THE SICKLE WAS IN his hand. The bull’s roar spurred the frenzy inside him. Fear put unnatural strength
in his swing as he brought the weapon down.
The bull’s wide eyes met his. Torch flames lit the blade as bright as the sun.
But the pain erupted in his own back. So fast. Fire-hot. His own blade flew from his hand, out of
reach, while the one in his back impaled him.
He fell forward onto the animal, felt its sides heaving under his body. Together they exhaled.
Lio let out a yell on that breath and opened his eyes. He jolted up off the bed, but two hands held
his shoulders and eased him back down. Currents of power shot through his mind and blood. Magic,
frigid and potent. That was what had shaken him awake.
“Easy, Cousin.” A familiar, steady voice. Neither a frightened bull nor an angry soldier gazed
down at him.
Lio heaved a sigh. “Javed.”
His Grace-cousin straightened, releasing his shoulders. “A real day terror, that one. Grace-Father
sensed your distress even through your veil. He had to Call you three times to make you come
around.”
“Uncle Argyros performed the Night Call on me? Three times?” Lio shuddered. No wonder he felt
as if thousands of years of glacial movement had just occurred inside his veins in the course of a few
heartbeats.
“I suggested I ought to be the one to come in and check on you. I think answering his Call is enough
without also waking to find him looming over you.”
“Sunbound dreams.” Lio sat up slowly, glancing around him to get his bearings. After a day terror
like that, even his cell in the fortress felt like a haven. “That wasn’t the least bit embarrassing.”
“Just be glad I’m the only one who crossed your veil. Grace-Mother and Kadi would be beside
themselves if they heard the way you were screaming.”
“Does everyone know the intimate details of my troubling dream?”
“Basir was going to wake you if your uncle didn’t. Talk about a chilling experience.”
“Pray he and Kumeta don’t include that in their next report to Rudhira.” Lio rubbed both hands
over his face and muttered another curse. “I feel the need to point out I’m not an uninitiated newblood,
and you don’t all need to fret over me so. For the record. I know my protest will go unheard.”
“I’m afraid so. Your parents told us to take care of you.”
Lio sighed. Despite the embarrassment that rankled him, he felt a wave of the homesickness that
became more familiar to him each night. “I can see my feeble assertions that I can take care of myself
are fruitless. No one can resist a decree from Apollon and Komnena, not even their son.”
“Their only child,” Javed reminded him, “and the future of Blood Komnena.”
Lio slid out of bed on the side opposite Javed and pulled on his veil hours robe. The garment still
smelled of Orthros. He went to the basin and washed his face, persisting in the same nightly ritual he
would have observed at home. The cold water braced him like a physical Night Call. “You know I
don’t take it for granted, Javed.”
“Of course not. Neither do we. You can’t expect any of us to take it lightly that you’re here in
Tenebra where you’re vulnerable. Even if you come to no harm, this place may take a toll on you.”
Javed had an adroit way of turning the subject back to what ailed his patient. Lio stalled, drying
his face with one of the rough-spun barracks cloths. Cleaning spells might be more convenient, but the
mundane ablutions his people practiced now gave his tense hands something to do. “I will always be
grateful for the Queens’ dispensation to travel Abroad.” He joked, “I suppose some prying from my
elders is a small price to pay for such an honor.”
But Javed did not laugh. “A day terror has struck every one of us at some point, Lio. We all fear
what misery we may endure when we are trapped in the Dawn Slumber, unable to escape our
dreams.”
Lio turned to face Javed again and abandoned any attempts at lightness. “I appreciate your
concern, Javed. I’m very grateful Uncle woke me.”
Javed nodded once and gave one of his slight, disarming smiles. “I won’t stir the veil. But you
know where to find me if you wish to invite me behind it.”
Javed’s own veil felt like that smile. Had he let it fall for one moment since they’d left home? With
Kadi, perhaps. But not in front of his patients. And everyone was his patient.
“You know where to find me,” Lio reminded him. “This place takes a toll on all of us.”
“Oh, don’t worry about me. I was a human physician errant with mortal patients. That has a way of
preparing you for anything.”
Lio sighed. “I won’t stir the veil, either, then.”
“No veil to stir.” Javed lifted a hand in farewell and headed for the door. “I prescribe you a run
and a decent drink. Don’t wait. Negotiations are on hold tonight.”
“As well they should be. Tomorrow is the fourteenth anniversary of Solia Basilinna’s death. The
whole kingdom ought to mark the occasion.”
“Yes, we’re told the Tenebrans are preparing to begin a day of mourning at dawn.”
“The pain is still fresh for those who loved her.”
“Try not to dwell on mortality. Your physician advises you to exercise, drink up, and get a solid
day’s Slumber tomorrow. His Grace advises him not to begin their night seeing to his patients.”
Lio grinned. “Apologize to Kadi on my behalf. I see you already have plans for your free night.”
