am curious.”
“It would be wise to stay close to me. With the Light Moon veiled tonight, we must rely on my
magic to light the path.” With his free hand, he gestured upward, where the Goddess’s white eye was
an imprint of light on the sky. The circle glowed softly as if hidden behind her eyelid, but too bright to
be truly concealed. The Blood Moon, nearing fullness, cast a reddish aura over the trees.
“Is a veiled moon considered a bad omen among Hesperines, as it is among Tenebrans?” Cassia
asked.
“We celebrate all phases of the moons, although each holds a different significance for us. Don’t
you think that tonight, it looks as if Hespera is winking at us?”
“Imagine that. I’ve never had a goddess as a coconspirator.”
The branches soon became too thick for them to see either of the moons, and darkness wrapped
still closer beyond the reach of Lio’s spell. Cassia slowed her pace, following his lead. But she
would not meet his gaze. The tension in her was not all worry. He wondered how much effort it cost
her not to look at him.
Did she not realize she could look? That looking cost them nothing?
Lio guided them along one of their usual ways, and before long they passed the fallen rubble
across the path, beyond which they seldom went far. But tonight he would lead her much farther. He
took a fork in the trail, and the deer track plunged them into ferns and the shelter of even older trees.
The thick underbrush and narrow gaps between the tree trunks pressed Lio and Cassia closer
together. He listened to her heart flutter and tried not to smile at the frustration he sensed in her. His
senses attuned to the flush of her skin and the tension low in her belly. She was so aware of him, here
within reach. It had never been so hard for him not to reach.
As they approached a weeping willow whose fall of branches blocked their way, he steadied the
basket on his back with one arm and extended the other to push the tree’s bare limbs aside for Cassia.
She slipped right past him, her body within a finger’s breadth of his, and ducked under the shelter of
his arm.
“Is it very far?” she asked.
“I’m afraid so. We should head a little to the left, past that holly bush.” He sent his spell light
ahead of her to mark the way.
She set off in that direction, putting still more distance between them. Knight stalked forward, on
the alert, shouldering through leaves and fronds and making way for her. Every now and then, he
fidgeted and cast a glance at Lio’s spell light.
Following behind Cassia, Lio could look at her without consequences. As she waded through the
underbrush and low shrubs, holding her skirts in both hands, a glimpse of her ankle appeared and
arrested Lio’s attention. What a pity her stocking prevented him from confirming his theory about the
full extent of her freckles.
It was a cold Tenebran night, but Cassia was rosy-cheeked and trying to catch her breath by the
time the ruin emerged ahead of them. Lio watched her approach the white marble structure where it
stood in its sanctuary of thorns with an honor guard of ancient ash trees. She halted before his sacred
place, and he marveled. At that moment, the most powerful aura in his senses was Cassia. Her
determination and worry, certainty and doubt were their own kind of magical beacon.
“Do you know why something so strong and beautiful lies in ruins?” he breathed.
She gave her head a shake. “People build things, they die, then all they labored so hard for is
forgotten.”
“This will never be forgotten.”
She cast a startled glance over her shoulder at him, then at Knight, whose hackles were on end.
“You can’t mean...”
Lio joined her before the ruin and put his free hand on the capstone of the arch over the doorway.
He rubbed his thumb across the faint impressions of the glyph there. Although the lines were eroded,
his own Gift responded in recognition to the magic in the glyph stone. “Many shrines were abandoned
during the Ordering. The cults that once lovingly tended them died out. Not this one. This cult was
driven out, but they survive. In fact, we do not die.”
He heard her feet move, felt her body heat draw nearer. “This was built to honor Hespera.”
Lio nodded, letting his hand rest on the glyph stone as if the joy and welcome in that magic could
seep through his skin.
“I can scarcely believe it.” Cassia lowered her voice. “I thought all your people’s sacred sites
were completely destroyed this side of Orthros.”
“This one nearly was.” Lio ran his hand along one of the remaining pillars. “A blast of war magic
did this damage. But that mage, whoever he was, must have been in a hurry. Or under duress. He
didn’t do a thorough job. Then, much later, some other mages did some sort of cleansing ritual.” He
sighed. “Kyrian, I think, for the evidence of their spells feels like your gardening dress after you’ve
been at the temple.”