With a wolfish smile, Javed stepped out the closed door.
Uncle Argyros and everyone else were certain to be waiting on the other side for a full report.
Best to go out a different way.
Lio donned a simple, knee-length tunic of breathable cotton and stepped to one of the fortress’s
upper corridors. Let the guards see him without his formal attire. The sight of Hesperine knees
wouldn’t make their eyes fall out, nor would his bare feet render the ground he walked on barren. He
would return and change into something more suitable before he met Cassia.
He wanted to be at his best to offer her support. That meant he must arrive free of his own dark
dreams and his thirst.
As soon as Lio got out of the fortress, he loped for the nearest tree line. Under the cover of the
woods, he surged into a run. He wanted not to think, only to run.
Bare feet on the ground. Finding purchase between the roots and undergrowth. Angling around
trunks and between tree boles. If he gave into instinct, he could win a few moments of pure relief,
when his mind quit and his reflexes, his body, his senses took over.
They honed in on the scent of freshly soaped skin and the throb of her heart. Cassia was already
here.
Cup and thorns. Exertion and her scent made him feel he was in a desert with his oasis in sight.
For an instant, it struck him that not a deer, but Cassia awaited him tonight.
Hespera help him. He should not be in her presence in this condition. The drink he had let her
witness last night had been his third. Tonight he hadn’t even begun to tame his thirst, and here she
was.
Because she didn’t want to be alone. She wanted his company. Even his comfort.
She trusted him. That gift beyond value should be all the motivation he needed to maintain his self-
control with her.
Union drew Lio toward the clearing where she had taken him into her confidence the night before.
He slowed as he approached, letting her hear the sound of his feet in the brush so as not to startle her.
He entered the glade to find her waiting on the opposite side with Knight lounging at her feet. She
leaned against an aspen tree, her hands pressed behind her back, her buttocks propped against the
trunk.
Hands he had felt on his chest the night before. Buttocks he had watched as she retreated, hips that
had given her away. As the warmth in her blood now did.
Let her see him in his tunic as well. She would never admit it, but the sound of her pulse and the
change in her scent told him just how much she liked his present attire. A Hesperine’s bare knees and
feet seemed to affect her like a charm, not a curse.
Her gaze fixed on his face a little too deliberately. “Good evening.”
“Well met.” He drew closer. Just close enough.
Did she wish to speak of what would begin at dawn? Or did she seek to escape from it with him?
He would not probe her open wound. He must let her indicate what conversation would be the
greatest solace for her.
“Forgive me for interrupting your habitual exercise,” she said.
“Your company is an infinitely better remedy than running, I assure you.”
“Remedy? What could possibly ail you, Sir Hesperine?”
He sighed. “An immaterial, but eternal, malady. We are vivid dreamers, and yet no dream, no
matter how troubling, is sufficient to awaken us from the Slumber. I confess, day terrors have given
me no peace of late.”
“Nightmares from which you cannot wake? That sounds like one aspect of your Gift that is a
curse.”
He cleared his throat. There were other times he didn’t want to leave his dreams and wake to the
reality that Cassia was not in his bed, but on the other side of a clearing.
“I happen to have something that may be of use to you.” Cassia dug in her gardening satchel. She
pulled something out and tossed it to Lio.
Hesperine instinct sent his hand out, and he caught her offering. A charm smaller than his palm.
The square of undyed homespun was stitched on all four sides with thick green tapestry thread and
stuffed with something fragrant. He held it to his nose. He couldn’t name the plant, but the scent of its
leaves and flowers wrapped him in an inexplicable sense of reassurance.
“The Prisma mentioned some of the children at the temple were having nightmares,” Cassia
explained. “I think she wasn’t talking about the orphans. I made a few dozen of these charms to ward
off fever dreams.”
“That was very kind of you.”
“I fear the true horror of my sewing skills is painfully apparent, but the betony inside is the best
remedy there is for nightmares. I grow it in my window boxes and dry an ample stock so I always
have some on hand.”
On hand in her satchel, next to Solia’s secret, it seemed. “You are quite the alchemist.”
“The power is all in the plants. Betony has potent benefits, and not just for children. It works best
when kept close during sleep, perhaps under the pillow or in a pocket. You must tell me if it works on
Hesperines.”
“I look forward to finding out.” He fingered her gift, lifting it to his nose again. Almost to his lips.
“Thank you, Cassia.”
“You’ll be glad to hear we finished preparing the first batch of rimelace at the temple today. The
mages haven’t even stopped to sleep. Officially the Prisma is having the medicine delivered to the
east, but the children already received it, I suspect. We were right that few mages in the temple know
about their hidden patients.” Now she gave him her arch smile. “You’ve been trusted with quite a
confidence, for a heretic.”
He smiled at that as well. “The rarity of my experience is not lost on me. If there ever comes a
time when it is safe to tell others what we did, I may become the first Hesperine in history to write a
firsthand account of the inside of a Kyrian temple.”