“But some of your people’s power is still here?”
“Oh, yes. It cannot be purged that easily.”
Cassia stepped back and heeled Knight close to her, folding her hands in front of her. As if to give
Lio space and time.
He hadn’t known she had any respect for anyone’s gods. But she had called the Mercy by its name,
and now she stood patiently and waited for him as he paid his respects to a lost Sanctuary of his
Goddess.
He focused on the grooves in the worn capstone that had once been the cup and thorn of the
Goddess’ glyph. He brought his thumb to his mouth and pricked it on one tooth, then smeared his
blood on the symbol. The ruin’s power rushed to life and breathed into him.
After a moment, Cassia cleared her throat. “Is it acceptable for me to come inside?”
“Of course. Everyone is welcome in Hespera’s safe places. Although the Order of Anthros now
maligns her as chaos and violence incarnate, she was once known to all as the goddess of Sanctuary
and Mercy. People saw darkness as her gift of protection and blood rituals as a reminder that we must
all make sacrifices for the good of others. In the Great Temple Epoch, wanted criminals and
honorable warriors sought her blessings side by side, and her mages turned none away.”
“I begin to understand why her worshipers became a target.”
“Yes, Cassia. You understand well that such things rarely have to do with genuine devotion to the
gods or a true commitment to the common good, and all too often with more pragmatic motivations.
The Orders of Anthros and Hypnos and the lords and princes who colluded with them had many
reasons for vilifying the Cult of Hespera, but most were political.”
“Sheltering folk they wanted to hang wasn’t popular, I take it.”
“I would not want to oversimplify a complex history. But I often think to myself they cast my
Goddess from the pantheon for the crime of loving everyone.”
“Do not regret that fate, Lio. You are fortunate not to belong to the world Anthros rules.” She
looked into the ruin’s shadowed interior. “You should rejoice in your freedom.”
“Join me,” Lio said.
Her gaze swiveled to meet his.
“I made sure the structure is safe. No chance of a cave in.” He ducked under the archway and into
the antechamber of the shrine.
Before Cassia could follow, Knight whipped around her and halted in her path, his back and his
hackles to Lio. The hound let out an altogether different kind of warning growl. At her.
Lio stood very still. “Cassia, he never bares his teeth at you!”
“See how different his body language is? He isn’t threatening me. He’s putting himself between me
and the threat.” She gave Lio a rueful smile over the beast’s back. “He’s trying to protect me from
myself.”
Lio hesitated to answer, wary of trespassing on her bond with the animal. “Protect you from me,
you mean.”
“Hmm, on closer consideration, it does seem possible that entering a profane shrine with a
notorious heretic of the male variety might endanger my reputation.”
Lio couldn’t find it in himself to laugh. He had thought he’d earned her guardian’s tolerance. If
Knight revoked it tonight, the hound might prove the greatest threat of all to their plan.
Cassia spoke to Knight in their training tongue, her voice adamant. She pointed to the ground at her
side, snapping her fingers. Petite Cassia and enormous Knight faced each other, both standing tall,
neither breaking the stare.
Cassia’s tension transformed, and her new unease was an erratic current in the Blood Union.
Although she stood resolutely on one side of an invisible line in the soil, her hound on the other, Lio
could feel how off balance she was.
“If I can get him to enter the shrine, will your spell effect him?” she asked. “Can you take him with
us to the temple?”
“It will be a challenge.” What an understatement. Attempting to use his magic on Knight was the
part of their plan Lio had been dreading most. But he kept his tone gentle. “He is bred, born, and
raised to resist Hesperine magic. That is his nature and one of his greatest strengths. But it does mean
it will require an immense effort on my part to bring him with us.”
Cassia didn’t answer right away. Her unease trembled, ready to overflow. Finally she asked, “Is
the strength of the spell you would need to take Knight with us more likely to draw unwanted
attention?”
This was difficult for her, and Lio owed her answers as honest as her questions. “The great
expense of power would definitely be a greater risk, although I believe the shrine would still be
enough to cover us. However...enduring my magic is likely to be extremely distressing for Knight. I
suspect it will feel as uncomfortable to him as Anthros’s magic does to me, and it is likely to
antagonize him. Like any good dog following his instincts, he may lash out at the perceived threat.”
Cassia squared her shoulders, and her shaky emotions stilled as if she gripped them in an iron
hand. “He will stand watch for us here. He understands staying at the end of the row and guarding for
me, even when I have to walk to the other side of the garden.”
She held Knight’s gaze and began to speak to him, alternating between Vulgus and their private
tongue, from loving praises to firm commands.
At last Knight ducked his head, lowered his tail, and went to Cassia’s side.
She knelt down and wrapped her arms around her dog. The spell light cast a sheen in her eyes that
hadn’t been there a moment ago. “Doon. Yes, dearest. Right here. I know it’s hard for you, but you
cannot go with me this time. You must be a good dog and stay. Doon. It’s all right. I’ll be just through
that door. You must do me a great favor and guard outside, so no one comes in after me. Hekna
glaan.”
Centuries of breeding, ancient magic, and a lifetime of training bound Knight to Cassia’s service to
the death, but Lio had no doubt her debt to her beloved hound was just as powerful. Had the two of
them ever been out of each other’s sight since the day Knight had bonded to her?
Lio left the basket of herbs inside the shrine and went outside, approaching Cassia and Knight
slowly. The hound looked up at him. Lio looked down at the hound.
No sign of teeth. Promising.
Lio knelt on the dog’s eye level and eased himself near Union with Knight. Instead of a mind filled
with placid welcome, what greeted Lio was a solid wall of wariness. The dog tensed all over and
flared his nostrils. He was indeed far more intelligent and aware than an average animal.
Lio halted where he was, holding the path to Union open, but going no farther along it. “Good
evening, Knight. You know me. Lio. Your lady’s willing champion, remember?”
The dog stood still, his ears cocked.
“You can understand me just fine without any help, I can tell. But to reassure you, I’ll put
everything I have on the table. See?” Lio spread his hands. He attuned himself to a powerful heartbeat
and deep breaths that brought thousands of smells. Then he let Knight hear his heart and smell what he
smelled.
“Do you feel that, Knight? You’re a liegehound. I know that you and I can’t ever achieve real
Union. I don’t want to make either of us uncomfortable by trying. But if we could, and you allowed
me a few moments to experience the world inside that hard head of yours, I know I’d find all my
senses focused on only one person. I would feel like nothing mattered except keeping her safe. If you
spent a moment in my equally hard head, you’d see exactly the same thing.”
Lio heard, in the absence of the sound of Cassia’s breathing, that she was holding her breath.
“So you see, Knight,” he concluded, “we are of one mind in any case. If you stay here by this door
and guard it all night to make sure your lady can feel at ease, then I will stay at her side and protect
her with all the power I possess, until I return her to you. Together, you and I will see to it no harm
comes to her. Can you trust me to do that?”
Knight got up off his powerful haunches. Lio made himself as still as only a Hesperine could, not
even breathing. The dog’s massive head drew closer, closer, filling his vision. Two wet nostrils
flared, then blew a breath in his face. Raw meat. Muddy paws. Savory treats and Cassia’s fingers.
Knight proceeded with his examination, sniffing Lio all over. Lio lifted his arms slowly, the better
to let the dog nose at his sides. Finally Knight drew off.
The dog turned his back to Lio and the ruin, faced the dark forest, and planted his rump in the
foliage with an air of finality.
Cassia got slowly to her feet. She took one step backward toward the shrine. Knight looked over
his shoulder at her, tensing as if to get to his feet, but he stayed where he was.
“The greatest diplomatic feat I have ever witnessed, Initiate Ambassador.”
“If I do say so myself, I believe we are the only people in history who have ever persuaded a
Tenebran liegehound to guard a shrine of Hespera. The Goddess must be smiling to have such an
unusual and capable protector tonight.”
Cassia cast one long look at Knight, then turned away.
Her safety was now entirely in Lio’s hands.