“You would write it down? Centuries from now, I suppose, when all the troubles of this age have
been laid to rest, except between debating scholars.” She said it with the carelessness that defined her
carefully fashioned court banter.
Lio’s thoughts shied away from her vision of the future. He could not bring himself to consider a
time when he could no longer be near her except in the words of a history text. “I am writing an
account of all my experiences here. A Chronicle of the Equinox Summit of 1595. It will be a
continuation of the study I began in my initiation treatise.”
“Is that like your stained glass window of Hespera’s Rose?”
“Yes, just as the rose window secured my initiation in my craft, my treatise met the requirements
for my advancement to initiate ambassador.”
“What was the subject of your work?”
Lio folded his hands behind his back before he could stop himself, then realized he must look
foolish making such a formal gesture in his athletic attire. “The Reign of Lucis Basileus, King of
Tenebra, and its Implications for Hesperine Diplomacy. You must understand, the situation in
Tenebra is one of the most critical problems facing my people. I wanted to do something meaningful
with my work by addressing an area where there is real need.”
She did not appear to take offense at his interest in the tyrant she hated. Far from it. She smiled
softly. “I am not surprised, Idealist Ambassador Deukalion.”
He returned a rueful smile. “My chronicle of the Summit will be far superior to my treatise, for it
will not rely on theory, but on firsthand research. I’ve always hoped to add original material to the
diplomatic canon that provided my education. I never imagined I would have the opportunity so soon
and such an incredible embassy to document.”
“Even after all that has happened, you are still excited to be here. Is Tenebra not enough to wear
you down?”
“I would not trade this experience for anything.” He found himself looking at her a little too long
and rather too honestly. Her pulse answered. Lio returned to the subject at hand. “You are welcome to
read my chronicle, Lady Circumspect, if you wish to satisfy yourself I have left out all the details that
may not be safely committed to paper.”
She gasped and covered her mouth. “You would teach a bastard girl the Divine Tongue so she
might read heretical texts!”
“I would. Or you could simply read my parallel text in the vulgar. In fact, I would be glad to have
a native speaker’s evaluation. My mother will read it later, of course, but her Vulgus is ninety years
out of date.”
“I am hardly the one to ask for help on a scholarly matter.”
She hadn’t said it didn’t interest her, only that she didn’t consider herself qualified. That gave him
hope she was not merely seeking a polite way to excuse herself. “You have more insight into these
events than any scholar. I would value your opinion.”
“I am flattered. But I doubt I would get through it before current events become ancient history. I
can read words on lips at a hundred paces, but words on a page?” She shuddered. “Takes an eternity.”
“I see.” Her intellect was yet another aspect of her that was going to waste. Lio tried not to let his
disappointment show. “Reading was not deemed relevant to your education.”
“Not since I was seven.”
“I’m sorry. I had no intention of imposing such a task on you.” Nor of bringing up painful
memories. Lio winced inwardly.
“No need to apologize. I certainly don’t regard your invitation as an imposition. I wish I could be
of more help.”
“I value your interest alone.”
She pushed away from the tree, narrowing the distance between them ever so slightly. “Perhaps I
can be of assistance in a different way. It’s the least I can do.”
“No exchanges between us,” he reminded her. “Only openness.”
“That Oath governs our speech, yes, but all you have done for me goes far beyond words. Words
are not enough to thank you. I would do something for you in return.”
She did feel closer to him. She had not reequipped her armor after what she had shared with him
last night. After their one, unforgettable embrace. Dare he hope that was not to be their only one?
Lio took a step forward, toward her offer of warmth. “There should be no debts or obligations
between us. But a gift for a gift? Far be it from me to refuse your generosity.”
Cassia matched him, a step for a step, her small foot rustling in the grass. “You are thirsty.”
Her words thrust him into a fantasy world where she was coming to him with a single intent. To
slide into his arms again, but with a different purpose this time. To lift her head and look into his eyes
without any fear in hers. To bare her throat.
If only.
But of course that wasn’t what she meant. “I’m all right for now.”
“You must always be thirsty.” Another step toward him. She had to tilt her head to keep her gaze
on his. More of her throat came into view. “Here you are, far away from home, forced to make do
with deer.”
“No Hesperine shies away from a test of self-discipline. It’s good training.” And he was failing
the test miserably right now. His control seemed unable to recover from that stray thought, that
imagining of what he wished her words meant. Not even Knight’s gaze on him was threatening enough
to banish his wishful thinking.
Cassia stepped closer still. Goddess help him.
“Human blood would satisfy you much better, wouldn’t it?”
Did she want to torture him? He stood speechless. He had no reply that would not betray him.
“But only if the human is willing,” she went on. “That is acceptable, according to your laws.”
“Of course,” he blurted.
She looked into his eyes. The liquid rhythm inside her undulated faster, harder. “I am willing, Lio.”